Breaking the Israel-Palestine Deadlock

Monday 03 January 2011

by: Noam Chomsky, Op-Ed

http://www.truth-out.org/breaking-israel-palestine-deadlock66511

Breaking the Israel-Palestine Deadlock Palestinian Abu
Ayaesh picks his grape harvest downhill from the homes
of the Karmi Zur settlement. (Photo: michaelramallah)

While intensively engaged in illegal settlement
expansion, the government of Israel is also seeking to
deal with two problems: a global campaign of what it
perceives as "delegitimation" - that is, objections to
its crimes and withdrawal of participation in them -
and a parallel campaign of legitimation of Palestine.

The "delegitimation," which is progressing rapidly, was
carried forward in December by a Human Rights Watch
call on the U.S. "to suspend financing to Israel in an
amount equivalent to the costs of Israel's spending in
support of settlements," and to monitor contributions
to Israel from tax-exempt U.S. organizations that
violate international law, "including prohibitions
against discrimination" - which would cast a wide net.
Amnesty International had already called for an arms
embargo on Israel. The legitimation process also took a
long step forward in December, when Argentina, Bolivia
and Brazil recognized the State of Palestine (Gaza and
the West Bank), bringing the number of supporting
nations to more than 100.

International lawyer John Whitbeck estimates that 80-90
percent of the world's population live in states that
recognize Palestine, while 10-20 percent recognize the
Republic of Kosovo. The U.S. recognizes Kosovo but not
Palestine. Accordingly, as Whitbeck writes in
Counterpunch, media "act as though Kosovo's
independence were an accomplished fact while
Palestine's independence is only an aspiration which
can never be realized without Israeli-American
consent," reflecting the normal workings of power in
the international arena.

Given the scale of Israeli settlement of the West Bank,
it has been argued for more a decade that the
international consensus on a two-state settlement is
dead, or mistaken (though evidently most of the world
does not agree). Therefore those concerned with
Palestinian rights should call for Israeli takeover of
the entire West Bank, followed by an anti-apartheid
struggle of the South African variety that would lead
to full citizenship for the Arab population there.

The argument assumes that Israel would agree to the
takeover. It is far more likely that Israel will
instead continue the programs leading to annexation of
the parts of the West Bank that it is developing,
roughly half the area, and take no responsibility for
the rest, thus defending itself from the "demographic
problem" - too many non-Jews in a Jewish state - and
meanwhile severing besieged Gaza from the rest of
Palestine.

One analogy between Israel and South Africa merits
attention. Once apartheid was implemented, South
African nationalists recognized they were becoming
international pariahs because of it. In 1958, however,
the foreign minister informed the U.S. ambassador that
U.N. condemnations and other protests were of little
concern as long as South Africa was supported by the
global hegemon - the United States. By the 1970s, the
U.N. declared an arms embargo, soon followed by boycott
campaigns and divestment. South Africa reacted in ways
calculated to enrage international opinion. In a
gesture of contempt for the U.N. and President Jimmy
Carter - who failed to react so as not to disrupt
worthless negotiations - South Africa launched a
murderous raid on the Cassinga refugee camp in Angola
just as the Carter-led "contact group" was to present a
settlement for Namibia. The similarity to Israel's
behavior today is striking - for example, the attack on
Gaza in January 2009 and on the Gaza freedom flotilla
in May 2010.

When President Reagan took office in 1981, he lent full
support to South Africa's domestic crimes and its
murderous depredations in neighboring countries. The
policies were justified in the framework of the war on
terror that Reagan had declared on coming into office.
In 1988, Nelson Mandela's African National Congress was
designated one of the world's "more notorious terrorist
groups" (Mandela himself was only removed from
Washington's "terrorist list" in 2008). South Africa
was defiant, and even triumphant, with its internal
enemies crushed, and enjoying solid support from the
one state that mattered in the global system.

Shortly after, U.S. policy shifted. U.S. and South
African business interests very likely realized they
would be better off by ending the apartheid burden. And
apartheid soon collapsed. South Africa is not the only
recent case where ending U.S. support for crimes has
led to significant progress. Can such a transformative
shift happen in Israel's case, clearing the way to a
diplomatic settlement? Among the barriers firmly in
place are the very close military and intelligence ties
between the U.S. and Israel.

The most outspoken support for Israeli crimes comes
from the business world. U.S. high-tech industry is
closely integrated with its Israeli counterpart. To
cite just one example, the world's largest chip
manufacturer, Intel, is establishing its most advanced
production unit in Israel.

A U.S. cable released by WikiLeaks reveals that Rafael
military industries in Haifa is one of the sites
considered vital to U.S. interests due to its
production of cluster bombs; Rafael had already moved
some operations to the U.S. to gain better access to
U.S. aid and markets. There is also a powerful Israel
lobby, though of course dwarfed by the business and
military lobbies.

Critical cultural facts apply, too. Christian Zionism
long precedes Jewish Zionism, and is not restricted to
the one-third of the U.S. population that believes in
the literal truth of the Bible. When British Gen.
Edmund Allenby conquered Jerusalem in 1917, the
national press declared him to be Richard the
Lionhearted, finally rescuing the Holy Land from the
infidels.

Next, Jews must return to the homeland promised to them
by the Lord. Articulating a common elite view, Harold
Ickes, Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of the interior,
described Jewish colonization of Palestine as an
achievement "without comparison in the history of the
human race."

There is also an instinctive sympathy for a
settler-colonial society that is seen to be retracing
the history of the U.S. itself, bringing civilization
to the lands that the undeserving natives had misused -
doctrines deeply rooted in centuries of imperialism.

To break the logjam it will be necessary to dismantle
the reigning illusion that the U.S. is an "honest
broker" desperately seeking to reconcile recalcitrant
adversaries, and to recognize that serious negotiations
would be between the U^.S.-Israel and the rest of the
world.

If U.S. power centers can be compelled by popular
opinion to abandon decades-old rejectionism, many
prospects that seem remote might become suddenly
possible.

(Noam Chomsky's most recent book, with co-author Ilan
Pappe, is "Gaza in Crisis." Chomsky is emeritus
professor of linguistics and philosophy at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge,
Mass.)

(c) 2011 Noam Chomsky

Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate.

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