DOSSANI:
The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim
that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of
Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that
if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of
an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in
December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your
opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli
action?
CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to
the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's
delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile
we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis
for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they
create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be
for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over
everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's
left of the indigenous population.
I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the
United States is that it resonates very well with American history.
How did the United States get established? The themes are
similar.
There are many examples of this theme being played out
throughout Israel's history, and the current situation is another
case. They have a very clear program. Rational hawks like Ariel
Sharon realized that it's crazy to keep 8,000 settlers using
one-third of the land and much of the scarce supplies in Gaza,
protected by a large part of the Israeli army while the rest of the
society around them is just rotting. So it's best to take them out
and send them to the West Bank. That's the place that they really
care about and want.
What was called a "disengagement" in September 2005 was actually
a transfer. They were perfectly frank and open about it. In fact,
they extended settlement building programs in the West Bank at the
very same time that they were withdrawing a few thousand people
from Gaza. So
Gaza should be turned into a cage, a prison basically, with Israel
attacking it at will, and meanwhile in the West Bank we'll take
what we want. There was nothing secret about
it.
Ehud Olmert was in the United States in May 2006 a couple of
months after the withdrawal. He simply
announced to a joint session of Congress and to rousing
applause, that the historic right of Jews to the entire land of
Israel is beyond question. He announced what he called his
convergence program, which is just a version of the traditional
program; it goes back to the Allon
plan of 1967. Israel would essentially annex valuable land and
resources near the green line (the 1967 border). That land is now
behind the wall that Israel built in the West Bank, which is an
annexation wall. That means the arable land, the main water
resources, the pleasant suburbs around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and
the hills and so on. They'll take over the Jordan valley, which is
about a third of the West Bank, where they've been settling since
the late 60s. Then they'll drive a couple of super
highways through the whole territory — there's one to the east
of Jerusalem to the town of Ma'aleh Adumim which was built mostly
in the 1990s, during the Oslo years. It was built essentially to
bisect the West Bank and are two others up north that includes
Ariel and Kedumim and other towns which pretty much bisect what's
left. They'll set up check points and all sorts of means of
harassment in the other areas and the population that's left will
be essentially cantonized and unable to live a decent life and if
they want to leave, great. Or else they will be picturesque figures
for tourists — you know somebody leading a goat up a hill in the
distance — and meanwhile Israelis, including settlers, will drive
around on "Israeli only" super highways. Palestinians can make do
with some little road somewhere where you're falling into a ditch
if it's raining. That's the goal. And it's explicit. You can't
accuse them of deception because it's explicit. And it's cheered
here.
DOSSANI: In terms of U.S. support, last week
the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a cease
fire. Is this a change, particularly in light of the fact that the
U.S. did not veto the resolution, but rather abstained, allowing it
to be passed?
CHOMSKY: Right after the 1967 war, the Security
Council had strong resolutions condemning Israel's move to expand
and take over Jerusalem. Israel just ignored them. Because the U.S.
pats them on the head and says "go ahead and violate them." There's
a whole series of resolutions from then up until today, condemning
the settlements, which as Israel knew and as everyone agreed were
in violation of the Geneva conventions. The United States either
vetoes the resolutions or sometimes votes for them, but with a wink
saying, "go ahead anyway, and we'll pay for it and give you the
military support for it." It's a consistent pattern. During the
Oslo years, for example, settlement construction increased
steadily, in violation of what the Oslo agreement was theoretically
supposed to lead to. In fact the peak year of settlement was
Clinton's last year, 2000. And it continued again afterward. It's
open and explicit.
To get back to the question of motivation, they have sufficient
military control over the West Bank to terrorize the population
into passivity. Now that control is enhanced by the
collaborationist forces that the U.S., Jordan, and Egypt have
trained in order to subdue the population. In fact if you take a
look at the press the last couple of weeks, if there's a
demonstration in the West Bank in support of Gaza, the Fatah
security forces crush it. That's what they're there for. Fatah by
now is more or less functioning as Israel's police force in the
West Bank. But the West Bank is only part of the occupied
Palestinian territories. The other part is Gaza, and no one doubts
that they form a unit. And there still is resistance in Gaza, those
rockets. So yes, they want to stamp that out too, then there will
be no resistance at all and they can continue to do what they want
to do without interference, meanwhile delaying diplomacy as much as
possible and "building the facts" the way they want to. Again this
goes back to the origins of Zionism. It varies of course depending
on circumstances, but the fundamental policy is the same and
perfectly understandable. If you want to take over a country where
the population doesn't want you, I mean, how else can you do it?
How was this country conquered?
DOSSANI: What you describe is a tragedy.
CHOMSKY: It's a tragedy which is made right
here. The press won't talk about it and even scholarship, for the
most part, won't talk about it but the fact of the matter is that
there has been a political settlement on the table, on the agenda
for 30 years. Namely a two-state settlement on the international
borders with maybe some mutual modification of the border. That's
been there officially since 1976 when there was a Security Council
resolution proposed by the major Arab states and supported by the
(Palestinan Liberation Organization) PLO, pretty much in those
terms. The United States vetoed it so it's therefore out of history
and it's continued almost without change since then.
There was in fact one significant modification. In the last
month of Clinton's term, January 2001 there were negotiations,
which the U.S. authorized, but didn't participate in, between
Israel and the Palestinians and they came very close to
agreement.
DOSSANI: The
Taba negotiations?
Yes, the Taba negotiations. The two sides came very close to
agreement. They were called off by Israel. But that was the one
week in over 30 years when the United States and Israel abandoned
their rejectionist position. It's a real tribute to the media and
other commentators that they can keep this quiet. The U.S. and
Israel are alone in this. The international consensus includes
virtually everyone. It includes the Arab League which has gone
beyond that position and called for the normalization of relations,
it includes Hamas. Every time you see Hamas in
the newspapers, it says "Iranian-backed Hamas which wants to
destroy Israel." Try to find a phrase that says "democratically
elected Hamas which is calling for a two-state settlement" and has
been for years. Well, yeah, that's a good propaganda
system. Even in the U.S. press they've occasionally
allowed op-eds by Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniya and others saying,
yes we want a two-state settlement on the international border like
everyone else.
DOSSANI: When did Hamas adopt that
position?
CHOMSKY That's their official position
taken by Haniya, the elected leader, and Khalid Mesh'al, their
political leader who's in exile in Syria, he's written the same
thing. And it's over and over again. There's no question about it
but the West doesn't want to hear it. So therefore it's Hamas which
is committed to the destruction of Israel.
In a sense
they are, but if you went to a Native American reservation in the
United States, I'm sure many would like to see the destruction of
the United States. If you went to Mexico and took a poll, I'm sure
they don't recognize the right of the United States to exist
sitting on half of Mexico, land conquered in war.
And that's true all over the world. But they're willing to accept a
political settlement. Israel isn't willing to accept it and the
United States isn't willing to accept it. And they're the lone
hold-outs. Since it's the United States that pretty much runs the
world, it's blocked.
Here it's always presented as though the United States must
become more engaged; it's an honest broker; Bush's problem was that
he neglected the issue. That's not the problem. The problem is that
the United States has been very much engaged, and engaged in
blocking a political settlement and giving the material and
ideological and diplomatic support for the expansion programs,
which are just criminal programs. The world court unanimously,
including the American justice, agreed that any transfer of
population into the Occupied Territories is a violation of a
fundamental international law, the Geneva Conventions. And Israel
agrees. In fact even their courts agree, they just sort of sneak
around it in various devious ways. So there's no question about
this. It's just
sort of accepted in the United States that we're an outlaw state.
Law doesn't apply to us. That's why it's never
discussed.
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