Noam Chomsky

[luke]

Noam Chomsky: Philosophies of Language and Politics


Human Rights in the 21st Century
29 October 2009
Professor Chomsky considers the state and future of human rights


Noam Chomsky - Ceasefire Magazine - 2011-03-10


Noam Chomsky - Amsterdam - 2011-03-13
Contours of Global Order: Domination, Stability, Security in a Changing World and the rise of Xenophobia in the West


Noam Chomsky - 2011-03-25
The Professort answers questions from Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Alice Walker, Chris Hedges, John Berger and Amira Hass

[Colston]

Thanks Luke...

[luke]

No change in USA’s “Mafia principle” – Noam Chomsky
Top American intellectual sees no significant change in US foreign policy under Obama
By Mamoon Alabbasi

As civilized people across the world breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of former US President George W. Bush, top American intellectual Noam Chomsky warned against assuming or expecting significant changes in Washington's foreign policy under President Barack Obama. During two lectures organized by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Chomsky cited numerous examples of the driving doctrines behind US foreign policy since the end of World War II.

“As Obama came into office, Condoleezza Rice predicted that he would follow the policies of Bush's second term, and that is pretty much what happened, apart from a different rhetorical style, but it is wise to attend to deeds, not rhetoric. Deeds commonly tell a different story. There is basically no significant change in the fundamental traditional conception that if we can control Middle East energy resources, then we can control the world,” explained Chomsky.

Chomsky said that a leading doctrine of US foreign policy during the period of its global dominance is what he termed as “the Mafia principle.” “The godfather does not tolerate 'successful defiance'. It is too dangerous. It must therefore be stamped out so that others understand that disobedience is not an option,” said Chomsky. Because the US sees “successful defiance” of Washington as a “virus” that will “spread contagion”, he explained.

Iran

The US had feared this “virus” of independent thought from Washington by Tehran and therefore acted to overthrow the Iranian parliamentary democracy in 1953. “The goal in 1953 was to retain control of Iranian resources,” said Chomsky. However, “in 1979 the [Iranian] virus emerged again. The US at first sought to sponsor a military coup; when that failed, it turned to support Saddam Hussein's merciless invasion [of Iran].” “The torture of Iran continued without a break and still does, with sanctions and other means,” said Chomsky. “The US continued, without a break, its torture of Iranians,” he stressed.

Nuclear attack

Chomsky mocked the idea presented by mainstream media that a future-nuclear-armed Iran may attack already-nuclear-armed Israel. “The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the earth – unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated along with them,” said Chomsky, stressing that this is not the case.

Chomsky further explained that the presence of US anti-missile weapons in Israel are really meant for preparing a possible attack on Iran, and not for self-defence, as it is often presented. “The systems are advertised as defence against an Iranian attack. But ... the purpose of the US interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a US or Israeli attack on Iran – that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent,” said Chomsky.

Iraq

Chomsky reminded the audience of America's backing of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during and even after Iraq's war with Iran. “The Reaganite love affair with Saddam did not end after the [Iran-Iraq] war. In 1989, Iraqi nuclear engineers were invited to the United States, then under George Bush I, to receive advanced weapons training,” said Chomsky.

This support continued while Saddam was committing atrocities against his own people, until he fell out of US favour when in 1990 he invaded Kuwait, an even closer ally of Washington. “In 1990, Saddam defied, or more likely misunderstood orders, and he quickly shifted from favourite friend to the reincarnation of Hitler,” Chomsky added. Then the people of Iraq were subjected to “genocidal” US-backed sanctions.

Chomsky explained that although the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was launched under many false pretexts and lies, was a “ major crime”, many critics of the invasion – including Obama – viewed it as merely as “a mistake” or a “strategic blunder”. “It's probably what the German General Staff was telling Hitler after Stalingrad,” he said “There's nothing principled about it. It wasn't a strategic blunder: it was a major crime,” he added.

Chomsky credited the holding of elections in Iraq in 2005 to popular Iraqi demand, despite initial US objection. The US military, he argued, could kill as many Iraqi insurgents as it wished, but it was more difficult to shoot at non-violent protesters in the streets out in the open, which meant Washington at times had to give in to public Iraqi pressure. But despite being pressured to announce a withdrawal from Iraq, the US continues to seek a long-term presence in the country. The US mega-embassy in Baghdad is to be expanded under Obama, noted Chomsky.

Optimism

Chomsky stressed that public pressure in the West can make a positive difference for people suffering from the aggression of Western governments. “There is a lot of comparison between opposition to the Iraq war with opposition to the Vietnam war, but people tend to forget that at first there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war,” said Chomsky. “In the Iraq war, there were massive international protests before it officially started ... and it had an effect. The United Sates could not use the tactics used in Vietnam: there was no saturation bombing by B52s, so there was no chemical warfare – [the Iraq war was] horrible enough, but it could have been a lot worse,” he said. “And furthermore, the Bush administration had to back down on its war aims, step by step,” he added.

“It had to allow elections, which it did not want to do: mainly a victory for non-Iraqi protests. They could kill insurgents; they couldn't deal with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Their hands were tied by the domestic constraints. They finally had to abandon – officially at least – virtually all the war aims,” said Chomsky. “As late as November 2007, the US was still insisting that the 'Status of Forces Agreement' allow for an indefinite US military presence and privileged access to Iraq's resources by US investors – well they didn't get that on paper at least. They had to back down. OK, Iraq is a horror story but it could have been a lot worse,” he said. “So ,yes, protests can do something. When there is no protest and no attention, a power just goes wild, just like in Cambodia...,” he added.

Turkey

Chomsky said that Turkey could become a “significant independent actor” in the region, if it chooses to. “Turkey has to make some internal decisions: is it going to face west and try to get accepted by the European Union or is it going to face reality and recognize that Europeans are so racist that they are never going to allow it in?,” said Chomsky. The Europeans “keep raising the barrier on Turkish entry to the EU”, he explained.

But Chomsky said Turkey did become an independent actor in March 2003 when it followed its public opinion and did not take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq. Turkey took notice of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its population, which opposed the invasion. But “New Europe” was led by Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and José María Aznar of Spain, who rejected the views of their populations – which strongly objected to the Iraq war – and preferred to follow Bush, noted Chomsky.

So, in that sense Turkey was more democratic than the states that took part in the war, which in turn infuriated the US. Today, Chomsky added, Turkey is also acting independently by refusing to take part in the US-Israeli military exercises.

Fear factor

Chomsky explained that although Western government use “the maxim of Thucydides” (“the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must”), their peoples are hurled via the “fear factor”. Through cooperate media and complicit intellectuals, the public is led to believe that all the crimes and atrocities committed by their governments are either “self-defence” or “humanitarian intervention”.

NATO

Chomsky noted that Obama has escalated Bush's war in Afghanistan, using NATO. NATO is also seen as reinforcing US control over energy supplies. But the US also used NATO to keep Europe under control. “From the earliest post-World War II days, it was understood that Western Europe might choose to follow an independent course,” said Chomsky.”NATO was partially intended to counter this serious threat,” he added.

Middle East oil

Chomsky explained that Middle East oil reserves were understood to be “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history” – the most “strategically important area in the world”, in Eisenhower's words. Control of Middle East oil would provide the United States with “substantial control of the world”. This meant that the US “must support harsh and brutal regimes and block democracy and development” in the Middle East.

Somalia

Chomsky tackled the origins of the Somali piracy issue. “Piracy is not nice, but where did it come from?” Chomsky explained that one of the immediate reasons for piracy is that European countries and others are simply “destroying Somalia's territorial waters by dumping toxic waste – probably nuclear waste – and also by overfishing”.

“What happens to the fishermen in Somalia? They become pirates. And then we're all upset about the piracy, not about having created the situation,” said Chomsky. Chomsky went on to cite another example of harming Somalia. “One of the great achievements of the war on terror, which was greatly hailed in the press when it was announced, was closing down an Islamic charity – Barakat – which was identified as supporting terrorists. A couple of months later ... the [US] government quietly recognized that they were wrong, and the press may have had a couple of lines about it – but, meanwhile, it was a major blow against Somalia. Somalia doesn't have much of an economy but a lot of it was supported by this charity: not just giving money but running banks and businesses, and so on. It was a significant part of the economy of Somalia ... closing it down ... was another contributing factor to the breaking down of a very weak society ... and there are other examples.”

Darfur

Chomsky also touched on Sudan's Darfur region. “There are terrible things going on in Darfur, but in comparison with the region they don't amount to a lot unfortunately – like what's going on in eastern Congo is incomparably worse than in Darfur. “But Darfur is a very popular topic for Western humanists because you can blame it on an enemy – you have to distort a lot but you can blame it on 'Arabs', 'bad guys',” he explained.

“What about saving eastern Congo, where maybe 20 times as many people have been killed? Well, that gets kind of tricky ... for people who ... are using minerals from eastern Congo that are obtained by multinationals sponsoring militias which slaughter and kill and get the minerals,” he said. Or the fact that Rwanda is simply the worst of the many agents and it is a US ally, he added.

Goldstone's Gaza report

Chomsky appeared to agree with Israel that the Goldstone report on the Gaza war was biased – only he saw it as biased in favour of Israel. The Goldstone report had acknowledged Israel's right to self-defence, although it denounced the method by which this was conducted. Chomsky stressed that the right to self-defence does not mean resorting to military force before “exhausting peaceful means”, something Israel did not even contemplate doing.

In fact, Chomsky pointed out, it was Israel which broke the ceasefire with Hamas and refused to extend it, as continuing the siege of Gaza itself is an act of war. As for the current stalled Middle East peace process, Chomsky said that despite adopting a tougher tone towards Israel than that of Bush, Obama made no real effort to pressure Israel to live up to its obligations. In the absence of the threat of cutting US aid to Israel, there is no compelling reason why Tel Aviv should listen to Washington.

What can be done?

Chomsky stressed that despite all the obstacles, public pressure can and does make a difference for the better, urging people to continue activism and spreading knowledge. “There is no reason to be pessimistic, just realistic.” Chomsky noted that public opinion in the US and Britain is increasingly becoming more aware of the crimes committed by Israel. “Public opinion is shifting substantially.”

And this is where a difference can be made, because Israel will not change its policies without pressure from the West. “There is a lot to do in Western countries ... primarily in the US.” Chomsky also stressed the importance of taking legal action in Western countries against companies breaking international law via illegitimate dealings with Israel, citing the possible involvement of British Gas in Israeli theft of natural gas off the coast of Gaza as one example that should be investigated.

In conclusion, Chomsky quoted Antonio Gramsci who famously called for “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

[Ash]

Noam made Sackur look very uncomfortable when he asked him if he know the context of the 'de-nazification' statement.

just 23 mins long, which means it's even smaller than an average 26-28 mins programme. BBC has gone completely mad!

[luke]

'US foreign policy is straight out of the mafia'
Noam Chomsky is the west's most prominent critic of US imperialism, yet he is rarely interviewed in the mainstream media. Seumas Milne meets him


Noam Chomsky: 'Obama's campaign rhetoric was completely vacuous'

Noam Chomsky is the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar. A philosopher of language and political campaigner of towering academic reputation, who as good as invented modern linguistics, he is entertained by presidents, addresses the UN general assembly and commands a mass international audience. When he spoke in London last week, thousands of young people battled for tickets to attend his lectures, followed live on the internet across the globe, as the 80-year-old American linguist fielded questions from as far away as besieged Gaza.

But the bulk of the mainstream western media doesn't seem to have noticed. His books sell in their hundreds of thousands, he is mobbed by students as a celebrity, but he is rarely reported or interviewed in the US outside radical journals and websites. The explanation, of course, isn't hard to find. Chomsky is America's most prominent critic of the US imperial role in the world, which he has used his erudition and standing to expose and excoriate since Vietnam.

Like the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, who spoke out against western-backed wars until his death at the age of 97, Chomsky has lent his academic prestige to a relentless campaign against his own country's barbarities abroad – though in contrast to the aristocratic Russell, Chomsky is the child of working class Jewish refugees from Tsarist pogroms. Not surprisingly, he has been repaid with either denunciation or, far more typically, silence. Whereas a much slighter figure such as the Atlanticist French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy is lionised at home and abroad, Chomsky and his genuine popularity are ignored.

Indeed, his books have been banned from the US prison library in Guantánamo. You'd hardly need a clearer example of his model of how dissenting views are filtered out of the western media, set out in his 1990's book Manufacturing Consent, than his own case. But as Chomsky is the first to point out, the marginalisation of opponents of western state policy is as nothing compared to the brutalities suffered by those who challenge states backed by the US and its allies in the Middle East.

We meet in a break between a schedule of lectures and talks that would be punishing for a man half his age. At the podium, Chomsky's style is dry and low-key, as he ranges without pausing for breath from one region and historical conflict to another, always buttressed with a barrage of sources and quotations, often from US government archives and leaders themselves.

But in discussion he is warm and engaged, only hampered by slight deafness. He has only recently started travelling again, he explains, after a three-year hiatus while he was caring for his wife and fellow linguist, Carol, who died from cancer last December. Despite their privilege, his concentrated exposure to the continuing injustices and exorbitant expense of the US health system has clearly left him angry. Public emergency rooms are "uncivilised, there is no health care", he says, and the same kind of corporate interests that drive US foreign policy are also setting the limits of domestic social reform.

All three schemes now being considered for Barack Obama's health care reform are "to the right of the public, which is two to one in favour of a public option. But the New York Times says that has no political support, by which they mean from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies." Now the American Petroleum Institute is determined to "follow the success of the insurance industry in killing off health reform," Chomsky says, and do the same to hopes of genuine international action at next month's Copenhagen climate change summit. Only the forms of power have changed since the foundation of the republic, he says, when James Madison insisted that the new state should "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority".

Chomsky supported Obama's election campaign in swing states, but regards his presidency as representing little more than a "shift back towards the centre" and a striking foreign policy continuity with George Bush's second administration. "The first Bush administration was way off the spectrum, America's prestige sank to a historic low and the people who run the country didn't like that." But he is surprised so many people abroad, especially in the third world, are disappointed at how little Obama has changed. "His campaign rhetoric, hope and change, was entirely vacuous. There was no principled criticism of the Iraq war: he called it a strategic blunder. And Condoleezza Rice was black – does that mean she was sympathetic to third world problems?"

The veteran activist has described the US invasion of Afghanistan as "one of the most immoral acts in modern history", which united the jihadist movement around al-Qaida, sharply increased the level of terrorism and was "perfectly irrational – unless the security of the population is not the main priority". Which, of course, Chomsky believes, it is not. "States are not moral agents," he says, and believes that now that Obama is escalating the war, it has become even clearer that the occupation is about the credibility of Nato and US global power.

This is a recurrent theme in Chomsky's thinking about the American empire. He argues that since government officials first formulated plans for a "grand area" strategy for US global domination in the early 1940s, successive administrations have been guided by a "godfather principle, straight out of the mafia: that defiance cannot be tolerated. It's a major feature of state policy." "Successful defiance" has to be punished, even where it damages business interests, as in the economic blockade of Cuba – in case "the contagion spreads".

The gap between the interests of those who control American foreign policy and the public is also borne out, in Chomsky's view, by the US's unwavering support for Israel and "rejectionism" of the two-state solution effectively on offer for 30 years. That's not because of the overweening power of the Israel lobby in the US, but because Israel is a strategic and commercial asset which underpins rather than undermines US domination of the Middle East. "Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the US in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil."

Half a century later, corporations like Lockheed Martin and Exxon Mobil are doing fine, he says: America's one-sided role in the Middle East isn't harming their interests, whatever risks it might bring for anyone else.

Chomsky is sometimes criticised on the left for encouraging pessimism or inaction by emphasising the overwhelming weight of US power – or for failing to connect his own activism with labour or social movements on the ground. He is certainly his own man, holds some idiosyncratic views (I was startled, for instance, to hear him say that Vietnam was a strategic victory for the US in southeast Asia, despite its humiliating 1975 withdrawal) and has drawn flak for defending freedom of speech for Holocaust deniers. He describes himself as an anarchist or libertarian socialist, but often sounds more like a radical liberal – which is perhaps why he enrages more middle-of-the-road American liberals who don't appreciate their views being taken to the logical conclusion.

But for an octogenarian who has been active on the left since the 1930s, Chomsky sounds strikingly upbeat. He's a keen supporter of the wave of progressive change that has swept South America in the past decade ("one of the liberal criticisms of Bush is that he didn't pay enough attention to Latin America – it was the best thing that ever happened to Latin America"). He also believes there are now constraints on imperial power which didn't exist in the past: "They couldn't get away with the kind of chemical warfare and blanket B52 bombing that Kennedy did," in the 1960s. He even has some qualified hopes for the internet as a way around the monopoly of the corporate-dominated media.

But what of the charge so often made that he's an "anti-American" figure who can only see the crimes of his own government while ignoring the crimes of others around the world? "Anti-Americanism is a pure totalitarian concept," he retorts. "The very notion is idiotic. Of course you don't deny other crimes, but your primary moral responsibility is for your own actions, which you can do something about. It's the same charge which was made in the Bible by King Ahab, the epitome of evil, when he demanded of the prophet Elijah: why are you a hater of Israel? He was identifying himself with society and criticism of the state with criticism of society."

It's a telling analogy. Chomsky is a studiedly modest man who would balk at any such comparison. But in the Biblical tradition of the conflict between prophets and kings, there's not the slightest doubt which side he represents.

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/07/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-policy

[luke]

Transcript of Chomsky Talk
Professor Noam Chomsky was interviewed by telephone before live audiences at three locations in Edinburgh and Glasgow on 10 November 2009. The interview and public meetings were sponsored by Radio Ramadan Edinburgh, Scotland Against Criminalising Communities and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. One of the venues was a lecture theatre at Glasgow University. The University's politics department refused to publicise the event, saying that it was "too political."

(The event was on Tuesday December 10th, 2009. The questioner is Mick Napier, Chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.)

Mick Napier: Prof Avi Shlaim came to Edinburgh and ridiculed the idea that Israel was a strategic asset to the US. Would you comment on this?

Noam Chomsky: There are two questions here. Is Israel perceived as a strategic asset? Is the perception accurate? Yes, it is perceived as a strategic asset but is the judgement incorrect?

Yes, quite definitely. Israel is perceived as a strategic asset but has changed over the years.

1967: Israel's victory was considered a very great benefit to the United States. It eliminated Washington's main enemy in the region-secular nationalism-represented particularly by Abu Nasser.

He was destroyed. Secular nationalism was more or less destroyed. The main US allies - the radical Islamist Saudi Arabia - were protected. They had been virtually at war with Nasser's Egypt.

US aid (to Israel) increased at this time and in the next administration Israel was identified as "one of the cops on the beat".

They had a strategic concept on how to control the region. There were the oil producers, the primary concern. But they had to be protected even from their own people and from radical nationalist forces.

They needed "cops on the beat" who would protect them. There was a network of them.

There was Iran under the Shah, Turkey, non Arab Pakistan and Israel joined the club.

In 1970 there was a Palestinian uprising in Jordan; there was a real concern in Washington that Palestinian's may even take over Jordan. They regarded this as a serious threat to their oil producing allies.
The Jordanian army was crushing the Palestinians in "Black September". It appeared as if Syria might intervene on behalf of the Palestinians. That was regarded as a serious threat by the Hashimite Monarchy - Washington's ally.

The US couldn't do anything about it because they were bogged down in South East Asia.
They arranged with Israel to mobilize and threaten Syria. And they did and Syria backed off.

US aid to Israel quadrupled after that.

US intelligence reports at the time pretty much described what I just said:

A framework of control of the oil producing regions in which there was a tacit alliance between Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia, the main producer. Iran and Israel are essentially protectors of the Saudi Monarchy. It proceeds from there as in 1979, the Shah fell. Israel's control increased and was even more important.
At that time Israel was performing many secondary services for the US. It was enabling Washington to evade congressional sanctions on providing a direct military system to support very abusive states that were blocked by aid from Congress. They were able to get around it; Israel was the intermediary.
And so it continues.

Israel is not just regarded as a strategic asset, it's regarded as a major opportunity for investment.
So high tech investment in Israel is increasing significantly; one example of many is the Intel corporation, the major producer of chips in the world which is developing a new generation of chips which they think will become the global standard. And their major factory is in Israel.

Military intelligence is very close in all kinds of ways. In fact the US even uses Israel to pre position weapons. Israel stands as a rich, developed, Western advanced economy. Rather like the US in many ways. It has a highly educated, high tech sector of workers and a powerful military force. Right on the fringe of the world's most strategic areas. Kinda like a US military base and Intelligence centre with very close military intelligence and economic relations especially in high tech industry. Well, that's strategic asset.
There's a negative, downside. It causes anger and resentment among the Arab populations.

1950s Eisenhower raised the question: Why there is a campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world, the people, but not among the states which are very friendly.

1958 Eisenhower had just forced England, France and Israel out of the Sinai so you'd expect sympathy and support but instead you had a campaign of hatred.

There was no Israel issue at that point.

The National Security Council, the highest security body, pointed out that there's a perception in the Arab world that the US supports harsh and oppressive regimes and blocks democracy and development. And does so because we want to gain control over their resources. It went on to say that this perception is pretty much accurate and in fact that's what we should do. If there's a campaign of hatred then we count on the dictatorial governments to oppress them. Before Israel was an issue.

Mick Napier: What about the opinion that American Foreign Policy isn't dictated by Israel being a strategic asset but because of the powers of the Pro Israeli/Zionist Lobby in the USA?

Noam Chomsky: The US Lobby is influential but it's by no means one of the most powerful lobbies. It's utterly dwarfed by the business lobbies; so the Chamber of Commerce is huge in contrast to the Israeli Lobby. The Israeli Lobby is just a peanut in comparison.

But it has some influence. To determine its influence you have to look at cases where Israeli interests and US govt. interests conflict. There's no point looking at points where their interests more or less coincide because that doesn't tell you anything.

Eisenhower threw Israel out of the Sinai, Israel didn't like it at all; Israeli made a little bit of noise but they basically retreated. And that's what happens consistently. In cases where there is conflict, the Israeli Lobby fades in to the background.

Last summer, under the very pro Israel George Bush, AIPAC, the main Jewish lobby tried to press a Congressional resolution which called for a blockade of Iran, which is essentially an act of war. They were getting a lot of supporters in Congress. This was right in the middle of the election campaigns, the most sensitive period, and then it frittered away. It stopped. Apparently it stopped because they got a word from the Whitehouse that "No, we don't want this. We don't want Israel to drive us in to war."

So the Lobby disappeared. The initiative died. That's a recent case and there are many other such cases.
Israel's economy is heavily based on high tech military exports and a huge potential market is China. But the US doesn't like that and repeatedly in 2000 and 2005 the US had simply ordered them not to export those high tech goods to China. Israel didn't like it at all; but they have to follow US orders. The Lobby didn't raise a peep and thought it better not to confront US power.

In 2005, the Bush Administration not only ordered Israel not to do it, but they went out of their way to humiliate Israel. Insisting that Israel provide an apology for its effort to do this and refused its counterpart officials admittance to this country and so on. They insisted on dragging them through the mud and Israel had to obey and the Lobby was quiet.

In fact one particularly interesting case was in January 2001; Clinton's last month in office. That's the one time in the last 30 years that a US President has been willing to tolerate consideration of the very broad international consensus on a Two State political settlement. The US has blocked it for 35 yrs. But in Clinton's last term he indicated that it was acceptable; it fell within what he called his parameters. As he pointed out in January, Israel and the Palestinians had both agreed to these parameters, both had expressed reservations and they met in Taba, Egypt to try and iron out their differences. And they came pretty close to a settlement. In fact in their last press conference they said if they had a little more time they could have settled all their issues; pretty much along the terms of the International Consensus.

Well Israel called off the negotiations prematurely so this never happened. Relevant to the Lobby, what's interesting is that there was not a word from them. They didn't object. If the US govt. says they have to go for diplomatic settlement then they keep quiet.

There are issues that don't concern the US like punishing the Palestinians; they get their way. But on issues of US power they have fairly limited influence. The other Lobbies have influence too. Take for instance the Armenian Lobby, which is by no means a huge Lobby, but nevertheless they're powerful enough. Just a year ago they came pretty close to seriously harming US relations with Turkey; bringing up issues about the Armenian genocide. And they finally backed off but it was very close. But yes, they had influence. The Israeli Lobby is bigger and has more influence. But I think if you look closely you find pretty much what I described. On matters of little significance to US Power they get their way; on matters of significance to US power they back off.

Mick Napier: The Bush nightmare has gone. What awaits us from President Obama?

Noam Chomsky: I can't understand why anyone had any great expectations of him. I mean even before the Primaries it was clear from looking at his website that he intended to maintain the extreme rejectionist position of the US; that is opposition to the political settlement lines of international consensus and so its continued.

He's already made one major speech about the issue when he introduced George Mitchell as his negotiator. He tried conciliatory rhetoric; he said there's a constructive position on the table namely the proposal of the Arab League. The Peace Proposal more or less in line with international consensus. He said we should take that seriously and the Arab League Proposal goes beyond the international consensus. After the Two State settlement is established, the Arab states should proceed towards normalization in relation with Israel.

Obama said yes, they ought to proceed to normalization towards Israel. He's an intelligent person and he knows perfectly well that's not what the proposal was. That was a corollary to the proposal; the proposal was said that there should be a Two State settlement according to international consensus and in that context the Arab states should proceed with normalization. He very carefully omitted the content and said the Arab states should proceed with normalization. In fact that's his proposal ever since. That's a clear way of saying he continues to sustain an opposition to the Two State settlement of any meaningful sort.

There's supposed to be a controversy between the US and Israel over Obama's call to an end to expanding settlements. Obama's statement that Israel should not expand the settlements is is quoting George Bush. In fact he used the wording of the so-called "road map". But he also indicated clearly through Netanyahu that he should not take it seriously. His Press Advisor was asked at a Press conference "Does Obama intend to use any of the methods George Bush 1st used? He imposed very mild sanctions on Israeli settlements. And the answer was "No, this is purely symbolic, we're not going to do anything like sanctions."
Well that's a way of telling Netanyahu, "Just ignore what I'm saying. Expand settlements as much as you like."

Just a week ago Hilary Clinton praised Israel for expanding settlements but its (supposed to be) unprecedented because they're not doing it too much. That's just ridiculous because that's just a way of saying continue the rejectionist policies.

The whole issue is a side issue. The issue is not expansion of the settlements but their existence as part of Israel, which Obama continues to support diplomatically, militarily and ideologically. And it goes on like that.
Just to give you one last example. Amidst all the furore about Iran and its concealing nuclear weapons, maybe, right in the middle of that, the International Agency considered a resolution calling on Israel to open up its nuclear facilities to inspection and join a non proliferation treaty. The US and Europe opposed the Resolution and tried to block it but they failed. Then the US and Europe voted against the resolution but it passed any way. Then Obama immediately informed Israel that it's not gonna apply to them.

from http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2995:transcript-of-chomsky-talk&catid=246&Itemid=100445

[luke]

new chomsky book;



Militarizing Latin America
By Noam Chomsky

The United States was founded as an "infant empire," in George Washington's words. The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture, much like the vast expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere was a critical goal. Ambitions expanded during World War II, as the US displaced Britain and lesser imperial powers. High-level planners concluded that the US should "hold unquestioned power" in a world system including not only the Western hemisphere, but also the former British Empire and the Far East, and later, as much of Eurasia as possible. A primary goal of NATO was to block moves towards European independence, along Gaullist lines. That became still more clear when the USSR collapsed, and with it the Russian threat that was the formal justification of NATO. NATO was not disbanded, but rather expanded, in violation of promises to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not even fully extend to East Germany, let alone beyond, and that "NATO would be transforming itself into a more political organization." By now it is virtually an international intervention force under US command, its self-defined jurisdiction reaching to control over energy sources, pipelines, and sea lanes. And Europe is a well-disciplined junior partner.

Throughout, Latin America retained its primacy in global planning. As Washington was considering the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile in 1971, Nixon's National Security Council observed that if the US cannot control Latin America, it cannot expect "to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world." That policy problem has become more severe with recent South American moves towards integration, a prerequisite for independence, and establishment of more varied international ties, while also beginning to address severe internal disorders, most importantly, the traditional rule of a rich Europeanized minority over a sea of misery and suffering.

The problem came to a head a year ago in the poorest country of South America, Bolivia, where for the first time the indigenous majority had entered the political arena and elected a president from its own ranks, Evo Morales. After his victory in a recall referendum in August 2008, with a sharp increase in support beyond his 2005 electoral success, the opposition of the US-backed traditional elites turned violent, leading to assassination of many peasant supporters of the government. In response to the massacre there was a summit meeting of UNASUR, the newly-formed Union of South American Republics. The participants Ð all the countries of South America -- declared "their full and firm support for the constitutional government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a big majority." Morales thanked UNASUR for its support, observing that "For the first time in South America's history, the countries of our region are deciding how to resolve our problems, without the presence of the United States."

An event of historic significance.

Other developments have intensified the problem for US planners, including the decision of Ecuador's president Rafael Correa to terminate Washington's use of the Manta military base, the last one open to the US in South America.

In July 2009, the US and Colombia concluded a secret deal to permit the US to use seven military bases in Colombia. The official purpose is to counter narcotrafficking and terrorism, "but senior Colombian military and civilian officials familiar with negotiations told The Associated Press that the idea is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations," AP reported. There are reports that the agreement provides Colombia with privileged access to US military supplies. Colombia had already become the leading recipient of US military aid (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category). Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980s wound down. The correlation between US aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship

AP also cited an April 1999 document of the U.S. Air Mobility Command, which proposes that the Palanquero base in Colombia could become a "cooperative security location" (CSL) from which "mobility operations could be executed." The report noted that from Palanquero, "Nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 (military transport) without refueling." This could form part of "a global en route strategy," which "helps achieve the regional engagement strategy and assists with the mobility routing to Africa." For the present, "the strategy to place a CSL at Palanquero should be sufficient for air mobility reach on the South American continent," the document concludes, but it goes on to explore options for extending the routing to Africa with additional bases.

On August 28, UNASUR met in Bariloche (Argentina) to consider the military bases. After intense internal debate, the final declaration stressed that South America must be kept as "a land of peace," and that foreign military forces must not threaten the sovereignty or integrity of any nation of the region. It instructed the South American Defense Council to investigate the document of the Air Mobility Command. Problems of implementation were left to subsequent meetings.

The official purpose of the bases did not escape criticism. President Morales was particularly bitter, with his background in a coca growers union. He said he witnessed U.S. soldiers accompanying Bolivian troops who fired at his union members. "So now we're narcoterrorists," he continued. "When they couldn't call us communists anymore, they called us subversives, and then traffickers, and since the September 11 attacks, terrorists.'' He warned that "the history of Latin America repeats itself."

Morales observed that the ultimate responsibility for Latin America's violence lies with U.S. consumers of illegal drugs: "If UNASUR sent troops to the United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible!"

Morales's rhetorical question can be extended. Suppose that UNASUR, or China, or many others claimed the right to establish military bases in Mexico to implement their programs to eradicate tobacco in the US, by aerial fumigation in North Carolina and Kentucky, interdiction by sea and air forces, and dispatch of inspectors to the US to ensure it was eradicating this poison -- which is far more lethal than cocaine or heroin, incomparably more than cannabis. The toll of tobacco use, including "passive smokers" who are seriously affected though they do not use tobacco themselves, is truly fearsome, overwhelming the lethal effects of other dangerous substances.

The idea that outsiders should interfere with the production and distribution of these lethal substances is plainly unthinkable. The fact that the US justification for its drug programs abroad is accepted as plausible, even regarded as worthy of discussion, is yet another illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality.

Even if we adopt the imperial premises, it is hard to take seriously the announced goals of the "drug war," which persists despite extensive evidence that other measures -- prevention and treatment -- are far more cost-effective, and despite the persistent failure of the resort to criminalization at home and violence and chemical warfare abroad.

Last February, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued its analysis of the US "war on drugs" in past decades. The Commission, led by former Latin American presidents Fernando Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), and César Gavíria (Colombia), concluded that the drug war had been a complete failure and urged a drastic change of policy, away from forceful measures at home and abroad and towards much less costly and more effective measures. Their report had no detectable impact, just as earlier studies and the historical record have had none. That again reinforces the natural conclusion that the "drug war" -- like the "war on crime" and "the war on terror" -- is pursued for reasons other than the announced goals, which are revealed by the consequences.

Establishing US military bases in Colombia is only one part of a much broader effort to restore Washington's capacity for military intervention. There has been a sharp increase in US military aid and training of Latin American officers, focusing on light infantry tactics to combat "radical populism" -- a concept that sends shivers up the spine in the Latin American context. Military training is being shifted from the State Department to the Pentagon, eliminating human rights and democracy conditionalities under congressional supervision, which has always been weak, but was at least a deterrent to some of the worst abuses. The US Fourth Fleet, disbanded in 1950, was reactivated in 2008, shortly after Colombia's invasion of Ecuador, with responsibility for the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the surrounding waters. The official announcement defines its "various operations" to "include counter-illicit trafficking, Theater Security Cooperation, military-to-military interaction and bilateral and multinational training."

Militarization of South America is a component of much broader global programs, as the "global en route strategy" indicates. In Iraq, there is virtually no information about the fate of the huge US military bases, so they are presumably being maintained for force projection. The immense city-with-in-a-city embassy in Baghdad not only remains but its cost is to rise to $1.8 billion a year, from an estimated $1.5 billion this year. The Obama administration is also constructing megaembassies that are completely without precedent in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The US and UK are demanding that the US military base in Diego Garcia, used heavily in recent US wars after Britain expelled the inhabitants, be exempted from the planned African nuclear-free-weapons zone, just as U.S.bases are exempted from similar efforts in the Pacific to reduce the nuclear threat. Not even on the agenda, of course, is a NFWZ in the Middle East, which would mitigate, perhaps end, the alleged Iranian threat. The enormous global support for this move, including a large majority of Americans, is as usual irrelevant.

In short, moves towards "a world of peace" do not fall within the "change you can believe in," to borrow Obama's campaign slogan.

[luke]

this a good site, looks regularly updated, with all the latest from chomsky;

http://chomskywatch.wordpress.com/

[luke]

Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’

Noam Chomsky is America’s greatest intellectual. His massive body of work, which includes nearly 100 books, has for decades deflated and exposed the lies of the power elite and the myths they perpetrate. Chomsky has done this despite being blacklisted by the commercial media, turned into a pariah by the academy and, by his own admission, being a pedantic and at times slightly boring speaker. He combines moral autonomy with rigorous scholarship, a remarkable grasp of detail and a searing intellect. He curtly dismisses our two-party system as a mirage orchestrated by the corporate state, excoriates the liberal intelligentsia for being fops and courtiers and describes the drivel of the commercial media as a form of “brainwashing.” And as our nation’s most prescient critic of unregulated capitalism, globalization and the poison of empire, he enters his 81st year warning us that we have little time left to save our anemic democracy.

“It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”

“The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” Chomsky went on. “Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”

“I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.”

“I listen to talk radio,” Chomsky said. “I don’t want to hear Rush Limbaugh. I want to hear the people calling in. They are like [suicide pilot] Joe Stack. What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.”

Chomsky has, more than any other American intellectual, charted the downward spiral of the American political and economic system, in works such as “On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures,” “Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture,” “A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West,” “Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky,” “Manufacturing Consent” and “Letters From Lexington: Reflections on Propaganda.” He reminds us that genuine intellectual inquiry is always subversive. It challenges cultural and political assumptions. It critiques structures. It is relentlessly self-critical. It implodes the self-indulgent myths and stereotypes we use to elevate ourselves and ignore our complicity in acts of violence and oppression. And it makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.

Chomsky reserves his fiercest venom for the liberal elite in the press, the universities and the political system who serve as a smoke screen for the cruelty of unchecked capitalism and imperial war. He exposes their moral and intellectual posturing as a fraud. And this is why Chomsky is hated, and perhaps feared, more among liberal elites than among the right wing he also excoriates. When Christopher Hitchens decided to become a windup doll for the Bush administration after the attacks of 9/11, one of the first things he did was write a vicious article attacking Chomsky. Hitchens, unlike most of those he served, knew which intellectual in America mattered. [Editor’s note: To see some of the articles in the 2001 exchanges between Hitchens and Chomsky, click here, here, here and here.]

“I don’t bother writing about Fox News,” Chomsky said. “It is too easy. What I talk about are the liberal intellectuals, the ones who portray themselves and perceive themselves as challenging power, as courageous, as standing up for truth and justice. They are basically the guardians of the faith. They set the limits. They tell us how far we can go. They say, ‘Look how courageous I am.’ But do not go one millimeter beyond that. At least for the educated sectors, they are the most dangerous in supporting power.”

Chomsky, because he steps outside of every group and eschews all ideologies, has been crucial to American discourse for decades, from his work on the Vietnam War to his criticisms of the Obama administration. He stubbornly maintains his position as an iconoclast, one who distrusts power in any form.

“Most intellectuals have a self-understanding of themselves as the conscience of humanity,” said the Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein. “They revel in and admire someone like Vaclav Havel. Chomsky is contemptuous of Havel. Chomsky embraces the Julien Benda view of the world. There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice. Benda says that the credo of any true intellectual has to be, as Christ said, ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ Chomsky exposes the pretenses of those who claim to be the bearers of truth and justice. He shows that in fact these intellectuals are the bearers of power and privilege and all the evil that attends it.”

“Some of Chomsky’s books will consist of things like analyzing the misrepresentations of the Arias plan in Central America, and he will devote 200 pages to it,” Finkelstein said. “And two years later, who will have heard of Oscar Arias? It causes you to wonder would Chomsky have been wiser to write things on a grander scale, things with a more enduring quality so that you read them forty or sixty years later. This is what Russell did in books like ‘Marriage and Morals.’ Can you even read any longer what Chomsky wrote on Vietnam and Central America? The answer has to often be no. This tells you something about him. He is not writing for ego. If he were writing for ego he would have written in a grand style that would have buttressed his legacy. He is writing because he wants to effect political change. He cares about the lives of people and there the details count. He is trying to refute the daily lies spewed out by the establishment media. He could have devoted his time to writing philosophical treatises that would have endured like Kant or Russell. But he invested in the tiny details which make a difference to win a political battle.”

“I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions,” Chomsky said when asked about his goals. “Don’t take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can’t. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself. There is plenty of information. You have got to learn how to judge, evaluate and compare it with other things. You have to take some things on trust or you can’t survive. But if there is something significant and important don’t take it on trust. As soon as you read anything that is anonymous you should immediately distrust it. If you read in the newspapers that Iran is defying the international community, ask who is the international community? India is opposed to sanctions. China is opposed to sanctions. Brazil is opposed to sanctions. The Non-Aligned Movement is vigorously opposed to sanctions and has been for years. Who is the international community? It is Washington and anyone who happens to agree with it. You can figure that out, but you have to do work. It is the same on issue after issue.”

Chomsky’s courage to speak on behalf of those, such as the Palestinians, whose suffering is often minimized or ignored in mass culture, holds up the possibility of the moral life. And, perhaps even more than his scholarship, his example of intellectual and moral independence sustains all who defy the cant of the crowd to speak the truth.

“I cannot tell you how many people, myself included, and this is not hyperbole, whose lives were changed by him,” said Finkelstein, who has been driven out of several university posts for his intellectual courage and independence. “Were it not for Chomsky I would have long ago succumbed. I was beaten and battered in my professional life. It was only the knowledge that one of the greatest minds in human history has faith in me that compensates for this constant, relentless and vicious battering. There are many people who are considered nonentities, the so-called little people of this world, who suddenly get an e-mail from Noam Chomsky. It breathes new life into you. Chomsky has stirred many, many people to realize a level of their potential that would forever been lost.”

[Colston]

Luke I remember hearing/reading something by Chomsky where he said as much as the system is used by the major parties to ensure their hegemony it does work and therefore should be used rather than shunned as somehting that doesn't... arguing for participation rather than disdain... does this ring any bells for you?

[luke]

Peace that could happen (but won't)

The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world's conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders - with "minor and mutual modifications," to adopt official United States terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s.

The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas). A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the United Nations Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states. Israel refused to attend the session. The US vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980. The record at the General Assembly since is similar.

There was one important and revealing break in US-Israeli rejectionism. After the failed Camp David agreements in 2000, President Bill Clinton recognized that the terms he and Israel had proposed were unacceptable to any Palestinians. That December, he proposed his "parameters": imprecise, but more forthcoming. He then stated that both sides had accepted the parameters, while expressing reservations.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 to resolve the differences and were making considerable progress. In their final press conference, they reported that, with a little more time, they could probably have reached full agreement. Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, however, and official progress then terminated, though informal discussions at a high level continued leading to the Geneva Accord, rejected by Israel and ignored by the US.

A good deal has happened since, but a settlement along those lines is still not out of reach - if, of course, Washington is once again willing to accept it. Unfortunately, there is little sign of that.

Substantial mythology has been created about the entire record, but the basic facts are clear enough and quite well documented.

The US and Israel have been acting in tandem to extend and deepen the occupation. In 2005, recognizing that it was pointless to subsidize a few thousand Israeli settlers in Gaza, who were appropriating substantial resources and protected by a large part of the Israeli army, the government of Ariel Sharon decided to move them to the much more valuable West Bank and Golan Heights.

Instead of carrying out the operation straightforwardly, which would have been easy enough, the government decided to stage a "national trauma", which virtually duplicated the farce accompanying the withdrawal from the Sinai desert after the Camp David agreements of 1978-79. In each case, the withdrawal permitted the cry of "Never Again", which meant in practice: we cannot abandon an inch of the Palestinian territories that we want to take in violation of international law. This farce played very well in the West, though it was ridiculed by more astute Israeli commentators, among them that country's prominent sociologist, the late Baruch Kimmerling.

After its formal withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israel never actually relinquished its total control over the territory, often described realistically as "the world's largest prison". In January 2006, a few months after the withdrawal, Palestine had an election that was recognized as free and fair by international observers. Palestinians, however, voted "the wrong way", electing Hamas. Instantly, the US and Israel intensified their assault against Gazans as punishment for this misdeed. The facts and the reasoning were not concealed; rather, they were openly published alongside reverential commentary on Washington's sincere dedication to democracy. The US-backed Israeli assault against the Gazans has only been intensified since, thanks to violence and economic strangulation which is increasingly savage.

Meanwhile in the West Bank, always with firm US backing, Israel has been carrying forward longstanding programs to take the valuable land and resources of the Palestinians and leave them in unviable cantons, mostly out of sight. Israeli commentators frankly refer to these goals as "neo-colonial". Ariel Sharon, the main architect of the settlement programs, called these cantons "Bantustans", though the term is misleading: South Africa needed the majority black work force, while Israel would be happy if the Palestinians disappeared, and its policies are directed to that end.

Blockading Gaza by land and sea

One step towards cantonization and the undermining of hopes for Palestinian national survival is the separation of Gaza from the West Bank. These hopes have been almost entirely consigned to oblivion, an atrocity to which we should not contribute by tacit consent. Israeli journalist Amira Hass, one of the leading specialists on Gaza, writes that

The restrictions on Palestinian movement that Israel introduced in January 1991 reversed a process that had been initiated in June 1967. Back then, and for the first time since 1948, a large portion of the Palestinian people again lived in the open territory of a single country - to be sure, one that was occupied, but was nevertheless whole ... The total separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is one of the greatest achievements of Israeli politics, whose overarching objective is to prevent a solution based on international decisions and understandings and instead dictate an arrangement based on Israel's military superiority ...

Since January 1991, Israel has bureaucratically and logistically merely perfected the split and the separation: not only between Palestinians in the occupied territories and their brothers in Israel, but also between the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and those in the rest of the territories and between Gazans and West Bankers/Jerusalemites. Jews live in this same piece of land within a superior and separate system of privileges, laws, services, physical infrastructure and freedom of movement.

The leading academic specialist on Gaza, Harvard scholar Sara Roy, adds:

Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers ... Gaza's subjection began long before Israel's recent war against it [December 2008]. The Israeli occupation - now largely forgotten or denied by the international community - has devastated Gaza's economy and people, especially since 2006 ... After Israel's December [2008] assault, Gaza's already compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible.

In Gaza today, there is no private sector to speak of and no industry. Eighty percent of Gaza's agricultural crops were destroyed and Israel continues to snipe at farmers attempting to plant and tend fields near the well-fenced and patrolled border. Most productive activity has been extinguished ... Today, 96% of Gaza's population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Programme, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a March [22, 2009] decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of May 10 [that year], at best meeting 23% of required needs. Israel now allows only 30 to 40 commercial items to enter Gaza compared to 4,000 approved products prior to June 2006.

It cannot be stressed too often that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008-9 attack on Gaza, with full US support and illegally using US weapons. Near-universal opinion asserts the contrary, claiming that Israel was acting in self-defense. That is utterly unsustainable, in light of Israel's flat rejection of peaceful means that were readily available, as Israel and its US partner in crime knew very well. That aside, Israel's siege of Gaza is itself an act of war, as Israel of all countries certainly recognizes, having repeatedly justified launching major wars on grounds of partial restrictions on its access to the outside world, though nothing remotely like what it has long imposed on Gaza.

One crucial element of Israel's criminal siege, little reported, is the naval blockade. Peter Beaumont reports from Gaza that, "on its coastal littoral, Gaza's limitations are marked by a different fence where the bars are Israeli gunboats with their huge wakes, scurrying beyond the Palestinian fishing boats and preventing them from going outside a zone imposed by the warships". According to reports from the scene, the naval siege has been tightened steadily since 2000. Fishing boats have been driven steadily out of Gaza's territorial waters and toward the shore by Israeli gunboats, often violently without warning and with many casualties. As a result of these naval actions, Gaza's fishing industry has virtually collapsed; fishing is impossible near shore because of the contamination caused by Israel's regular attacks, including the destruction of power plants and sewage facilities.

These Israeli naval attacks began shortly after the discovery by the BG (British Gas) Group of what appear to be quite sizeable natural gas fields in Gaza's territorial waters. Industry journals report that Israel is already appropriating these Gazan resources for its own use, part of its commitment to shift its economy to natural gas. The standard industry source reports:

Israel's finance ministry has given the Israel Electric Corp (IEC) approval to purchase larger quantities of natural gas from BG than originally agreed upon, according to Israeli government sources [which] said the state-owned utility would be able to negotiate for as much as 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Marine field located off the Mediterranean coast of the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip.

Last year the Israeli government approved the purchase of 800 million cubic meters of gas from the field by the IEC ... Recently the Israeli government changed its policy and decided the state-owned utility could buy the entire quantity of gas from the Gaza Marine field. Previously the government had said the IEC could buy half the total amount and the remainder would be bought by private power producers.

The pillage of what could become a major source of income for Gaza is surely known to US authorities. It is only reasonable to suppose that the intention to appropriate these limited resources, either by Israel alone or together with the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, is the motive for preventing Gazan fishing boats from entering Gaza's territorial waters.

There are some instructive precedents. In 1989, Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans signed a treaty with his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas granting Australia rights to the substantial oil reserves in "the Indonesian Province of East Timor". The Indonesia-Australia Timor Gap Treaty, which offered not a crumb to the people whose oil was being stolen, "is the only legal agreement anywhere in the world that effectively recognizes Indonesia's right to rule East Timor", the Australian press reported.

Asked about his willingness to recognize the Indonesian conquest and to rob the sole resource of the conquered territory, which had been subjected to near-genocidal slaughter by the Indonesian invader with the strong support of Australia (along with the US, the UK, and some others), Evans explained that "there is no binding legal obligation not to recognize the acquisition of territory that was acquired by force," adding that "the world is a pretty unfair place, littered with examples of acquisition by force".

It should, then, be unproblematic for Israel to follow suit in Gaza.

A few years later, Evans became the leading figure in the campaign to introduce the concept "responsibility to protect" - known as R2P - into international law. R2P is intended to establish an international obligation to protect populations from grave crimes. Evans is the author of a major book on the subject and was co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which issued what is considered the basic document on R2P.

In an article devoted to this "idealistic effort to establish a new humanitarian principle", the London Economist featured Evans and his "bold but passionate claim on behalf of a three-word expression which (in quite large part thanks to his efforts) now belongs to the language of diplomacy: the 'responsibility to protect.'"

The article is accompanied by a picture of Evans with the caption "Evans: a lifelong passion to protect". His hand is pressed to his forehead in despair over the difficulties faced by his idealistic effort. The journal chose not to run a different photo that circulated in Australia, depicting Evans and Alatas exuberantly clasping their hands together as they toast the Timor Gap Treaty that they had just signed.

Though a "protected population" under international law, Gazans do not fall under the jurisdiction of the "responsibility to protect", joining other unfortunates, in accord with the maxim of Thucydides - that the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must - which holds with its customary precision.

Obama and the settlements

The kinds of restrictions on movement used to destroy Gaza have long been in force in the West Bank as well, less cruelly but with grim effects on life and the economy. The World Bank reports that Israel has established "a complex closure regime that restricts Palestinian access to large areas of the West Bank ... The Palestinian economy has remained stagnant, largely because of the sharp downturn in Gaza and Israel's continued restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement in the West Bank."

The World Bank "cited Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints hindering trade and travel, as well as restrictions on Palestinian building in the West Bank, where the Western-backed government of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas holds sway." Israel does permit - indeed encourage - a privileged existence for elites in Ramallah and sometimes elsewhere, largely relying on European funding, a traditional feature of colonial and neo-colonial practice.

All of this constitutes what Israeli activist Jeff Halper calls a "matrix of control" to subdue the colonized population. These systematic programs over more than 40 years aim to establish defense minister Moshe Dayan's recommendation to his colleagues shortly after Israel's 1967 conquests that we must tell the Palestinians in the territories: "We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads."

Turning to the second bone of contention, settlements, there is indeed a confrontation, but it is rather less dramatic than portrayed. Washington's position was presented most strongly in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's much-quoted statement rejecting "natural growth exceptions" to the policy opposing new settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with President Shimon Peres and, in fact, virtually the whole Israeli political spectrum, insists on permitting "natural growth" within the areas that Israel intends to annex, complaining that the US is backing down on George W Bush's authorization of such expansion within his "vision" of a Palestinian state.

Senior Netanyahu cabinet members have gone further. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz announced that "the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria". The term "legal" in US-Israeli parlance means "illegal, but authorized by the government of Israel with a wink from Washington". In this usage, unauthorized outposts are termed "illegal," though apart from the dictates of the powerful, they are no more illegal than the settlements granted to Israel under Bush's "vision" and Obama's scrupulous omission.

The Obama-Clinton "hardball" formulation is not new. It repeats the wording of the Bush administration draft of the 2003 Road Map, which stipulates that in Phase I, "Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)." All sides formally accept the Road Map (modified to drop the phrase "natural growth") - consistently overlooking the fact that Israel, with US support, at once added 14 "reservations" that render it inoperable.

If Obama were at all serious about opposing settlement expansion, he could easily proceed with concrete measures by, for example, reducing US aid by the amount devoted to this purpose. That would hardly be a radical or courageous move. The first George W Bush administration did so (reducing loan guarantees), but after the Oslo accord in 1993, president Clinton left calculations to the government of Israel. Unsurprisingly, there was "no change in the expenditures flowing to the settlements," the Israeli press reported. "[Prime minister] Rabin will continue not to dry out the settlements," the report concludes. "And the Americans? They will understand."

Obama administration officials informed the press that the Bush measures are "not under discussion", and that pressures will be "largely symbolic". In short, Obama understands, just as Clinton and Bush.

American visionaries

At best, settlement expansion is a side issue, rather like the issue of "illegal outposts" - namely those that the government of Israel has not authorized. Concentration on these issues diverts attention from the fact that there are no "legal outposts" and that it is the existing settlements that are the primary problem to be faced.

The US press reports that "a partial freeze has been in place for several years, but settlers have found ways around the strictures ... [C]onstruction in the settlements has slowed but never stopped, continuing at an annual rate of about 1,500 to 2,000 units over the past three years. If building continues at the 2008 rate, the 46,500 units already approved will be completed in about 20 years ... If Israel built all the housing units already approved in the nation's overall master plan for settlements, it would almost double the number of settler homes in the West Bank."

Peace Now, which monitors settlement activities, estimates further that the two largest settlements would double in size: Ariel and Ma'aleh Adumim, built mainly during the Oslo years in the salients that subdivide the West Bank into cantons.

"Natural population growth" is largely a myth, Israel's leading diplomatic correspondent, Akiva Eldar, points out, citing demographic studies by Colonel (res) Shaul Arieli, deputy military secretary to former prime minister and incumbent Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Settlement growth consists largely of Israeli immigrants in violation of the Geneva Conventions, assisted with generous subsidies. Much of it is in direct violation of formal government decisions, but carried out with the authorization of the government, specifically Barak, who is considered a dove in the Israeli spectrum.

Correspondent Jackson Diehl derides the "long-dormant Palestinian fantasy," revived by President Abbas, "that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees". He does not explain why refusal to participate in Israel's illegal expansion - which, if serious, would "force Israel to make critical concessions" - would be improper interference in Israel's democracy.

Returning to reality, all of these discussions about settlement expansion evade the most crucial issue about settlements: what the US and Israel have already established in the West Bank. The evasion tacitly concedes that the illegal settlement programs already in place are somehow acceptable (putting aside the Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders) - though the Bush "vision", apparently accepted by Obama, moves from tacit to explicit support for these violations of law. What is in place already suffices to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian self-determination. Hence, there is every indication that even on the unlikely assumption that "natural growth" will be ended, US-Israeli rejectionism will persist, blocking the international consensus as before.

Subsequently, Netanyahu declared a 10-month suspension of new construction, with many exemptions, and entirely excluding Greater Jerusalem, where expropriation in Arab areas and construction for Jewish settlers continues at a rapid pace. Hillary Clinton praised these "unprecedented" concessions on (illegal) construction, eliciting anger and ridicule in much of the world.

It might be different if a legitimate "land swap" were under consideration, a solution approached at Taba and spelled out more fully in the Geneva Accord reached in informal high-level Israel-Palestine negotiations. The accord was presented in Geneva in October 2003, welcomed by much of the world, rejected by Israel, and ignored by the United States.

Washington's 'evenhandedness'

Obama's June 4, 2009, Cairo address to the Muslim world kept pretty much to his well-honed "blank slate" style - with little of substance, but presented in a personable manner that allows listeners to write on the slate what they want to hear. CNN captured its spirit in headlining a report "Obama Looks to Reach the Soul of the Muslim World." Obama had announced the goals of his address in an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. "'We have a joke around the White House,' the president said. 'We're just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East." The White House commitment is most welcome, but it is useful to see how it translates into practice.

Obama admonished his audience that it is easy to "point fingers ... but if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security".

Turning from Obama-Friedman Truth to truth, there is a third side, with a decisive role throughout: the US. But Obama omitted that participant in the conflict. The omission is understood to be normal and appropriate, hence unmentioned: Friedman's column is headlined "Obama Speech Aimed at Both Arabs and Israelis." The front-page Wall Street Journal report on Obama's speech appears under the heading "Obama Chides Israel, Arabs in His Overture to Muslims." Other reports are the same.

The convention is understandable on the doctrinal principle that though the US government sometimes makes mistakes, its intentions are by definition benign, even noble. In the world of attractive imagery, Washington has always sought desperately to be an honest broker, yearning to advance peace and justice. The doctrine trumps truth, of which there is little hint in the speech or the mainstream coverage of it.

Obama once again echoed Bush's "vision" of two states, without saying what he meant by the phrase "Palestinian state". His intentions were clarified not only by the crucial omissions already discussed, but also by his one explicit criticism of Israel: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." That is, Israel should live up to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, rejected at once by Israel with tacit US support, as noted - though the truth is that Obama has ruled out even steps of the first Bush administration variety to withdraw from participation in these crimes.

The operative words are "legitimacy" and "continued". By omission, Obama indicates that he accepts Bush's vision: the vast existing settlement and infrastructure projects are "legitimate", thus ensuring that the phrase "Palestinian state" means "fried chicken".

Always even-handed, Obama also had an admonition for the Arab states: they "must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities". Plainly, however, it cannot be a meaningful "beginning" if Obama continues to reject its core principles: implementation of the international consensus. To do so, however, is evidently not Washington's "responsibility" in Obama's vision; no explanation given, no notice taken.

On democracy, Obama said that "we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election" - as in January 2006, when Washington picked the outcome with a vengeance, turning at once to severe punishment of the Palestinians because it did not like the outcome of a peaceful election, all with Obama's apparent approval judging by his words before, and actions since, taking office.

Obama politely refrained from comment about his host, President Hosni Mubarak, one of the most brutal dictators in the region, though he has had some illuminating words about him. As he was about to board a plane to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the two "moderate" Arab states, "Mr Obama signaled that while he would mention American concerns about human rights in Egypt, he would not challenge Mr Mubarak too sharply, because he is a 'force for stability and good' in the Middle East ... Mr Obama said he did not regard Mr Mubarak as an authoritarian leader. 'No, I tend not to use labels for folks,' Mr Obama said. The president noted that there had been criticism 'of the manner in which politics operates in Egypt,' but he also said that Mr Mubarak had been 'a stalwart ally, in many respects, to the United States.'"

When a politician uses the word "folks", we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse, that is coming. Outside of this context, there are "people", or often "villains", and using labels for them is highly meritorious. Obama is right, however, not to have used the word "authoritarian", which is far too mild a label for his friend.

Just as in the past, support for democracy, and for human rights as well, keeps to the pattern that scholarship has repeatedly discovered, correlating closely with strategic and economic objectives. There should be little difficulty in understanding why those whose eyes are not closed tight shut by rigid doctrine dismiss Obama's yearning for human rights and democracy as a joke in bad taste.

[luke]

Israel bars Noam Chomsky from Israel & West Bank



JERUSALEM — Renowned Jewish-American scholar and political activist Noam Chomsky said he was barred from entering Israel and the West Bank on Sunday to speak at a Palestinian university.

Chomsky had been invited to speak on Monday at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, but was stopped from entering the West Bank at the Israeli-controlled crossing from Jordan, he told Israel's Channel 10 television.

"I went with my daughter and two old friends. We went in the normal way to the border where we were all interrogated. They were particularly interested in me," he told Channel 10, speaking from Jordan.

Chomsky said the Israeli border officials were "very polite" as they "transmitted inquiries from the ministry of the interior."

However, he was denied entry because "the government did not like the kinds of things I say and they did not like that I was only talking at Bir Zeit and not at an Israeli university too," he said.

"I asked them if they could find any government in the world that likes the things I say," Chomsky said.

A spokeswoman from Israel's interior ministry, which controls the country's borders, said Chomsky was still at the border and may yet be given permission to enter the West Bank.

"We are checking it with security officials" Sabin Hadad told AFP.

She said the decision not to allow him in appeared to be "some kind of a misunderstanding," and added Chomsky was "not on any (black) list."

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghuti, who had invited Chomsky to speak at the university, said the scholar had been detained at the border for five hours.

"This act shows the nature of the Israeli government that is against freedom of speech, particularly from such a noted international figure like Chomsky," said Barghuti.

Chomsky, 81, is a professor of linguistics at the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a prominent critic of US foreign policy. He has also frequently spoken out against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

[Ash]

Noam Chomsky's Amnesty International Ireland talk 'Hopes and Prospects' (2009) http://www.protectthehuman.com/videos/noam-chomsky

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[luke]

[luke]