TRANSCRIPT OF NOAM CHOMSKY’S
Question & Answer Session
following his lecture on
“THE CURRENT CRISES IN THE MIDDLE EAST:
WHAT CAN WE DO?”
Massachusetts
Institute Of Technology
December
14, 2000
Transcription by
Angie D'Urso, Feb18, 2001.
Audio/Video
Webcast of Chomsky Lecture:
http://www.media.mit.edu/~nitin/mideast/chomsky.html
Questioner #1 (Roger Leisner,
Radio Free Maine):
Back in 1988, up in Maine, the Maine Democratic Party in
their platform adopted a plank recognizing Palestinian statehood. Now this is a result that Jesse Jackson
campaigned for, and it was the only state in the nation where the Democratic
Party did that. Two years later, AIPAC
(American Israel Public Affairs Committee) came into Maine and just worked
their buns off to repeal that part of the platform. It’s funny that within the last five years, I haven’t heard much
about AIPAC. Has it sort of gone out of
style? Or has the fundamentalism in
Israel sort of driven it maybe into the peace camp?
Noam Chomsky:
Well, first of all, let me make a suggestion. There is a very strong temptation, in fact
we are trained for it from infancy, to sort of project problems somewhere
else. You know, somebody else is the
bad guy, we’re not doing it. The
fundamentalism isn’t in Israel, it’s here.
Most of the problems are here.
It’s easy to blame someone else, but it’s harder to look into the
mirror, and that is what you ought to do.
AIPAC is less visible than it was before, but that is
because the Clinton Administration has moved so far to the extremist end. In fact, when Clinton came in, the very
first year or two, the Israeli press was amazed. They said, you know, for the first time we have an American
president who is to the extremist side of our own extremist parties. In fact, they started joking about him as
the last Zionist and stuff like that.
As U.S. policy has drifted toward the more extremist position, AIPAC is
still there, and does what it did before, but it doesn’t have to be as visible
because it’s, you know, certainly right in the mainstream of the Democratic
Party. As far as the Maine proposals,
and the one you mentioned in ’87, that is right in the mainstream of American
opinion. Polls have been showing for
years that roughly sixty or seventy percent of the population support a
Palestinian state.
One of the great failures, in my view - crimes, of the
PLO, and there are many, is to fail to make any effort to make use of this
fact. I can run through the history if
you want, but a number of people here who were sympathetic to the Palestinians,
but didn’t think much of the PLO, and I’m one of them, were trying to convince
them for years that they should try to do what every other Third World movement
does, namely help support some kind of popular solidarity movement which will
make use of the fact that most of the people support them anyway, even without
knowing anything. And they flatly
refused. They don’t want to have
anything to do with it. They acted in
such a way as to make it as hard as possible to build up a solidarity
movement. That is one of the reasons
why these things have happened. As I
say, there is plenty of blame to go around.
In this case, the state of Maine’s position was consistent with polls
throughout the Country, but of course not with policy.
New Questioner, #2:
I have two quick questions. One of them is not necessarily related to the Palestinian issue,
but I was just curious, because I noticed you mentioned the Soviet Union a few
times in your talk as ‘Russia’. Is
there a particular reason why you use the word Russia as opposed to the Soviet
Union?
The second question is in regard to the U.S. support of
Israel. You said that the United States
supports Israel because Israel is a client state. I agree with that, but you disagreed with some thinking,
particularly from maybe the Arab world, and the Middle East region, that
support of Israel is due to Jewish lobbying in the United States. You disagreed with that and I am really
interested in that, why you disagreed, because we see so many examples of
that. The latest thing was Hillary
Clinton, for example, in New York, rejecting money from some Arab groups and
there are so many different examples.
Noam Chomsky:
Right now there is no Soviet Union. That collapsed ten years ago. Now there is the Russian Federation, if you
want to use the technical term. During
the period when the Soviet Union existed, it was run by Russia, so you can call
it Russia or you can call it the Soviet Union, it doesn’t matter very much.
As far as the Jewish lobby is concerned, well I gave one
reason. I was talking about the very
common claim in the Arab world, and in fact in the writings of American Arabs,
claiming and believing that the U.S. permits Israeli atrocities because of the
influence of the Jewish lobby - which I think is just a flat out error.
I think if you look more broadly, you see that there is
nothing unusual about this, the same thing happens elsewhere. The U.S. has, in fact, happily tolerated the
worst atrocities by Arabs, like Saddam Hussein, and without any Jewish
lobby. This is a misunderstanding of
the nature of terror and aggression.
As far as other things are concerned, yeah, there is a
Jewish lobby, there are domestic lobbies on all sorts of things, but I think it
misunderstands American politics to think that domestic lobbies based on
communities have all that much influence.
They can have a swing influence, if there is an issue on which the main
centers of power and the business world don’t care very much about, like should
you recognize the Armenian holocaust or not.
Then, yeah, domestic lobbies can make a difference, but when there is an
issue on which the business world is united, they don’t make much
difference.
The case of Israel is kind of interesting, because here
is a case where the real powers in the Country have, in fact, been split for
the last 30 years. There has been a
divide. So, there has been a sector of
important power in the United States with regard to the Middle East, a very
important sector, namely the energy corporations, which have more or less
favored the international consensus, and they oppose state policy on other
things too. So, they would like to have
a reconciliation with Iran and Iraq, and they are opposed to the fact that the
government won’t allow it. On the other
hand, there are other sectors of power, big sectors of power, which have gone
the other way. In this kind of a context,
it’s possible that a swing factor can work, but I don’t think it’s the Jewish
lobby.
I mean the Jewish lobby is part of it, but after 1967,
there was just a love affair with Israel on the part of a large sector of the
elite American population. American intellectuals, for example, just fell in
love with Israel. You can see this very
easily, just by looking at the coverage, even in left journals, say Dissent, a
social democratic journal. Up until
1967, they didn’t care about Israel one way or another, and in fact, the New
York Times wasn’t all that pro-Israel, wasn’t in fact, was non-Zionist, Jewish
owned, but non-Zionist. Commentary
magazine, which is now kind of like a rabid, ultra-Zionist journal, back in the
1950’s was so critical of Israel, that the American Zionist Organization
actually set up a competitor, called Midstream, to sort of represent the
Israeli point of view. All of this
stuff changed in 1967, and it changed because of Israel’s military victory,
which won them a lot of points. For one
thing, they were giving a great gift to American power. For another - the others, a little more
subtle maybe, but you have to remember what was happening in the United States
at that time. The United States was
fighting a war in Vietnam and it was not succeeding in crushing the South
Vietnamese, who were the main target of the attack. Despite what they now claim, educated Americans, the educated
population, the elite population, pretty much across the spectrum, was pro-War,
and very upset by the fact that the U.S. wasn’t winning. Many had what they called ‘pragmatic’
objections, like Kinsley, you know, it’s costing too much or something, but
fundamentally they supported the war and that continued until 1968, when the
business community turned against it, and then later intellectuals turned
against it.
But Israel was showing how you deal with Third World
upstarts properly. Kick them in the
face. And they won a lot of points for
that. In fact, those of you who are old
enough to remember, will recall the jokes about let’s send Moshe Dayan to
Vietnam, and he will show us how to do it right. That, among other things, led to a quite substantial shift of
opinion in the articulate sectors of American society, including the media, and
starting from then, there was quite a different picture. And there were other sources. So, for example, one of the main sources of
support for Israel in the United States is a very powerful group, namely
Christian fundamentalists. They are a
huge part of the population, you know, way beyond the Jewish population. This is one of the most fundamentalist
countries in the world, more than Iran, like around 40 percent of the
population call themselves born-again Christians, and every political candidate
has to pretend to be some kind of a born-again Christian, otherwise you can’t
run. That is a very substantial group
of people, and a big sector of that is what they call ‘Pro-Israel’. They may be anti-Semitic (they probably
are), but they are very supportive of Israel, and the reasons are all kind of
complicated things about the Book of Revelations, and I won’t go into
that. But, that is a big support group,
and there are others.
So, yeah, there is a Jewish lobby undoubtedly, and it has
an effect in things that don’t matter very much. But when it comes to a crunch, I think you see that it doesn’t
have that much power. There have been
occasions where there was really a conflict between Israel and the United
States. There haven’t been a lot, but
there have been a few such occasions, and it is interesting to see what happens
to the lobby.
One such occasion, a striking one, was in 1956, when
Israel invaded Egypt along with France and England, and the U.S. was opposed to
that, not because of any objection to invading Egypt, but because Israel had
the wrong allies. You know, those were
the guys we were trying to kick out of the Middle East - France and England,
and they were trying to reinsert themselves.
And Eisenhower didn’t like the timing.
This was right before the 1956 election, the most sensitive moment in
political life. Eisenhower just told
Israel to get out – period. He said,
you know, you get out, or else. And
Israel got out, of course. The lobby
disappeared. No protest from the
lobby.
Another event like that, a minor event, happened just a
couple of years ago, must have been 1991, when there was a confrontation
between Shamir, who was then Prime Minister, and George Bush, over the style of
settlement. It had nothing to do with
substance. It was the style of
settlement in the occupied territories.
There is a Westernized section in Israel, mainly the Labor Party. The Labor Party is educated professionals,
Western-oriented, secular, you know, that sort of thing. They understand how you deal with the West. They understand the norms of Western
hypocrisy. There is another sector,
which is poor, religious, you know, the Arab Jewish populations, Sephardic
Jews, and so on, who don’t understand much about the West. Shamir and Likud generally come from them,
which is why the U.S. typically prefers the Labor Party. They do about the same thing, but the style
is different, and that showed at that time.
Right at that moment, every time Secretary of State James Baker would
show up in Israel, the settlers would pick that moment to go up to a hill
somewhere and put up a sign saying “new settlement”, saying, you know, some
vulgar expression about Baker, and we don’t care what you say. And the U.S. didn’t like that. That is not the way you are supposed to
behave. The way you are supposed to
behave is the way Shimon Peres would do it.
So, you wait until a week after Baker goes home, and then you don’t go
up and put up a new settlement, you thicken an old settlement, doing exactly
the same thing, and you don’t offend the boss, and everybody is happy. The boss continues to pay. That is fundamentally the difference in the
Labor Party and Likud. Bush and Baker
were annoyed enough at this so that Bush threatened to withhold the loan
guarantees, which were being used illegally by Israel to build
settlements. Israel was very much upset
about that, it’s a lot of money at stake.
The lobby at first protested, but Bush made one speech on television, in
which he didn’t say very much, he just gave a couple of hints that this wasn’t
going to work, and the lobby just vanished, and Israel backed off.
This just happened a couple of months ago. The Israeli government was deeply committed
– a big project of theirs was selling advanced military technology to
China. They have mostly a military
industry. It’s kind of a military based
economy, kind of like the United States in many ways, sort of an offshoot. A large part of the economy is military
based, and for their purposes, these advanced technology sales to China were
extremely important and the U.S. was opposed to it. Barak insisted publicly in Israel that he was going to do
it. He didn’t care what the United
States thought, but the Clinton Administration just told them, sorry, that is
not going to work, and of course, they had to back off on a matter very
critical to them - and the lobby was not in evidence.
And I think you find that in case after case. If the lobby sees that it is running up
against real power, it’s going to disappear, for one thing because they are cowards,
and for another, it’s because they don’t have much power.
New Questioner, #3:
I would like to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on
the issue of Jerusalem. You already
mentioned that it has been used to divert the attention from what’s going on in
the settlements and with the infrastructure in the territories, but it seems
that in someway the peace process always falls back on Jerusalem. In the Oslo agreement, it was treated
separately from the rest. The present
Intifada started from something happening in Jerusalem, or it was used as a
focus, because as you were saying the holy sites are there and major
interventions are happening on the physical form of the city and this is
upsetting the situation. So, what do
you think the role of Jerusalem is in the peace process?
Noam Chomsky:
First of all, we have to be careful about what we mean
about Jerusalem. If you mean Jerusalem
in the pre-1967 sense, okay, that is a small area. I mean, the first thing Israel did after the 1967 war was to expand,
approximately triple, the size of Jerusalem very quickly, both into the West
Bank and also into Israel proper.
Israel semi-annexed Jerusalem.
Technically speaking, it was careful not to annex it, because it knew
that would lead to international protest, but it’s called annexation and in
practice it is kind of like that. So,
they tripled the area, and they more or less annexed it, but not formally. They didn’t do it in a very polite fashion
either. So, it’s recently been revealed
in Israel, only in the last couple of months, that when they came in, they
smashed up a Palestinian housing area right in front of what’s called the
Wailing Wall, you know, the Western wall at the Temple. They barely warned the residents, and it
turns out that the bulldozers apparently killed, you know, bulldozed, people
right into the houses as they smashed it down.
They basically took over a large part of the City. That has expanded Jerusalem.
Then it goes on.
There is also something called Greater Jerusalem, which is a big ring
around it, which is intended to incorporate the City that I mentioned, Ma’ale
Adumim. Its borders go through about 8
kilometers from Jericho. Most of the settlements
only use a tiny fraction of the territory that is assigned to them. So, Ma’ale Adumim, for example, which is the
most important because it splits the West Bank in two east of Jerusalem, uses
about 1/16th of the land assigned to it, either in housing or
agriculture. That means they are
intended to expand. Well, you know, when
Rabin, for example, talked about Greater Jerusalem, that is what he is talking
about. To distinguish the issue of
Jerusalem from that of the territories is not really very easy, because what’s
called Greater Jerusalem is a big piece of the territories, in fact, it
effectively splits the West Bank in two - one of the settlements, there’s
another one farther north and there are a couple of others.
If you talk about Jerusalem proper, like the religious
sites, you know, in the old city and that sort of thing, that is not a hard
problem. One very fine Israeli
sociologist, Baruch Kimmerling, very smart guy, Hebrew University, he had an
article a couple of weeks ago in which he said, look, the issue of Jerusalem is
a diversion. We could solve this one in
five minutes, he said. I guess it’s a
bit of an exaggeration, not quite five minutes, but, it’s easy to figure out
technical answers to the problems of Jerusalem if anybody wants to bother. The holy sites, for example, can be under
some kind of international supervision, and what’s left of the Palestinian
residential areas can be Palestinian administered, which if Israel was sensible
they would prefer anyway, and, you know, a couple of other things like
that. It’s really a kind of small
technical problem.
What cannot be finessed, however, is the takeover of the
territories. That you can’t
finesse. Either they get out or it’s
Bantustans. Those are the choices. Although you’re right, that this Intifada
happened to start in Jerusalem, that is pretty misleading. I mean, it’s been mostly in Gaza and around
Ramallah and places like that, which is typical. The same was true in the last Intifada.
New Questioner, #4:
(Inaudible) - It’s a question of Capitalism in its last
stage of Imperialism.
Noam Chomsky:
Does everybody know this story already or do we have to
sit here and listen to it?
Same Questioner, #4:
Well the story is - we think U.S. imperialism has to be
overthrown through workers’ revolution, as opposed to you, who offers a
criticism to the U.S. –
Noam Chomsky:
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, this is a
routine that goes on at every meeting.
Let me just ask you, how many people want to listen to this – will the
people who want to listen to this raise their hands. Okay, will the people who want to go on with the discussion
raise their hands.
Same Questioner, #4:
Why are you
against democratic discussion?
Noam Chomsky:
I just gave you a democratic vote.
Same Questioner, #4:
You can manufacture your own consent. (laughter - Chomsky and Herman are authors
of book “Manufacturing Consent, The
Political Economy of the Mass Media”)
Noam Chomsky:
Yeah, yeah, right.
This is a standard routine of harassment, an effort to break up
meetings. It goes on all the time. Okay, look you set up your own - you set up
a meeting. You are free to set it up
and everybody can come. Let’s go on.
Same Questioner, # 4: (audio tape inaudible)
Noam Chomsky:
We had a popular vote.
We’ve heard it already. Let’s go
on.
New Questioner, #5:
I just felt that there were a few facts that you didn’t
mention and I wonder why. For instance,
if I go back to the ’67 war, it’s a fact that Israel was attacked. It was a self defense war and it wasn’t
mentioned. If we are talking about the
Lebanon war, I mean, the life of the Israelis who lived in the Galilee were
hell for years, attacks and children in shelters, children murdered at schools,
you didn’t mention it. And recent
things, like the killing in Gaza, which I am against violence and I don’t
justify any kind of violence, but the Gaza event in Netzarim, you didn’t
mention and it happened one month ago, the school bus of Israeli children who
went to school that was bombed by Palestinians, and this creates the reaction. You didn’t also mention what happened after
the parade. I think it is a mistake to
bring so many policemen to where people go out from the Mosque, but what really
started it, and I read it in the newspaper because I live here right now, it
was when the Arabs finished praying, they just threw stones at the Jews who
were praying downstairs on the Western Wall.
I mean, you didn’t even mention it.
You know, I don’t think that violence is justified but I think that also
the Jews in Israel have the right not to be murdered and not to live in
shelters and not to live - I remember
myself in shelters for so many years. I
mean, all of these events not mentioned by you, even a hint, and this is what
bothers me.
Noam Chomsky:
Okay, well you are absolutely right, I didn’t mention the
atrocities committed against Jews and I didn’t mention the vastly worse
atrocities committed against Arabs. For
example, in discussing this kind of Intifada, I said absolutely nothing about
the atrocities. So, you’re right. I didn’t mention the few cases in which
atrocities were committed against Jews, or the many cases in which atrocities
were committed against Arabs. And the
same in the past. I barely mentioned
them, because I was talking about other things. However, we could, but then we will balance it. I mean, for example, it is simply not a fact
that the Palestinians coming out of the Mosques started throwing stones down
below, and if you read Ha'aretz, you’ll see that it’s not a fact. That happened after the border guards were
shooting.
Same Questioner, #5:
Was the killing of the children who went to school, is
that a true fact or not?
Noam Chomsky:
Yes, it was. That
is a true fact as was -
Same Questioner, #5:
Why did you choose among these true facts, just to
mention the fact that people were killed by the American helicopters– and you
didn’t mention the children who were murdered on their way to school -
Noam Chomsky:
For a simple reason, because the overwhelming mass of the
atrocities are by Israel and the United States. I am talking about the United States and our supply of military
helicopters. If we were providing guns
to the Palestinians to kill Israelis and the Palestinians were carrying out 90
percent of the atrocities, I’d talk about that. But I’m talking about our providing military helicopters to the
Israelis to carry out 90 percent of the atrocities. That is why I mentioned it, but barely. (Same Questioner, #5, but inaudible) May I continue?
Let’s go back to 1967 and 1982. In 1967, Israel was not attacked and nobody even pretends
that. I mean, back at the time, Abba
Eban, it was his job at the UN to claim that Israel was attacked. He knew it was a lie, and what he was saying
were total lies. And you can’t even get
this in Israeli –
Same Questioner, #5:
And about the attack in ’73, ’72?
Noam Chomsky:
You want to go back to that? Let’s take a look at ’67.
I’ll come then next to ’73. In
1967, Israel launched the war.
Now you could say it was a legitimate pre-emptive strike if you like,
but there is just no question that Israel attacked. Okay? That is not even a
matter of debate. As for 1973, no,
Israel was not attacked. What was
attacked was Israeli occupied territory.
Egypt attacked Egyptian territory that was held by Israel under the
conditions that I described, after Israel refused a peace treaty. The fact of the matter is, there is not one
case in which Israel was attacked. In
1982 - you’ve got your dates mixed up.
There was a time when people were hiding in the Galilee but not in
1981. 1981 was an extremely peaceful
year, there were no attacks from the North to the South, zero.
Same Questioner, #5:
I lived in the – in the 80’s children lived in shelters
every weekend-
Noam Chomsky:
In the 80’s, that is after, right? May I continue?
Same Questioner, #5:
Also the - university - and all the media, the CNN, are
in the territories, and you get all the information through the media, and you
say there was no university, no media, no attacks on Israelis. I mean, we were in the shelters and you
stand here and said that there were no shelters.
Noam Chomsky:
No, I didn’t say that.
I said in 1981, up until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, there were no
attacks from the North. There were
plenty of attacks from the South.
Israel was regularly bombing Lebanon, trying to elicit some kind of PLO
response, which would be a justification for the planned invasion. And they were bombing fishing boats, they
were attacking villages, they were killing all sorts of people and there was
nothing in response. Israel attacked in
1982 (and they were pretty frank about it) because they were afraid of PLO
moderation. They were afraid that the
PLO was abandoning terrorism and was moving toward a political settlement, and
that is what Israel does not want. They
made it pretty clear. Like, if you were
there at the time, and you were reading the papers, you would have read
it. For example, a couple of weeks
after the,- right after the invasion - you heard of Yehoshua Porath – who is,
as I’m sure you know, the leading
Israeli academic expert on the Palestinians, a pretty conservative guy
incidentally, wrote an article in Ha'aretz, in which he pointed out that we had
to invade Lebanon because what was happening was what he called a veritable
catastrophe. The PLO was refusing to
carry out terrorist acts. They were
becoming a kind of a moderate force.
For Israel this is impossible, we want them to go back to terrorism, and
Israel tried to elicit terrorism. Now
take a look at what happened after that.
I mean, if you want, I’ll direct you to Israeli sources, but right after
that period, Israel was regularly provoking attacks inside Lebanon, and when
they would bomb somewhere in Lebanon, there would be a response in which Kiryat
Shemona would get a Katyusha attack.
That was happening consistently, and in fact, it mostly happened after
1982.
Same Questioner, #5:
Why would they attack now when Israeli already withdrew?
It’s not true. In the 1980’s, we were
in the shelters.
Noam Chomsky:
May I continue?
Same Questioner, #5:
You read only the articles that serve your point.
Noam Chomsky:
No, I don’t. So
we agree, I presume, that everything you have said so far is false. Now, lets look to the present. Let’s take a look at the present case. Finally Israel withdrew after 22 years of
illegal occupation in which it killed about 45,000 people, kind of trivial,
right?
Same Questioner, #5
Nobody of course from the Israeli –
Noam Chomsky:
A few dozen were killed in Israel. Count it up. And almost every case was retaliation for an Israeli attack in
Lebanon. There was a standard cycle,
what happened over and over. It’s very
well documented. The Israeli forces in
southern Lebanon, the occupying forces in southern Lebanon or their mercenary
army, the SLA, would be attacked by the resistance, Hizbollah, and then Israel
would retaliate by bombing Beirut or some refugee camp and so on, and then
Hizbollah would send rockets to northern Israel. That was the regular cycle, almost invariant. And, in fact, that cycle began in an
interesting way. It began in 1992. From 1981 right through 1992, there was
almost nothing except Israeli attacks in Lebanon of which there were numerous
ones, like Shimon Peres’ 1985 iron fist operations right in the middle of
Lebanon were murderous and it was well reported in the Israeli press. There was almost no retaliation. In 1992, something changed, and it was
described very accurately, for example, by Moshe Arens, nice, right-wing Minister of Defense, you
know, you don’t have to worry about his politics. He explained that in 1992, the rules of the game changed. How did they change? Well, Israel had carried out an
assassination of a Shi'ite cleric, and they killed him and his wife and child
and then bombed an ambulance that was trying to come and pick them up. And you say, well okay, that changed the
rules of the game. From now on, after
this period in fact, what happened is what I just described, the cycle that
after Hizbollah attacks on Israeli forces or their mercenary army, Israel would
respond farther north, killing people, and then after 1992, Hizbollah would
also attack northern Israel.
Now if you go back to the early 70’s, what you are
describing is at least partially true.
But after that, it’s simply not true.
Same Questioner, #5:
The Lebanon War -
(inaudible voices of others)
Noam Chomsky:
It’s a very important question. If you like, I would be glad to give you the highest level Israel
sources which discuss and describe the Lebanon War. What you are hearing is probably propaganda that you learned in
Elementary School. Nobody believes this
in the Israeli academic system. And the
Lebanon war was a straight attack.
Nothing had been happening except attacks from Israel to Lebanon for
over a year.
Nitin Sawhney (MIT):
Do you want to take two more questions please, as we’ll
have to leave the hall in about ten minutes.
Please keep it concise.
New Questioner #6:
You had mentioned many events that didn’t make it into
the U.S. mainstream press. I was
wondering if you could suggest some sources where someone in the U.S. could
find out about those kind of things.
Noam Chomsky:
Well, you know, everything I’ve just – almost, but not
everything – but most of what I’ve just said you can pick up off the Web, if you
want. I know a lot of this I’ve written
about in the last couple – the current stuff I’ve written about in the last few
months. The earlier stuff is in a long
series of books. Just myself, I’ve been
writing about it since 1970, as the situation developed, just writing about it,
and so have others.
Same Questioner, #6:
I’m just curious, you know, where can I look now to be
better informed?
Noam Chomsky:
Well, you get a lot of material – a lot of the Hebrew
press is now available in English, so you can pick up a lot from – if you read
good Israeli journalists, like Amira Hass and – Gidon Levi is unfortunately not
well so he’s not writing, but Danny Rubinstein and a couple of others, and you
can pick them up off the Web, from the Ha'aretz English edition. You get a lot of material. There are a lot of Palestinian
sources. There are international
sources. Read Robert Fisk, a British
journalist, now with London Independent, and others, and you get quite good
information. And, you know, Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch have had things. And there are many other people who write about this. I’m not the only one. But you’re going to have to work. For example, I could have given a thousand
cases, but on the few cases that I mentioned, you know, the suppression of the
diplomatic record, the current business with the helicopters, you can find it,
but you’re going to have to search. The
Boston Globe isn’t going to report it.
In fact, they have made it very clear that they are not going to report
it.
Same Questioner, #6:
Some foreign sources?
Foreign press that reports these kind of things?
Noam Chomsky:
Yeah, for example, the helicopters were discussed in the
British press, but by a few journalists, and in the continental press. I mean, I don’t want to suggest it’s all
that different, but it’s somewhat more open.
On the other hand, you’re going to have to work. If you’re on the Internet and you look up
ZNet, you’re going to find almost all of this stuff. (http://www.zmag.org or http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm, and
particularly ZNet’s Mideast Watch at http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/meastwat.htm)
Same Questioner, #6: Thank you.
New Questioner, #7:
Having recently returned from both Gaza and the West
Bank, and seeing these helicopters in action, and seeing Israeli sharp shooters
in action killing kids, and by the way, this is reported in Ha'aretz, a main
Israeli paper, but it’s not reported here, I returned with this incredible
sense of frustration of how to get the word out. I mean, there is such a pall of silence here that we have to
somehow be able to break, and I talked there with people. You know, how can the international
communities somehow be mobilized to try to help break this silence, and we’ve
discussed having an international presence, you know, which might command some
kind of media attention, if it can be large enough - one of the problems being,
people there cannot demonstrate any other way now except by taking rocks and
having guns, because they will be shot down and killed if they are simply there
demonstrating the way we do here, forms of civil protest. But they thought, if we could get a large
international presence to come and stand with them, maybe outside of
settlements and so on, we could be some form of protection. I would like your comment on that, and also
one other thing I heard in Israel among the peace camp, which is being, in my
view, you know, the silence that rains from that peace camp is very, very
depressing, but I did have people say, well now that George Bush is going to be
president, this was a couple of weeks ago, but they knew, things will be all
right, because he will put this matter on the back burner and America won’t be
so hands-on in its involvement. And if
you could comment on that too, I’d be grateful.
Noam Chomsky:
Well, direct involvement is a great thing, but, you know,
it’s extremely hard. But there is
direct involvement in Hebron, for example.
There is a small Christian peacekeeper group in Hebron, which, since
they are Christian Americans, the Israeli sources aren’t going to kill them,
you know, so they kind of leave them alone, and they publish regular
reports. In fact, one of the ways
whoever it was, was asking me for information, their reports keep coming back
from Hebron. But again, you’ve got to
get them on the Internet, but they have had some effect. The presence of some Americans tends to cut
down the level of violence for the same reason I mentioned at the beginning –
neither the United States nor Israel wants the terror to be too visible.
Now the same was true in Central America,
incidentally. That was a real
breakthrough in the history of Imperialism and we should be aware of it. In Central America in the 1980’s, when the
U.S. was carrying out a murderous war, primarily against the Catholic church in
fact, but of course peasants were the ones who were mostly killed, for the first
time ever in history as far as I know, North Americans went down there to live
in villages in the hope that, you know, a White face would cut down the level
of terror because they wouldn’t want to murder people as visibly if there are
North Americans around. Actually, a lot
of them came from Christian fundamentalist groups. This is not coming from the left particularly. Witnesses for Peace is an example. That is an astonishing achievement. It’s one of the most important events that
never before happened in the history of Imperialism – Britain, France, U.S. in
Vietnam, anything you can think of.
And that was important, and it had an effect, but you have to think what
the commitment is. I mean, you have to
be willing to leave like a Third World person.
It’s not so simple, you know. I
mean, you can do it. They live like
that, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy for us to live like that. We are used to a different level of
privilege. And you are facing constant
danger, and you’re giving up the rest of your life. Yeah, it can be done, and it’s extremely important, but it’s
going to be small scale.
There is something much more important to do, which we
can do right here, and that is, break the silence here. You know, this has been done on issue after
issue. I’m talking about the Middle
East. It was exactly the same on
Vietnam. It’s the same on El Salvador. It’s the same on Columbia right now. It’s the same on Turkey. You can run through a list of cases, A to Z,
it’s always the same. And it takes a
lot of effort, and organization, and educational works, and dedication to try
to break through this. And over the
years, you can do it. It is not easy.
Just to mention one case which finally hit the headlines,
East Timor - I mean, I myself was working
on that for 25 years, you know. It’s
very hard. Writing about it, you know,
speaking all over the place, also a couple of other people were, so few that I
could name them if you want. And this
went on almost with no effect, you know, until finally there was, actually one
very good guy, Charlie Scheiner, who managed to use the Internet to carry out
organization, which worked very effectively.
Pretty soon there were organizations around, and it broke through, and
so on. It was just really hard work no
matter what the issue.
And it doesn’t happen just like that. You know, you’ve got to devote yourself to
it, a lot of time and energy. There
are no magic keys. You’ve just got to
keep at it. And it has to be done
here. If it’s not done here, it doesn’t
matter what the international opinion is.
I mean, you know, Europe is marginal on this issue, on most issues. The rest of the world can talk if they want,
but the U.S. isn’t paying much attention, and won’t, unless they are
disrupted. But right here, there is a
lot that you can do. Here’s the source
of power. Here’s where we are. You’re privileged. That gives us an enormous range of things that we can do, but it
doesn’t come cheap. You have to devote
yourself to it.
As far as the ‘peace’ camp in Israel is concerned, well,
I don’t have to tell you that this term is used rather loosely. A lot of the people in the peace camp are
kind of like American liberals. They
want the Israeli occupation to work quietly, without killing too many people. That is called the peace camp. I mean, I can read a journal, like say
Israel Horizons, which is the publication of the Meretz Party in the United
States. Meretz is the kind of end of
the extreme dovish party. I just
happened to look at their last issue a couple of days ago. I mean, it’s the peace camp, in the sense
that the New York Times was the peace camp in Vietnam in 1969. You know, it’s getting out of hand, it’s too
bloody, they deny everything that is happening, and so on. We are very familiar with this. There are people who are authentically
committed to justice - that would easily fit in this auditorium. It’s not all that different here or in other
countries.
New Questioner, #8:
Regarding breaking the silence, what do you recommend on
specific issues? What can be done to
break the silence? From your lecture
you were talking about the important role of the army - of U.S. taxpayer money
that is going toward the military. Is
there anything that can be done about it or is it a waste of time?
Noam Chomsky:
No, it’s not a waste of time.
Same Questioner, #8:
The other thing is the media. You talked about talking, and your talks have been very important
to spread the news, but maybe there is some other strategy to tackle the media,
to get it to spread the word? And
thirdly, what do you think about grassroots activism and how it is going to be
mobilized into something effective, because grassroots mobilization has been
there for many years. The core issue is
how do you get the voice heard?
Noam Chomsky:
Well, actually, the grassroots activism on this issue has
not been here. I’ve also, Nancy has
too, and others, have been trying for 35 years to try to get some grassroots
activism on this issue and it has been very slim. As compared with other issues, virtually invisible, and as I
mentioned in passing, the PLO has a lot to answer for in this respect, but the
main problem is here. So grassroots
activism is crucial, but is has to be started.
And there is very little of it.
As for the media, they know exactly what they’re doing, you know? They understand what they’re doing when they
don’t report that the U.S. is providing more advanced military attack
helicopters to Israel right at the moment when they are being used to attack
civilians. They understand that. I could tell you personal examples of
meetings with editors, if you like. But
they understand that. We don’t have to
tell them. The way that they will begin
to report it, is if they are under pressure, but now we’re back to grassroots
activism and alternative media and things like that. Yeah, then they’ll start to report things. Also, there are people inside the media who
would like to tell the truth about it and can’t because they need the backing
of popular activism. It’s kind of a
reciprocal relationship on a lot of these issues. You know, if something gets reported, it helps organize. If there is organization, it helps people
report what they know. The journalists
can’t expect to go too far and stay on, because a little bit out of the
required doctrinal limits, they will be out, just like in academics, for that
matter in most fields. It’s not all
that different, but that has to be the source of the work. There has never been another way to do it on
any issue.
On the military aid, I think that is a point where you
can really have an effect. I mean, most
of the population overwhelming is opposed to giving military aid to Israel, but
they have to know about it. Unless
people know the kind of thing I was telling you, unless there is more than one
opinion piece in the Raleigh, North Carolina paper in the whole country - which
is an astonishing degree of discipline, if you think about it. I mean that degree of discipline, to be able
to suppress crucial news like that everywhere in the country, that is a real
tribute to the intellectual community.
I mean, you know, Stalin would have been impressed by that. But unless that kind of thing can be broken,
there isn’t any hope. But on that
issue, we have an open door. If people
know that their taxes are going to send advanced attack helicopters to attack
civilians, they are going to raise a riot - but they have to know.
And, in fact, the provision of military aid, I think it’s
a point that really ought to be at the focus of protests. This isn’t a matter of doing anything hard,
it’s just a matter of withdrawing participation. It’s withdrawing participation in atrocities, and that would have
a tremendous effect. And it’s very hard
to resist, I think, if the news ever got out, which is why it’s so
suppressed. The same on the whole
diplomatic record. It’s suppressed
because if it ever gets out, people are going to be enraged, but it has to get
out, and now we are back to grassroots activism. There is no other way that anybody has figured out.
Actually, the availability of the Internet gives a lot of
options that weren’t around before, and can be used pretty constructively, and
is. There is an awful lot of
information about these things going on around a few web sites, including a lot
of stuff from the Israeli press and from Palestinian sources, and from
international sources, like for example, Bob Fisk, the guy I mentioned, and
that material is very instructive.
Nitin Sawhney (MIT):
I’m afraid we actually have to close.
Noam Chomsky:
Well, why don’t we just finish these two -
Nitin Sawhney (MIT):
If you could be very, very quick, without making a
comment, I think we can accommodate it.
Thank You.
New Questioner, #9:
You talked quite extensively about the U.S.’ interests in
the conflicts, but you didn’t really mention why Israel is still refusing the
peace process and refusing to give back the occupied territories. The two reasons that are usually given for
this, is first, a strategic military reason, that if you consider the gap
between Israel military forces and its neighbors -
Noam Chomsky:
They know that there is no security –
Same Questioner, #9:
– and the other is usually the question of water, but the
United Nations just issued two weeks ago a report stating that giving excess
water to everybody in the world would cost about the same as the ice cream
budget of the European Union for one year.
Noam Chomsky:
That is true, but meaningless. I mean, you could say the same about, you know, the cost of
curing AIDS all over the world would be, you know, you wouldn’t even notice
it. Great powers don’t behave like
that. First of all, it’s not true that
the U.S. is refusing the peace process.
Israel has accepted the peace process as defined by the United
States. You cannot accuse Israel of
violating the Oslo accords. They have
not. They have lived up to the Oslo
accords, which were designed in order to allow them to do exactly what they are
doing. And that is a U.S. policy. Now, why doesn’t Israel want – just ask, how
do they settle people in the territory.
Are you Israeli? (Same
Questioner, #9: No.) Well, if you want to know how they settle
people in the territories, you should read the Israeli press. I mean these people are subsidized. You know, they live much better than people
in the main settlement areas. I mean,
they have ‘come-on’ ads. A lot of the
West Bank is essentially suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It’s like people who live in the Western
suburbs. Suppose you told people here,
look, why don’t you give up the Western suburbs, you know, like Lincoln,
Lexington, Concord, give it back to the Indians. It wouldn’t cost you much.
There are plenty of places to live in Downtown Boston. Would anybody take it seriously? It doesn’t have anything to do with
strategic interests or anything else.
You know, you got something that you won by force and you’re going to
keep it, unless you are forced not to keep it.
There is nothing special about Israel.
You can say the same thing right here.
I mean, how much money would it take to turn, you know, say Roxbury into
a livable place. I mean it’s so little
that we wouldn’t even notice it in our tax bills. Is anybody going to do it?
No, that means giving up something.
If you’re a rich, privileged person and you’ve gotten something,
ultimately by force, you just don’t give it up unless you’re forced to. That is the story. We’re very familiar with it.
We don’t have to speculate about Israel. Wherever you come from, I’m sure it’s true in your hometown.
Same Questioner, #9:
But wouldn’t the fruits of peace be more important than
just these territories for Israel internal?
Noam Chomsky:
Important in what respect?
Same Questioner, #9:
Just in terms of wells, or anything.
Noam Chomsky:
Well, you know, you could say the same – well, what is
the advantage to Americans, you and me, people here, of spending, you know,
about half of the disposable part of the budget on the military? Wouldn’t we be better off if we didn’t do
that, and we put it into medical care?
Well, who would be better off?
People who get medical care would be better off, but the computer
industry wouldn’t be better off. These
things are done for reasons. Policies
are not undertaken because they benefit the population. That is why you don’t have elections in
which people participate.
Oh, we just went through kind of what is called an
election. But if you look closely,
there were no issues. In fact, the
most important fact about this election, which ought to strike any MIT student
instantly, is that it came out a statistical tie. If you pick any set of issues, pick them at random, you know, any
set of issues you can imagine and think of the probability that millions of
people will end up in a statistical tie on that set of issues - it’s
miniscule. The only way a thing like
that can happen is if people are voting for, let’s say, who should be the next
president of Mars, or something like that.
Then it will come out 50-50. But
if there is anything at stake, it can’t possibly come out 50-50. And it was, in fact, a tie, you know, which
tells you right off there is only one plausible model for it, people were
voting for something that they regarded as irrelevant. You know, this guy has a nice smile, or this
guy looks too arrogant, or something like that. And that is the overwhelming fact. There wasn’t an election - period. Six weeks have been spent in massive commentary, by everyone from
law professors to journalists, trying to persuade us that there was an
election, and that it mattered what technical device you picked to resolve the
statistical tie. The answer is, it
doesn’t matter. You know, the easiest
thing would be to flip a coin if it’s a statistical tie and it was meaningless
in the first place, but then it would be obvious that there was no
election. Well, this is part of the way
of marginalizing the public.
The policy is not made for the benefit of the
public. So, your questions are correct,
but they go deep into the nature of what’s called functioning democracy and
what is true here is also true there in Israel.