Chomsky writes: "An old man in Gaza held a placard that read: 'You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.'"
Portrait, Noam Chomsky, 06/15/09. (photo: Sam Lahoz)
What the American Media Won't Tell You About Israel
04 December 12
The savage punishment of Gaza traces back to decades ago.
n old man in Gaza held a placard that read: "You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back."
The old man's message provides the proper context for the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza. The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled from their homes in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces, who continued to truck Palestinians over the border for years after the official cease-fire.
The punishment took new forms when Israel conquered Gaza in 1967. From recent Israeli scholarship (primarily Avi Raz's "The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War"), we learn that the government's goal was to drive the refugees into the Sinai Peninsula - and, if feasible, the rest of the population too.
Expulsions from Gaza were carried out under the direct orders of Gen. Yeshayahu Gavish, commander of the Israel Defense Forces Southern Command. Expulsions from the West Bank were far more extreme, and Israel resorted to devious means to prevent the return of those expelled, in direct violation of U.N. Security Council orders.
The reasons were made clear in internal discussions immediately after the war. Golda Meir, later prime minister, informed her Labor Party colleagues that Israel should keep the Gaza Strip while "getting rid of its Arabs." Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and others agreed.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol explained that those expelled could not be allowed to return because "we cannot increase the Arab population in Israel" - referring to the newly occupied territories, already considered part of Israel.
In accord with this conception, all of Israel's maps were changed, expunging the Green Line (the internationally recognized borders) - though publication of the maps was delayed to permit Abba Eban, an Israeli ambassador to the U.N., to attain what he called a "favorable impasse" at the General Assembly by concealing Israel's intentions.
The goals of expulsion may remain alive today, and might be a factor in contributing to Egypt's reluctance to open the border to free passage of people and goods barred by the U.S.-backed Israeli siege.
The current upsurge of U.S.-Israeli violence dates to January 2006, when Palestinians voted "the wrong way" in the first free election in the Arab world.
Israel and the U.S. reacted at once with harsh punishment of the miscreants, and preparation of a military coup to overthrow the elected government - the routine procedure. The punishment was radically intensified in 2007, when the coup attempt was beaten back and the elected Hamas government established full control over Gaza.
Ignoring immediate offers from Hamas for a truce after the 2006 election, Israel launched attacks that killed 660 Palestinians in 2006, most of whom were civilians (a third were minors). According to U.N. reports, 2,879 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire from April 2006 through July 2012, along with several dozen Israelis killed by fire from Gaza.
A short-lived truce in 2008 was honored by Hamas until Israel broke it in November. Ignoring further truce offers, Israel launched the murderous Cast Lead operation in December.
So matters have continued, while the U.S. and Israel also continue to reject Hamas calls for a long-term truce and a political settlement for a two-state solution in accord with the international consensus that the U.S. has blocked since 1976 when the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution to this effect, brought by the major Arab states.
This week, Washington devoted every effort to blocking a Palestinian initiative to upgrade its status at the U.N. but failed, in virtual international isolation as usual. The reasons were revealing: Palestine might approach the International Criminal Court about Israel's U.S.-backed crimes.
One element of the unremitting torture of Gaza is Israel's "buffer zone" within Gaza, from which Palestinians are barred entry to almost half of Gaza's limited arable land.
From January 2012 to the launching of Israel's latest killing spree on Nov. 14, Operation Pillar of Defense, one Israeli was killed by fire from Gaza while 78 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire.
The full story is naturally more complex, and uglier.
The first act of Operation Pillar of Defense was to murder Ahmed Jabari. Aluf Benn, editor of the newspaper Haaretz, describes him as Israel's "subcontractor" and "border guard" in Gaza, who enforced relative quiet there for more than five years.
The pretext for the assassination was that during these five years Jabari had been creating a Hamas military force, with missiles from Iran. A more credible reason was provided by Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who had been involved in direct negotiations with Jabari for years, including plans for the eventual release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Baskin reports that hours before he was assassinated, Jabari "received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip."
A truce was then in place, called by Hamas on Nov. 12. Israel apparently exploited the truce, Reuters reports, directing attention to the Syrian border in the hope that Hamas leaders would relax their guard and be easier to assassinate.
Throughout these years, Gaza has been kept on a level of bare survival, imprisoned by land, sea and air. On the eve of the latest attack, the U.N. reported that 40 percent of essential drugs and more than half of essential medical items were out of stock.
In November one of the first in a series of hideous photos sent from Gaza showed a doctor holding the charred corpse of a murdered child. That one had a personal resonance. The doctor is the director and head of surgery at Khan Yunis hospital, which I had visited a few weeks earlier.
In writing about the trip I reported his passionate appeal for desperately needed medicine and surgical equipment. These are among the crimes of the U.S.-Israeli siege, and of Egyptian complicity.
The casualty rates from the November episode were about average: more than 160 Palestinian dead, including many children, and six Israelis.
Among the dead were three journalists. The official Israeli justification was that "The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity." Reporting the "execution" in The New York Times, the reporter David Carr observed that "it has come to this: Killing members of the news media can be justified by a phrase as amorphous as ‘relevance to terror activity.' "
The massive destruction was all in Gaza. Israel used advanced U.S. military equipment and relied on U.S. diplomatic support, including the usual U.S. intervention efforts to block a Security Council call for a cease-fire.
With each such exploit, Israel's global image erodes. The photos and videos of terror and devastation, and the character of the conflict, leave few remaining shreds of credibility to the self-declared "most moral army in the world," at least among people whose eyes are open.
The pretexts for the assault were also the usual ones. We can put aside the predictable declarations of the perpetrators in Israel and Washington. But even decent people ask what Israel should do when attacked by a barrage of missiles. It's a fair question, and there are straightforward answers.
One response would be to observe international law, which allows the use of force without Security Council authorization in exactly one case: in self-defense after informing the Security Council of an armed attack, until the Council acts, in accord with the U.N. Charter, Article 51.
Israel is well familiar with that Charter provision, which it invoked at the outbreak of the June 1967 war. But, of course, Israel's appeal went nowhere when it was quickly ascertained that Israel had launched the attack. Israel did not follow this course in November, knowing what would be revealed in a Security Council debate.
Another narrow response would be to agree to a truce, as appeared quite possible before the operation was launched on Nov. 14.
There are more far-reaching responses. By coincidence, one is discussed in the current issue of the journal National Interest. Asia scholars Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen describe China's reaction after rioting in western Xinjiang province, "in which mobs of Uighurs marched around the city beating hapless Han (Chinese) to death."
Chinese president Hu Jintao quickly flew to the province to take charge; senior leaders in the security establishment were fired; and a wide range of development projects were undertaken to address underlying causes of the unrest.
In Gaza, too, a civilized reaction is possible. The U.S. and Israel could end the merciless, unremitting assault, open the borders and provide for reconstruction - and if it were imaginable, reparations for decades of violence and repression.
The cease-fire agreement stated that the measures to implement the end of the siege and the targeting of residents in border areas "shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the cease-fire."
There is no sign of steps in this direction. Nor is there any indication of a U.S.-Israeli willingness to rescind their separation of Gaza from the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords, to end the illegal settlement and development programs in the West Bank that are designed to undermine a political settlement, or in any other way to abandon the rejectionism of the past decades.
Someday, and it must be soon, the world will respond to the plea issued by the distinguished Gazan human-rights lawyer Raji Sourani while the bombs were once again raining down on defenseless civilians in Gaza: "We demand justice and accountability. We dream of a normal life, in freedom and dignity."
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Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
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For example, the opening salvo of this idiotic rant ...
"You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back."
Like that is some kind of foolishness I do not expect from Chomsky, to use that kind of sloppy metaphor to blame the Jews and Israel. There is something wrong with Chomsky on this issue since he virtually never mentions any violence in context of the Palestinians without blaming Israel, never.
That proves he is just biased.
So it did, though chiefly out of opposition to colonial Britain and France rather than out of anti-Semitism.
Obn the other hand, Israel had no hesitation about partnering with apartheid South Africa in developing nuclear weapons, despite the latter's racist ideology and history of sheltering Nazi war criminals.
Israelis and all countries with intelligence forces find themselves doing what seem like bad things when they come to light. There is not a country that violates that principle, yet time after time when Palestinians are mentioned in the media there is zero admission that they ever do anything wrong, to the inclusion of firing rockets into Israel is just ignorable.
People that think so stupid are going to go extinct, and they would if they did not have military support and coersion to be that way from other Muslims states.
The most shameful people in the world today are the Sephardim. They kill their blood brothers to promote a foreign evil which will rebound onto the Jewish People like the blast wave of a nuclear weapon. If I am Jewish and my twin becomes Muslim and I kill him, I am guilty of fraticide, the REAL original sin in that tradition. If I team with genetic aliens against my cogenetic brethren, am I evil? Yes. By all biological imperatives, I am evil. The Sephardim are murdering their genetic brethren in Palestine to promote the foreign Eurasian Ashkenazi Khazaris who do not share G-d's Covenant (with THE SEED of Israel). The true Palestinians are converted Jews and their descendents who, whether through Moses or Mohammed, are of the Covenant. The Sephardim kill their own in service to ashkenazi goyim. Can there be a greater shame?
I think you need to question some of your very deep beliefs if you think this, it is simply not true in profitable way of looking at things.
Also, your denegration of both sehpardic and askenazi jews and your embrace of the whoe Khazar origin theory betrays i think an underlying anti-semitism though you try and couch it in seemingly "benign and or "scientific" "terms. Your use of the term "psychopathic" is also a giveaway as are comments by those who are completely uncritical of israeli state policy who descend into racialized notions/comment s about arabs/palestini ans (the use of animal references/anal ogies seems to be one of the constants here on both sides)....dehum anizing those you disagree with is one of the first steps in being able to justify the oppression since the "enemy" is made out to be something less than human or civilized.
Oh yeah, brux, about the above... you must've learned your history on a Fox history special. The main collaborators with the Nazis and those most responsible for breaking the worldwide boycott of German goods in the 1930s were...tada...t he zionists. Look up something called the "Exchange Agreement" whereby the zionists were able to extort every penny out of Jewish Germans and give much of it to Hitler. While you're at it, look up "One cow in Palestine" and you will know EXACTLY what the Kazhari zionists thought of Jews then, and still do now. And Jewish Americans are just as foolish as Jewish Germans were. Part of the strategy was to put so much pressure on the Jewish Germans that the zionists could then funnel able-bodied people to Palestine where NO ONE wanted to go voluntarily. It was a sentence to Hard Labor and no frills on a Marxian commune (kibbutz). Read more, brux. Then talk. Get out of 'brux' and become a fellow non-ismist human, strangers in a strange land.
I am assuming your reference to the "Exchange Agreement" is meant to refer to the Transfer Agreement and zionist opposition to those calling for a boycott movement instead. In retrospect, it is easy to criticize this decision but your comments show a total lack of understanding (or a deliberatley selective one) as to both the context and rationale for zionist support of such an agreement. Your reference to "Kazhari zionists" and painting them all as "Marxian" because of the kibbutz movement is also very telling. Your take is as misguided as Brux's repeated posts about the so-called "alliance" between the Palestinians and the Nazis which had everything to do with the larger geopolitical context (i.e., the brits controlled Palestine and the Germans were fighting the brits) rather than an embrace of Nazi ideology.
I see that this touched a nerve. What exactly do you see that is in any way inaccurate? All you have to do is follow the news, even from Israeli newspapers, and you would have no problem at all recognizing the truth of the statement.
I suspect that the reason this bothers you so much is that it is the weakest point in your blinder ridden position that somehow Israel is the victim in this dispute. Knowing that not only has Israel been historically the bad guy in this confrontation, but that they were also responsible for initiating the present hostilities when they killed a couple Gazan kids who were playing soccer. Until then there had been a lull in the rockets fired into Israel.
Brux, while i think it was a serious mistake for Arabs/Palestini ans to "side" with the Nazis i suspect you know that this was about global geo-politics i.e., the germans were against the british and the british controlled Palestine and therefore the enemy of my enemy is my friend...i don't agree with the logic but it is misleading to imply that Arab/Palestinia n nationalists embraced Nazi ideology and this was the reason for the alliance such that it was.
Gandhi on Palestine, " according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds." refer to Ken Halt's comment below. Gandhi's 'Satyagraha' (Hindi 'truth-search') is based in active 'dialectic' engagement of 'both-sides'. asking, "What are your best intentions & how can we help you achieve these?"
India's 'swaraj' ('self-sufficie ncy') as the foundation for Indian independence engaged people economically in mutual-aid. The national flag has a picture of the Spinning Wheel for making thread, the sari is worn or simplicity, Ashram collective living for housing, locally-grown food according to the orchard-garden traditions & making salt from the ocean. Mass marches were held not to protest but to celebrate the people's accomplishments.
Missing is international swaraj solidarity so humanity is standing with both the people of Palestine & Israel who are both having apartheid & religion thrust down their throats by international financier-milit ary cabals. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/2-satyagraha
My own view at this point is that the Palestinians need to recognize that they cannot "win" militarily against the Israelis and that the use of violence which was probably necessary in order to get any attention on the world stage has now become self-defeating and merely serves to bolster the most reactionary forces in Israel and outside. A far more effective tactic at this point would be for the entire Palestinian movement to adopt a Ghandian style movement of non-violent civil disobedience as the prime weapon of resistance. This would make it much more difficult for the Israelis to continue their militaristic assaults, garnish much more support from the international community. It would also help rekindle the Israeli peace movement which has never really recovered since the second intifada and the use of suicide bombings in Israel proper.
I am not a pacifist but the use of violence is a tactic and not a strategy or an end in itself and as long as rockets (no matter how "amateur" they may be) continue to be shot into Israel it only serves to strengthen the Israeli right-wing which is self-defeating at best fo rthe Palestinians.
First, here's a piece that talks about this in general.
http://www.movements.org/blog/entry/a-non-violent-protest-movement-grows-in-the-west-bank1/
Non-violent civil disobedience could be used in a variety of situations e.g., protesting the construction of new settlements (taking over roads, blocking construction vehicles etc). It can also be used as a "counter-occupa tion" to "occupy" areas that the Israeli's have said they want to expand into...a peaceful mass march from gaza to the est bank or vice-versa to highlight the lack of freedom of movement....squ atting in areas that the Israelis say they want to move into...protests can also be held at critical infrastructure sites such as those related to the supply of water to highlight Israeli control and unfair distribution of such critical resources...tar geted economic boycotts can also be effective in certain situations....t argeted "shopping" to gum up targeted businesses (e.g., targeting a bank with tons of people that come in pretending to want to open accounts or convert currency)...bot tom line is that there are a variety and multiple possibilities in terms of both "targets" and the types of "actions" but because they are non-violent they tend to be seen as taking the "moral highground" and thus would make it harder for the Israelis to continue their military response and agression and also undercut their support in the international community.
I would never say that a strategy built upon non-violent civil disobedience is not risky or that people will not be hurt and or killed even when employing such tactics. Nor did i say that somehow if only the palestinians embraced such a tactic that somehow miraculously the israelis would "see the light". That is not the question. The question is how effective have the tactics been in getting the palestinians the state that they want? And, what has been the cost for their own people.
My contention is simply that the tactics that are currently being used have been counter productive for many years and it is the palestinian people as a whole that have suffered the results. This is not to say that Israel is not responsible for its actions, for the occupation and for the treatment of the palestinians; of course they are. but recognizing this doesn't get you anywhere i.e., it has nothing to do with the tactics you employ to change the situation or move you towards achieving your end goal.
Decisions are being made for them by groups like Hamas, just as decisions are being made for us by the U.S. government, over which we have no control.
Whatever the motives of Hamas in pursuing this self-destructiv e course, Israel's government has shown that they have no moral high ground whatsoever, killing so many civilians in obscenely one-sided engagements, while the militants remain relatively untouched.
Israel exists, and it's not going to go away. But its ruling class is a stain on its character. What is needed is a working class federation of Israelis and Palestinians opposing the policies and tactics of the leadership of both peoples.
This policy of oppression has worked well until recently, but they have no plan B so they continue with what has worked so well in the past.
do you really think white southern racists in this country had a "modicum of conscience."?
I agree with your take on what the Israelis have done/how they have treated the Palestinians but again the question is what tactics can both the palestinians and the israeli peace movement use to achieve the goals of a palestinian state and a just and lasting peace for both sides? Given the current situation and conditions under which palestinians live i don't see how anyone can say their tactics have been particularly successful.
I also agree with texas aggie; however, the most difficult aspect of non-violence is the amount of human sacrifice required to bring about a "modicum of conscience" & focus world attention. it's not for everybody & requires lots of training. Anybody training palestinians is likely to be murdered as a "terrorist"
Thinking of India, S. Africa, & the US civil rights movement, I think non-violence is accepted best by those who must make these sacrifices when there are no real alternatives left. I'm not sure the palestinians have hit this stage. They are too misdirected with false hopes by political players in the mideast (arabs, iran, israel, us, etc) & thus still have hope that violence can solve this problem. In this, I believe, they are wrong.
I am fully aware of the lack of freedom of movement but this does not mean that non-violent civil disobedience cannot be employed...it may be different in the west bank vs. gaza but the tactic overall can still be used....e.g., a massive march of those either in gaza or the west bank to try and reach the other (which could be joined by progressive israelis and those from the outside world) to highlight this issue and the inherent unfairness of these restrictions on freedom of movement.
i'm not naive enough to think this will be an easy struggle or that the israelis will miraculously see the light but i don't see how anyone can say that the tactics that have been employed by the palestinians at least since the second intifada if not before have been in any way successful or helped move towards a viable palestinian state based on the pre-67 borders which is the goal.
"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds." Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr.
countthevotes, i appreciate your comment and i do understand who i'm dealing with when responding to these type of comments so my responses are more directed at the other posters as i think whether they are anti-jewish or anti-palestinia n comments need to be challenged.
Maybe he studied Gingrich's "How to talk like Newt" booklet...maybe what the liberal wing of the Democratic Party needs about a hundred more Chomskys...
Now, well ashamed ...of both!
(Enough propaganda,. The Truth is.... what it Is!)
This is..... 'The Planet of The Apes'.....
how about some critical thinking?
one can oppose the israeli occupation, treatment of the palestinians etc., while at the same time recognizing (or at least being open to the possibility) that the palestinian leadership has not been perfect or has not made mistakes or that the tactics that they are currently using are not effective and are not helping them achieve their goal. this is not condeming the palestinians or their cause. but being "right" doesn't automatically get you what you want and there is where an understanding of and a critical assessment of tactics is essential. unfortunately it seems that few on this board want to engage in any serious critical thinking or discussion about what's working, what isn't and how to develop and employ tactics that actually work.
and so i disagree that "they use what weapons they have" because this presumes that a well organized mass campaign of non-violent civil disobedience is either not a "weapon" or would not be an effective one. and, sometimes, young men (or young people in general) who feel like they will "lose their very manhood" need to be shown through deeds as well as words that "manhood" does not equal the use of violence (as a tactic) and that to employ non-violent tactics is not being a wuss or mean that you are any less of "a man"...otherwis e we are just accepting alot of macho patriarchal crap about what it means to be a "real man"
All one has to be able to do is read...lots of reading....with an open mind.
Maybe not, but it's pretty easy to understand the concept of bullying. Israel is acting like the bully in the playground, trying to drive out all the smaller, weaker children in order to have the playground all to himself. And his parents are oh so proud of him for his exploits, and support him in every way possible.
The bully was victimized when he was weaker and had no way to protect himself, and he grew up to be exactly like those who hurt him.
Pretty much the same dynamic at work here.
Rockets (like violence or non-violent civil disobedience) are a tactic and so "we" should always be asking/question ing how effective the tactics are and when they are not effective we should always be open to changing them and not fetishize or get stuck in using the same tactics over and over is they are not helping to accomplish our goal.
So, i would agree that in some ways the rockets are "an avenue of last resort" but this does not make them effective and if they are not it seems to me it is more a commentary on the failings of the palestinian leadership (just because one criticizes Israel does not or should not mean that we are uncritical of the Palestinians) to develop and support other tactics that perhaps have the possibility of being much more effective. there have been/are efforts by some Palestinians to develop a non-violent civil disobedience movement but it has not been embraced by the leadership of either Fatah or Hamas.
It's time for the Palestinian to adopt a new strategy and change their tactics. A Ghandian approach may not achieve immediate results, but it sure would go a long way to reducing American support for Israel without which there might be a much better chance for peace.
I wouldn't want one to go off in my lap, but their punch is trivial compared to IDF artillery.
Recently, more distant Israeli targets have been attacked. Are those Katyusha rockets with greater range/payload? Anyone know?
the point is not how "effective" the rockets are but rather what is their political impact and here i would argue the only thing the rocket attacks do is bolster the most reactionary forces in Israel and allow them to play on the very real fears of the israelis within range of the rockets. and so if this is the case then how to the rocket attacks advance the palestinian struggle for a state and lasting peace?
Actually Ken, my comment is not based on the presumption that Israel (if by this you mean the Israeli gov't as opposed to the Israeli population who still show, in public oppinion polls, that they support the two-state solution based on pre-67 borders). My comment was only addressing Palestinian tactics regardless of whether the Israeli gov't is serious about making peace and creating a viable palestinian state.
We are controlled by the lobby.
Can you imagine a foreign government minister making obligatory statements about privileging Jewish or any other religious advantage, in any country with 50% of the population who have Christian, Islamic & other beliefs? To describe any state in terms of one particular religion or another is not only an affront to those of different belief but as well to those holding that particular belief. Belief is never meant to be forced upon any people through segregation, discrimination or by any means. Canada is a colonial country without perceived obligation to the rights & heritage of indigenous peoples. Baird is a corporate manipulator. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/home/2-mutual-aid
Then Iran, Guatemala and onwards all over the globe.
Israel had a good teacher and financier in the US -and the UK, who passed on the Imperial Baton on in that oft-trotted out "special relationship".
BTW, the British "Empah" didn't fold peacefully, Ghandi notwithstanding ; it collapsed under it's own arrogance and the incompetence of the upper-class dolts who ran things, weakened by WW11, a strong resistance overseas from the likes of Abdul Nasser and a burgeoning, powerful working class labor movement within, demanding their share of the fruits of their hard work, infrastructure building and factory production.
I was a kid then and there and still remember it all surprisingly clearly.
We are not only polarized politically at home but we have cut ourselves off from the rest of the world by continuing down this insane path.
I am not anti-Semitic. I support Israel's right to exist. Their borders were clearly defined - in 1948.
Absolutely right on!
I can never forgive them for what they did to these thousand year old olive groves, the drinking water was bad enough but that's what I meant by my note about "Scorched earth" policy or state-sanctione d -even encouraged- vandalism and earth-rape or as it is put nicely in diplomatic circles, "By any means necessary".
Last time I looked, that was not Israel or anybody else's "right to defend itself! It is naked, sadistic, genocidal aggression.
And does anybody remember Rachel Corrie, mown down and killed in cold blood by a US-made bulldozer, like the olive and citrus groves; Caterpillar I believe.
B.T.W., Chomsky was recently denied entry into Israel where he was to give a speech at a university there; so he must be doing something right to proto-Fascist LIKUD and their war-hungry Yahoo of a leader.
Mr Chomsky however does it with historical facts to back up his argument.
Israel was not "duly constituted by the United Nations".
"On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of a 'Plan of Partition with Economic Union'.... The plan was to replace the British Mandate with 'Independent Arab and Jewish States'...."
However, "[n]either Britain nor the UN Security Council acted to implement the resolution.... during the period between the adoption of Resolution 181(II) and the termination of the British Mandate."
Meanwhile, while Britain balked and ran out the clock, rising sectarian violence "caused the US to withdraw their support for the Partition plan". The British withdrew their forces, while "Tiberias, Haifa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffa and Acre fell" to the Zionists, "resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs."
Finally, "[o]n May 14, 1948, on the day in which the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Jewish People's Council ... approved a proclamation declaring the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel."
--Wikipedia
The Partition Plan was strenuously objected to by one of the parties to it, and it was never implemented by the U.N.
Empires ebb and flow, we called it Manifest Destiny in America. Not exactly fair to all parties. Unilke the settlers in America, Israel shows written claim to their land over 3000 years ago. Jews have claims to Jerusalem real estate over 1500 years prior to Muhammadanism.
We can weep for the Palestinian Arabs, and they MUST be recompensed. But it is a fools errand, and Sage Chomsky knows full well he is milking this story by painting Israel as bad boy. Next installment will be Juan Cole, then President Carter's turn, bla bla...
Reality strikes when Israel is pushed to the wall, Syrian/Iranian WMD lands in Tel Aviv, and Damascus goes missing, along with Iranian military infrastructure. If Egypt gets brave enough to jump in, say goodbye to the Aswan Dam. Will that make the peace coterie satisfied?
USA citizens by the tens of thousands could write a similar if less stark, sad Palestinian story line, having lost family homes, farms and businesses to the US highway and redevelopment processes of the last 60 years. The fewusing violence as redress were incarcerated.
Whether or not Palestinians receive just compensation has not been a concern of nations and belief systems aimed at destroying Eretz Israel.
And what written claim does Israel have? You surely don't regard religious texts as having validity, do you? And if you do, then why do you feel that present day Israelis whose ancestors either fled Palestine at the behest of the Romans or never lived anywhere near there have a better claim to the land than those whose ancestors stayed in the face of the Roman tyranny and then later converted to Islam? And you do realize that the very religious texts that you claim gave the land to the Issac's offspring gave prior claim to Ishmael, don't you?
You do notice that these people at least got monetary compensation, don't you? Whether it was what they wanted is a different story, but the Palestinians get killed.
Incidentally, the UN General Assembly just passed a resolution calling for Israel to allow weapons inspectors to inspect the Israeli nuclear stock pile. The usual suspects voted no with the rest of the civilized world voting yes.
Another good analogy with the American Indians "Living in Harmony", stolen land, theocratic aggression.
BTW, Islam dates back only to 682 AD (or in there somewhere) and acknowledges Jesus as a former prophet. So who put him to death as a freedom fighter and prophet? Not really the Romans but the Sanhedrin (Israelite priesthood) greed-mongers for shaming their profiteering and money -lending and changing activities within' the allegedly sacred precincts of their own temple.
Such a proud history.
demonstrate what is anti-semitic here.
Israel has meted out collective punishment in response to the acts of a few people. That's a war crime.
I wish people here would qualify their remarks by referring to Hamas and the Israel government, rather than collectively to all the people of either place.
You can only call Israel a democracy if you ignore all the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories who live under Israeli control but do not have any right to vote in Israel's elections.
Considering that any Jewish person from any part of the world is welcome to immigrate to Israel, but Palestinians who were born in that land have no right to return, I think it'd be more accurate to describe Israel as a beacon of ethnic-religiou s nationalism.
Haven't you heard Gaza is under a total Israeli blockade? Nothing goes in or comes out unless the Chosen say so. Gaza received some EU aid in the past in terms of infrastructure which Israel promptly trashed at the next opportune moment.
And you don't know about the tunnels?
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/17/244326.html
More to the point, why does everyone keep repeating that Hamas wants the destruction of Israel and Hamas does not recognize Israel, as if Israelis have the primary right to exist? Israel has destroyed and is in the process of destroying historic Palestine and the livelihood of its indigenous people, and does NOT recognize Palestine and does NOT accept Palestinian's right to exist on their land. Israelis complain about others wishing to get rid of them while THEY ARE IN FACT GETTING RID OF THE OTHERS.
Talk about hypocrisy.
Savage colonialism. It is there before our eyes and too few wish to recognize it for what it is.
Now that the UN General Assembly has finally found its backbone it should impose the sanction. After all if the USA can impose unilateral sanctions certainly the member states of the UN can join together to impose an international one. This could be the 1st step in moving the UNSC to a committee of the General Assembly(UNGC) that recommends action. Making UNGA decisions binding rather than UNSC. The power should be with all the nation of the UN not 10% UNSC. If it was there would be peace today.
Shlomo Sand recently answered a question from the audience about the term "anti-Semitism" . The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speakin g peoples originating in southwestern Asia, so the way it is used specifically for Jews is completely wrong. He felt we should use the word Judophobia or Judaeophobia and I agree. It is not different to modern-day Islamophobia, except that it has a much longer, multi-faceted history, not being the same in Europe as recently in the Middle East, where I would call it "anti-Zionism". The (Jewish) woman asking the question preferred to call it "Judenhass", which is a really nasty word and if I were Jewish I wouldn't want to use it, firstly because it's German and secondly because it places me firmly in the position of being the victim.
It is amusing and tragic to see the film "Defamation" on youtube, which shows the paranoia associated with anti-semitism and the lengths to which that is taken.
If only YOU knew more about the violence done to the Palestinians since the 1940's.
Just to be facetious, what right does Israel have to exist? The right of might? The Balfour Declaration and the UN partition of Palestine were not, objectively speaking, rightful decisions. They are decisions no other country would have accepted and the Palestinians didn't wish to either! They were forced to and are forced to suffer now as more land is appropriated against their will and the will of almost all nations.
I think it says a lot for the majority of Palestinians that they are prepared to live with their Jewish neighbours, despite the dreadful crimes committed against them up to this day. And we should accept that, even though we hate violence of any kind, Palestinians have a right to resist the terror of Israel. Let us look, however, at Israelis, the majority of whom do not wish to live with their neighbours and have been turned by their own government and education system into racist and arrogant colonial supremacists who believe it is right to bombard an unarmed population with deadly weapons of mass destruction.
If only....Zionism had never been thought up! If only Jews had emigrated to Palestine in smaller numbers so they could integrate! If only America and England had not turned so many Jews away!
If only you would read "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" and even "When and How Was the Land of Israel Invented?”.
Alan Dershowitz is a great lawyer, but his obvious Israel bias exudes out of every pore in his body. What he did to Norm Finkelstein was unsupportable from any intellectually honest perspective. BTW, Norm was not at Purdue. He was at DePaul. Yes, he has always been a little shrill, but his scholarship is unassailable.
I have found University of Michigan Professor Mark Tessler's "A History of the Israeli-Palesti nian Conflict" an excellent primer on very complex and deeply divisive issues (as is apparent from the discussions here).
When Chomsky decries the media, note that he qualifies "American" sources. Anyone who has read Chomsky for years knows that he often provides references to international media and even to Israeli scholarship. Finkelstein also has done that. Both have expanded the discourse by revealing that there have long been voices within Israel itslef that have opposed the radical policies of their government against Palestinians.
I am a little bit surprised that nobody made any reference to Australian John Pilger. No video journalist has committed such a long time to revealing truth in the face of power. His "Palestine is still the issue," published in 1977 was updated twenty years later. I think it is safe to say that in 2012-13, it is “still” the issue. If you have not seen it, you owe yourselves the experience.
many thanks again for speaking out the truth about the Middle East. This is exactly what I have been observing for many years. I see almost all the options on the side of the Israelians - and almost none on the side of the Palaestinians. However, I have learned that rather the whole Middle East will blow up before Israel is willing to acknowledge the existence of the Palaestinians.
In Europe we constantly read about "the never-ending spiral of violence" in that miserable region - however, western journalists fail to recognize that each and every turn of the spiral has a distinct beginning, an that starts in Israel.
Just recently an extremely violent round in that spiral ended. At last, the Palaestinians were granted an observation status in the UN. What is Netanjahu's reaction to this long overdue act of due recognition? He announces the next raid to steal land and to again build Israelian settlements - knowing that with this theft of land it will simply not be possible for the Palaestinians to sustain a self-supportive territory. And he does this against the rage, objections and warnings of the entire sensible world - but he, Netanjahu doesn't care. He even freezes tax payments to the Palaestinians who need it desperately to start building up again what has been destroyed.
Clearly, what I see is that the so-called "spiral of violence in the Middle East" definitely has a recognizable beginning - and that, with each and every turn start in Israel.
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