Chomsky on the Middle East

Noam Chomsky has been interviewed several times over the last 2 months with regard to the unfolding situation in Israel. The situation has garnered a lot of attention in both the U.S. and World press, but anyone with a good amount of familiarity with the situation there would fail to see any new developments. The level of violence has escalated, but not to previously unseen levels, and certainly there have been no ideological shifts on the part of any of the major players.

In an interview, Noam Chomsky Interviewed − April 27th on ZNet, taken from the Croation Feral Tribune (site is in Croation), he responds to the question “How would you comment in general the situation betweeen the Israelis and the Palestinians?”:

“It is a mistake, in my opinion, to formulate the question that way. We should, rather, ask about “the situation between the US-Israel alliance and the Palestinians.” … The basic situation remains as before. It is not a confrontation between two local adversaries, and even between those too there is nothing remotely like symmetry. Israel is a major military power, backed fully by the global superpower.”

Though the players have changed somewhat, there are no substantive policy or alliance changes over the last 35 years. The absence of the Soviet Union from the arena changes little, since they had no contradictory effect to the influence of the U.S., and their involvement can only be deemed lackluster in any case (recall their failure to aid Egypt in any way during the 1967 invastion by Israel). This lackluster pro-communist support is actually quite characteristic of Soviet policy and belies the true reasons behind the virulent anti-communist action from the U.S.

“Accordingly, policies continue without essential change after the disappearance of the Russians from the scene, under new pretexts, and with some tactical modification. That is, incidentally, true of policies around the world, a fact that provides some insight into realities of the Cold War.”

Chomsky does hold out hope that perhaps, finally, more Americans are ready for dialog and analysis of U.S. foreign policy that before September 11. My own experience hasn’t been very positive in this respect, but perhaps it takes more time to filter down.

“More surprising, to me at least, was that the Sept. 11 atrocities had the opposite effect among the US population. Very quickly, it was clear that there is far more openness to critical and dissident analysis, and there has been a remarkable upsurge of concern, often activism, about issues that were pretty much off the agenda before − including, among others, the US role in the Middle East.”

Chomsky on the Middle East − April 25 on AlterNet provides another interview and more background and history. The U.S. supports Isreal because they were staunchly anti-communist and pledged to serve U.S. interests in the Middle East in exchange for support.

“By 1958, the National Security Council concluded that a “logical corollary” of opposition to growing Arab nationalism “would be to support Israel as the only strong pro-Western power left in the Middle East.” That is an exaggeration, but an affirmation of the general strategic analysis, which identified indigenous nationalism as the primary threat (as elsewhere in the Third World); typically called “Communist,” though it is commonly recognized in the internal record that this is a term of propaganda and that Cold War issues were often marginal, as in the crucial year of 1958. … The alliance became firm in 1967, when Israel performed an important service for US power by destroying the main forces of secular Arab nationalism, considered a very serious threat to US domination of the Gulf region. …”

With Isreal the last remaining colonial power (by old-world definitions), backed by the might of the U.S. military, is it any wonder that they don’t agree to peace with the Palestinians? It should be obvious to anyone that they don’t have to settle for peace when they will easily be allowed to get away with expulsion and/or extermination. The U.S. provides $3 Billion (funding over the years) in funding to Israel every year. The Palestinians have only other Arab nations to look to for support, like Saudi Arabia or Egypt, which are also in the U.S.‘s pockets, or perhaps Iraq or Iran, who would only be too happy to draw U.S. wrath again. It seems it’s only a matter of time for them.