Anti-Semitism,
Zionism, and the Palestinians
Noam Chomsky
It's useful to mention a moral principle that's so trivial it's
embarrassing - the reason for doing so is it's near universally
disregarded. It's easy (and not even gratifying) to criticise and
condemn the crimes of others. It's a little harder to look in the
mirror and ask what we're doing because it's usually not very
pretty, and if we're minimally decent we're going to try to
do something about it. When we do, depending on where you are in the world
the problems can vary. In some countries it can mean prison, brutal torture,
or getting your brains blown out. In countries like ours its condemnation,
the loss of job opportunities, or something mild by international standards.
It's much harder than to just talk about how awful the other guy
is. For example, there's a US literary genre developing with many
books, articles and passionate discussions about a flaw in our character:
'We don't react properly to the crimes of others', and
'What's the matter with us that prevents us from doing this?'
There are obviously much bigger problems - like why do we continue
to participate in massive atrocities, repression, terror, but we don't
do anything about it? But there's no literary genre on that. All
of that shouldn't be necessary to say, but I've said it. Beginning
with anti-Semitism. In the US when I was growing up anti-Semitism was
a severe problem. In the 1930's depression when my father finally
had enough money to buy a second-hand car and could take the family on
a trip to the mountains, if we wanted to stop at a motel we had to check
it didn't have a sign saying 'Restricted'. 'Restricted'
meant no Jews, so not for us; of course no Blacks. Even when I got to
Harvard 50 years ago you could cut the anti-Semitism with a knife. There
was almost no Jewish faculty. I think the first Jewish maths professor
was appointed while I was there in the early '50s. One of the reasons
MIT (where I now am) became a great university is because a lot of people
who went on to become academic stars couldn't get jobs at Harvard-so
they came to the engineering school down the street. Just 30 years ago
(1960s) when my wife and I had young children, we decided to move to a
Boston suburb (we couldn't afford the rents near Cambridge any longer).
We asked a real estate agent about one town we were interested in, he
told us: 'Well, you wouldn't be happy there.' Meaning they
don't allow Jews. It's not like sending people to concentration
and termination camps but that's anti-Semitism. That was almost completely
national. By now Jews in the US are the most privileged and influential
part of the population. You find occasional instances of anti-Semitism
but they are marginal. There's plenty of racism, but it's directed
against Blacks, Latinos, Arabs are targets of enormous racism, and those
problems are real. Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem, fortunately.
It's raised, but it's raised because privileged people want
to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control. That's
why anti-Semitism is becoming an issue. Not because of the threat of anti-Semitism;
they want to make sure there's no critical look at the policies the
US (and they themselves) support in the Middle East. With regard to anti-Semitism,
the distinguished Israeli statesman Abba Eban pointed out the main task
of Israeli propaganda (they would call it exclamation, what's called
'propaganda' when others do it) is to make it clear to the world
there's no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. By
anti-Zionism he meant criticisms of the current policies of the State
of Israel. So there's no difference between criticism of policies
of the State of Israel and anti-Semitism, because if he can establish
'that' then he can undercut all criticism by invoking the Nazis
and that will silence people. We should bear it in mind when there's
talk in the US about anti-Semitism.
To turn to what are called the problems of Israel / Palestine, that's
a misnomer. It should be called the problems of US-Israel versus Palestine.
Britain is also involved in its usual manner - a British Foreign Officer
in WW II said that 'from now on Britain is not going to be an independent
actor in world affairs, its going to be junior partner to the US.'
Essentially correct. (There are less flattering terms used now in the
British press, but the picture is about the same.) Britain doesn't
play an initiating, active role in the conflict but a passive role essentially
supporting the US. The US plays an overwhelming and decisive role. Europe
can play an independent role; insofar as it chooses not to act and to
use its influence it is essentially supporting what the US does. I'm
not going to try to run through the history of the conflict, so let's
take the current Intifada and the military aspects which are revealing.
A few weeks ago in the Hebrew press there was a report by a well known,
respected military correspondent attending a meeting of high Israeli military
officials discussing the military tactics in the Intifada. One of the
officers asked for information about ordnance: How many bullets got fired?
The information came back from the IDF (the Israeli army) that "in
the first few days of the Intifada [Sept 30th 2000 and the next few days]
the IDF fired a million bullets." There was some surprise, it sounded
high, and one officer said kind of bitterly (they don't necessarily
like the orders they're given to carry out): 'That means approximately
one bullet for every Palestinian child.' Remember what was going
on then, some teenagers throwing stones. The same article reported another
military source who gave a graphic illustration of how it works. He reported
that an official from the Palestinian authority who had a European visitor
in the first weeks of the Intifada wanted to illustrate to him how it
works, so he had his body guard shoot a single bullet. That was followed
by two hours of heavy Israeli gun fire aiming at no particular target
in response to a single bullet that was fired. In the first month of the
Intifada (according to Israeli sources) the ratio of deaths was about
20 to 1 (75 Palestinians / 4 Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Territories).
Another example, in the first days of the Intifada Israel immediately
began using what are called in the press 'Israeli helicopters'.
They're not Israeli helicopters, they're US helicopters with
Israeli pilots that were used to attack civilian complexes, killing and
wounding dozens of people. That was sort of reported, it wasn't a
secret. That's in response to stone throwing, at most. The US did
react to that officially. October 3rd 2000, the Clinton administration
made the biggest deal in a decade to send new military helicopters to
Israel, along with more parts for Apache Attack helicopters - the most
advanced in the arsenal which had been sent in September. It's not
that they didn't know what they were using them for, you could read
that in the newspapers. They were using them to attack and murder civilians.
But they needed more because a million bullets in the first few days isn't
enough so we need to send them attack helicopters and missiles. When you
hear of the atrocities in Gaza (July 22nd 2002, 14 civilians killed by
a helicopter missile attack) that's thanks to the US government,
and its allies who didn't raise a finger. How did the American press
respond to this? They did report helicopters attacking civilians, but
the deal made by the Clinton administration (the biggest in a decade for
military helicopters) went literally without report. To be precise, one
opinion column in a small newspaper in Virginia mentioned it. That's
it for the 'free' press. It's not that they didn't
know about it. It was all over the Israeli press, and there were queries
to the Pentagon from European reporters asking what are the conditions
on the sale of these helicopters. They were told there are no conditions,
we don't second guess Israeli commanders, they use if for what they
want - and they knew what they were using it for. Two weeks later Amnesty
International had a report condemning this and no mention of that, which
continues. The reason is, it is considered the right thing to do for the
West. Remember Israel is virtually a US military base, an offshoot of
the US military system. The same reporter quoted a General as saying:
'Israel is no longer a state with an army, it's now an army
with a state.' If you're talking about the Israeli government
you're talking about the military. The top political figures are
almost always ex-Generals, chiefs of staff and so on. It's not a
small army, according to the IDF and analysts their air, naval, armour
forces are larger and more advanced than those of any NATO power outside
of the US, and as an offshoot it certainly is. So we have an army with
a State, the army's basically a branch of the Pentagon. That's
the system and it's considered right for them to use these kinds
of tactics - a million bullets in the first few days, US helicopters
to murder civilians. So we send them more helicopters and so on, because
it's a normal way for things to be, and it goes way back. If you
know your history of the British Empire you can find many examples. To
cite one, 1932, the distinguished British statesman Lloyd George wrote
in his diary: 'We have to reserve the right to bomb niggers.'
He was referring to the fact Britain had just succeeded in undermining
an international disarmament conference which was attempting to put restrictions
on the use of air power to attack civilians. Britain very quickly understood
that use of air power to attack civilians was far more cost effective
and murderous than using ground forces. In parts of the Empire where they
no longer had the power to control by ground forces they turned to air
power - in the Arab world, against Kurds, Afghans, Iraqis, others who
were not front pages. Air power was turning out to be a very effective
way to control and suppress civilian populations, hence Britain naturally
wanted to undermine disarmament conventions which would block it. (A precedent
its successors as global rulers also follow.) Lloyd George was commenting
on the British success in this, praising the Government for undermining
the treaty as: 'We have to reserve the right to bomb niggers.'
That's a fundamental principle of European civilisation, and basic
principles like that have a long life. People usually don't say it
publicly, but Lloyd George was correctly articulating their inner thoughts
and the reason that lies behind them, and what I just described in the
first few days of the Intifada is a perfect example.
We could go on from there up till today, and trace it back to the earliest
days of what has been from the beginning a harsh and brutal occupation.
In which for the most part Israel itself was immune from retaliation from
within the territories. It carried out oppressive, brutal often murderous
policies - mainly the usual imperial techniques: humiliation, degradation,
making sure that what are called the 'Arabushi' (Hebrew slang
for 'niggers') don't raise their heads and if they do they
get beaten down, meanwhile taking the land and resources, with the US
army. It's a US-Israeli operation which continues until today. All
of that was fine. It's only when the Arabushi did raise their heads
and the niggers started bombing us that it becomes a horrifying atrocity.
It is an atrocity, but it's not the first and it's not the largest,
something we would easily recognise if we were able to rise to the level
of looking in the mirror, thinking about ourselves and what we do.
Let me turn to the political. Once the Arabushi are beaten down and they
don't raise their heads any more then you can talk, and you move
to the stage called 'diplomacy'.
There was another recent article in the Hebrew press, this time our main
newspaper, the New York Times. The article (by a former high official
in the Foreign Office and vice president of Tel Aviv University) was translated
into English. In it he was reputing the idea that General / Prime Minister
Sharon doesn't have a strategy. He said Sharon does have a strategy,
one which goes way back. In the 1970s and '80s high officials in
the security establishment were paying close attention to what was going
on in South Africa, regarding it as a model that Israel should follow.
What was going on in South Africa was an effort to establish 'bantustans' - independent
black run homelands. The South Africa government in the depths of the
Apartheid regime was trying to gain international support for the idea
that these black-run States were viable independent States: the leadership
was black, the police forces were black, the population was mostly black.
To gain international support for them South Africa subsidised them, they
actually tried to develop industry, keep them viable somehow. Well the
world wouldn't go along, but the Israeli and I'm sure the US
establishment was keeping a close eye on them. (South Africa was an ally
of the US and Britain throughout this period. As late as 1988 the US government
identified Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress as "one
of the more notorious terrorist organisations of the world." The
US congress did try and impose sanctions on South Africa, which the Regan
administration finally passed after vetoing it but found ways around so
that US trade with South Africa actually increased in the late 1980s.
Britain was playing similar games with Rhodesia, South Africa.) In 1993
the US and Israel moved to trying to impose a South African style solution-it's
called the Oslo Peace Process. The Oslo Peace Process was described quite
accurately by one of the leading Israeli doves, Shlomo Ben-Ami (Foreign
Minister under Ehud Barak and chief negotiator at Camp David). He said:
"The goal of the Oslo Process is to establish for the Palestinians
a neo-colonial dependency which will be permanent." That is to establish
a bantustan in the Occupied Territories. (He was from the dovish end of
the spectrum but it's a pretty narrow spectrum, as in most countries.)
Throughout the Oslo process Israel and the US jointly (you can't
do it without US authorisation or support) moved to institute a neo-colonial
dependency that would be permanent, bantustans essentially as the model.
So US-funded settlement programmes continued right through the Oslo years,
peaking in the last Clinton / Barak years. And settlement plans were continued
still further, Sharon escalated it - there is a spectrum but it's
the same policy. The settlements are built with an eye for the future-take
a look at a map. Take the map presented at Camp David. Camp David was
described by the US and much of the West as an amazing, magnanimous, generous
offer by Clinton and Barak which the terrible Palestinians turned down
and so therefore are responsible for their own fate. In the US no maps
were presented. That's crucial if you want to determine how magnanimous
and generous the offer was. If maps weren't presented there's
a reason: the maps would tell you exactly how magnanimous and generous
an offer it is (and it's better for the public not to know things
like that, particularly when you're praising the magnanimity and
magnificence of our great leaders). Maps were published in Israel. If
you look at the maps you'll discover exactly how generous the Camp
David offers were, and what Ben-Ami meant when talking of a 'permanent
neo-colonial dependency.' They reflect the settlement policies of
the Peres and Rabin Governments. Israel takes what's called Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is a vastly expanded area with no resemblance to the pre-1967
Jerusalem which was effectively annexed in violation of Security Council
orders. To the East of what's called Jerusalem there's an Israeli
settlement (which includes a city, Ma'al Adumim) extending virtually
to Jericho, which was established to all effect with the purpose of bisecting
the West Bank. (A town and settlement means infrastructure, roads, developments
on the sides of the roads and so forth). There's another development
in the north going to the settlement of Ariel and beyond which bisects
the Northern area. That's three basic cantons: one Northern around
Nablus, another central around Ramallah, another Southern, parts of Bethlehem.
These three cantons are separated from a small part of East Jerusalem
which would be under Palestinian administration. (Jerusalem is traditionally
the centre of Palestinian cultural, commercial, and other life in fact
for the whole region.) That's the West bank: four cantons, separated
from Gaza which is a fifth, and the fate of Gaza was unclear. That's
the generous settlement. You can see why maps aren't presented. It
should be stated however that Clinton / Barak did improve the situation
at Camp David, as prior to it the Palestinians in the West Bank were divided
into over 200 separated areas. (Some a couple of square kilometers surrounded
by barriers and road blocks, mainly for the purpose of humiliation and
degradation, they didn't serve any military function to speak of.)
They reduced it from over 227 to only 4. That's a step forward, a
step towards the South African solution, and notice from below because
the South African bantustans (whatever you think about them) were reasonably
viable by comparison to what was being offered the Palestinians. The settlement
programmes also insured the main resources (the best land in the West
Bank, the nice suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem) primarily were and would
remain under effective Israeli control with this outcome, and the Palestinians
would be able to have a neo-colonial dependency. Under the Oslo agreements
the Palestinian Authority which was established had the same role granted
by South Africa to the leadership of the black homelands. Their primary
role in South Africa was to ensure the security and safety of the white
population, to prevent that notorious terrorist organisation Nelson Mandela
and the ANC from harming the people that count. Meanwhile the people that
count reserve the 'right to bomb niggers' - that's a
constant. But the Arabs don't shoot back, for if they do they become
notorious terrorists. And the same is true in the Palestinian bantustan.
It was intended that the Palestinian Authority should be brutal, repressive
and corrupt. That's exactly what Israel and the US wanted, that's
why they liked Arafat. What they're criticising him for is correct,
he's supposed to be brutal, corrupt, repressive and control the population,
to sustain the neo-colonial dependency. Prime Minister Rahbin was very
frank about it, right after Oslo in the Hebrew press he said 'look,
if we give security control over to the Palestinian Authority they'll
be able to control the population without any concern about the high court,
or human rights organisations, or mothers and fathers who may not like
what their children are doing', and so on. And if Arafat robbed European
money, or his Authority lived in villas in Gaza while the population is
starving, that was fine as long as they did their job - they control
the population and ensure that the neo-colonial dependency is established,
and make sure the people that count don't get harmed. They can bomb
the niggers but they themselves don't get harmed. That was the policy
of the Clinton administration, and so it continues, until they raise their
heads. Then we get one million bullets, helicopters, two hours of firing
after a pistol shot, the horror from the West over the fact that the wrong
people are being attacked by atrocious actions - and they are undoubtedly
atrocious, but the gun fire is the wrong way. That's essentially
it, we can choose to disregard it but technically the facts are pretty
straight.
Questions: We recently had a demonstration (estimates of 400,000 people)
calling for no war on Iraq and freedom for Palestine. Do you think, to
some degree, we are the Achilles heel of the Bush / Blair alliance, and
what effect do you think a successful peace movement in Britain would
have on the peace movement in the US?
Noam Chomsky: (I'll have to be brief about each of the questions,
unfortunately, as they deserve long answers.)
The American ideological leaders understand exactly what you're saying
and therefore the demonstrations in England were very much played down.
The Palestine issue was barely mentioned, if at all. And the reasons are
very clear. They know that what you describe is the effect that happens:
there's an interaction. There's an active peace movement in
the US too. Big demonstrations took place last weekend, there's more
planned, and yes that's the Achilles heel. Popular courses and movements
don't follow orders. Populations (especially in more democratic countries
like ours) can influence and effect policies. That's the reason why
there is the suppression of information I described (including the marginalisation
of the protests in London), because of the realisation that people who
have power - if they choose to organise, act and exercise it - can
reverse these processes, both in Palestine and in the case of the war
against Iraq.
On the role of the UN, let's not mislead ourselves, the UN can act
exactly as far as the great powers authorise it to act. That means primarily
the US-Britain as kind of a reflexive support. What will it allow them
to do, what's the role of the UN? The countries in the UN would like
to do more, such as the Non-Aligned Movement. The Arab position representing
80% of the world population is totally different from that of the Western
powers. That's usually true but they're given very short shrift.
So that's the role of the UN, what we allow it to do.
What's in it for Blair? The US is the richest, most powerful country
in the world. Britain can be the junior partner, the attack dog when needed,
fits very well into British history. Then it gets whatever benefits come
from following the big guy. Or it can try to pursue an independent course.
That means facing costs, being honest, being a moral force and an effective
force, but those are harder traits.
Fox, CNN and the rest, is it outright propaganda? Surely not! There are
people in the media who have professional integrity, especially reporters
on the scene. As what they do gets filtered up through the institutions,
the editorial staffs and the forces that operate on them (corporate and
state powers) the picture changes. Things get filtered, shaped, organised,
sometimes totally excluded. I gave cases of total exclusion, something
pretty hard to achieve even in totalitarian States hence quite remarkable
when it happens in a free society, where it's done voluntarily. The
effect is a highly distorted version of the world. It may not be the one
reporters see, but it's the one that works its way through to the
system that's presented.
Public support for attack on Iraq? That's hard to answer because
it depends what the public thinks. The US declared a national emergency
in the 1980s because of the great danger to the national security of the
US posed by the government of Nicaragua. The President (the brave cowboy
in the White House) told us they were only two days march from Texas.
The Secretary of State (a moderate in the administration) informed Congress
that there is a cancer right here in our land mass, who's following
the plans of Mein Kampf and intending to conquer the hemisphere. And if
that wasn't bad enough there was a mad dog, Gadaffi, who was 'trying
to expel America from the world' as Regan put it, by arming the Nicaraguans
so that they could fight us on our home soil. And people were frightened.
Now they're being frightened by Saddam, who's undoubtedly a
monster. He's nowhere near as dangerous as when daddy Bush, Colin
Powell and the rest were coddling him, giving him aid and offering him
the means to develop weapons of mass destruction. Just as anyone would!
At a time when he was really dangerous, and after his worst atrocities
were past - the ones Blair tells you about - Britain and the US
continued to support him. You didn't hear about the gassing of the
Kurds then. He's still a threat to anyone within his reach though
the reach fortunately is much smaller, you can tell from the reactions
of the countries in the region. But it's easy to terrify people with
the threat Sadam's going to come and get you. And when people are
frightened they tend to support the use of violence. Over time (with educational
efforts, organising) that reduces and people's actual understanding
comes out. And it turns out the main concern of Americans (every poll
show this) is the economy. The Bush administration is carrying out a major
assault against the population here, the way the same people did under
Regan-they're recycled Reganites. The first thing they did under
Regan was drive the country into a deep deficit to undercut the possibility
of social spending. The Bush administration is doing the same. It worries
people, and the last thing the administration wants them to think about
(with the 2004 election coming up) is how do you take care of your elderly
mother, what's happening to your pension, why is the environment
being destroyed, why don't I have health care, why don't I have
a job? They want them to huddle in fear because a monster is going to
come and get them and therefore they'd better support power, the
whole package. So public support looks high but it's extremely thin
and can disappear very quickly.
The Hebrew press is much more open than the English language press, and
there's a very obvious reason: Hebrew is a secret language, you only
read it if you're inside the tribe. Like most cultures it's
a tribal culture. I don't want to exaggerate, but the English translations
on the internet are very revealing and very interesting.
Influence of Israel over the US elite? In my opinion essentially nothing.
They're very close. People like Richard Perle and others inside the
central power group within the US happen to be close to the ultra right
wing in Israel. Perle was actually writing position papers for Benjamin
Netanyahu (who's to the hawkish side of Sharon) just a few years
ago. So there's a lot of interaction but Israel can have no influence
on the US. If the US doesn't want them to do something it tells them
and they follow orders. We saw that with the pullout from Ramallah a couple
of days ago. That same point extends to the power of the Jewish lobby
and its backers - technically it's not a Jewish lobby, it's
a pro-Israel lobby. A substantial part of the lobby happen to be Christian
fundamentalists who in the US are a very important force. The US is one
of the most Fundamentalist cultures in the world - the proportion of
people who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago, there are
miracles and so on, is astounding. It's a fundamentalist society.
It's not institutionalised, so it's not like Iran with institutional
fundamentalism, but our culture is highly fundamentalist. The right wing
fundamentalist Christian block is very strong and mixed - some are
activists in the Solidarity movement, but overwhelmingly it's jingoistic
and supportive of Israel, also there's plenty of anti-Semitism. That's
not a contradiction. If you read the Book of Revelations (which they take
seriously) you'll see why. So you can be both an anti-Semitic Christian
fundamentalist and a strong supporter of Israeli oppression and atrocities.
It's not a contradiction and it's a real political force. So
there is an Israel lobby and it has influence insofar as it is allied
to actual US power. Where it runs into any conflict with US power it dissolves.
(Another factor is they have enormous influence over the media because
they happen to be strong within the intellectual community.) So yes, they're
powerful, but I wouldn't exaggerate their power.
A lot of what's going on now is aimed at keeping Bush in power. Take
the war on Iraq: their timing is critical - the war on Iraq has to
take place over the winter, you can't fight in the desert through
mid-summer, so it's got to be around February. It can't take
place in 2004 as you're in the middle of a presidential campaign.
At the time of the presidential campaign they want to make sure they have
a hero running for power who has a great victory behind him and maybe
the population won't pay attention to what's being done to them,
they'll be praising the hero. So the war has to be over by then and
there has to be a victory, so it has to be right now. So the tax cut which
is already harming the economy, and will be devastating, that's timed
to come in after the 2004 election. There is careful planning, but will
it work?
Is it a war for oil? Anything in that region of the world has something
to do with oil, that's not even questionable. Iraq has the second
largest oil reserves in the world, whoever controls it will be an extremely
powerful force in world affairs - apart from the fact there are huge
profits to be made. And it's always been clear that sooner or later
the US will move to take control over this. But that's been true
for a long time. I don't think that's to do with the timing,
it's in the background.
This is an edited transcript of a live video link-up from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology to public meetings called by the Scottish Palestine
Solidarity Campaign, and other groups & organisations, throughout
Scotland and the north of England, on Friday 11 October 2002.
Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Peace & Justice Centre
Princes Street
Edinburgh, EH2 4BJ
Tel: +44 (0)131 538 0257
email: palsolcam@blueyonder.co.uk
|