Humane, Peaceful and Viable Approaches to Preempting Jihad Terror
For a Change
Michael Hagos 2006
1
Abbreviations and Acronyms
AI = Amnesty International CIA = Central Intelligence Agency EU =
European Union GA = General Assembly ICJ = International Court of
Justice IDF = Israeli Defense Forces OT = Occupied Territories PA =
Palestinian Authority PLO = Palestinian Liberation Organization PM =
Prime Minister UDHR = Universal Declaration of Human Rights UN = United
Nations USSR = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics SC = UN Security
Council US = United States USG = United States Government WWII = World
War Two
2
Abstract
The primary aim and purpose of this thesis is to lay the theoretical and
politically practicable foundation for what a non-hegemonic,
justice-based peace may look like for the parties to the conflict in
question: <b style="color:black;background-color:#ff9999">Israel</b> and
Palestine. This is done by unearthing and deciphering the institutional,
geo-strategic and politico-religious imperatives underlying the
protracted IsraelPalestine conflict (using a wide range of sources,
mostly secondary), even if some focus will be put on human agency (i.e.,
on prominent actors, but also on the importance of independent peace
activism). The result of this thesis points to the fact <b
style="color:black;background-color:#ff9999">Israel</b>'s occupation of
Palestine is a de facto US occupation dictated primarily by energy
policies (but also by weapons-export-related domestic elite needs and
theological concerns), in conjunction with the Eisenhower Doctrine,
which effectively claimed another backyard for the US, besides Latin
America (so this is another archetypal case of power politics and a
testimony to the fact that conquest and expropriation are central
features of the prevailing politico-economic system). This state of
affairs insofar as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is concerned
threatens not only regional but even global stability, since this
conflict is volatile to the point of quite possibly endangering the
survival of the species, through the "Samson Complex," based on the
presumed need to obey the ideologicallyinspired "divine commandment" not
to relinquish land for peace.
Key Words:
1. How to Solve the U.S./ Israel Palestine Conflict. 2. Rehumanization
and Peace Cheaper than Demonization and Violence. 3.
U.S./Israeli-Palestinian relations. 4. U.S. Mideast policies. 5. State
terrorism versus suicide terrorism
3
Contents
5
Introduction
The thematic concepts of rehumanization and peace being intrinsically
normative, this paper is inevitably moralistic, albeit not
disparagingly, except so far as Zionism, anti-Semitism, jihad terror
(i.e., suicide terrorism) and other morally objectionable policies and
practices are concerned. Moreover, since the aim and purpose of this
thesis is to serve the utilitarian purpose of rehumanization and peace
in a conflict that has exacted a significant amount of human loss, pain
and suffering on both sides, it bears mention that there are a number of
obstacles that stand in the way of realizing peace, most notably the
"Samson Complex." Chapter 2, Section 1.2 is dedicated to removing this
obstacle, if only theoretically. That said, there is much to lose
regionally and/or globally as a result of Israel</b>'s refusal to
recognize Palestinians' rights to self-determination and nationhood (the
latter claim is substantiated in the following chapters), since such a
refusal is very likely to increase the threat of jihad terror regionally
and/or globally. Therefore, this thesis seeks to find ways to
theoretically reduce or, better yet, eliminate this threat, by exposing
and analyzing the most significant obstacles to non-hegemonic,
justice-based peace1 (hence by getting to the root causes that inspire
jihad terror). For these purposes, the following research questions are
instrumentally and principally significant.
Research Questions
1) What is the main source of turbulence, violence and bloodshed in
historic Palestine? 2) What is the "Samson Complex," how and why is it
an obstacle to peace, and how can it be overcome? 3) What are the most
humane and viable ways of achieving non-hegemonic, justicebased peace?
Literary Sources
The sources used to substantiate the most significant claims and
arguments in this thesis are mostly but not exclusively secondary:
books, articles and essays (by independent and partisan political
analysts and commentators); NGO reports (most notably Amnesty
International and the Israeli human rights group: B'Tselem); daily
online news services (most notably Ha'aretz); respectable journals of
opinion from the mainstream media establishment; views expressed by
leading figures of the political, military and religious echelons of
Israeli society; views expressed by independent Palestinian sources; the
US Department of State; the World Court; and etc.
Method
The overriding method used to ascertain a "as much as possible"
realistic picture of the IsraelPalestine conflict and how to achieve
non-hegemonic, justice-based peace between the conflicting parties (as
well as analyzing and theoretically challenging the obstacles that stand
in the way of realizing this kind of peace), is analytical, deductive
and argumentative. To a much lesser degree, it is also comparative and
narrative. There is also a normative and constructivist current
throughout this work, which is inevitable, in light of the fact that the
thematic concepts of 'rehumanization' and 'peace' are a central
component of this intrinsically normative thesis, even 6
if this normative character is coupled with a positivist and empirical
touch, depending on the given contexts and circumstances in question.
Granted, combining these methodological approaches (analytical,
deductive, argumentative, comparative, narrative, normative,
constructivist, positivist and empirical) can be confusing to the
reader. But the justification for combining these methodological
approaches lies in the fact that social and political realities are
infinitely complex. Hence, in order to capture and accurately depict
some important aspects of these realities (and to be able to lay the
theoretical foundation for non-hegemonic, justice-based peace), I
believe that it is necessary to have as many methodological approaches
or theoretical lenses as possible at one's disposal. Which, I would
contend, to varying degrees (in this thesis), all fall under the
overarching structure2 of a humanistic conception of social and
political life. But it also bears mention that the methodological
approaches or theoretical lenses enumerated above are not all lumped
together in this thesis, nor are they necessarily mutually exclusive
(since, in this case, many of them tend to overlap to a degree). It is
rather more likely that a combination of two or three of these
approaches or lenses are applied in any given context in this work, the
purpose of which is to avoid oversimplifying whatever complex realities
are being dealt with in different contexts and/or situations, and also
to avoid coming up with ill-conceived and anachronistic solutions for
achieving peace. For the record, since it is not possible to be
neutrally objective (hence value-free), it should be admitted that my
stance throughout this work is unapologetically anti-Zionist, but this
does not constitute a bias, given that Zionism was condemned by the
General Assembly in 1975 as a "form of racism and racial
discrimination." On the other hand, there is a seemingly proPalestinian
slant3 (in this work), which stems largely from my unapologetically
anti-Zionist (as opposed to anti-Semitic) and anti-jihad terror stance
(the reader is kindly urged to read Appendix 1 before starting to read
Chapter 1, in order to gain insights into the difference between
antiZionism and anti-Semitism). Finally, the theoretical tradition from
which this work emanates is partly cosmopolitan and partly classical
liberal (discussed in the next chapter).
7
Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework
Individuals have international duties which transcend the national
obligations of obedience... Therefore [individual citizens] have the
duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and
humanity from occurring. Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950
1.1. Cosmopolitanism on a Natural Law Basis
Cosmopolitanism is, in its essence, an internationalist perspective that
seeks to overcome parochial trivialities (such as nationalism, which,
according to Anton Pannekoek, is the essential creed of the
bourgeoisie). Cosmopolitanism's premise is based on the principle of one
race, one law, one economy, etc. (despite cultural differences), not
necessarily in the sense of uniformity, but in a globalized sense in
which the interdependence and interrelatedness of all parts of the world
is an undeniable fact. This is because all human beings are governed by
the same natural laws, even if their circumstances do vary quite a lot,
which is inevitable under inegalitarian systems (like state socialism
and state capitalism). So cosmopolitan democracy is a desideratum, since
the principles on which it is founded have an obvious validity to them.
These are, according to David Held: "(1) equal worth and dignity; (2)
active agency; (3) personal responsibility and accountability; (4)
consent; (5) collective decision-making about public matters [ - ]; (6)
inclusiveness [ - ]; (7) avoidance of serious harm; and (8)
sustainability." (Brighouse and Brock, 2005: 12) So even though a
cosmopolitan social order cannot and should not be imposed on the world
(regardless of where it is conceived and realized first), I am operating
under the assumption that all humans share a common ethical standard
that is innate. In other words, there appears to be evidence to the
effect that moral universals (e.g., the undifferentiated and commonly
shared conceptions of human rights and freedom among people of all
cultures) are constant, as well as consistent, despite a very wide range
of implicit and explicit human decisions in different social settings
and circumstances throughout the world, in the domain of will and choice
and judgment. A perfect example of this reads as follows:
'We are the product of 500 years of struggle.' The struggle today is
'for work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence,
freedom, democracy, justice, and peace.' (Zapatista declaration of war,
1993)
So the concerns of the Zapatistas, despite very different circumstances,
are not unlike ours, which is proof positive of moral universals, as
argued above, with the proviso that we are not dealing here with
conclusive evidence of the kind found in the hard sciences, since
scientific knowledge about human nature is as yet on the rudimentary
side. Of course, before a cosmopolitan order can be established, many
fundamental changes in cultural values and economic organization would
need to take place within the dominant societies, so that the playing
field is leveled between the exploitative (hence affluent) Northwest and
the exploited (hence artificially poor) Second and Third Worlds. This
leveling of the playing field cannot happen unless past injustices are
redressed. This is why Thomas Pogge "invoke[s] the effects of a common
and violent history, [since] the social starting positions of the
worse-off and the better-off have emerged from a single historical
process that was pervaded by massive grievous wrongs." (Brighouse and
Brock, 2005: 97) And he develops the latter argument thusly: 8
Most of the existing international inequality in standards of living was
built up in the colonial period when today's affluent countries ruled
today's poor regions of the world: trading their people like cattle,
destroying their political institutions and cultures, and taking their
natural resources - The relevant historical crimes were so horrendous,
so diverse, and so consequential that no historical-entitlement
conception could credibly support the conclusion that our common history
was sufficiently benign to justify even the radical inequalities in
starting positions we are witnessing today. [Hence] we are not entitled
to the huge advantages we enjoy from birth over the global poor, given
how these inequalities have been built up [or, to put it differently],
we affluent have no rights to property, however acquired, in the face of
the excluded. Rather, they have a right to what we hold, [because] the
actual history is relevant. (Ibid., emphasis in original)
Apropos of property rights, it bears mention that "For Locke, 'property
rights, however acquired, do not prevail in the face of desperate need'
because 'everyone has an original pre-appropriation claim-right to an
adequate subsistence from the resources of the world'." (Brighouse and
Brock, 2005: 99) This makes a lot of sense, and seems to be the reason
J.J. Rousseau said:
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself
of saying "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him,
was the real founder of civil society. Humanity would have been spared
infinite crimes, wars, homicides, murders, if only someone had ripped up
the fences or filled in the ditches and said, "Do not listen to this
pretender! You are eternally lost if you do not remember that the fruits
of the earth are everyone's property and that the land is no one's
property! (Rousseau, Second Discourse on Inequality, n.d.: 1)
In the light of the principles stated by Pogge, Shiva, Locke and
Rousseau above, it is easy to understand why the inadmissibility of
acquisition of territory by war is absolutely fundamental. There was
near-unanimity on this principle in the wake of the six-day war of 1967
at the United Nations General Assembly (GA). Subsequently, Israel</b>
has been obligated under international law to withdraw its forces to its
"original" pre-67 position. Accordingly, the GA president in midJune
1967 reported that "there is virtual unanimity in upholding the
principle that conquest of territory by war is inadmissible in our time
under the Charter." He continued,
The affirmation of this principle was made in virtually all statements
and – I should add with some emphasis – by none more emphatically than
all the big Powers – which bear the primary responsibility in the United
Nations for the peace and security of the world. In this sense,
virtually all speakers laid down the corollary that withdrawal of forces
to their original position is expected. (General Assembly, Fifth
Emergency Session, 5 July 1967, in Finkelstein, 2001b: 145)
The reason these historical-colonial facts and the principles derived
from them bear on the IsraelPalestine context is that Israel</b> has,
according to Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami under Ehud Barak and chief
negotiator at Camp David, "establish[ed] for the Palestinians a
neo-colonial dependency which will be permanent." (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky</b>, 2002)
Therefore, Israel</b>'s colonial practices in the Occupied Territories
(OT) are predicated pretty much on the same ideological motives and
realpolitik assumptions as those of Europe during the colonial period in
Africa and elsewhere, since the state of Israel</b> has systematically
dispossessed the Palestinians of their land and resources since 1948
and, more significantly, since 1967.1 Understanding the connection
between the deep injustices suffered by Palestinians and their
subsequent resort to terrorism
9
(which, of course, are horrifying crimes which can never be justified
and condoned), the former heads of Israeli military intelligence, Shin
Bet, have said:
until you treat the Palestinians with respect, until you grant them
their elementary rights, you're never going to stop terrorism. That's
the way to do it – they have grievances, the grievances are real, we're
treating them with contempt and humiliation and destruction, we're
stealing their land and resources. (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky</b>, Znet, 2004)
And the 1996-2000 head of Israel's General Security Service (Shabak),
Ami Ayalon, also realistically observed (speaking of Israel-Palestine),
"those who want victory want an unending war" (i.e., victory against
terror without addressing underlying grievances). He also said that the
"solution of the problem of terrorism [is] to offer an honorable
solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to
self-determination." The same observation was made by the former head of
Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshaphat Harkabi, also a leading
Arabist, 20 years ago, at a time when Israel still retained immunity
from retaliatory Palestinian terrorism from within the OT. (Le Monde,
2001; Kapeliouk, Le Monde, 1986). (See Appendix 2 for a number of
official definitions of terrorism) Of course, the shrewd can always turn
the whole question of property rights on its head and say: 'But if the
land is no one's property (per Rousseau's argument above: "You are
eternally lost if you do not remember that the fruits of the earth are
everyone's property and that the land is no one's property!"), then
Israel cannot possibly have stolen it, because the land and its fruits
belong to everyone.' This argument would be valid, of course, if the
Palestinians had not been systematically and violently dispossessed of
the fruits of the land (that they inhabited), and of their labor. So it
is only after the legitimate grievances of Palestinians have been
effectively addressed that a cosmopolitan democratic order (or whatever
type of political and economic arrangements that Israelis and
Palestinians themselves opt for, either jointly"if real peace is ever
achieved" or separately) can begin to be discussed seriously, and
implemented. The long and short of it is that both sides to the conflict
have an unquestionable right to exist, work and prosper on an equal
footing, so that they can co-exist in harmony, or at least tolerate each
other without infringing on each other's rights. Which has everything to
do with cosmopolitan practice.
1.2. Classical Liberalism in Brief
Since the theoretical framework adopted in this work is a synthesis of
cosmopolitanism and classical liberalism, a definition of the latter
would read as follows:
Classical liberalism asserts as its major idea an opposition to all but
the most restricted minimal forms of state intervention in personal and
social life. One of the earliest and most brilliant expositions of this
position is in Wilhelm Von Humboldt's Limits of State Action [...],
written in 1792... In his view 'the state tends to [ - ] make man an
instrument to serve its arbitrary ends, overlooking his individual
purposes, and since man is in his essence a free, searching,
self-perfecting being, it follows that the state is a profoundly
anti-human institution.' That is its actions, its existence are
ultimately incompatible with the full harmonious development of human
potential in its richest diversity. Hence incompatible with what
Humboldt [ - ] see[s] as the true end of man - For Humboldt then man is
born to enquire and create, and when a man or a child chooses to enquire
or create out of its own free choice then he becomes in his own terms an
artist rather than a 2 tool of production or a well trained parrot - (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky, 1980: 1)
10
Chapter 2: Exposing the Unholy Alliance between the US and Israel 's
Occupation of Palestine
1.1. A Synoptic Analysis of the Israel -Palestine Conflict
The Israel -Palestine conflict, though complex and multidimensional, can
and should nevertheless be reframed in the following terms:
The current alliance system to control West Asian oil in the interests
of the United States includes - the Palestinian Authority. What is
called 'peace process' in West Asia is an effort by the United States
and Israel to eliminate the Palestinian problem by imposing a 1 kind of
Bantustan settlement on the Palestinian people. In this the Palestinian
Authority has the role of controlling and suppressing the Palestinian
people in the manner of the leadership elements in countries such as
Transkei under apartheid. The Central Intelligence Agency is directly
and openly involved in Palestinian- Israel interactions. (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky , Frontline, 1999)
Put differently, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is included in the
current alliance system to control West Asian oil in the interests of
the US.2 The US-Israeli goal has been to impose a Bantustan-style
settlement on the Palestinians, and that requires a collaborationist
leadership (exactly as in the South African case). That was the task of
the PA. They were very willing accomplices. The US and Israel supported
the PA as long as it could carry out its assigned task of controlling
the Palestinian population, and making sure that they did not interfere
with general US interests in the region, primarily controlling its oil
resources. When the PA lost the capacity to do this, as it largely has,
it becomes expendable and has to be replaced by some new leadership who
will perform the task to the satisfaction of the US and its client:
Israel . The fact that Hamas, which, according to Khaled Hroub, has been
far more concerned about the fate of Palestinians than the corrupt Fatah
leadership (since the former, unlike the latter, has a dynamic social
program), came to power through free and fair elections recently, did,
of course, complicate things considerably. This is because Hamas is not
likely to collaborate with the West's agenda as easily as Fatah might
have. (Hroub, 2006: 70-78, 79-84) In brief, according to anti-Zionist
scholars and left, non-establishment dissident intellectuals (like
Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Tanya Reinhart, Gideon Levi, Amira
Hass, et al), the main source of turbulence, violence and bloodshed in
historic Palestine is the US- Israel refusal to recognize Palestinians'
right to self-determination and national sovereignty, Israel 's refusal
to dismantle and remove existing settlements, its refusal to withdraw
unconditionally from the OT in accordance with international law"all due
to "divine commandments."3 On the other hand, according to Zionists,
pro- Israel and mainstream Western intellectuals generally, the main
source of turbulence, violence and bloodshed in historic Palestine is
the unregenerate nature of Islam. Two eminent proponents of this view
are Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, whose views are very similar to
each other. They insist that "Islam has bloody borders" (willfully
oblivious to the fact that it is the opposite that holds more true.4)
They also peddle the notion that the West (including the Jewish state of
Israel ) stands for everything 11
that is scientific, modern, progressive and good. Contrariwise, they
caricature Islam and Arabism as standing for everything that is
unscientific, backward and unregenerate. This clash is, according to
them, intractable. But they do not present a shred of contextual
evidence to substantiate their vulgar claims. Their racist and wholly
reductionist attitudes towards Islam and Arabs reflect the fact that
"Malicious generalizations about Islam have become the last acceptable
form of denigration of foreign culture in the West." (Said, 1997: xii)
It should suffice to conclude this section by pointing to the fact that
Israel has been consistently violating the following UN resolutions
(among several dozens) since its inception, in the name of "security"
(the latter almost always serving as an excuse for more militarism and
more illegitimate intrusion into Palestinian lives):
194, pertaining to the refugee's right to return to their territories
and their right to compensations. 242, pertaining to a complete
withdrawal by Israeli troops from the occupied territories, among other
things. 338, which guarantees Palestinian rights to self-determination,
but which also renders the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
in 1967 illegal. 446 and 465, which condemn all Israeli settlements as
illegal. 478, which declares Israel 's annexation of East Jerusalem as
invalid.
1.2. Overcoming Obstacles to Peace: Israel 's Politico-Religious
Intransigence, its Nuclear Arsenal and the Samson Option
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, "The
size of the Israeli nuclear weapon stockpile is unknown but is widely
suggested to contain 100-200 warheads. The Institute for Science and
International Security estimated in 2004 that Israel possessed some 0.56
tonnes (sic) of military plutonium, or the equivalent of about 110
warheads, each containing 5 kg of plutonium." (SIPRI, 2006: 667)5 So
clearly it is not the existence but the size of Israel 's nuclear
arsenal that is in question. That said, a universal disarmament program
with strong enforcement power may not be the most realistic short-term
goal for peace activists, since the powerful are very unlikely to allow
mechanisms to be set up that would force them to relinquish their
massive firepower, short of a sweeping international democratic
revolution from the bottom up, which does not seem to be within reach.
So a program of disarmament of conventional and non-conventional
(nuclear, chemical and biological) weapons would have to fall under the
umbrella of an international citizen-oriented (as opposed to corporate)
globalization program, since a model that is purely idealistic cannot be
politically practicable. Conversely, a model that is purely pragmatic
inevitably becomes devoid of ethical considerations, hence a vehicle for
cynical power interests. Therefore, the attempt here is to strike a
balance between these two polarities, for which purpose no "blueprint"
can be provided. It should be left to those who wish to live in a
peaceful world to creatively devise non-violent methods for achieving
comprehensive disarmament in the long run (provided we are not living
close to or within the margins of survival"not a given). The best that
can be done here is to raise the alert flag so far as Israel 's nuclear
arsenal and its leadership's "Samson complex" are concerned, so that the
stakes can be appreciated by those concerned, and acted upon
appropriately. That said, since the state of Israel receives over $3
billion dollars in official aid from the US every year (mostly for
military and expansionist purposes, but also to keep the economy afloat
for Israeli elites),6 naturally it is subservient to US power. Its
subservience is attributable to its utter dependence on the US not only
for its colonial program in the OT, but even for its survival, 12
at least in the short run. This is because organized American Jewry's
unconditional support for Israel 's amoral albeit surrogate policies
cannot be conducive to long-term survival,7 if only because of the
likely and foreseeable consequences of long-standing US/Israeli
rejectionism. The latter was epitomized in the Oslo Peace Process. Thus,
as <b style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky has suggested,
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 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). (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky , 2002)
The above information is intended to bring into awareness the
politically incorrect claim that it has not been the PLO, or the
Palestinian Authority (or even Hamas8) that has rejected peace and
favored violence and terror (this is important to establish, in order to
challenge conventional wisdom, which is always an obstacle to normative
values). Here is more evidence to this effect: Dov Weisglass, one of
Sharon's closest aides, stated in the clearest terms that the
disengagement from Gaza will act as 'formaldehyde,' thereby freezing the
roadmap 'so that there will not be a political process with the
Palestinians':
I found a device, in cooperation with the management of the world [the
United States], to ensure that there will be no stopwatch here. That
there will be no timetable to implement the settlers' nightmare. I have
postponed that nightmare indefinitely. Because what I effectively agreed
to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be
dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the
Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did.
The significance is the freezing of the political process. And when you
freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state
and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and
Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the
Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our
agenda indefinitely. And all this with authority and permission. All
with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of
Congress. What more could have been anticipated? What more could have
been given to the settlers? (Ha'aretz, 8 October 2004)
The most basic form of justice being 'truth-telling,' despite its
discomforting effects, it bears mention that it cannot be overemphasized
that there is a great deal at stake for Israeli Jews and Palestinian
Arabs, probably for much of the world, due to Israel 's intransigent
attitude towards the Palestinian problem. This intransigent political
context falls within a larger albeit even more intransigent religious
context having to do with a face value reading of Samson's allegedly
'heroic' and 'divinely ordained' behavior in the Old Testament. Samson
killed himself, but consciously managed to take around 3000 Philistine
lives with him, inside a Temple, out of supposed vengeance, allegedly in
answer to his prayer to God to exact revenge against the Philistines.
What kind of a god would stoop so low as to sanction revenge, even if
there were legitimate grounds for resentment and hatred? Which is not a
given. Even something as secular as international law, specifically, the
UN Charter (Art. 51), banns retaliation! (For the full, probably
fictitious account of Samson's life and suicidal-murderous death, see
the Book of Judges in the Old Testament, chapters 13 to 16). I say
'supposed vengeance' above, because it is widely recognized by biblical
scholarship that the bible is not, for the most part, an accurate
historical account. For example: 13
Who wrote the Bible? Current scholarship [ - ] assumes that the material
that constitutes the Old Testament was put together from various oral
and folk traditions (many of them going far back) in the Hellenistic
period. That was one of several currents, of which the collection that
formed the New Testament was another. Biblical archaeology was developed
early in this century in an effort to substantiate the authenticity of
the Biblical account. It's by now generally recognized in Biblical
scholarship that it has done the opposite. The Bible is not a historical
text, and has only vague resemblances to what took place, as far as can
be reconstructed. For example, whether Israel ever existed is not clear;
if so, it was probably a small kingdom somewhere in the hills,
apparently virtually unknown to the Egyptians. (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky , Remarks on
Religion, n.d.)
For the sake of discussion, let us assume that the Old Testament account
of Samson's suicidalmurderous death is accurate, and let us also assume
a realist framework and thereby postulate that retaliation in this case
was unavoidable, if regrettably so. Well, the first problem we are faced
with is that in the biblical account there is an escalating cycle of
violence between the Israelites and the Philistines, so that it becomes
necessary to look for a precedent, in order to identify the original or
primary wrongdoer(s). Was it the Philistines or the Israelites? Limiting
ourselves to the contextual framework of Judges chapters 13-16
(stretching from Samson's birth to his death), we find in Judges 13,
verse 1, that the original wrongdoers were the Israelites, against the
Philistines, which was, according to verse 1, acknowledged even by God
("Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord
delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years"). In
Judges 16: 21-24, the Philistines invoke this precedent to avenge the
depredations by Samuel and/or his cronies of their land and people
(verse 24). What kind of retaliatory measures did the Philistines
undertake? They gouged out Samson's eyes and had him brought out to
entertain them. Cruel and sadistic? Certainly. Proportionate to the
alleged crimes perpetrated by Samson and/or his people? Much less than
proportionate. They did not even try to kill him, let alone punish his
wife or his people! But how did Samson react to all this, apparently
hypocritically oblivious to his own (and/or his people's) original
crime(s) against the Philistines? Did he gouge out the eyes of those who
gouged out his? Well, of course not, because he was blind. But if he
were mentally well-balanced and even-handed in his retaliatory approach,
he could have found a "creative" way of inflicting proxy harm on just
those who had inflicted harm on him (on the, at most, handful of people
who were directly involved in gouging out his eyes). This, with the
proviso that he and/or his people appeared to be the original or primary
wrongdoer(s). But it should not be overlooked that retaliation is
morally reprehensible, even from a selfish point of view, because of the
escalating cycle of violence that it inspires, thereby inevitably
causing harm to people who had nothing to do with the harm inflicted on
Samson, in this case, which is exactly what happened. He murdered around
3000 men and women (Judges 16: 25-30), the overwhelming majority of whom
could not possibly have had anything to do with the physical and psychic
damage inflicted on him. So not only was Samson's retaliatory crime
completely disproportionate, but it was "criminally insane" as well,
regardless of the supposedly divinely sanctioned nature thereof.9
~
Moving back to the contemporary period, it bears mention that
Elements of the Christian fundamentalist right are one of the strongest
components of "support for Israel " -- support in an odd sense, because
they presumably want to see it destroyed in a cosmic battle at
Armageddon, after which all the proper souls will ascend to heaven -
They have provided enormous economic aid, again of a dubious sort. One of
14
their goals seems to be to rebuild the Temple, which means destroying
the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which presumably means war with the Arab world --
one of the goals, perhaps, in fulfilling the prophecy of Armageddon. So
they strongly support Israeli power and expansionism, and help fund it
and lobby for it; but they also support actions that are very harmful
and objectionable to most of its population -- as do Jewish
fundamentalist groups, mostly rooted in the US, which, after all, is one
of the most extreme religious fundamentalist societies in the world. (<b
style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">Chomsky , Remarks on Religion)
To a large extent, the latter stems from the fact (and means) that
fundamentalists adhere strictly to the letter rather than to the spirit
behind or beneath the letter, by giving face value meaning to the bible
generally, surely a dangerous practice, since it evacuates the bible
(particularly the New Testament) of its deep albeit solvable and
intelligible mysteries. In fact, such a legalistic practice is Pharisaic
and contrary to the admonitions in the New Testament: "The letter kills
while the spirit gives life." (2 Corinthians 3:6) Well, since most
religious Jews (so far as the Old Testament is concerned) and most
practicing Christians (so far as the entire bible is concerned) are
happily inclined to adhere strictly to the letter rather than to the
spirit, we are almost surely moving in the direction of hell at a high
velocity, proverbially and literally. The reason is that the Jewish
settlers (in the OT), who take pride in creating a pogrom-like
atmosphere for the indigenous Arab inhabitants (courtesy of Washington),
find the most obscene "biblical" justifications (that one can find) for
their violence against them. In fact, according to Chomsky, the
settlements in the OT are seen as the beginning of true salvation for
Jews: a scary thought, given what the settlements have entailed and
engendered for the Palestinians, a people who have suffered greatly
under the hand of Israel's brutal military occupation and who have scant
hope of national survival, thanks to America's far-reaching and
consistently rejectionist stance pertaining to a peaceful two-state
settlement"willing to grant no national rights to the indigenous Arabs.
The importance of appreciating the sheer gravity of the Israel-Palestine
conflict, so far as what it portends for the future is concerned, cannot
be overemphasized, since the state of Israel has eagerly and
enthusiastically adopted Nixon's "madman theory,"10 which is a natural
corollary to the "Samson Complex." Chomsky lays bare the underlying
logic as follows (the cautious, uncertain language adopted below is
attributable to the fact that it is foolhardy to make predictions, as
opposed to making more or less reasonable assumptions and projections,
about the future, but also to the fact that often enough intentions are
obscure, hence hard to pin down):
It may [...] be surmised that nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach
southern Russia are not really intended to deter the USSR, but rather to
put U.S. planners on notice, once again, that pressures on Israel to
accede to a political settlement may lead to a violent reaction that
will bring the USSR into the Middle East, setting it in inevitable
confrontation with the United States, with a high probability of global
nuclear war. One might even speculate as to whether Israel had something
similar in mind in its provocative actions against the USSR in Lebanon
[the reference here is to the Embassy siege there] in 1982 - : a hint to
the U.S. about what it could do, if pressed. Israel's "secret weapon,"
which may compensate for its extraordinary economic, military and
diplomatic dependence on the United States, is the threat that it may
act as a "wild country," if pressed. (Chomsky, 1999: 467)
So the greatest danger facing Israel and much of the world is the
"collective version" of Samson's revenge against the Philistines: "Let
me perish with the Philistines""as he brought down the Temple in ruins,
killing more Philistines than he had during his lifetime (Judges 16:
30). Accordingly: "we shall kill and bury all the Gentiles around us
while we ourselves shall die 15
with them." This psychology is reinforced by the feeling that, because
of its ineradicable antiSemitism, "the whole world is against us," a
paranoid vision that owes a lot to the contribution of organized
American Jewry. This is a grave matter that should merit serious thought
and action by privileged sectors, in light of the prevailing attitude
among Jewish leadership that all non-Jews, including the big Goy
(Gentile) in Washington, must be annihilated if the latter departs from
its rejectionism (and joins a peace settlement in terms of the
international consensus; what is called the "peace process" in the West
is US efforts to undermine the consensus). Which will be perceived as an
attempt to block the "divine commandment." Accordingly, Jews in Israel
must follow the doctrines (genocidal texts) of Joshua (from the Old
Testament), since, according to Menachem Barash,
'The biblical commandment is to conquer the land of Israel in its
detailed borders, to take possession of it and to settle it,' since 'it
is forbidden' to 'abandon it to strangers' (Gentiles). 'There is no
place in this land for the people of Israel and for other nations
alongside it. The practical meaning of [the commandment to] possess the
land is the expulsion of the peoples who live in it,' who try to prevent
the Diaspora Jews from 'settling in our land.' It is 'a holy war,
commanded in the Bible,' and it must be fought against the Arabs 'or any
other people in the world' who try to block the divine commandment. No
compromises, peace treaties or negotiations are possible. 'You shall
destroy them, you shall enter into no covenant with them, you shall not
pity them, you shall not intermarry with them,' according to the divine
law. (Yediot Ahronot, 1974 (also 1979); writing with much admiration
about the teachings of Rabbi Moshe Ben-Zion Ushpizai of Ramat-Gan;
Barash in Chomsky, 1999: 154)
Of course, political and religious dogmatisms are, by definition,
impervious to reason. So the quintessential question is: how can people
who care about social justice in the Israel-Palestine context challenge
the political and theological dogmatisms discussed in this chapter,
especially in light of the traumatizing experiences of European Jews
during WWII, to which one must be sensitive? It is not for any one
person to answer this question exhaustively, since that would be
pretentious. This is a question that should be considered at the
collective level (which of course does not preclude the need for
considering analyses and proposals by authoritative"as opposed to
authoritarian"individuals), so that once there is wide agreement on
exactly how to challenge Israeli leadership's political and religious
intransigence, the collective entities in question may proceed to do so
honestly albeit carefully, while bearing in mind that "those enjoying -
immunity [to criticism] have not escaped the moral corruptions that
typically attend it." (Finkelstein, 2000: 3-4)
16
1.3. A Synoptic, Critical Examination of Bush's Roadmap11
Bush's roadmap to peace, endorsed by Israel (with reservations), the EU,
Russia and the UN, is a plan for pacification, not peace, thereby
offering nothing to the Palestinians. The main problem with it is that
it "places the need for restraint and renunciation and sacrifice
squarely on Palestinian shoulders, thus denying the density and sheer
gravity of Palestinian history" (Said, in Cockburn and St. Clair, 2003:
158). It is not a situated document, mindful of its time and place. The
roadmap "is about putting an end to Palestine as a problem." (Ibid.)
This is why the document repeats the term "performance" so many times,
willfully impervious to the fact that ending the occupation and
dismantling and evacuating the illegal settlements in the OT cannot be
conditional. The two-state settlement should be sought irrespective of
whether or not Palestinians resort to violence to resist the military
occupation, precisely because Palestinian terror is a reaction to, or a
by-product of, Israel's violent occupation generally,12 since violence
inevitably breeds violence. For example, the Roadmap stipulates
(according to Edward Said)
how the Palestinians are expected to behave [ - :] No violence, no
protest, more democracy, better leaders and institutions, all based on
the notion that the underlying problem has been the ferocity of
Palestinian resistance, rather than the occupation that has given rise
to it. Nothing comparable is expected of Israel except a few small
settlements, known as "illegal outposts" (an entirely new classification
which suggests that some Israeli implantations on Palestinian land are
legal) must be given up and, yes, the major settlements "frozen" but
certainly not dismantled. (Cockburn and St. Clair, 2003: 159)
Unfortunately, there is not one word in the document's wooden prose
about Israel's unconditional obligation under international law to
return to the pre-67 borders, or about the systematic human rights
violations against the Palestinians for decades. Many of these
violations have attracted criticism from human rights groups. For example,
Amnesty International has for many years documented and condemned
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel
directed against the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories.
They include unlawful killings; torture and illtreatment; arbitrary
detention; unfair trials; collective punishments such as punitive
closures of areas and destruction of homes; extensive and wanton
destruction of property; deportations; and discriminatory treatment as
compared to Israeli settlers. Most of these violations are grave
breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are therefore war crimes.
Many have also been committed in a widespread and systematic manner, and
in pursuit of government policy; such violations meet the definition of
crimes against humanity under international law. (Amnesty International,
2002)
So any roadmap to peace ought to make substantive provisions to redress
these injustices, before it can be taken seriously, let alone be
"implemented." In other words, Bush's roadmap is an obstacle to peace,
for the reason just stated. No less crucially, Israeli leaders who
pretend to represent the interests of their people should pay close
attention to poll results and attitude surveys, and act accordingly, if
they want to prove their commitment to democracy (see Appendix 3 for a
poll result from 2003).
17
Chapter 3: Removing the Causes of War Is Not Enough -- Building the
Causes of Peace
1.1. The Divestment Campaign in the US: An Archetypal Example of Peace
Activism
Toward the end of October 2002, there were several hundred college
students from all over the US, who met in Michigan to promote the
campaign to divest American universities of financial holdings in
companies with ties to Israel. These students' ultimate purpose is peace
in historic Palestine, which is politically practicable and necessary,
for the peaceful sake of both parties to the conflict. These students'
aim has been to promote divestment campaigns with the view of "severing
the US-Israeli umbilical cord that feeds Israel's destructive military
occupation of Palestine." (Youmans, in Cockburn and St. Clair, 2003: 69)
This campaign has been premised on the fact that
Israel's discriminatory legal and political structure vis-à-vis the
non-citizen Palestinians of the Occupied Territories is at the very
least a variant of apartheid"the rights and security of Jews are given
priority, even as Israel refers to the Palestinians as a collective
"problem," devoid of right or the need for security." (Ibid.)
This is especially true in conjunction with the separation barrier that
has been constructed since 2002. As a matter of fact, the wall violates
the central obligation of the Occupying Power to guarantee the
well-being and basic sustenance for the occupied civilian population.
For example, under international law
it is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects
indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, such as
foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops,
livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation
works, - whatever the motive, whether on order to starve out civilians,
to cause them to move away, or for any other motive. (Fourth Geneva
Convention, Protocol I, Art. 54)
The extensive expropriation and destruction of land and property (both
before and after the construction of the wall), especially fertile
agricultural land and water, deprives and effectively dispossesses
Palestinians of their basic sources of income and livelihood. This is
why the divestment campaign has as its end goal the stopping of US aid
to Israel until (1) Israel withdraws from the OT, dismantles and
evacuates the illegal settlements, (2) tears down those parts of the
wall that cut through the West Bank, (3) substantively solves the
refugee problem that it created since 1948, and (4) makes restitution
for the injustices suffered by Palestinians. The divestment campaign
seeks such goals not on anti-Semitic grounds, but in the spirit of
neutrality, so that the US is transformed from being overtly pro-Israel
to being impartial, with the proviso that no one is asking for
redirecting US aid to the Palestinian Authority or to invest the money
in Palestine. "Divestment activists simply demand that Israel extend [a
rightsbased democratic structure] to everyone under its jurisdiction -
Divestment is fundamentally a strategy for peace. It is a healthy,
morally-sound and practical singling out of Israel" (Youmans, 18
in Cockburn and St. Clair, 2003: 71, 72). The reason it is singled out
is that Israel receives the largest share of US foreign aid compared to
other countries (despite its terrible human rights record), the bulk of
which is for (1) military spending, (2) its expansionist program, (3)
the construction of the illegal wall, (4) direct and indirect (through
the PA) repression of Palestinians living under the illegal occupation
since 1967, and etc. So "the goal for divestment is an objective and
non-partisan American policy to replace its destructive pro-Israeli
bias, which ultimately furthers the wasting of lives on both sides."
(Ibid.: 72)
1.2. Unconditional Israeli Withdrawal as a Precondition for Peace
An encouraging fact is that in spite of all the regular violence,
repression, hardships and sufferings endured by most if not all
Palestinians since at least 1967 (in historic Palestine), their basic
attitudes towards Israeli Jews is a positive one (a crucial distinction
here, of course, is that the same may not, and probably does not, hold
true of their attitudes toward the policies of the Jewish state of
Israel), per the late Tanya Reinhart's finding (who was an Israeli
scholar, antiZionist activist and author of a biweekly column in the
daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot):
- an amazing and encouraging fact is that support for peace and
reconciliation was still strong among the Palestinian people. A survey
by the Development Studies Program at Bir Zeit University in the West
Bank that was conducted in February 2002 found out that '77 percent
believe that both Palestinians and Israelis have the right to live in
peace and security. 73 percent find it necessary for Palestinians and
Israelis to work together to achieve peaceful coexistence once a
Palestinian state is established.' By February 2002, after a year and a
half of unbearable suffering, the Palestinian majority was still
striving only for its own liberation, and was not transforming its
struggle into hatred and denial of the other side. This stands in sharp
contrast to the official propaganda that "there is no partner for
peace." (Reinhart, 2005: 229-30; the survey she is relying on was held
Feb. 7 through 9, which included 1,198 respondents in 75 Palestinian
communities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The report
is titled "Palestinian Public Opinion Poll #6")
So the goal of unconditional withdrawal, besides being politically
practicable, might even be feasible, given the disparity between
ordinary Israeli Jews (who constitute a vast majority) and their leaders
(who constitute a tiny minority). It is hard to see any other way for
true negotiations to occur between the conflicting parties than through
unconditional withdrawal, since, as we have seen in Chapter 1, it is the
occupation and the daily regime of destruction, humiliation and
expropriation (per Shin Bet's statement) that is inspiring Palestinian
terror. As Reinhart points out (I am compelled to reproduce a long and
highly relevant quote here pertaining to the importance of withdrawal as
a precondition for peace. And I am letting this long but lucid quote
speak for itself, meaning I do not think it needs to be analyzed and/or
interpreted):
Barak intended to formally annex to Israel about 6 to 10 percent of the
West Bank, where the large settlement blocs are, populated with about
150,000 residents. But the biggest fraud in Barak's Camp David plan was
the fate of the 90 percent of the West Bank that was supposedly
earmarked to belong to the "Palestinian state." These lands are cut up
by isolated Israeli settlements, which were purposely built in the midst
of the Palestinian population to enable Israeli control of these areas
in the future. These isolated settlements are now inhabited by about
40,000 Israeli settlers. Still, they control 40 percent of the land of
the West Bank. As a result, two million Palestinians are crowded in
enclaves that consist of about 50 percent of the West Bank. Israel can
and should immediately evacuate
19
at least 90 percent of the West Bank, along with the whole of the Gaza
Strip. Many of the residents of the isolated Israeli settlements are
speaking openly in the Israeli media about their wish to leave. It is
only necessary to offer them reasonable compensation for the property
they will be leaving behind. The rest are hard-core "land redemption"
fanatics" a negligible minority that will have to accept the will of the
majority. They can be evacuated forcefully, as was done in Yamit, on the
eve of the peace agreement with Egypt. Following the evacuation of the
settlements the complete and immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army
from all its bases and outposts in these Palestinian territories could
commence. Such a withdrawal would still leave under debate the 6 to 10
percent of the West Bank with the large settlement blocs that cannot be
evacuated overnight, as well as the issues of Jerusalem and the right of
return. Negotiations will still be needed to resolve these problems.
However, during such negotiations Palestinian society could begin to
recover, to settle the lands that the Israelis evacuated, to construct
democratic institutions, and to develop its economy based on free
contracts with whomever it wants. Under these circumstances, it should
be possible to conduct negotiations with mutual respect, and to address
the core issue: What is the right way for two peoples who share the same
land to jointly build their future. (Reinhart, 2005: 226-8)
Reinhart's optimism may or may not be warranted, but I for one see no
reason to contest the factual and normative analysis that she presents,
since it is a given, in any society, that there will be a certain amount
of disconnect between leaders and their coerced followers' wishes and
aspirations, just because states are not moral agents, while ordinary
citizens are (a matter to which we return below). Another encouraging
fact is Israeli draft resistance. A group of reservists in the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF), over five hundred (growing and spreading), have
issued a call refusing, both on pragmatic and moral grounds, to take
part in the oppression of Palestinians:
We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces,
who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to
the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served
in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission,
light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen
it - . We hereby declared that we shall not continue to fight this War
of the Settlements. We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967
borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire
people. We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel
Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel's defense. The missions
of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose and we shall take
no part in them. (Courage to Refuse -- Combatant's Letter)
The above three quotes are encouraging signs that augur the possibility
of peace, despite all the overwhelming odds. Moreover, it appears to be
a testimony to the fact that human beings do have an innate sense of
morality, after all. It is a matter of discovering it so that it can be
activated, in those cases where immorality and hypocrisy appear to be
the norm, as a result of the wrong kind of upbringing and wrong
education. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of states, which,
again, are not moral agents. Therefore, it is up to ordinary citizens to
impose moral standards on amoral states, since the latter are
susceptible to strong public pressure. In this vein, even if Israeli
killings and maimings of Palestinians were to stop (surely a significant
positive change to be welcomed), there still would remain the question
of removing obstacles to Palestinians' ability to exercise their civil
and political rights (as enshrined in the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights), as well as their ability to exercise their
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (as enshrined in the International
Covenant on Economic,
20
Social and Cultural Rights). This is because both types of rights are
stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Israel
is a signatory. The most ideal political arrangement for securing such
humane and viable conditions for Palestinians would perhaps be a
binational (i.e., a one-state) solution, with equal rights for all. This
would have to include Israeli Jews (including the Falashas, i.e., the
Ethiopian Jews, whose fate has been deplorable), Palestinian Arabs and
Christians, and other ethnic and/or religious minorities insofar as they
genuinely identify themselves with (to wit, have authentic links to)
historic Palestine (not excluding guest workers), so that they, too, are
granted legal status, on condition that the Zionist nature of the
Israeli state can be done away with. The less ideal and potentially more
problematic political arrangement would perhaps be a two-state solution,
since such an arrangement (state sovereignty for Palestine) implies a
statutory Palestinian monopoly on violence and coercion within its
internationally recognized borders, hence a repressive apparatus. There
is also the fact that the West Bank and Gaza are probably too small and
noncontiguous to constitute a state. And the basic legal framework of
the two-state solution is based on UNSC 242. Which is totally
rejectionist, because it spoke of the Palestinians' "plight as a refugee
problem, making no mention of their rights to self-determination and
national sovereignty." This is why "Israel accepted the resolution in
1970." (Berry and Philo, 2006: 52) The implication here is that,
ultimately at least, the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot be solved
without acknowledging the original sin"i.e., the massive refugee
crisis"that took place in conjunction with the creation of the Jewish
state of Israel in 1948, and allowing the possibility for the right of
return (according to Article 2 of the UN Charter, also enshrined in the
UDHR and every international protocol) for more than 3.5 million
Palestinians outside of historic Palestine, or for compensation.
1.3. Rehumanization and Peace are Cheaper than Demonization and Violence
Below is a list of facts, truisms and proposals with the view of
reframing public discourse regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, in
the interests of rehumanization and non-hegemonic, justice-based peace.
1) Israel has a terrible human rights record,1 and, in light of the
evidence presented in this work, can reasonably be said to be the
original or primary wrongdoer (as opposed to the protagonist) in the
Israeli-Palestine conflict. So far as placing blame on the protagonist
goes, the state of Israel (including and especially its policies and
actions towards Palestinians) is unconditionally supported by strong
anti-Semitic currents in the US, namely, Christian fanatics (also known
as 'Christian Zionists'). "At 60 million strong they represent the
single most powerful voting block in US history" (Said, Counterpunch,
2002), claiming to do God's will and to fight his battles in his name.
Apparently, they are bent on precipitating Armageddon at any cost, based
on the crooked notion that Jesus will physically return to the "Holy
Land" of Israel and usher a 1000-year period of perfect peace and
harmony on earth after having "claimed his own," and after having
annihilated those (all non-Christians) who refuse to "repent" and
"believe." According to a face value reading of the Book of Revelations
in the bible, a majority of Israeli Jews will reject Jesus a second time
(besides the logical assumption and projection that most or all
Palestinian Muslims, too, will see no reason for "repenting" and
"believing," since conversion is an abomination in Islam), thereby
revealing in no uncertain terms the profound anti-Semitic (not to
mention thoroughly anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian) thrust
among Christian fanatics in the US.2
21
2) Palestinian terror is inexcusable and unpardonable, but it
nevertheless behooves us to make a distinction between state-supported
terror and state-induced, non-state terror, since the latter is an
outgrowth of the former, based for the most part on sheer desperation or
otherwise legitimate grievances, as opposed to legitimate reasons (this
is an explanation, not a justification). (In other words, suicide
terrorism, using the body as a delivery system and weapon, is an
expression of resistance to the illegal and immoral Israeli occupation
of Palestine: a crucial insight. No less crucial is the fact that
radical Islam generally finds its roots in poverty, exclusion,
monarchical absolutism and its concomitant naked contempt for the
governed, since there is obviously not even a pretense of democracy
among monarchical leaders.) So instead of lamenting about nonstate or
jihad terror (and how "those barbarians hate our freedoms, values,"
etc.), it well behooves those who are interested in survival to condemn
the terror of the powerful before (not rather than) condemning the
terror of the weak, since non-state or jihad terror fades into
insignificance when compared to the terror of the powerful.3 In other
words, Israel's sacred terrorism must be condemned in the strongest
possible terms, without overlooking the fact that Israel has been
terrorizing the Palestinians courtesy of the US. 3) Rehumanization
crucially depends on the ability to empathize with one's fellow humans
(and on the possibility of social intercourse: virtually non-existent
between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs), a quality that diminishes
rather significantly (or is altogether lost) in proportion to the
attainment of high levels of socioeconomic status. This in itself
provides a strong incentive for reconstructing social and economic life
along egalitarian lines. This is not at all likely to happen so long as
Hobbes' Leviathan and Hegel's pseudo-organic state rules with an iron
fist, since the nation-state system is not necessarily the natural form
of human or social organization. It is a hierarchical (hence
exploitative), criminal organization 4 that, contrary to the vulgar
Marx's claim, has no reason to "wither away," any more than human beings
have a reason for growing wings. It may well be argued, in light of
Tilly's observation (in note 4), that it would not be legitimate to
allow a Palestinian state to be created, since the nation-state system
is an autocratic structure, but such an argument is unsound. The
paramount question here is the leveling of the playing field (since
there can be no real, lasting peace between Israeli Jews and Palestinian
Arabs without equality between them, not just formal equality before the
law, but substantive equality on a day-to-day basis, in sociopolitical,
economic and military terms). Therefore, an all-inclusive, rights-based
binational system or a two-state system oriented toward achieving
Palestinian national rights alongside Israel, ought to be realized, in a
non-zero sum fashion. Put differently, either Palestinians should be
allowed to create an independent, viable, contiguous, secular and
liberal democratic state alongside Israel (in which case the latter
would have to become secularized and demilitarized [at least so far as
its WMD program is concerned, but not to the point of giving the
Palestinian side the upper hand militarily], since Zionism has strong
religious and militaristic overtones). Or the Zionist state of Israel
must be demilitarized and dismantled, in order to give way to an
anti-Zionist binational Israeli-Palestinian state. This is what
rehumanization and non-hegemonic, justice-based peace would amount to
and entail, based on egalitarian values. The alternative is a Pyrrhic
Zionist victory, with a blood fest that will intensify to the point of
Armageddon, quite possibly.
22
Conclusion
In addition to the significant conditions and/or preconditions (for
non-hegemonic, justice-based peace to be put into place) delineated in
the preceding chapters, there is an anti-Zionist movement in Israel,
Europe and the US, under the banner: 'Jews against Zionism,' which is
arguably steadily gaining momentum. As we have seen, the divestment
campaign in the US is committed to bringing about changes in US policies
towards Israel, non-violently. Moreover, the Israeli draft resistance is
growing and spreading. The key to achieving the goals of rehumanization
and peace is for the divestment groups in the US, Jews against Zionism,
the draft resistance and world public opinion (as it is, these diverse
movements may be somewhat or very disconnected from each other), to
construct bonds of solidarity and support. If they do, together they can
potentially change the course of contemporary history, in the interests
of the survival of the species. The threat to such survival is due to
the fact that no other conflict has the potential of triggering a global
nuclear holocaust as potently as the Israel-Palestine conflict, due to
Israeli leadership's "Samson complex." Such an approach is, as we have
seen, feasible. Certainly, it is a far more humane, peaceful and viable
way of preempting jihad terror than the invidious wall and Israel's
militaristic policies. Which have been producing an exorbitant amount of
suffering on the besieged Palestinian population in the OT.1 One of the
retrospective justifications offered by the Israeli government for
constructing the illegal wall is that suicide-bombing missions have
already decreased substantially. The latter may well be true. But it
does not change the fact that there is widespread resentment and hatred
vis-à-vis Israel's Apartheid policies towards the Palestinians,
throughout the Muslim world particularly. Which will become more
radicalized and violent in the future (if the status quo evolves along
its current paths), thereby making the already volatile Middle East
region even more volatile. To return to the topic of the wall, the
American historian and Mideast commentator, Geoffrey Aronson, has
suggested "that the purpose of the wall is to create de facto borders in
which Israel will absorb approximately 50 per cent of the West Bank,
while Palestinians will be 'separated from each other and from
Palestinian citizens of Israel by borders based upon settlement blocs'."
(Report on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories, July/August
2003; Aronson in Berry and Philo, 2006: 122) So even though the claim
that suicide bombings per se have substantially decreased are likely to
be sincere, nevertheless, in light of Aronson's claim, it is hard to
resist the temptation to construe Israel's argument as anything other
than a subterfuge for its expansionist program. This is putting aside
the illegality of the wall, per the World Court's legally binding
Advisory Opinion to stop with the construction of the wall and to tear
down those parts already erected inside the West Bank.2 In brief, the
incentives for an unconditional withdrawal from the OT, for tearing down
the illegal separation barrier (ideally, all of it; less ideally, those
parts of the wall that cut through the West Bank), for showing a
willingness to allow the question of the right of return (for the
refugees in the Diaspora),3 or compensating them"all in the interests of
non-hegemonic, justicebased peace, of course"to be discussed and solved
in a meaningful way, are strong. This is particularly true given what
the non-peaceful and quite possibly apocalyptic alternatives entail for
humanity at large, if the status quo is perpetuated in the interests of
realpolitik. The long and short of it is that the "divine commandment"
not to relinquish 'land for peace' is an ideological construct. The
latter should be brought out into the open through a culture of open,
nondefensive dialogue between Israel and the rest of the world, so that
people may be encouraged to 23
challenge Israel's politico-religious intransigence towards, and
arbitrary authority over, the Palestinians. This cannot be done without
a large dose of sensitivity to the absolutely horrifying and
traumatizing experiences of European Jews during WWII,4 but crucially
without letting the latter be used by Israeli Jews as a tactical
ideological cover for perpetuating absolutely terrible crimes against
Palestinians. Finally, another requirement for achieving the goals of
rehumanization and peace is for Israeli leaders to pay attention to and
respect the wishes and attitudes of the majority of their
constituencies, world public opinion, World Court judgments, and SC and
GA resolutions. No less crucially, the Palestinian Authority, instead of
selling out as in the past (i.e., under Fatah's leadership, which may
eventually regain predominant control of the PA legitimately or
illegitimately), ought to be steadfast in its resistance movement,
demand full recognition of Palestinian rights, and should by all means
stop targeting Israeli civilians, regardless of how many civilians it
loses as a result of indiscriminate Israeli attacks. This would work in
its favor by showing that it is not stooping to the same level as
Israel, so that the prospect of real peace may be realized sooner than
it would otherwise be, provided the Samson option is not put into
effect, to the detriment of peace and survival for much of the world.
24
Appendix 1: The Difference between AntiZionism and Anti-Semitism
Before opening this discussion, the following insight ought to be
considered:
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 established '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 [world] about anti-Semitism. (Chomsky, 2002)
In default of this insight, it is all-to-easy to succumb to Zionist
propaganda, the purpose of which is to undermine rational discussions
and deflect criticism of Israel's colonial practices in the Occupied
Territories (OT), which has exacted a heavy toll on a people who had
nothing to do with Hitler's unspeakable crimes. That said, how can a
careful adjudication be made, so far as who is really anti-Semitic and
who is not? To begin with, the word 'Semitic' is grossly misused and
abused for political purposes, since hardly anyone in the West
(including Israel) refers to Palestinians and Arabs as Semites, even
though they are a Semitic people. And naturally, any honest discussion
of antiSemitism ought to address and disparage the (particularly
American) Christian right's profound anti-Semitism (since the former is
not only a strong backer, but even forms the core, of George Bush's
support), discussed on p. 15. It is this crucial support that in no
small measure fans the flames of the Israel-Palestine conflict, by
compelling the US government to unconditionally support Israel's
military occupation of Palestine, its expansionist program in the
settlements, and all the hardships and sufferings that they entail for
the Palestinians, including, by extension, Israeli Jews, through
reprisals. In brief, according to Cockburn, "anti-Semitism is 'action or
propaganda designed to hurt Jews not because of anything they could
avoid doing but because they are what they are'." (Cockburn and St.
Clair, 2003: 24) A useful panacea in this context is that "If you want
to end today's 'anti-Semitism' against Jews, end Zionism's
'anti-Semitism' against Palestinians." (Brenner, in ibid.: 41) Thus, the
fact that the West's hostility to Arab Semites is never described as
anti-Semitism in the establishment media and mainstream scholarship
should provoke constructive debate, so that the usage of the word
anti-Semitism is no longer claimed as the exclusive right of those who
seek to undercut criticism of Israel's indefensible policies and actions
towards Palestinians. Such policies and actions, which have led to the
disintegration of Palestinian society, stem from the Zionist project,
the implementation of which has been accomplished with egregious
violation of democratic norms. The Zionist enterprise can be attributed
in part to Israel Zangwill, who had coined the Zionist slogan 'a land
without people for a people without land.' Zangwill also informed a
meeting of Zionists in Manchester in 1905 that "[We] must be prepared
either to drive out by the sword the 25
[Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with
the problem of a large alien population." (Morris, 2001: 140) So far as
the inherently racist nature of Zionism is concerned, according to
Tommie Sjöberg, in 1975 the General Assembly at the UN adopted
Resolution 3379 on 10 November, stating that "Zionism is a form of
racism and racial discrimination." This "created an absolute uproar in
the Western world (and was subsequently rescinded by the Assembly in
1991)" (Sjöberg, 2006: 82). This, despite the fact that Zionism was
de-contextually referred to as such, rather than as the policies of the
state of Israel. In any case, the manner in which the UN is regarded by
the US and Israel in this and similar contexts provides interesting
insight into the "democratic deficits" inherent in each respective
society (among elites and within the framework of their reigning
ideological institutions), since, as former Secretary General of the UN,
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, put it, a "U.S. veto [is] a rejection of
democracy." (Boutros-Ghali, in ibid., p. 83) The same is true of General
Assembly resolutions, since in the real world of power and intellectual
subordination to it, an abstention by the most powerful state in the
world at the GA amounts to a veto, whereas in the abstract realm of
ideology and academic seminars a vote against or an abstention by the US
(or any other powerful state) is not a veto (no contradiction; just a
choice about the realm in which we choose to operate). This is putting
aside the fact that the US, as a permanent member of the Security
Council, is by far the state that vetoes SC resolutions more frequently
than any other state, thereby barring virtually every meaningful effort
to promote human rights in more or less significant ways. This is
particularly true so far as Palestinians' rights are concerned, who in
reality have negative rights. The reason is that they make no
contributions to power and profit. Of course, rights are supposed to be
inherent and inalienable, meaning that their recognition should never be
contingent on how well or significantly people make contributions to
power and profit. The manner in which this question bears on Zionism is
that Palestinians are "insignificant Negroes" with whom negotiation is
impossible (since Islam is allegedly inherently violent), a matter
further exacerbated by the fact that Israel is not a permanent member at
the SC. Yet it has de facto veto power at the SC, thanks to regular US
vetoing of resolutions condemning Israeli atrocities and calling for a
peaceful two-state settlement. It bears mention, in this context, that
the dramatically asymmetrical nature of IsraeliPalestinian peace
treaties so far (which have been predominantly predicated on Israeli
terms, hence ought to be viewed as "surrender treaties"), owe their
failure in large measure to Zionistracist notions, of which a few
examples are adduced below. Thus, in the words of former Israeli
President Chaim Herzog:
I do not deny the Palestinians any place or stand or opinion on every
matter - But certainly I am not prepared to consider them as partners in
any respect in a land that has been consecrated in the hands of our
nation for thousands of years. For the Jews of this land there cannot be
any partner. (from internal discussion in Beilin, 1985: 42; also in
Kapeliouk, 1975: 220; Beilin in Chomsky, 1999: 562)
Herzog's view is representative (of at least elite opinion and
attitudes), in that he was merely expressing traditional doctrine,
according to Chomsky. Similarly, Israeli rule over the territories is
"permanent," Moshe Dayan held: "the settlements are forever, and the
future borders will include these settlements as part of Israel." He
further advised the cabinet that Palestinian refugees in the territories
should be told by Israel "that we have no solution, that you shall
continue to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave -- and we
will see where this process leads - In five years we may have 200,000
less people -- and that is a matter of enormous importance." Therefore,
"It [ - ] only makes sense to deny [Palestinians] the means for a decent 26
existence." (Chomsky, Znet, 1993; quotes from Shlaim, 1988: 388,
paraphrasing 1948 JCS records; p. 491, citing the Israeli state
archives) It should come as no surprise, then, that Hamas is not willing
to recognize Israel, since it knows that such recognition will not pave
the way for a peaceful two-state settlement, in the light of the fact
that "Zionism is [ - ] fundamentally at odds with liberal values"
(Finkelstein, 2001:1). This means that Palestinian recognition of Israel
is highly unlikely to prompt Israel to change course, due to its
deeply-rooted desire to dominate Palestinian Arabs. According to Khaled
Hroub (currently the director of the Arab Media Project at Cambridge
University), it is, therefore, inconceivable that Hamas will recognize
Israel as long as the latter refuses to acknowledge the basic rights of
the Palestinian people in any end result based on the principle of a
two-state solution. In other words, most of the conditions that could
create a conducive climate for Hamas to recognize Israel lie in the
hands of the Israelis. (Hroub, 2006: 40; paraphrased) On the other hand,
Israeli leaders have rationalized the occupational status quo and all
that is entailed by it by insisting that "there is no partner for
peace," because of Palestinian terrorism and its seemingly intractable
nature. For example, Dov Weisglass, one of Sharon's closest aides, is on
record as having said, in Ha'aretz on 8 October 2004, that it does not
matter if Palestinians' living conditions are improved"they will never
stop resorting to terrorism. So why appear to appease their terrorism by
negotiating with them? It is hard to take such objection and criticism
seriously, given the fact that Israel is the original/primary wrongdoer
here.1 The creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the illegal
acquisition of territory by force (particularly in the post-67
period"discussed in Chapter 1), the settlements' expansion, the pogroms
by the settlers, the brutal repression of Palestinians for over half a
century, the dramatically asymmetrical nature of all the peace talks so
far2"all these things have caused profound hardship, deprivation and
desperation among the besieged Palestinian population. Hence it is, to
put it mildly, misleading to blame the Palestinians for the occupation.
This is a standard technique of belief formation, to put responsibility
on victims for their own disaster. It is a technique that was typically
used during Europe's colonial depredations in Africa, by claiming that
Africans are "mere thing[s], object[s] of no value." (Hegel, 2001: 114;
the reason Hegel's quote is relevant is that, from the Judaeo-Christian
point of view, Palestinians, too, are "insignificant Negroes" with no
inherent value.) It is a technique that is still used to rationalize
racist policies and practices in the West towards non-whites. The belief
formation can be translated thusly: "the reason we are putting our boots
on their necks is for their good, because of their depravity,
backwardness, lack of selfdiscipline, lack of respect for authority, or
whatnot, not because we are benefiting from it or because we are
immoral." Even Himmler did not claim bad intentions. It is indeed a
truism that "Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption
of power" (Michael Gillespie). For an explicit example of Zionist racism
against all Gentiles, it is worth considering the words of the revered
Rav Kook, chief Ashkenazic rabbi from 1921 to 1935:
The Talmud states that - two contrary types of souls exist, a non-Jewish
soul comes from the Satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from
holiness - The difference between the Jewish soul and the soul of all
non-Jews, at any level, is greater and deeper than the difference
between the soul of a human and the soul of an animal, for between the
latter [two categories] there is only a quantitative difference but
between the former two there is a qualitative one. (Kook, in Kafkafi,
Davar, Sept. 26, 1988; Kafkafi in Chomsky, Necessary Illusions, Appendix
IV, Segment 7/23)
It is doubtful that such a view is obsolete today, since, for example,
former PM Moshe Sharett is on record as having said: "To spill Arab
blood [is] permissible." (Segev, Ha'aretz, Oct. 23, 1981; Segev in
Chomsky, 1999: 159n)3 Not only that, but, according to Chomsky, Jews who
kill Arabs 27
are exempt from human judgment and punishment, per the Code of the
Maimonides and the Halacha. Gush Emunim rabbis have supposedly
continually reiterated this position. And it is estimated that "About
one-half of Israel's Jewish population supports Gush Emunim" (Shahak and
Mezvinski, in The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict), directly and
indirectly.4 Notions of racial superiority among American Jews also
appear to be pervasive. Thus, as the famous American Jewish novelist,
Philip Roth, has noted: "What an American Jewish child inherits 'is no
body of law, no body of learning and no language, and finally, no Lord .
. . but a kind of psychology: and the psychology can be translated in
three words: "Jews are better".'" (Silberman, 1985: 78, 80, 81;
Silberman in Finkelstein, 2000: 33) Such a claim ought to be taken for
whatever it is worth, recalling that Zionism was condemned by the GA as
a "form of racism and racial discrimination" in 1975. In conclusion,
Israel's anti-Semitism towards Palestinian Arabs is as despicable as
European and American anti-Semitism towards Jews, which by no means
includes the large majority of each continent's population. This attempt
at casting a disparaging light on Zionism without casting a disparaging
light on Jews as a national/cultural/religious/"ethnic" entity is part
and parcel of cosmopolitan practice, per the theoretical framework set
up in Chapter 1.
28
Appendix 2: Official Definitions of Terrorism
The reason for this appendix is so that the reader may have a clear
understanding of what terrorism means, not in propagandistic terms but
in factual ones. Following is a definition of terrorism according to US
Army Manuals:
[An] act of terrorism, means any activity that (A) involves a violent
act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the
criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a
criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United
States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate
or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a
government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct
of a government by assassination or kidnapping. (United States Code
Congressional and Administrative News, 98th Congress, Second Session,
1984, Oct. 19, volume 2; par. 3077, 98 STAT. 2707 [West Publishing Co.,
1984], in Chomsky, 2001: 16)
The FBI's definition of terrorism:
The unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or
individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose
activities transcend national boundaries, against persons or property to
intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any
segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. (FBI
definition of international terrorism, in Blum, 2000: 32)
US Department of State's definition of terrorism:
Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated
against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine state
agents. (Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983, U.S. Department of State,
September 1984.)
British Government's definition of terrorism:
Terrorism is the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging or
disrupting and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the
public and is for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or
ideological cause. (Defense Committee, Second Report, para. 5; in
Curtis, 2003: 93).
So these definitions, descriptively used, can and ought to be applied to
both sides of the conflict in question, regardless of the religious
fundamentalism, on both sides, that provides a rationale (as opposed to
being motivated by it) for resorting to terrorism. In this context, we
ought to bear in mind that the phrase "fundamentalist religious
zealoutry - is a code word for a particular form of 'radical
nationalism' that threatens 'stability.' And we have to understand
'stability' to mean maintenance of specific forms of domination and
control, and easy access to resources and profits." (Chomsky, 1999: xiii)
29
Appendix 3: POLL: Israelis on the Bush Roadmap*
For the record, I do not think that the survey questions below are
framed very honestly (but they are a bit helpful nevertheless in
providing insight into the disparity between Israeli leaders and their
followers), since the questions contain a number of unexamined
assumptions. For example, the first question obviously presupposes that
the roadmap has something substantive to offer, in terms of peace, which
it doesn't. The second question, according to Edward Said, implicitly
"places the need for restraint and renunciation and sacrifice squarely
on Palestinian shoulders" (Cockburn and St. Clair, 2003: 158). Under the
same question, it is presupposed that freezing settlements would lead to
peace, while it is dismantling and evacuating them that would. The next
point misleadingly talks about "temporary borders." And the last point
mentions "illegal outposts," as if some or most are legal. Q. In
general, do you feel that Israel should adopt or reject the roadmap?
Adopt-52%; Reject-20%; Undecided-28% Among right-wing voters: adopt-38%;
reject-36% Among Likud voters: adopt-47%; reject-25% Among Labor voters:
adopt-81%; reject-3% Q. Assuming that the Palestinians fulfill their
part, please say whether you will support or oppose the following
Israeli measures: IDF withdrawal from areas where they were stationed
before the Intifada Support-70%; Oppose-21%; Undecided-9% Evacuation of
all illegal outposts Support-72%; Oppose-18%; Undecided-10% Complete
freeze on construction in the settlements Support-61%; Oppose-29%;
Undecided-10% Establishing a Palestinian state with temporary borders
Support-54%; Oppose-34%; Undecided-12% Support among Likud voters: for
IDF withdrawal-63%; evacuating illegal outposts-68%; freezing
settlements-49%; Palestinian state-43% The poll was conducted this week
among 606 people. The margin of error is 4%. (Ma'ariv, 05/02/03)
______________________________________
* All the information in this poll is lifted verbatim from URL
www.jordanembassyus.org/new/mep/poll/ipf05132003.htm
30
Notes
Introduction
1
The term 'non-hegemonic, justice-based peace' needs some clarification:
In Eastern Europe during the Cold War, there was hegemonic,
non-justice-based peace, except in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, in
conjunction with the former Soviet Union's invasion of these countries
in the 1950s. The idea here is that even though Eastern Europe was
subjugated by the USSR, and with the two most notable exceptions just
mentioned, manifest, large-scale violence was largely nonexistent, hence
the term 'hegemonic, non-justice-based peace,' from which the opposite
term 'nonhegemonic, justice-based peace' (connoting the notion of peace
without domination or other forms of injustices) is derived. 2 Since the
word structure is used a few times in this thesis, a definition of this
term is warranted: Simply put, a structure is a political and/or social
albeit not necessarily organic arrangement that may manifest itself
overtly or covertly. It need not be violent, oppressive or harmful, even
if it usually is. It can be peaceful or violent, depending on how and
why it was conceived and materialized. Domestic violence against women
and children is a form of structural violence, for example. So is the
manufacture and wholesale distribution of tobacco, which exacts a very
heavy death toll every year around the world. So is depriving people of
their human rights and needs without resorting to physical violence. For
example, racism and homophobia are very real structures, the existence
of which is not in question, since their effects are indisputably
powerful. In brief, just because something is beyond the recognition of
sensory perception"hence non-palpable or intangible in material
terms"does not mean that it does not exist. No one questions"at least
not in the sense of asserting that it is not there"the existence of the
state, but it is a reality nevertheless, however artificial. The
relationship between people"to wit, "social-relational structures""is
not susceptible to sensory perception either, but no one denies that
social relations constitute a form of social structure, etc. 3 I say
'seemingly,' because I am pro-peace rather than pro-this or pro-that
party to the conflict as such, and because as a moral agent I cannot
sympathize with the original or primary (or secondary) wrongdoers in
this conflict, even if I certainly can, as I must, sympathize with the
loss of life and suffering of Israeli civilians as a result of
Palestinian retaliation, for which there can never be any moral
justification whatsoever"it can and should be explained and understood,
as can Israeli aggression, but never justified. So my sympathies extend
only to the innocent, ordinary citizens on both sides to the conflict,
victim or not. This anti-elitist stance should not be misconstrued as
demonization of elites and negation of their human rights, but as
contempt for their value system.
Chapter 1
1
This has been done much in the same fashion as Europe did in Africa
during the colonial period, but in the former case, in brazen defiance
of international law (the UN Security Council has since 1948 passed
dozens of resolutions condemning Israel's unlawful actions against
Palestinians, all of which have been violated. To verify this claim, see
Stephen Zunes, "UN Resolutions being violated by countries other than
Iraq," Foreign Policy in Focus, Znet, October 03, 2002. 2 Of course,
Humboldt was a pre-capitalist figure, so he could not possibly foresee
what a monstrosity the state would become in the more advanced
capitalist societies and their dependencies, but it is safe to deduce
from his own conceptions of the 'proper' form and substance of the
political arrangement of the state and his inevitable ignorance about
the tyrannical nature that private property would assume (as it has),
that he would be strongly opposed to industrial capitalism (it is very
ironic that Western leaders should pay allegiance to classical
liberalism, which was broken on the rocks of rising industrial
capitalism). N.B. Since classical liberalism is also part of the
31
theoretical framework from which the methodology adopted in this work
emanates, it is reasonably assumed on my part that the minimal forms of
state intervention in personal and social life that are implied by, and
intrinsic to, classical liberalism will vindicate my inimical stance to
big government, its worst excesses and subsequent social and
environmental costs.
Chapter 2
1
Israel's decision to build a veritable wall around the West Bank in
order to isolate Palestinian suicide bombers was put into effect 16 June
2002. The late Arafat sounded his objections at the time by calling the
project: "Zionistic racism, a new Apartheid!" (SVT text, p. 130, 18 June
2002) After forty years of Israeli occupation, the infrastructure and
superstructure of apartheid have indeed been put in place in Palestine.
This reality is of course highly disputed in mainstream media and
scholarship, but it has not escaped the attention of serious
commentators. In 1995, when the world was caught up in the deceptive
euphoria created by the Oslo Accords, seasoned Israeli analyst and
former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti observed, "It goes
without saying that 'cooperation' based on the current power
relationship is no more than permanent Israeli domination in disguise,
and that Palestinian self-rule is merely a euphemism for
Bantustanization." (Intimate Enemies, Univ. of California Press, 1995,
p. 232) 2 The primary US geo-strategic goal in the Near East is to
control the immense energy reserves of the Persian Gulf region. The Gulf
region has been "understood since World War II to be the 'most
strategically important area of the world,' 'a stupendous source of
strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world
history' (in the words of Dwight Eisenhower). Apart from what one
historian of the industry calls 'profits beyond the dreams of avarice,'
which must flow in the right direction, control over two-thirds of the
world's estimated hydrocarbon reserves -- uniquely cheap and easy to
exploit -- provides what Zbigniew Brzezinski recently called 'critical
leverage' over European and Asian rivals, what George Kennan many years
earlier had called 'veto power' over them. These have been crucial
policy concerns throughout the post-World War II period, even more so in
today's evolving tripolar world, with its threat that Europe and Asia
might move towards greater independence, and worse, might be united:
China and the EU became each other's major trading partners in 2004,
joined by the world's second largest economy (Japan), and those
tendencies are likely to increase. A firm hand on the spigot reduces
these dangers." (Chomsky, 2004 Elections, Znet, November 29, 2004.
America's direct access to the increasingly important Iraqi oil since
the last illegal invasion has taken the conflict to a higher level of
international relevance, with Israel, Saudi, Egypt, and Turkey having
been assigned their role as "local cops on the beat" since the 70s, a
role now more important than ever. 3 It bears mention that American
Zionism is much more dangerous than Israeli Zionism, since numerically
by far the most important part of the pro-Israel lobby is Christian
evangelicals. The US is an extremist fundamentalist society, more so
than any in the world. Over 1/3 of the population believe that they must
support anything Israel does because it is a sign of the "second
coming," not an insignificant factor in perpetuating the occupational
status quo and even global instability. 4 " - between them, Europe and
the US account for by far the largest number of violent deaths during
the 20th century, the Islamic world hardly a fraction of it." (Edward
Said, "The Meaning of Rachel Corrie," Counterpunch, June 23, 2003) In
brief, the institutional dynamics of the West can be summarized in
geo-strategic terms on the grounds that the so-called capitalist system
cannot survive except through force and fraud. For example: "Because a
capitalist society cannot change, in its dealings with the
underdeveloped countries it can only dominate and exploit. It cannot
emancipate and help." (Lippman, in Rossiter and Lare (eds.), The
Essential Lippmann, p. 81. Lippmann was the dean of American
journalists, a major theorist of liberal democracy and a veteran of the
Creel Commission) Another highly influential mainstream thinker, Harold
Lasswell (one of the founders of modern political science), is on record
as having said: "Modern events have sharply reminded us
32
that distribution depends on myth and violence (on faith and brigandage)
as well as bargaining." (Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, Cleveland,
Ohio: Meridian Books, 1958. p. 8.) 5 On p. 235 in the same publication,
we read: "Estimates of the size of its nuclear arsenal vary, usually
ranging from fewer than 100 warheads to 200-300 warheads." The
suggestive (as opposed to the dogmatic) tone in SIPRI's language
pertaining to the question of Israel's nuclear arsenal can be attributed
to the fact that the state of Israel has never officially acknowledged
that it has nuclear weapons, nor has it denied it. Thus, according to
SIPRI: "Israel's official policy of neither confirming nor denying
possession of nuclear weapons is combined with strict confidentiality
measures and insulation of the issue from national politics." (SIPRI
Yearbook 2006, pp. 235-6. See also 'Sharon sticks to nuclear policy',
BBC News Online, 6 July 2004, URL news.bbc.co.uk/2/3869125.stm And Mark
Lavie, Olmert Seeks to Clarify Nuke Arms Remarks, Associated Press,
December 12, 2006, where he mentions Defense Secretary Robert Gates's
testimony to a Senate committee, identifying Israel as a nuclear power;
and reports on Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's "slip of the
tongue" that Israel has a nuclear weapons program, subsequently
retracted. See also Guardian, 4 August 2005, and Observer, 12 October
2003; the latter discusses how Israel's 200 nuclear warheads are fitted
to American-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles capable of hitting any of
Israel's Arab neighbors. The former talks about how Britain played an
important role by facilitating Israel's development of nuclear weapons
by supplying it with heavy water. The fact that the Israeli nuclear
scientist Mordechai Vanunu was abducted by the Israeli secret services
and taken back to Israel to face trial and be convicted of treason (as
he himself revealed in the British paper The Sunday Times in 1986) is,
of course, telling) 6 Regarding US aid to Israel, for FY 1978 through
1982, Israel received 48 percent of all US military aid and 35 percent
of US economic aid, worldwide. For Fiscal Year 1983, the Reagan
Administration requested almost $2.5 billion for Israel out of a total
aid budget of $8.1 billion, including $500 million in outright grants
and $1.2 billion in low-interest loans. To verify these claims, see G.
Neal Lendenmann, "The Struggle in Congress over Aid Levels to Israel,"
AmericanArab Affairs, Winter 1982-3; Boston Globe, Sept. 26, 1982. See
also "Senate OK's foreign aid plan with $2.6b for Israel," Washington
Post"Boston Globe, Dec. 18, 1982. For more recent facts on US aid to
Israel, see Donald Neff, "Massive Aid to Israel," Middle East
International, July 21, 1995, p. 8. An excerpt: "For the past decade,
Israel has been receiving annually, as non-repayable grants, $3bn and,
for keeping its peace with Israel, Egypt has been getting $2.2bn.
Through special deals, grants from other programmes and loan guarantees,
Israel's total contribution from the U.S. came to $6,321,000,000 in
fiscal 1993. . . . Israel's aid includes $1.2bn in economic assistance
(the rest goes to military transfers). The economic aid goes directly
into Israel's budget without any pretense of being targeted for specific
projects, as in other countries. In other words, Israel gets a direct
boost to its treasury of $1.2bn every year as though its own taxpayers
had paid it. Yet Israel's economy is in its best shape ever . . . and
Israelis are enjoying a lifestyle far beyond that of most people of the
world. . . . Congress has never bothered asking why a country this
prosperous needs continued economic assistance, whose purpose is to help
develop struggling economies, not augment ones already well developed. .
. . The magnitude of aid to Israel becomes starker when it is realised
that Israel's population of around 5 million is only a thousandth of the
world total of 5.5 billion people. This small number is getting about a
quarter of all the money the U.S. is spending worldwide on foreign aid
-- not counting the additional $3.3bn Israel receives by other means
from the U.S. or the $2.2bn the U.S. pays annually to Egypt for keeping
peace with Israel." For the sake of clarity, "The second-raking
recipient, Egypt, is granted aid to ensure its adherence to the
US-Israel alliance, a core part of the system of control of the
oil-producing regions, also a factor in Turkey's regular place among the
top aid recipients." (Chomsky, Rogue States, London: Pluto Press, 2000,
p. 234n43) The next leading recipients in US aid are Pakistan and
Colombia. The aid that flows to all the countries mentioned above is
illegal, because US law bars aid to countries which systematically use
torture, based on the fact that international law of human rights is
33
universally accepted, hence, in this case, incorporated into US domestic
law, on the basis of 'customary international law.' On Israel's use of
torture, see "Israel and torture: A case for concern," Sunday Times
(London), June 19, 1977, p. 16. For a hemispheric pattern of correlation
between U.S. aid and egregious human rights violations in Latin America,
see Lars Schoultz, "U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Violations in
Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Aid Distributions,"
Comparative Politics, January 1981, pp. 149-170. 7 For a detailed tour
de force on this subject, see Chomsky, Fateful Triangle: The United
States, Israel and the Palestinians, Cambridge (MA): SEP, 1999, chapter
7: The Road to Armageddon.) When it comes to the pro-Israel lobby (not
including the Christian right) in the US, it bears mention that its
power should not be exaggerated, since it is not as powerful as most
people make it out to be. The reasons are instructive: The most
influential part of the lobby, surely, is the general intellectual
community -- not just in the US, but also in Europe. Since Israel's 1967
conquest, they have had an incredible love affair with Israel, greatly
admiring its successful use of violence against third world upstarts.
That, of course, colors media coverage and other commentary, and has a
substantial influence on policy makers, which leads us to a very subtle
question: how can we dissociate the effects of perceived
strategic-economic interests and lobbying pressures when in fact they
usually coincide? When they conflict, the lobby runs away silently, too
intelligent to confront real power interests. That happens all the time.
Last year, for example, when Israel tried to sell advanced military
technology to China, a real necessity for their military-based export
economy, the Bush administration not only ordered them not to (and of
course they obeyed), but went out of its way to humiliate them, refusing
to meet counterparts in the Israeli government, compelling them to write
an abject letter of apology, etc. The lobby was nowhere to be seen.
There have been many such cases, but usually the matter does not arise,
because the factors tend to coincide. For details on how and why Israel
provided sensitive US military technology to potential US rivals like
China, in what the US State Department Inspector-General called a
"systematic and growing pattern of transfers," see Duncan L. Clarke,
"Israel's Unauthorized Arms Transfers," Foreign Policy, No. 99 (Summer
1995), p. 94. For details on the bitter controversy in 2004-2005 between
the United States and Israel over Israeli arms sales to China, see Aluf
Benn and Amnon Barzilai, "Pentagon Official Wants Yaron Fired,"
Ha'aretz, December 16, 2004; Aluf Benn, "U.S. Keeps Israel Out of New
Fighter-Jet Development Program," Ha'aretz, October 12, 2005; Nina
Gilbert, "Yaron Won't Give Info on Arms Sales to China," Jerusalem Post,
December 30, 2004; "Israeli, U.S. Talks on Weapons Deals with China End
without Result," Ha'aretz, June 29, 2005; Marc Perelman, "Spat Over
Sales of Weapons Chilling Ties between Jerusalem and Beijing," Forward,
December 23, 2004; Marc Perelman, "China Crisis Straining U.S.-Israel
Ties," Forward, August 5, 2005; Marc Perelman, "Israel Miffed over
Lingering China Flap," Forward, October 7, 2005; Ze'ev Schiff,
"U.S.-Israel Crisis Deepens over Defense Exports to China," Ha'aretz,
July 27, 2005. 8 For example: "The pretext for punishing Palestinians is
that Hamas refuses to accept three demands: to recognize Israel, cease
all acts of violence, and accept earlier agreements. The editors of the
New York Times instruct Hamas leaders that they must accept the 'ground
rules that have already been accepted by Egypt and Jordan and by the
Arab League as a whole in its 2002 Beirut peace initiative' and,
furthermore, that they must do so 'not as some kind of ideological
concession' but 'as an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary
rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful
government' -- like us. Unmentioned is that Israel and the United States
flatly reject all of these conditions. They do not recognize Palestine;
they refused to end their violence even when Hamas observed a unilateral
truce for a year and a half and called for a longterm truce while
negotiations proceed for a two-state settlement; and they dismissed with
utter contempt the 2002 Arab League call for normalization of relations,
along with all other proposals for a meaningful diplomatic settlement.
Even when it accepted the "Road Map" that is supposed to define U.S.
policy, Israel added fourteen "reservations" that rendered it entirely
meaningless,
34
eliciting the usual tacit approval in Washington and silence in
commentary." (Chomsky, Confrontation with Hamas and Hezbollah, Znet,
July 29, 2006) To further corroborate the above claim, it bears mention
that Retired colonel Pat Lang, former head of the Middle East and
terrorism desk at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, said of
the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon: "This is basically tribal
warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and you're unwilling
to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas offered, then you have to destroy
them. The Israeli response is so disproportionate to the abduction of
the three men it appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal
both to their public and to the U.S." (Pat Lang, quoted in Dan Murphy,
"Escalation Ripples Through Middle East," Christian Science Monitor,
July 14, 2006, p. 1) 9 This puts in question the sanity of God. In other
words, if we give face value meaning to the bible, particularly (in this
context at least) the Old Testament, as most religious Jews and
practicing Christians are happily inclined to do, then we are left with
no choice but to surmise that God has a narcissistic personality
disorder (the primary features of which are marked by lack of empathy
and impulse control), one who has deliberately caused and inflicted
pain, misery and heinous crimes on humanity on a massive scale. In
short, a sociopath. 10 The theory can be summarized as follows: "our
enemies should recognize that we are crazed and unpredictable, with
extraordinary destructive force at our command, so they will bend to our
will in fear. The concept was apparently devised in Israel in the 1950s
by the governing Labor Party, whose leaders 'preached in favor of acts
of madness that 'we will go crazy' ('nishtagea') if crossed, a 'secret
weapon' aimed in part against the US." (Chomsky, Rogue States: The Rule
of Force in World Affairs, London: Pluto, 2000, p. 20.) 11 See "A
Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," U.S. Department of State, Press
Statement, Office of the Spokesman, Washington, DC, April 30, 2003, URL
www.house.gov/fattah/issues/roadmap.pdf 12 There is an important
distinction that needs to be made here, and that is the question of
drawing a boundary between legitimate armed resistance and terror. In
regard to the former, it is worth mentioning GA Resolution 2649 from
1970, which "condemns those Governments that deny the right of
self-determination of peoples recognized as being entitled to it,
especially of the peoples of southern Africa and Palestine." Not
surprisingly, "Two states voted against; the usual two, United States
and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against a major
resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in fact pretty
much the terms that the Reagan administration was using? Well, there is
a reason. There is one paragraph in that long resolution which says that
nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of people struggling
against racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation to
continue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other
states, states outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and
Israel can't accept that. The main reason why they couldn't at the time
was because of South Africa," which "was an ally, officially called an
ally - And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied
territories," now going into its thirty-ninth year. "Supported primarily
by the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement" for almost 40
years now, "still is." (Chomsky, The New War Against Terror, in Nancy
Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds.), Violence in War and Peace:
An Anthology, Oxford (UK): Blackwell Publishing, 2004 (reprinted 2005),
p. 221.)
Chapter 3
1
For example, not long ago, there was a "possible slip of the tongue by
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in an interview to the BBC, in which she
said that there was a difference between attacking civilians and
attacking soldiers. Even though she did not resolutely stand by her own
words in an interview with Channel 10, Livni dared to speak the truth:
'If harming civilians is a measure of terror, then Israel is a terror
state.' With 18 killed in Gaza alone in 12 days, three of them children,
the absence of intent cannot suffice for us. Someone who uses artillery
to shell population centers
35
and says with horrific indifference that this is "just a preview," as if
it were another reality show on TV, cannot claim that he does not intend
to kill children." (Livni quoted in Gideon Levy, Who is the Terrorist?
Ha'aretz, April 23, 2006) See also Amnesty International's report
(1999), Flouting UN Obligations in the Name of Security, which concluded
that Israeli "interrogation methods, such as violent shaking, or
hooding, and shackling detainees to low chairs with loud music playing,
constituted torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment and thus contravened Article 1 of the Convention against
Torture." The same report also asserted that torture is "officially
authorized at the highest level and indeed effectively legalized." For
extensive documentation of Israel's terrible human rights record, see
Chomsky, Fateful Triangle; Roane Carey (ed.), The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid, London and NY, Verso, 2001; Edward Said
and Christopher Hitchens (eds.), Blaming the Victims: Spurious
Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, NY: Verso, 2001. 2 The purely
theological question of whether Jesus will indeed return in physical
form or not (or whether the Messiah will come for the first time to
deliver Jews from an allegedly universal murderous Gentile impulse), is
not relevant in this context, since theology is almost completely devoid
of substantive evidence. Besides, it is not possible to prove a
negative. 3 It is scandalous and immoral to compare human suffering, of
course, and that is not what is being done here. Rather, it is the scale
of the crimes perpetrated against innocent civilians by the powerful
and, subsequently, by the weak, that is being compared, so that the
asymmetrical and disproportionate relationship between the two
categories of terror can be appreciated. The attempt here is not to
trivialize non-state terror but merely to contextualize it (since terror
is never purposeless, regardless of who the perpetrators might be),
because militant Islamic terror (which in reality is not religiously
motivated) is a by-product of US violence (Hamas, too, is but a natural
outcome of un-natural, ruthless occupational conditions). For some
insights into the dynamics of state and non-state terror, see Edward
Said, Culture and Resistance, London: Pluto Press, 2003, p. 89 and
chapters 4 and 5; John Pilger, The Rise of the Democratic Police State,
Znet, August 18, 2005. In the latter work, Pilger cites the extensive
study of Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, which reveals that
most suicide bombers are not mainly driven by "an evil ideology
independent of other circumstances," since "Half of them are not
religious fanatics at all," and, "In fact, over 95 per cent of suicide
attacks around the world [are not about] religion, but a specific
strategic purpose -- to compel the US and other western countries to
abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula and in the
countries they view as their homeland or prize greatly." (Robert Pape)
The same observation was made in SIPRI Yearbook 2006, p. 128-9, also
citing Robert Pape's study entitled Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism, NY: Random House, 2005. 4 The state is readily
considered even by many mainstream academics to be the foremost violator
of human rights, while concurrently claiming to have, and ironically
entrusting itself with, the primary responsibility for the protection of
human rights. This is called racketeering. As Charles Tilly has duly
noted, "Someone who produces both the danger and, at a price, the shield
against it is a racketeer - " A "racketeer [is] someone who creates a
threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of
protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering. To the
extent that the threats against which a given government protects its
citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the
government has organized a protection racket. Since governments
themselves commonly simulate, stimulate, or even fabricate threats of
external war and since the repressive and extractive activities of
governments often constitute the largest current threats to the
livelihoods of their own citizens, many governments operate in
essentially the same ways as racketeers." (War Making and State Making
as Organized Crime, in Peter Evans et al., Bringing the State Back In,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
36
Conclusion
1
For example, the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem (which has
condemned the wall), has projected that the wall "will cause 'direct
harm' to 210,000 Palestinians, turning some villages into 'isolated
enclaves' and separating Palestinians from their farm lands, villages
and livelihoods." (B'Tselem cited in Berry and Philo, Israel-Palestine,
p. 123.) We can be fairly confident that the indirect harm that has been
and will be caused will be on a much larger scale. 2 See "Legal
Consequences of The Construction of a Wall in The Occupied Palestinian
Territory," at URL www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm
This is the official website of the World Court, where numerous
documents are posted pertaining to the issue of the wall. The following
document, Press Release on Legal Consequences of Israel's wall, captures
the highlights of the Court's legally binding decision, URL
www.icjcij.org/icjwww/ipresscom/ipress2004/ipresscom2004-28_mwp_20040709.htm
The whole text of the ruling can be found at URL
stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/ICJ-Ruling.pdf 3 The barest minimum in
this case ought to be the willingness to pay the refugees a fair amount
of compensation, particularly if they choose not to return to their
homeland, after having been given such a choice and possibility (there
are approximately 3 million internally displaced Palestinians in the OT,
whose suffering and trauma also ought to be recognized). 4 Naturally,
this has to include the offspring of the Holocaust victims, since human
suffering does not necessarily end with the demise of the generation
against whom terrible atrocities were committed.
Appendix 1
1
In 1936-9, a nationalist revolt was attempted by the Palestinian Arabs,
after the failure of a long strike. Former Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion
recognized why the strike was ignored and ineffectual. In internal
discussion, he noted that "in our political argument abroad, we minimize
Arab opposition to us," but "let us not ignore the truth among ourselves
[...] politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves . . .
The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come
here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them
their country, while we are still outside." The revolt "is an active
resistance by the Palestinians to what they regard as a usurpation of
their homeland . . . Behind the terrorism is a movement, which though
primitive is not devoid of idealism and self-sacrifice." (Simha Flappan,
Zionism and the Palestinians, Barnes and Noble Books 1979 (unknown
binding), pp. 141-2, citing a 1938 speech by Ben-Gurion) 2 Since space
does not allow me to analyze every singe peace treaty, I will give only
one critical example here: " - Oslo [is] an inherently asymmetric
process whose foregone conclusion is not only unfair, but also
dangerous. The gist here is that Israel, which is strong, big, rich and
backed by a superpower, is conducting negotiations of a coercive nature
with a weak Palestinian leadership that has sold out - " (Ha'aretz, 19
March 2000) 3 For the record, I made a request to Ha'aretz to see if
they could send me a hard or soft copy of Segev's article. The person I
sent an email to, Shlomit C., had no trouble finding it in the archives,
but he or she said that all articles published prior to 1997 are in
Hebrew, so I declined the offer, due to the language barrier. 4 It is of
course impossible for me to verify these contentions firsthand, since
there is a language barrier involved, in that many of these alleged
views and statements were conveyed in Hebrew, so those of us who are not
conversant with the Hebrew language do not have the benefit of being
able to verify these claims firsthand, by reading the original
statements. Therefore, skepticism is surely called for, with the proviso
that writers in general (be they dissidents or mainstream thinkers)
should be given the benefit of the doubt without taking their claims at
face value.)
37
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41
reminded us
32
that distribution depends on myth and violence (on faith and brigandage)
as well as bargaining." (Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, Cleveland,
Ohio: Meridian Books, 1958. p. 8.) 5 On p. 235 in the same publication,
we read: "Estimates of the size of its nuclear arsenal vary, usually
ranging from fewer than 100 warheads to 200-300 warheads." The
suggestive (as opposed to the dogmatic) tone in SIPRI's language
pertaining to the question of Israel's nuclear arsenal can be attributed
to the fact that the state of Israel has never officially acknowledged
that it has nuclear weapons, nor has it denied it. Thus, according to
SIPRI: "Israel's official policy of neither confirming nor denying
possession of nuclear weapons is combined with strict confidentiality
measures and insulation of the issue from national politics." (SIPRI
Yearbook 2006, pp. 235-6. See also 'Sharon sticks to nuclear policy',
BBC News Online, 6 July 2004, URL news.bbc.co.uk/2/3869125.stm And Mark
Lavie, Olmert Seeks to Clarify Nuke Arms Remarks, Associated Press,
December 12, 2006, where he mentions Defense Secretary Robert Gates's
testimony to a Senate committee, identifying Israel as a nuclear power;
and reports on Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's "slip of the
tongue" that Israel has a nuclear weapons program, subsequently
retracted. See also Guardian, 4 August 2005, and Observer, 12 October
2003; the latter discusses how Israel's 200 nuclear warheads are fitted
to American-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles capable of hitting any of
Israel's Arab neighbors. The former talks about how Britain played an
important role by facilitating Israel's development of nuclear weapons
by supplying it with heavy water. The fact that the Israeli nuclear
scientist Mordechai Vanunu was abducted by the Israeli secret services
and taken back to Israel to face trial and be convicted of treason (as
he himself revealed in the British paper The Sunday Times in 1986) is,
of course, telling) 6 Regarding US aid to Israel, for FY 1978 through
1982, Israel received 48 percent of all US military aid and 35 percent
of US economic aid, worldwide. For Fiscal Year 1983, the Reagan
Administration requested almost $2.5 billion for Israel out of a total
aid budget of $8.1 billion, including $500 million in outright grants
and $1.2 billion in low-interest loans. To verify these claims, see G.
Neal Lendenmann, "The Struggle in Congress over Aid Levels to Israel,"
AmericanArab Affairs, Winter 1982-3; Boston Globe, Sept. 26, 1982. See
also "Senate OK's foreign aid plan with $2.6b for Israel," Washington
Post"Boston Globe, Dec. 18, 1982. For more recent facts on US aid to
Israel, see Donald Neff, "Massive Aid to Israel," Middle East
International, July 21, 1995, p. 8. An excerpt: "For the past decade,
Israel has been receiving annually, as non-repayable grants, $3bn and,
for keeping its peace with Israel, Egypt has been getting $2.2bn.
Through special deals, grants from other programmes and loan guarantees,
Israel's total contribution from the U.S. came to $6,321,000,000 in
fiscal 1993. . . . Israel's aid includes $1.2bn in economic assistance
(the rest goes to military transfers). The economic aid goes directly
into Israel's budget without any pretense of being targeted for specific
projects, as in other countries. In other words, Israel gets a direct
boost to its treasury of $1.2bn every year as though its own taxpayers
had paid it. Yet Israel's economy is in its best shape ever . . . and
Israelis are enjoying a lifestyle far beyond that of most people of the
world. . . . Congress has never bothered asking why a country this
prosperous needs continued economic assistance, whose purpose is to help
develop struggling economies, not augment ones already well developed. .
. . The magnitude of aid to Israel becomes starker when it is realised
that Israel's population of around 5 million is only a thousandth of the
world total of 5.5 billion people. This small number is getting about a
quarter of all the money the U.S. is spending worldwide on foreign aid
-- not counting the additional $3.3bn Israel receives by other means
from the U.S. or the $2.2bn the U.S. pays annually to Egypt for keeping
peace with Israel." For the sake of clarity, "The second-raking
recipient, Egypt, is granted aid to ensure its adherence to the
US-Israel alliance, a core part of the system of control of the
oil-producing regions, also a factor in Turkey's regular place among the
top aid recipients." (Chomsky, Rogue States, London: Pluto Press, 2000,
p. 234n43) The next leading recipients in US aid are Pakistan and
Colombia. The aid that flows to all the countries mentioned above is
illegal, because US law bars aid to countries which systematically use
torture, based on the fact that international law of human rights is
33
universally accepted, hence, in this case, incorporated into US domestic
law, on the basis of 'customary international law.' On Israel's use of
torture, see "Israel and torture: A case for concern," Sunday Times
(London), June 19, 1977, p. 16. For a hemispheric pattern of correlation
between U.S. aid and egregious human rights violations in Latin America,
see Lars Schoultz, "U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Violations in
Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Aid Distributions,"
Comparative Politics, January 1981, pp. 149-170. 7 For a detailed tour
de force on this subject, see Chomsky, Fateful Triangle: The United
States, Israel and the Palestinians, Cambridge (MA): SEP, 1999, chapter
7: The Road to Armageddon.) When it comes to the pro-Israel lobby (not
including the Christian right) in the US, it bears mention that its
power should not be exaggerated, since it is not as powerful as most
people make it out to be. The reasons are instructive: The most
influential part of the lobby, surely, is the general intellectual
community -- not just in the US, but also in Europe. Since Israel's 1967
conquest, they have had an incredible love affair with Israel, greatly
admiring its successful use of violence against third world upstarts.
That, of course, colors media coverage and other commentary, and has a
substantial influence on policy makers, which leads us to a very subtle
question: how can we dissociate the effects of perceived
strategic-economic interests and lobbying pressures when in fact they
usually coincide? When they conflict, the lobby runs away silently, too
intelligent to confront real power interests. That happens all the time.
Last year, for example, when Israel tried to sell advanced military
technology to China, a real necessity for their military-based export
economy, the Bush administration not only ordered them not to (and of
course they obeyed), but went out of its way to humiliate them, refusing
to meet counterparts in the Israeli government, compelling them to write
an abject letter of apology, etc. The lobby was nowhere to be seen.
There have been many such cases, but usually the matter does not arise,
because the factors tend to coincide. For details on how and why Israel
provided sensitive US military technology to potential US rivals like
China, in what the US State Department Inspector-General called a
"systematic and growing pattern of transfers," see Duncan L. Clarke,
"Israel's Unauthorized Arms Transfers," Foreign Policy, No. 99 (Summer
1995), p. 94. For details on the bitter controversy in 2004-2005 between
the United States and Israel over Israeli arms sales to China, see Aluf
Benn and Amnon Barzilai, "Pentagon Official Wants Yaron Fired,"
Ha'aretz, December 16, 2004; Aluf Benn, "U.S. Keeps Israel Out of New
Fighter-Jet Development Program," Ha'aretz, October 12, 2005; Nina
Gilbert, "Yaron Won't Give Info on Arms Sales to China," Jerusalem Post,
December 30, 2004; "Israeli, U.S. Talks on Weapons Deals with China End
without Result," Ha'aretz, June 29, 2005; Marc Perelman, "Spat Over
Sales of Weapons Chilling Ties between Jerusalem and Beijing," Forward,
December 23, 2004; Marc Perelman, "China Crisis Straining U.S.-Israel
Ties," Forward, August 5, 2005; Marc Perelman, "Israel Miffed over
Lingering China Flap," Forward, October 7, 2005; Ze'ev Schiff,
"U.S.-Israel Crisis Deepens over Defense Exports to China," Ha'aretz,
July 27, 2005. 8 For example: "The pretext for punishing Palestinians is
that Hamas refuses to accept three demands: to recognize Israel, cease
all acts of violence, and accept earlier agreements. The editors of the
New York Times instruct Hamas leaders that they must accept the 'ground
rules that have already been accepted by Egypt and Jordan and by the
Arab League as a whole in its 2002 Beirut peace initiative' and,
furthermore, that they must do so 'not as some kind of ideological
concession' but 'as an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary
rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful
government' -- like us. Unmentioned is that Israel and the United States
flatly reject all of these conditions. They do not recognize Palestine;
they refused to end their violence even when Hamas observed a unilateral
truce for a year and a half and called for a longterm truce while
negotiations proceed for a two-state settlement; and they dismissed with
utter contempt the 2002 Arab League call for normalization of relations,
along with all other proposals for a meaningful diplomatic settlement.
Even when it accepted the "Road Map" that is supposed to define U.S.
policy, Israel added fourteen "reservations" that rendered it entirely
meaningless,
34
eliciting the usual tacit approval in Washington and silence in
commentary." (Chomsky, Confrontation with Hamas and Hezbollah, Znet,
July 29, 2006) To further corroborate the above claim, it bears mention
that Retired colonel Pat Lang, former head of the Middle East and
terrorism desk at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, said of
the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon: "This is basically tribal
warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and you're unwilling
to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas offered, then you have to destroy
them. The Israeli response is so disproportionate to the abduction of
the three men it appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal
both to their public and to the U.S." (Pat Lang, quoted in Dan Murphy,
"Escalation Ripples Through Middle East," Christian Science Monitor,
July 14, 2006, p. 1) 9 This puts in question the sanity of God. In other
words, if we give face value meaning to the bible, particularly (in this
context at least) the Old Testament, as most religious Jews and
practicing Christians are happily inclined to do, then we are left with
no choice but to surmise that God has a narcissistic personality
disorder (the primary features of which are marked by lack of empathy
and impulse control), one who has deliberately caused and inflicted
pain, misery and heinous crimes on humanity on a massive scale. In
short, a sociopath. 10 The theory can be summarized as follows: "our
enemies should recognize that we are crazed and unpredictable, with
extraordinary destructive force at our command, so they will bend to our
will in fear. The concept was apparently devised in Israel in the 1950s
by the governing Labor Party, whose leaders 'preached in favor of acts
of madness that 'we will go crazy' ('nishtagea') if crossed, a 'secret
weapon' aimed in part against the US." (Chomsky, Rogue States: The Rule
of Force in World Affairs, London: Pluto, 2000, p. 20.) 11 See "A
Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," U.S. Department of State, Press
Statement, Office of the Spokesman, Washington, DC, April 30, 2003, URL
www.house.gov/fattah/issues/roadmap.pdf 12 There is an important
distinction that needs to be made here, and that is the question of
drawing a boundary between legitimate armed resistance and terror. In
regard to the former, it is worth mentioning GA Resolution 2649 from
1970, which "condemns those Governments that deny the right of
self-determination of peoples recognized as being entitled to it,
especially of the peoples of southern Africa and Palestine." Not
surprisingly, "Two states voted against; the usual two, United States
and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against a major
resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in fact pretty
much the terms that the Reagan administration was using? Well, there is
a reason. There is one paragraph in that long resolution which says that
nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of people struggling
against racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation to
continue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other
states, states outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and
Israel can't accept that. The main reason why they couldn't at the time
was because of South Africa," which "was an ally, officially called an
ally - And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied
territories," now going into its thirty-ninth year. "Supported primarily
by the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement" for almost 40
years now, "still is." (Chomsky, The New War Against Terror, in Nancy
Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois (eds.), Violence in War and Peace:
An Anthology, Oxford (UK): Blackwell Publishing, 2004 (reprinted 2005),
p. 221.)
Chapter 3
1
For example, not long ago, there was a "possible slip of the tongue by
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in an interview to the BBC, in which she
said that there was a difference between attacking civilians and
attacking soldiers. Even though she did not resolutely stand by her own
words in an interview with Channel 10, Livni dared to speak the truth:
'If harming civilians is a measure of terror, then Israel is a terror
state.' With 18 killed in Gaza alone in 12 days, three of them children,
the absence of intent cannot suffice for us. Someone who uses artillery
to shell population centers
35
and says with horrific indifference that this is "just a preview," as if
it were another reality show on TV, cannot claim that he does not intend
to kill children." (Livni quoted in Gideon Levy, Who is the Terrorist?
Ha'aretz, April 23, 2006) See also Amnesty International's report
(1999), Flouting UN Obligations in the Name of Security, which concluded
that Israeli "interrogation methods, such as violent shaking, or
hooding, and shackling detainees to low chairs with loud music playing,
constituted torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment and thus contravened Article 1 of the Convention against
Torture." The same report also asserted that torture is "officially
authorized at the highest level and indeed effectively legalized." For
extensive documentation of Israel's terrible human rights record, see
Chomsky, Fateful Triangle; Roane Carey (ed.), The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid, London and NY, Verso, 2001; Edward Said
and Christopher Hitchens (eds.), Blaming the Victims: Spurious
Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, NY: Verso, 2001. 2 The purely
theological question of whether Jesus will indeed return in physical
form or not (or whether the Messiah will come for the first time to
deliver Jews from an allegedly universal murderous Gentile impulse), is
not relevant in this context, since theology is almost completely devoid
of substantive evidence. Besides, it is not possible to prove a
negative. 3 It is scandalous and immoral to compare human suffering, of
course, and that is not what is being done here. Rather, it is the scale
of the crimes perpetrated against innocent civilians by the powerful
and, subsequently, by the weak, that is being compared, so that the
asymmetrical and disproportionate relationship between the two
categories of terror can be appreciated. The attempt here is not to
trivialize non-state terror but merely to contextualize it (since terror
is never purposeless, regardless of who the perpetrators might be),
because militant Islamic terror (which in reality is not religiously
motivated) is a by-product of US violence (Hamas, too, is but a natural
outcome of un-natural, ruthless occupational conditions). For some
insights into the dynamics of state and non-state terror, see Edward
Said, Culture and Resistance, London: Pluto Press, 2003, p. 89 and
chapters 4 and 5; John Pilger, The Rise of the Democratic Police State,
Znet, August 18, 2005. In the latter work, Pilger cites the extensive
study of Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, which reveals that
most suicide bombers are not mainly driven by "an evil ideology
independent of other circumstances," since "Half of them are not
religious fanatics at all," and, "In fact, over 95 per cent of suicide
attacks around the world [are not about] religion, but a specific
strategic purpose -- to compel the US and other western countries to
abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula and in the
countries they view as their homeland or prize greatly." (Robert Pape)
The same observation was made in SIPRI Yearbook 2006, p. 128-9, also
citing Robert Pape's study entitled Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism, NY: Random House, 2005. 4 The state is readily
considered even by many mainstream academics to be the foremost violator
of human rights, while concurrently claiming to have, and ironically
entrusting itself with, the primary responsibility for the protection of
human rights. This is called racketeering. As Charles Tilly has duly
noted, "Someone who produces both the danger and, at a price, the shield
against it is a racketeer - " A "racketeer [is] someone who creates a
threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of
protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering. To the
extent that the threats against which a given government protects its
citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the
government has organized a protection racket. Since governments
themselves commonly simulate, stimulate, or even fabricate threats of
external war and since the repressive and extractive activities of
governments often constitute the largest current threats to the
livelihoods of their own citizens, many governments operate in
essentially the same ways as racketeers." (War Making and State Making
as Organized Crime, in Peter Evans et al., Bringing the State Back In,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
36
Conclusion
1
For example, the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem (which has
condemned the wall), has projected that the wall "will cause 'direct
harm' to 210,000 Palestinians, turning some villages into 'isolated
enclaves' and separating Palestinians from their farm lands, villages
and livelihoods." (B'Tselem cited in Berry and Philo, Israel-Palestine,
p. 123.) We can be fairly confident that the indirect harm that has been
and will be caused will be on a much larger scale. 2 See "Legal
Consequences of The Construction of a Wall in The Occupied Palestinian
Territory," at URL www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/idocket/imwp/imwpframe.htm
This is the official website of the World Court, where numerous
documents are posted pertaining to the issue of the wall. The following
document, Press Release on Legal Consequences of Israel's wall, captures
the highlights of the Court's legally binding decision, URL
www.icjcij.org/icjwww/ipresscom/ipress2004/ipresscom2004-28_mwp_20040709.htm
The whole text of the ruling can be found at URL
stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/ICJ-Ruling.pdf 3 The barest minimum in
this case ought to be the willingness to pay the refugees a fair amount
of compensation, particularly if they choose not to return to their
homeland, after having been given such a choice and possibility (there
are approximately 3 million internally displaced Palestinians in the OT,
whose suffering and trauma also ought to be recognized). 4 Naturally,
this has to include the offspring of the Holocaust victims, since human
suffering does not necessarily end with the demise of the generation
against whom terrible atrocities were committed.
Appendix 1
1
In 1936-9, a nationalist revolt was attempted by the Palestinian Arabs,
after the failure of a long strike. Former Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion
recognized why the strike was ignored and ineffectual. In internal
discussion, he noted that "in our political argument abroad, we minimize
Arab opposition to us," but "let us not ignore the truth among ourselves
[...] politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves . . .
The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come
here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them
their country, while we are still outside." The revolt "is an active
resistance by the Palestinians to what they regard as a usurpation of
their homeland . . . Behind the terrorism is a movement, which though
primitive is not devoid of idealism and self-sacrifice." (Simha Flappan,
Zionism and the Palestinians, Barnes and Noble Books 1979 (unknown
binding), pp. 141-2, citing a 1938 speech by Ben-Gurion) 2 Since space
does not allow me to analyze every singe peace treaty, I will give only
one critical example here: " - Oslo [is] an inherently asymmetric
process whose foregone conclusion is not only unfair, but also
dangerous. The gist here is that Israel, which is strong, big, rich and
backed by a superpower, is conducting negotiations of a coercive nature
with a weak Palestinian leadership that has sold out - " (Ha'aretz, 19
March 2000) 3 For the record, I made a request to Ha'aretz to see if
they could send me a hard or soft copy of Segev's article. The person I
sent an email to, Shlomit C., had no trouble finding it in the archives,
but he or she said that all articles published prior to 1997 are in
Hebrew, so I declined the offer, due to the language barrier. 4 It is of
course impossible for me to verify these contentions firsthand, since
there is a language barrier involved, in that many of these alleged
views and statements were conveyed in Hebrew, so those of us who are not
conversant with the Hebrew language do not have the benefit of being
able to verify these claims firsthand, by reading the original
statements. Therefore, skepticism is surely called for, with the proviso
that writers in general (be they dissidents or mainstream thinkers)
should be given the benefit of the doubt without taking their claims at
face value.)
37
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rescued from Google cache
74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:www.scribd.com/doc/9663082/Israel-Palestine
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Earth's magnetic field:
