18 aug 2018
The American linguist, historian and thinker Noam Chomsky says that the administration of US President Donald Trump, despite all its talk about the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ , has no solution to offer that could lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The Trump administration, he said, is only thinking of striking Iran.
“Israel will not be able to rely forever on American support,” Chomsky said in an interview with the Shahid Center and the “themfadhel.com” blog, adding, “The actions of Israel in recent years have alienated public opinion among the most liberal sectors and the youth, including the American Jews.
He said that the “support for Israel is increasingly based on evangelical churches and the predominantly nationalist and racist (anti-Muslim) party, where major institutions, especially the Presbyterian Church, have adopted boycott and divestment programs, with a focus also on American companies involved in the occupation.”
Chomsky also referred to Israel’s growing realization of its strategic leanings: “A few years ago, Israeli strategic analysts realized that Israel can no longer rely on the support it receives from countries where there is some interest in human rights and [that] it must come closer to more reactionary and authoritarian sectors, a major change that has not taken years.”
Calling the situation in the United States “flexible”, Chomsky said, according to the PNN, that “there can be positive changes in the future.”
Excerpts from the Q & A with Chomsky:
Q1: In your previous lecture with the Shahed center in 2016, you pointed out that the Oslo Accord was a “regenerated selling” for the Palestinian national rights, considering that the reference which the agreement was built on – which was decision number 242 – didn’t explicitly mention the Palestinians, but talked about solving the problem of refugees. As we are concerned about the historical review of the Palestinian struggle, and considering your assessment, how do you see the possibility of exiting this impasse?
Chomsky: The earlier Madrid negotiations broke down because the Palestinian delegation, led by Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafi, insisted – quite properly – on termination of Israel’s policy of expanding illegal settlements. The US and Israel would not agree. The late chairman Yassir Arafat, undercutting the Palestinian delegation through the Norway channel, did not insist on this – in fact, insisted on almost nothing apart from the recognition of the PLO (nothing about the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, or anything else concerning Palestinian national rights).
After Oslo, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin initiated new settlement programs. The US and Israel quickly broke the Agreements explicitly by moving to separate Gaza and the West Bank. There were no steps towards Palestinian independence under Rabin or his successor Shimon Peres, who made it explicit, as he left office in 1996, that there could be no Palestinian state.
The first Israeli government to admit the possibility of a Palestinian state was the Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration that succeeded Peres. In response to a query by a journalist, David Bar-Illan, director of Communications and Policy Planning in the office of the Prime Minister Netanyahu, said that the Palestinians could call whatever Israel decided to leave to them “a state,” if they liked; or they could call it “fried chicken.”
Subsequent negotiations collapsed in ways that I cannot go into here, though the Taba negotiations in January 2001, called off by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, seemed to be making some progress, according to participants. The way out of the impasse is for Israel and its US backer to join almost all of the rest of the world in agreeing to an acceptable version of a two-state settlement based on the internationally recognised border (the green line), with fair and limited land swaps.
Q2: In the same lecture, you said that the two-state solution, or one whole binational state, were all solutions unacceptable to the Israelis, and that “there is no reason to worship the borders created by the imperialist powers”, and you linked this by talking about the binational state which you considered a fulfillment for the Zionist dreams in the great state of Israel.
What do you think Palestinians should do about this situation? Is there another option?
Chomisky: In the short term, there are two options: (1) the international consensus on two states; (2) Israel’s program of creating a Greater Israel that integrates into Israel whatever it wants in the West Bank, leaving Palestinians in dozens of unviable cantons and under constant harassment, or worse. There is a good deal of talk about a “one-state settlement,” but that is highly unrealistic under current circumstances. Unlike (1), it has virtually no international support, and Israel is strongly opposed because it would pose the dreaded “demographic problem” (too many Arabs in a Jewish state).
That problem will not arise under (2) as it is being implemented, by-passing and isolating Palestinian population concentrations and expelling Palestinians from the areas Israel intends to keep. One can imagine a process beginning with (1), followed by gradual erosion of the Israel-Palestine border (commercial, cultural and other contacts), leading to some form of federation and maybe on to true binationalism – which is not a “fulfillment of Zionist dreams” for the large majority of pre-state Zionists, but a position that had support from much of the Israeli kibbutz movement (Hashomer Hatzair), small groups of intellectuals (Brit Shalom), and some others farther to the left (Kalvarisky’s League for Arab-Jewish Rapprochement).
Along the way, the legitimacy of the borders should be questioned. They were, after all, imposed by Britain and France for their own interests, with no concern for the indigenous population. Now they are bristling with armaments, but that was not always so. In fact, in the early ‘50s, while hiking in northern Israel, I crossed the unmarked border by accident. Erosion of national borders can be salutary, as in post-World War II Europe.
The best hope for Palestinians now is to create pressures for a diplomatic settlement, cooperating with like-minded Israelis and supporters abroad. That has always been a priority for successful national liberation movements. The most important case is the US, and I think there are significant opportunities to bring about important changes in US policies.
Q3: With few differences in the comparison, do you see that the Palestinian struggle for national rights is akin to the struggle of people of South Africa against the Apartheid regime?
Chomsky: There are some similarities, but important differences too. The analogy is imperfect. Within Israel, there is severe discrimination, but it is not Apartheid. In the occupied territories, the situation is much worse than Apartheid. Israel basically wants Palestinians to disappear, the norm for settler-colonial societies (like the US, for example).
South Africa, on the other hand, needed its Black population. They were the workforce. The Bantustans were horrible, but South Africa made efforts to sustain them and to gain international recognition for them. And the international situation is much different. Apartheid was strongly opposed internationally – arms embargoes, sanctions, boycott and divestment. Thirty years before the fall of the Apartheid regime, the South African foreign minister, recognising that the regime was becoming an international pariah, informed the US Ambassador, in effect, that they were relying on Washington to defend them against international opprobrium.
And indeed Ronald Reagan was the last world leader to support the Apartheid state, though by then American opinion, and crucially US business, favoured overcoming Apartheid and government policy was beginning to shift. There was another crucial difference: Cuba. Cuba played a major role in liberating southern Africa, beating back the South African invasion of Angola and shattering the myth of white supremacy both within South Africa and in the surrounding regions. The situation with regard to Israel-Palestine is far different today.
Q4: The current US administration reported that there was a “bargain of the century” which began by declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel. This doesn’t seem new since many previous American administrations had given comparable promises over the past decades. What are your expectations about the type of solution/s that Donald Trump and his administration are thinking about?
Chomsky: They haven’t given any indications, but their record suggests that if there is a plan at all – which is uncertain – it will probably be grotesque. The strategic goal of the administration, to the extent that one can extricate one from the chaos, is to firm up the developing coalition of Israel and Arab states and to join in confronting their common enemy, Iran, which is perceived as threatening US hegemony in the region and Israel’s freedom to resort to violence.
Q5: After US president Donald Trump declared the withdrawal of Washington from the nuclear agreement with Iran and the latter’s response (through statements by Iranian supreme leader Khamenei) to return to its activities in Uranium enrichment, and the successive Israeli strikes on sites in Syria, how do you see the impact of this regional tension? Especially since Iran cannot be exempted from its accountability in creating this tension, through its continuous interference in the neighboring countries, leading to less attention to the Palestinian issue?
Chomsky: Iran is no doubt seeking to extend its influence in the region, in the way all powers do. US aggression has created new opportunities for Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is supporting the Assad regime, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. These developments are naturally regarded as unwelcome by the US, Israel and Gulf States, threatening their regional dominance.
Even US intelligence agrees that Iran was living up to the nuclear agreement despite regular US violations. Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement does significantly heighten tensions in the region. It is unclear whether Iran will respond by returning to Uranium enrichment, though they are entitled to. If it does, US-Israel might present that as the pretext for a military attack, in addition to their cyberattack (an act of war, under US doctrine) and assassination of scientists. The consequences could be grim.
Q6: You mentioned also in your lecture [2016] that we should see the possibility of change in the American politics. In this context, you mentioned that the public support for Israel in the US was drifting towards the right. You also mentioned that a day might soon come where Israel would no longer be able to count on the support expected half a century ago? Current facts indicate the predominance of the populist right logic represented by Trump and a possible generic attack on the libertarian values not only in the US but in Europe too. What are the factors that can contribute to an expected change in the American society and in the American legislators?
Chomsky: It seems on the surface as though US support for extremist Israeli positions is solid, but that picture is misleading. Israeli actions in recent years have alienated public opinion among more liberal sectors and the young (including many Jewish Americans). Self-identified Democrats are now more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israelis. Increasingly, support for Israel is based mostly on Evangelical churches and the nationalist and often racist (anti-Muslim) right. Major institutions, notably the Presbyterian Church, have adopted boycott-divestment programs, also focusing on US corporations involved in the occupation. Major human rights organisations have called for an arms embargo against Israel – and in fact, under US law (the Leahy Law) a strong case can be made for that. Much the same is true throughout the world. For some years, Israeli strategic analysts have recognised that Israel can no longer count on support from countries where there is some concern for human rights and must ally itself more closely with more reactionary and authoritarian sectors. That is a major change from not many years ago. The situation in the US is fluid, and there could be positive changes ahead.
Q7: American history showed is the ability to correct the imbalance as what happened, for example, in the 1920s with the persecution of Italian immigrants (its peak was Sacco and Vanzetti case), or getting out of the impact created by the McCarthyism era that lasted for two decades. Do you see that American society still owns this ability? As we are witnessing, the right-wing populist wave have become a growing stream on both sides of the Atlantic fuelled by (immigration, Islamophobia, fear of Russia and China)?
Chomsky: There is a good deal to say about the history, but putting that aside, while such tendencies are clear, it’s important to recognise that there are counter-tendencies too. The most popular political figure in the US, according to polls, is Bernie Sanders. His success in the 2016 elections was a sharp break from American political history, in which elections have been substantially determined by massive funding. Sanders had no support from the usual sources (corporations, great wealth), was ignored or denigrated by the media, and even used the scare word “socialism” (meaning social democracy).
He probably would have won the Democratic nomination had it not been for machinations of Obama-Clinton party managers, and the popular movements spawned by his campaign, along with others, are having considerable success. There are similar developments in Europe (Corbyn’s Labour Party, Podemos, DiEM 25, and others).
In general, centrist political institutions are collapsing in a prevailing atmosphere of anger, fear, and contempt for institutions, largely engendered by the regressive impact on the population of the neoliberal/austerity programs of the past generation. Such conditions often foster latent anti-social attitudes and exaggerated fears. For example, popular estimates of the number of immigrants are far higher than actual numbers, particularly in the US (much the same is true of estimates of foreign aid and of recipients of government benefits). The general circumstances bring to mind Gramsci’s words in Mussolini’s prison cells: “‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
Q8: The Palestinians have developed a new way of struggling since 2015, which is the economic and cultural boycott campaigns led by movements (BDS). How do you see the Palestinian boycott movement that has achieved remarkable successes and represented a great existential concern for Israel and which pushed it to release threats to eliminate Palestinian leaders?
Chomsky: For the reasons I mentioned, unlike the South African case, the question of sanctions does not arise, yet at least; perhaps it will if matters progress successfully. So the real questions are boycott and divestment. These can be powerful tools. And as always for serious activism, it is necessary to think through carefully the impact of tactical choices.
For the first time to my knowledge, a BDS movement was launched 20 years ago by Uri Avnery’s Gush Emunim, directed against the occupation.
The ‘BDS movement’ has become a major international campaign under Palestinian initiative since 2005, with many success and much promise. Experience has shown, I think, that focus on the occupation is the most effective tactic, the tactic that really concerns Israeli leaders and that can energise significant popular support, as in cases I mentioned earlier.
The issues are clear and unambiguous, the stand entirely principled. The actions are not, as often happens, open to diversion away from the plight of Palestinians to side issues (academic freedom, double standards, etc.). They do not elicit backlash that sometimes overwhelms the actions undertaken. They could lead to policy changes, both in Israel and abroad, as they gain in force and scale.
Choice of tactics can surely be debated, but it is important to bear in mind that it should be debated. Choice of tactics should always be considered carefully in terms of consequences for the victims and opportunity costs – the course not taken and what it might have achieved. These are never trivial considerations.
There is no room for dogmatism or inflexible doctrine. That much at least should be second nature to activists.
08/20/15 Noam Chomsky: Israeli Apartheid ‘Much Worse’ Than South Africa
“Israel will not be able to rely forever on American support,” Chomsky said in an interview with the Shahid Center and the “themfadhel.com” blog, adding, “The actions of Israel in recent years have alienated public opinion among the most liberal sectors and the youth, including the American Jews.
He said that the “support for Israel is increasingly based on evangelical churches and the predominantly nationalist and racist (anti-Muslim) party, where major institutions, especially the Presbyterian Church, have adopted boycott and divestment programs, with a focus also on American companies involved in the occupation.”
Chomsky also referred to Israel’s growing realization of its strategic leanings: “A few years ago, Israeli strategic analysts realized that Israel can no longer rely on the support it receives from countries where there is some interest in human rights and [that] it must come closer to more reactionary and authoritarian sectors, a major change that has not taken years.”
Calling the situation in the United States “flexible”, Chomsky said, according to the PNN, that “there can be positive changes in the future.”
Excerpts from the Q & A with Chomsky:
Q1: In your previous lecture with the Shahed center in 2016, you pointed out that the Oslo Accord was a “regenerated selling” for the Palestinian national rights, considering that the reference which the agreement was built on – which was decision number 242 – didn’t explicitly mention the Palestinians, but talked about solving the problem of refugees. As we are concerned about the historical review of the Palestinian struggle, and considering your assessment, how do you see the possibility of exiting this impasse?
Chomsky: The earlier Madrid negotiations broke down because the Palestinian delegation, led by Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafi, insisted – quite properly – on termination of Israel’s policy of expanding illegal settlements. The US and Israel would not agree. The late chairman Yassir Arafat, undercutting the Palestinian delegation through the Norway channel, did not insist on this – in fact, insisted on almost nothing apart from the recognition of the PLO (nothing about the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, or anything else concerning Palestinian national rights).
After Oslo, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin initiated new settlement programs. The US and Israel quickly broke the Agreements explicitly by moving to separate Gaza and the West Bank. There were no steps towards Palestinian independence under Rabin or his successor Shimon Peres, who made it explicit, as he left office in 1996, that there could be no Palestinian state.
The first Israeli government to admit the possibility of a Palestinian state was the Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration that succeeded Peres. In response to a query by a journalist, David Bar-Illan, director of Communications and Policy Planning in the office of the Prime Minister Netanyahu, said that the Palestinians could call whatever Israel decided to leave to them “a state,” if they liked; or they could call it “fried chicken.”
Subsequent negotiations collapsed in ways that I cannot go into here, though the Taba negotiations in January 2001, called off by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, seemed to be making some progress, according to participants. The way out of the impasse is for Israel and its US backer to join almost all of the rest of the world in agreeing to an acceptable version of a two-state settlement based on the internationally recognised border (the green line), with fair and limited land swaps.
Q2: In the same lecture, you said that the two-state solution, or one whole binational state, were all solutions unacceptable to the Israelis, and that “there is no reason to worship the borders created by the imperialist powers”, and you linked this by talking about the binational state which you considered a fulfillment for the Zionist dreams in the great state of Israel.
What do you think Palestinians should do about this situation? Is there another option?
Chomisky: In the short term, there are two options: (1) the international consensus on two states; (2) Israel’s program of creating a Greater Israel that integrates into Israel whatever it wants in the West Bank, leaving Palestinians in dozens of unviable cantons and under constant harassment, or worse. There is a good deal of talk about a “one-state settlement,” but that is highly unrealistic under current circumstances. Unlike (1), it has virtually no international support, and Israel is strongly opposed because it would pose the dreaded “demographic problem” (too many Arabs in a Jewish state).
That problem will not arise under (2) as it is being implemented, by-passing and isolating Palestinian population concentrations and expelling Palestinians from the areas Israel intends to keep. One can imagine a process beginning with (1), followed by gradual erosion of the Israel-Palestine border (commercial, cultural and other contacts), leading to some form of federation and maybe on to true binationalism – which is not a “fulfillment of Zionist dreams” for the large majority of pre-state Zionists, but a position that had support from much of the Israeli kibbutz movement (Hashomer Hatzair), small groups of intellectuals (Brit Shalom), and some others farther to the left (Kalvarisky’s League for Arab-Jewish Rapprochement).
Along the way, the legitimacy of the borders should be questioned. They were, after all, imposed by Britain and France for their own interests, with no concern for the indigenous population. Now they are bristling with armaments, but that was not always so. In fact, in the early ‘50s, while hiking in northern Israel, I crossed the unmarked border by accident. Erosion of national borders can be salutary, as in post-World War II Europe.
The best hope for Palestinians now is to create pressures for a diplomatic settlement, cooperating with like-minded Israelis and supporters abroad. That has always been a priority for successful national liberation movements. The most important case is the US, and I think there are significant opportunities to bring about important changes in US policies.
Q3: With few differences in the comparison, do you see that the Palestinian struggle for national rights is akin to the struggle of people of South Africa against the Apartheid regime?
Chomsky: There are some similarities, but important differences too. The analogy is imperfect. Within Israel, there is severe discrimination, but it is not Apartheid. In the occupied territories, the situation is much worse than Apartheid. Israel basically wants Palestinians to disappear, the norm for settler-colonial societies (like the US, for example).
South Africa, on the other hand, needed its Black population. They were the workforce. The Bantustans were horrible, but South Africa made efforts to sustain them and to gain international recognition for them. And the international situation is much different. Apartheid was strongly opposed internationally – arms embargoes, sanctions, boycott and divestment. Thirty years before the fall of the Apartheid regime, the South African foreign minister, recognising that the regime was becoming an international pariah, informed the US Ambassador, in effect, that they were relying on Washington to defend them against international opprobrium.
And indeed Ronald Reagan was the last world leader to support the Apartheid state, though by then American opinion, and crucially US business, favoured overcoming Apartheid and government policy was beginning to shift. There was another crucial difference: Cuba. Cuba played a major role in liberating southern Africa, beating back the South African invasion of Angola and shattering the myth of white supremacy both within South Africa and in the surrounding regions. The situation with regard to Israel-Palestine is far different today.
Q4: The current US administration reported that there was a “bargain of the century” which began by declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel. This doesn’t seem new since many previous American administrations had given comparable promises over the past decades. What are your expectations about the type of solution/s that Donald Trump and his administration are thinking about?
Chomsky: They haven’t given any indications, but their record suggests that if there is a plan at all – which is uncertain – it will probably be grotesque. The strategic goal of the administration, to the extent that one can extricate one from the chaos, is to firm up the developing coalition of Israel and Arab states and to join in confronting their common enemy, Iran, which is perceived as threatening US hegemony in the region and Israel’s freedom to resort to violence.
Q5: After US president Donald Trump declared the withdrawal of Washington from the nuclear agreement with Iran and the latter’s response (through statements by Iranian supreme leader Khamenei) to return to its activities in Uranium enrichment, and the successive Israeli strikes on sites in Syria, how do you see the impact of this regional tension? Especially since Iran cannot be exempted from its accountability in creating this tension, through its continuous interference in the neighboring countries, leading to less attention to the Palestinian issue?
Chomsky: Iran is no doubt seeking to extend its influence in the region, in the way all powers do. US aggression has created new opportunities for Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is supporting the Assad regime, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. These developments are naturally regarded as unwelcome by the US, Israel and Gulf States, threatening their regional dominance.
Even US intelligence agrees that Iran was living up to the nuclear agreement despite regular US violations. Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement does significantly heighten tensions in the region. It is unclear whether Iran will respond by returning to Uranium enrichment, though they are entitled to. If it does, US-Israel might present that as the pretext for a military attack, in addition to their cyberattack (an act of war, under US doctrine) and assassination of scientists. The consequences could be grim.
Q6: You mentioned also in your lecture [2016] that we should see the possibility of change in the American politics. In this context, you mentioned that the public support for Israel in the US was drifting towards the right. You also mentioned that a day might soon come where Israel would no longer be able to count on the support expected half a century ago? Current facts indicate the predominance of the populist right logic represented by Trump and a possible generic attack on the libertarian values not only in the US but in Europe too. What are the factors that can contribute to an expected change in the American society and in the American legislators?
Chomsky: It seems on the surface as though US support for extremist Israeli positions is solid, but that picture is misleading. Israeli actions in recent years have alienated public opinion among more liberal sectors and the young (including many Jewish Americans). Self-identified Democrats are now more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israelis. Increasingly, support for Israel is based mostly on Evangelical churches and the nationalist and often racist (anti-Muslim) right. Major institutions, notably the Presbyterian Church, have adopted boycott-divestment programs, also focusing on US corporations involved in the occupation. Major human rights organisations have called for an arms embargo against Israel – and in fact, under US law (the Leahy Law) a strong case can be made for that. Much the same is true throughout the world. For some years, Israeli strategic analysts have recognised that Israel can no longer count on support from countries where there is some concern for human rights and must ally itself more closely with more reactionary and authoritarian sectors. That is a major change from not many years ago. The situation in the US is fluid, and there could be positive changes ahead.
Q7: American history showed is the ability to correct the imbalance as what happened, for example, in the 1920s with the persecution of Italian immigrants (its peak was Sacco and Vanzetti case), or getting out of the impact created by the McCarthyism era that lasted for two decades. Do you see that American society still owns this ability? As we are witnessing, the right-wing populist wave have become a growing stream on both sides of the Atlantic fuelled by (immigration, Islamophobia, fear of Russia and China)?
Chomsky: There is a good deal to say about the history, but putting that aside, while such tendencies are clear, it’s important to recognise that there are counter-tendencies too. The most popular political figure in the US, according to polls, is Bernie Sanders. His success in the 2016 elections was a sharp break from American political history, in which elections have been substantially determined by massive funding. Sanders had no support from the usual sources (corporations, great wealth), was ignored or denigrated by the media, and even used the scare word “socialism” (meaning social democracy).
He probably would have won the Democratic nomination had it not been for machinations of Obama-Clinton party managers, and the popular movements spawned by his campaign, along with others, are having considerable success. There are similar developments in Europe (Corbyn’s Labour Party, Podemos, DiEM 25, and others).
In general, centrist political institutions are collapsing in a prevailing atmosphere of anger, fear, and contempt for institutions, largely engendered by the regressive impact on the population of the neoliberal/austerity programs of the past generation. Such conditions often foster latent anti-social attitudes and exaggerated fears. For example, popular estimates of the number of immigrants are far higher than actual numbers, particularly in the US (much the same is true of estimates of foreign aid and of recipients of government benefits). The general circumstances bring to mind Gramsci’s words in Mussolini’s prison cells: “‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
Q8: The Palestinians have developed a new way of struggling since 2015, which is the economic and cultural boycott campaigns led by movements (BDS). How do you see the Palestinian boycott movement that has achieved remarkable successes and represented a great existential concern for Israel and which pushed it to release threats to eliminate Palestinian leaders?
Chomsky: For the reasons I mentioned, unlike the South African case, the question of sanctions does not arise, yet at least; perhaps it will if matters progress successfully. So the real questions are boycott and divestment. These can be powerful tools. And as always for serious activism, it is necessary to think through carefully the impact of tactical choices.
For the first time to my knowledge, a BDS movement was launched 20 years ago by Uri Avnery’s Gush Emunim, directed against the occupation.
The ‘BDS movement’ has become a major international campaign under Palestinian initiative since 2005, with many success and much promise. Experience has shown, I think, that focus on the occupation is the most effective tactic, the tactic that really concerns Israeli leaders and that can energise significant popular support, as in cases I mentioned earlier.
The issues are clear and unambiguous, the stand entirely principled. The actions are not, as often happens, open to diversion away from the plight of Palestinians to side issues (academic freedom, double standards, etc.). They do not elicit backlash that sometimes overwhelms the actions undertaken. They could lead to policy changes, both in Israel and abroad, as they gain in force and scale.
Choice of tactics can surely be debated, but it is important to bear in mind that it should be debated. Choice of tactics should always be considered carefully in terms of consequences for the victims and opportunity costs – the course not taken and what it might have achieved. These are never trivial considerations.
There is no room for dogmatism or inflexible doctrine. That much at least should be second nature to activists.
08/20/15 Noam Chomsky: Israeli Apartheid ‘Much Worse’ Than South Africa
14 aug 2018
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Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib was asked directly by the UK’s Channel 4 on Monday whether she would vote against US military aid to Israel if, as expected, she is elected to Congress in November.
Tlaib avoided the question at first, giving a lengthy answer about her Palestinian ancestry and emphasizing that she is “for equality for all, for making sure every single person there has every right to thrive.” She also mentioned how her grandfather had been “displaced” but did not say by whom, and she talked about the suffering of “families when they are attacked, when they’re unarmed, when they don’t know what exactly is happening.” Only when the interviewer asked a second time if she would vote against |
military aid to Israel, did Tlaib give a qualified answer: “Absolutely, if it has something to do with inequality and not access to people having justice.”
As she has done previously, she admonished those who say “let’s choose a side” between Israelis and Palestinians.
The interview – which can be watched above – did not address her views on BDS, the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Tlaib “sought out” J StreetTlaib’s hesitant and ambiguous answers to Channel 4 came after a weekend of fiercely pushing back against questions and criticisms since an article by this writer highlighted how she had accepted an endorsement and donations from the political action committee of J Street, an Israel lobby group staunchly opposed to Palestinian refugee rights and BDS.
J Street has also given platforms to Israeli leaders, such as former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who were in charge when Israel launched the Operation Cast Lead massacre in Gaza in December 2008.
An independent UN inquiry [pdf] found extensive evidence of war crimes in the assault that left around 1,400 Palestinians dead.
The J Street endorsement states that Tlaib supports “all current aid to Israel” – which necessarily means all military aid, the vast majority of US assistance.
J Street also states that to be eligible for endorsement by its political action committee, a candidate “must demonstrate that they support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, active US leadership to help end the conflict, the special relationship between the US and Israel, continued aid to the Palestinian Authority and opposition to the Boycott/Divestment/Sanction movement.”
J Street determines candidates’ views through an interview process.
The lobby group also strongly opposes the return of Palestinian refugees to the lands and homes from which they were expelled solely on the racist grounds that they are not Jewish. Tlaib has not expressed support for that position and J Street does not require it for endorsement.
A request for comment was sent to J Street and its political action committee JStreetPAC.
Steve Tobocman, described by Haaretz as Tlaib’s “close friend and political mentor,” told the Israeli newspaper earlier this month that Tlaib “sought out the support and received the endorsement of J Street.”
Tlaib worked for Tobocman when he was a senior member of the Michigan legislature and then won election as his replacement when he retired in 2008.
Tobocman is currently a member of the advisory council of the Michigan-Israel Business Accelerator, an organization sponsored by the Israeli government that aims to “promote business and investment opportunities between Michigan and Israel.” One of its areas of focus is “defense” – the weapons industry.
At the bottom of the group’s advisory council page is a solicitation for donations for the MIBB Educational Foundation, an affiliate that “works to counteract BDS efforts through education about Israeli technology.”
Tlaib has also received the endorsement of Foreign Policy for America, a political action committee that backs sanctions on Russia, the US “commitment to NATO” and other policies favored by Democratic Party elites.
Foreign Policy for America calls [pdf] for arms sales to Saudi Arabia to be made conditional “on steps to prevent civilian casualties and alleviate humanitarian suffering in Yemen.” That is a laudable view, but the group makes no similar call regarding Israel – the biggest recipient of US military aid.
Notably, J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami is on the board of Foreign Policy for America.
But while the Foreign Policy for America endorsement is listed on Tlaib’s campaign website, the J Street endorsement is not – perhaps an indication that her team recognized that support from a liberal Zionist group that opposes Palestinian rights would be a red flag for many.
Emotive appealsIn her first apparent responses via social media to The Electronic Intifada article on Thursday, Tlaib did not directly address the J Street endorsement. Instead she made emotive appeals to trust her based on her Palestinian ethnic heritage, as opposed to clearly expressed positions related to Palestine: twitter twitter
Over the weekend, Tlaib dug in, suggesting that expecting accountability for her policies on Palestine constituted a form of treason.
First, she retweeted a tweet from a supporter stating that it was “dangerous” to question her stances.
Then, in an exchange on Facebook with critics and supporters, Tlaib outright claimed that an “attack on me is an attack on Falastine [Palestine].”
She also derided those who have asked her to clarify her position as “haters” and asserted that she would not “respond to them anymore.”
This amounts to an extraordinary call for unconditional loyalty and obedience that is hard to reconcile with claims to be in the vanguard of a movement that is democratic, let alone progressive.
While dismissing her critics, Tlaib nonetheless looked forward to having her supporters present “when I place my hand on Thomas Jefferson’s Quran, wearing my mother’s Palestinian thobe,” to be sworn in as a member of Congress.
As the would-be representative of a majority Black district, she did not address the symbolism of being sworn in on a book that belonged to a man notorious for his cruel enslavement of other human beings.
In another part of the exchange, Tlaib insisted, “I will never sell out,” or settle for “anything less than a free Palestine, equality and justice for all in the occupied territories and beyond.”
While those are general sentiments few can disagree with, they do not answer the concerns about the commitments and statements she already gave to J Street.
On that matter, she offered a confusing account: “J Street helped me, but never asked me once to waver on my stance (I absolutely don’t agree with every single position and they don’t of mine), but as they said, they liked that my answers to their questions were from personal experiences and helped humanize what is happening in Palestine.”
It is difficult to evaluate this given that Tlaib refuses to say publicly what her stance is on BDS, and has not revealed what she told J Street, which, as noted, only endorses candidates who commit to opposing BDS.
She did reveal part of what she told J Street about aid: “The US should leverage its aid and foreign investments to insure that recipients of the aid support American values of democracy and are honest brokers who respect international human rights and institutions and who are legitimately committed to peace.”
This is similar to what she told Channel 4, but it is not a call for ending US military aid to Israel.
And since US leaders always assert that Israel indeed shares American values of democracy and human rights and seeks peace, it doesn’t place any limitation on current aid.
It is also impossible to see how any US military aid can be “leveraged” for human rights, since American weapons are the lethal tools that have sustained decades of Israeli military occupation, colonization and apartheid, as well as chaos and wars around the world.
Blocking critics
Tlaib appears to suggest that it is her critics who have forced her to address issues around BDS and aid to Israel.
“Jumping out of this election with my stance on BDS, on aid to Netanyahu’s Israel (his racist and inhumane monstrous attack on a whole people), WILL just put darkness back into this moment,” she wrote on Facebook.
Yet it was Tlaib who forced the issue by accepting the J Street endorsement.
It seems that Tlaib is demanding freedom to signal support for positions espoused by pro-Israel groups while not having to answer to the community she wants to represent.
Pro-Israel advocates understand this: The Jewish Press on Sunday celebrated Tlaib’s refusal to address the questions raised by this writer’s article in The Electronic Intifada, which it dismissed as a “frothing-at-the-mouth, anti-Israel website.”
The Jewish Press added that while Tlaib is not likely “to sing Hatikvah at the 71st anniversary celebration of the Jewish state,” her position “does imply that she will be much closer to the Democratic Party’s consensus on Israel.”
It is hard to disagree with that assessment.
As a member of Congress, Tlaib may have to vote straight away on such bills as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, a patently unconstitutional effort to muzzle supporters of Palestinian rights by targeting the BDS movement.
It is therefore in no way unreasonable to expect clarity on where she stands on this bill, following her endorsement by the anti-BDS J Street.
Public pressure on a politician to do the right thing actually strengthens them because it allows them to show that they have a base that will not tolerate abandonment of basic principles.
Instead, Tlaib has been busy blocking people who ask her questions about her positions. twitter
She will also have an immediate opportunity to signal support for Palestinian rights by co-sponsoring Representative Betty McCollum’s landmark bill to ban US aid being used for the military abuse, torture and detention of Palestinian children.
Although that only deals with a portion of US aid to Israel, it’s a concrete start, and constituents could push her to immediately co-sponsor the McCollum bill.
AccountabilitySince this writer’s initial article on Tlaib’s J Street endorsement was published, there has been a necessary public discussion that would not otherwise have occurred.
Activist Noura Erakat – like many others – has indicated that Tlaib should be given the “benefit of the doubt.”
One gives the benefit of the doubt to someone who has not been tested in their position of authority.
However, giving a public figure the benefit of the doubt after they have committed a major infraction – in this case seeking and accepting an endorsement and donations from a group that exists to oppose basic Palestinian rights – only serves as a cover-up and an incentive to make more damaging deals down the road.
To concede any ground to a racist organization like J Street would allow Tlaib or others who follow in her footsteps to be trotted out by Zionists and Israel apologists as examples of “good Palestinians” versus the “bad Palestinians” who support BDS as a tactic to achieve full Palestinian rights.
While Erakat did not object outright to the J Street endorsement, despite the commitments it required on the part of Tlaib, she did find it “problematic.”
Holding a public figure accountable does not require demonizing them, writing them off or labeling them a sell-out, as some have suggested. Nor should the response to valid criticism be rounding on those who ask questions as disloyal traitors.
Accountability does require asking questions and expecting clear answers and explanations when facts come to light that contradict the image and message a politician is marketing.
Answering such questions is a politician’s obligation to those they claim to represent.
And to the extent that Tlaib is posing as a representative of a progressive national movement that takes Palestinian rights seriously, as well as a representative of Michigan’s 13th District, it’s an obligation Tlaib still needs to demonstrate she is ready to meet.
Tlaib’s campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Electronic Intifada.
As she has done previously, she admonished those who say “let’s choose a side” between Israelis and Palestinians.
The interview – which can be watched above – did not address her views on BDS, the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Tlaib “sought out” J StreetTlaib’s hesitant and ambiguous answers to Channel 4 came after a weekend of fiercely pushing back against questions and criticisms since an article by this writer highlighted how she had accepted an endorsement and donations from the political action committee of J Street, an Israel lobby group staunchly opposed to Palestinian refugee rights and BDS.
J Street has also given platforms to Israeli leaders, such as former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who were in charge when Israel launched the Operation Cast Lead massacre in Gaza in December 2008.
An independent UN inquiry [pdf] found extensive evidence of war crimes in the assault that left around 1,400 Palestinians dead.
The J Street endorsement states that Tlaib supports “all current aid to Israel” – which necessarily means all military aid, the vast majority of US assistance.
J Street also states that to be eligible for endorsement by its political action committee, a candidate “must demonstrate that they support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, active US leadership to help end the conflict, the special relationship between the US and Israel, continued aid to the Palestinian Authority and opposition to the Boycott/Divestment/Sanction movement.”
J Street determines candidates’ views through an interview process.
The lobby group also strongly opposes the return of Palestinian refugees to the lands and homes from which they were expelled solely on the racist grounds that they are not Jewish. Tlaib has not expressed support for that position and J Street does not require it for endorsement.
A request for comment was sent to J Street and its political action committee JStreetPAC.
Steve Tobocman, described by Haaretz as Tlaib’s “close friend and political mentor,” told the Israeli newspaper earlier this month that Tlaib “sought out the support and received the endorsement of J Street.”
Tlaib worked for Tobocman when he was a senior member of the Michigan legislature and then won election as his replacement when he retired in 2008.
Tobocman is currently a member of the advisory council of the Michigan-Israel Business Accelerator, an organization sponsored by the Israeli government that aims to “promote business and investment opportunities between Michigan and Israel.” One of its areas of focus is “defense” – the weapons industry.
At the bottom of the group’s advisory council page is a solicitation for donations for the MIBB Educational Foundation, an affiliate that “works to counteract BDS efforts through education about Israeli technology.”
Tlaib has also received the endorsement of Foreign Policy for America, a political action committee that backs sanctions on Russia, the US “commitment to NATO” and other policies favored by Democratic Party elites.
Foreign Policy for America calls [pdf] for arms sales to Saudi Arabia to be made conditional “on steps to prevent civilian casualties and alleviate humanitarian suffering in Yemen.” That is a laudable view, but the group makes no similar call regarding Israel – the biggest recipient of US military aid.
Notably, J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami is on the board of Foreign Policy for America.
But while the Foreign Policy for America endorsement is listed on Tlaib’s campaign website, the J Street endorsement is not – perhaps an indication that her team recognized that support from a liberal Zionist group that opposes Palestinian rights would be a red flag for many.
Emotive appealsIn her first apparent responses via social media to The Electronic Intifada article on Thursday, Tlaib did not directly address the J Street endorsement. Instead she made emotive appeals to trust her based on her Palestinian ethnic heritage, as opposed to clearly expressed positions related to Palestine: twitter twitter
Over the weekend, Tlaib dug in, suggesting that expecting accountability for her policies on Palestine constituted a form of treason.
First, she retweeted a tweet from a supporter stating that it was “dangerous” to question her stances.
Then, in an exchange on Facebook with critics and supporters, Tlaib outright claimed that an “attack on me is an attack on Falastine [Palestine].”
She also derided those who have asked her to clarify her position as “haters” and asserted that she would not “respond to them anymore.”
This amounts to an extraordinary call for unconditional loyalty and obedience that is hard to reconcile with claims to be in the vanguard of a movement that is democratic, let alone progressive.
While dismissing her critics, Tlaib nonetheless looked forward to having her supporters present “when I place my hand on Thomas Jefferson’s Quran, wearing my mother’s Palestinian thobe,” to be sworn in as a member of Congress.
As the would-be representative of a majority Black district, she did not address the symbolism of being sworn in on a book that belonged to a man notorious for his cruel enslavement of other human beings.
In another part of the exchange, Tlaib insisted, “I will never sell out,” or settle for “anything less than a free Palestine, equality and justice for all in the occupied territories and beyond.”
While those are general sentiments few can disagree with, they do not answer the concerns about the commitments and statements she already gave to J Street.
On that matter, she offered a confusing account: “J Street helped me, but never asked me once to waver on my stance (I absolutely don’t agree with every single position and they don’t of mine), but as they said, they liked that my answers to their questions were from personal experiences and helped humanize what is happening in Palestine.”
It is difficult to evaluate this given that Tlaib refuses to say publicly what her stance is on BDS, and has not revealed what she told J Street, which, as noted, only endorses candidates who commit to opposing BDS.
She did reveal part of what she told J Street about aid: “The US should leverage its aid and foreign investments to insure that recipients of the aid support American values of democracy and are honest brokers who respect international human rights and institutions and who are legitimately committed to peace.”
This is similar to what she told Channel 4, but it is not a call for ending US military aid to Israel.
And since US leaders always assert that Israel indeed shares American values of democracy and human rights and seeks peace, it doesn’t place any limitation on current aid.
It is also impossible to see how any US military aid can be “leveraged” for human rights, since American weapons are the lethal tools that have sustained decades of Israeli military occupation, colonization and apartheid, as well as chaos and wars around the world.
Blocking critics
Tlaib appears to suggest that it is her critics who have forced her to address issues around BDS and aid to Israel.
“Jumping out of this election with my stance on BDS, on aid to Netanyahu’s Israel (his racist and inhumane monstrous attack on a whole people), WILL just put darkness back into this moment,” she wrote on Facebook.
Yet it was Tlaib who forced the issue by accepting the J Street endorsement.
It seems that Tlaib is demanding freedom to signal support for positions espoused by pro-Israel groups while not having to answer to the community she wants to represent.
Pro-Israel advocates understand this: The Jewish Press on Sunday celebrated Tlaib’s refusal to address the questions raised by this writer’s article in The Electronic Intifada, which it dismissed as a “frothing-at-the-mouth, anti-Israel website.”
The Jewish Press added that while Tlaib is not likely “to sing Hatikvah at the 71st anniversary celebration of the Jewish state,” her position “does imply that she will be much closer to the Democratic Party’s consensus on Israel.”
It is hard to disagree with that assessment.
As a member of Congress, Tlaib may have to vote straight away on such bills as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, a patently unconstitutional effort to muzzle supporters of Palestinian rights by targeting the BDS movement.
It is therefore in no way unreasonable to expect clarity on where she stands on this bill, following her endorsement by the anti-BDS J Street.
Public pressure on a politician to do the right thing actually strengthens them because it allows them to show that they have a base that will not tolerate abandonment of basic principles.
Instead, Tlaib has been busy blocking people who ask her questions about her positions. twitter
She will also have an immediate opportunity to signal support for Palestinian rights by co-sponsoring Representative Betty McCollum’s landmark bill to ban US aid being used for the military abuse, torture and detention of Palestinian children.
Although that only deals with a portion of US aid to Israel, it’s a concrete start, and constituents could push her to immediately co-sponsor the McCollum bill.
AccountabilitySince this writer’s initial article on Tlaib’s J Street endorsement was published, there has been a necessary public discussion that would not otherwise have occurred.
Activist Noura Erakat – like many others – has indicated that Tlaib should be given the “benefit of the doubt.”
One gives the benefit of the doubt to someone who has not been tested in their position of authority.
However, giving a public figure the benefit of the doubt after they have committed a major infraction – in this case seeking and accepting an endorsement and donations from a group that exists to oppose basic Palestinian rights – only serves as a cover-up and an incentive to make more damaging deals down the road.
To concede any ground to a racist organization like J Street would allow Tlaib or others who follow in her footsteps to be trotted out by Zionists and Israel apologists as examples of “good Palestinians” versus the “bad Palestinians” who support BDS as a tactic to achieve full Palestinian rights.
While Erakat did not object outright to the J Street endorsement, despite the commitments it required on the part of Tlaib, she did find it “problematic.”
Holding a public figure accountable does not require demonizing them, writing them off or labeling them a sell-out, as some have suggested. Nor should the response to valid criticism be rounding on those who ask questions as disloyal traitors.
Accountability does require asking questions and expecting clear answers and explanations when facts come to light that contradict the image and message a politician is marketing.
Answering such questions is a politician’s obligation to those they claim to represent.
And to the extent that Tlaib is posing as a representative of a progressive national movement that takes Palestinian rights seriously, as well as a representative of Michigan’s 13th District, it’s an obligation Tlaib still needs to demonstrate she is ready to meet.
Tlaib’s campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Electronic Intifada.
12 aug 2018
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A new poll has found that US President Donald Trump is as highly disliked by American people as former President Richard Nixon, just prior to his resignation as the result of the infamous Watergate scandal.
The findings of the new survey conducted by Marist College shows that 45 percent rated Trump’s job performance as poor — the same percentage who stated that Nixon was doing poorly as president in a Harris poll, US-based news broadcaster CNN reported on Saturday. According to the poll, only 20 percent of respondents rated Trump's job performance as excellent while another 20 percent said that he was doing a "pretty good" job. |
Less than half of Republican participants — 49 percent — further said the US president was doing an excellent job, compared to just two percent of Democrats taking part in the survey. Twitter video
The Marist Poll was conducted July 19-22 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points, said the report.
Republican President Nixon resigned from office 44 years ago this week following the Watergate controversy, in which his administration was proven to have spied on the rival Democratic Party in its bid to win re-election.
According to the 1974 Harris poll, the majority of Americans — 56 percent — called for his impeachment and removal from office.
Veteran US journalist Carl Bernstein, who helped expose Nixon and his role in Watergate with fellow Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, stated last week in a CNN interview that "what we are watching in the Trump presidency is worse than Watergate." Twitter video
Bernstein censured the Republicans for not holding Trump accountable, insisting that the current party is not the same as the Republican “heroes” with Nixon who “demanded that he be transparent.”
The development comes as Woodward is also due to publish a Trump administration exposé – titled “Fear: Trump in the White House” -- which is scheduled for release on September 11, just weeks prior to the US midterm elections.
The Marist Poll was conducted July 19-22 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points, said the report.
Republican President Nixon resigned from office 44 years ago this week following the Watergate controversy, in which his administration was proven to have spied on the rival Democratic Party in its bid to win re-election.
According to the 1974 Harris poll, the majority of Americans — 56 percent — called for his impeachment and removal from office.
Veteran US journalist Carl Bernstein, who helped expose Nixon and his role in Watergate with fellow Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, stated last week in a CNN interview that "what we are watching in the Trump presidency is worse than Watergate." Twitter video
Bernstein censured the Republicans for not holding Trump accountable, insisting that the current party is not the same as the Republican “heroes” with Nixon who “demanded that he be transparent.”
The development comes as Woodward is also due to publish a Trump administration exposé – titled “Fear: Trump in the White House” -- which is scheduled for release on September 11, just weeks prior to the US midterm elections.
8 aug 2018
Representative of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee in Bethlehem, Hassan Brejiyyeh, on Tuesday, revealed the arrival of U.S. delegations from political and tourism companies, in order to carry out investment projects in two Bethlehem settlements.
In an interview with Voice of Palestine radio, Brejiyyeh said that American companies are currently investing in Israeli settlement tourism projects, specifically in the settlements of Eliazar and Efrat, which are located on lands of Palestinian citizens.
Such projects, settlement plans, construction of streets, tunnels and rail roads are part of the Israeli occupation project to establish ”Greater Jerusalem” plan and link Jerusalem to the Gush Etzion settlement, to cut the West Bank in half and seize more Palestinian land.
In an interview with Voice of Palestine radio, Brejiyyeh said that American companies are currently investing in Israeli settlement tourism projects, specifically in the settlements of Eliazar and Efrat, which are located on lands of Palestinian citizens.
Such projects, settlement plans, construction of streets, tunnels and rail roads are part of the Israeli occupation project to establish ”Greater Jerusalem” plan and link Jerusalem to the Gush Etzion settlement, to cut the West Bank in half and seize more Palestinian land.
