An Interview with Noam Chomsky

"The Strong Do as They Can"

By NERMEEN AL-MUFTI

http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky08242006.html



Noam Chomsky, in an interview with Al-Ahram's Nermeen Al-Mufti, takes stock of the month-long US-Israeli onslaught on Lebanon and reflects on the fallout.

Why is Israel given the right to self- defense while Arab countries are denied it?

Thucydides gave an answer to that a long time ago: "The strong do as they can, and the weak suffer as they must." It is one of the leading principles of international affairs.

Many Arab states declared that they would not sever relations with Israel, saying that this was Hizbullah's war, the consequences Hizbullah's fault. Do you think there was -- and perhaps remains -- American pressure behind these statements?

At an emergency Arab League meeting, most Arab states -- apart from Algeria, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen -- condemned Hizbullah. In doing so, they were willing to "openly defy public opinion", as The New York Times reported. They later had to back down, including Washington's oldest and most important ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah said that, "if the peace option is rejected due to Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and that no one knows the repercussions on the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."

Most analysts assume -- plausibly I think -- that their primary concern is the growing influence of Iran, and the embarrassment caused by the fact that alone in the Arab world, Hizbullah has offered support for Palestinians under brutal attack in the occupied territories.

Was there any legal or moral justification for this war, as Bush, Rice and Western news media insisted?

We can ignore Bush and Rice, who are participants in the US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

We know very well that by Western standards there is no moral or legal justification for the war. Sufficient proof is the fact that for many years Israel regularly kidnapped Lebanese, sending them to prisons in Israel, including secret prisons like the notorious Camp 1391, which was exposed by accident and quickly forgotten (and in the US, never even reported within the mainstream). No one suggested that Lebanon, or anyone else, had the right to invade and destroy much of Israel in retaliation.

As this long and ugly record makes clear, kidnapping of civilians -- a far worse crime than the capture of soldiers -- is considered insignificant by the US, UK, and other Western states, and by articulate opinion within them quite generally, when it is done by "our side".

That fact was revealed very dramatically once again at the outset of the current upsurge of violence after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, on June 25. That action elicited a huge show of outrage in the West, and support for Israel's sharp escalation of its attacks in Gaza. One day before, on June 24, Israeli forces kidnapped two civilians in Gaza, a doctor and his brother, and sent them off somewhere in Israel's prison system. The event was scarcely reported, and elicited little if any comment within the mainstream. The timing alone reveals with vivid clarity that the show of outrage over the capture of Israeli soldiers is cynical fraud, and undermines any shreds of moral legitimacy for the ensuing actions.

So for Israel, any pretext could justify daily massacres in Lebanon and Gaza?

With a vivid imagination, one can conjure up all sorts of pretexts. In the real world, there are none. And we may add the forgotten West Bank, where the US and Israel are proceeding with their plans to drive the last nails into the coffin of Palestinian national rights by their programs of annexation, cantonization and imprisonment (by takeover of the Jordan Valley). These plans are carried out within the framework of another cynical fraud: "convergence" (in Hebrew, hitkansut ), portrayed in the US as "withdrawal", in a remarkable public relations triumph. Also long forgotten is the occupied Golan Heights, virtually annexed by Israel in violation of unanimous Security Council orders (but with tacit US support).

As an Iraqi, I understand that the ongoing war against Lebanon and Gaza is an essential part of the Bush scheme of reshaping the region: to redraw the borders mapped by Sykes- Picot...

I doubt that most of them have even heard of Sykes-Picot. They have their own plans for the region. Primary among them is the traditional commitment to control the world's major energy resources. Those who do not fall in line can expect to be targets of subversion or aggression. That should not be surprising, at least to those familiar with the history of the past century -- in fact well before.

Do you think that Iran and Syria were behind this war, as Bush inferred?

It is generally assumed that they at least gave Hizbullah authorization for the July 12 attack on Israeli military forces at the border. However, many of the most serious analysts of Hizbullah, and of Iran, have concluded that Hizbullah's actions are taken on its own initiative.

How can we explain the role of the Security Council in destroying Lebanon and Gaza now, and Iraq before?

The Security Council acts within constraints set by the great powers, primarily the United States. In turn, the United States can generally rely on Britain, particularly Blair's Britain, which is described sardonically in Britain's leading journal of international affairs as "the spear-carrier of the pax Americana."

In the early post-war years, for obvious reasons, the UN was generally under US domination, and was very popular among US elites. By the mid- 1960s, that was becoming less true, with decolonization and the recovery of industrial societies from wartime devastation. Since that time, the US has been far in the lead in vetoing Security Council resolutions on a wide range of issues, with Britain second, and none of the others even close.

Correspondingly, elite support for the UN sharply declined in the US, though, interestingly, popular support for the UN remains remarkably high, one of the many illustrations of an enormous gap between public opinion and public policy in the US.

Over and above that crucial constraint, US power allows it to shape those resolutions and actions that it is willing to accept. Other powers have their own cynical reasons for what they do, but their influence is naturally less -- again, the maxim of Thucydides. Popular forces could make a substantial difference, and sometimes do, but until the prevailing "democratic deficit" is reduced, that effect will be limited.

I am unable to understand this Israeli arrogance. Are you?

The maxim of Thucydides again. But it is worth bearing in mind that Israel can go just as far as its protector in Washington permits and supports.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly.

It's Time to Make Some Judgments, Take Some Actions

American Responsibility and Palestine

By MEGAN WILES

Something about Palestine is an ego trip for a white girl. You have delusions of grandeur, that you will arrive on the scene and the Palestinians will have parades and cry "Peace! Oh, yes, peace at last." You fee you can keep people safe because you are an American with Inalienable Rights, that Nobody can do Anything to you, that people will listen to you because you are a Westerner with access to powerful and rich people. You come here half expecting that you will end the occupation single-handedly. You believe soldiers will listen to you, will obey your orders because, after all, you have paid for their guns and jeeps and military-issued boxer briefs.

Some of the Palestinians believe this, too, that you have magic keys, a mystical power to open checkpoints and minds and stop bulldozers from destroying their homes. They ask you "Please talk to them." They ask you this while holding their babies, they ask you to explain to the men with guns that they are sick and cannot wait in line in the hot sun. They ask you to bring medicine from America, to help them build factories, to talk to George Bush and tell him how much they are suffering. They ask you to speak to the American people, all 200 million of them, to tell them to stop sending tax money to the American government, who is sending the money to the Israeli government, who is sending the money to Palestinians in care packages of bullets and rockets and monster bulldozers.

And you become sick with guilt because you know it is your responsibility to help with these things, because you know it is being done in your name and with your money, but mostly it is your responsibility because you try to be a good human being and when people are suffering you believe this is wrong and you want it to stop. You know that if you were a Palestinian--and there's really no rhyme or reason as to why you weren't born in Palestine, nothing special you did to deserve to be born in America--you would wish that people cared enough about you to stop this horrible thing being done to you.

The longer you are in Palestine, the more you learn, the more you see, you realize that there is actually very little you can do. You are mostly alone here, and there are 200 million people back in America and they feel bad about the stuff that you tell them, but not bad enough to take direct action to stop the killings, stop the wall, stop home demolitions. It will take thousands of people to do this, thousands of people to rebuild Palestine, thousands of people to stop the governments of America and Israel who are slowly killing the Palestinians. Surely out of 200 million, there are a couple thousand who have the time and resources to help you fix this problem. But they are not here. There are only 10 Americans here. You want to get pissed at people. You want to say "Why are you making me do this alone? Why am I the only one fixing our mistakes? Why aren't you here, too?"

In the same instant, you forgive them, because you know it's hard, when you have families and bills and when you are trying to find your own happiness, too. You forgive them and you decide not to judge them because you are not God, and you know that you are no saint. Because you know that when you leave this place you will be secretly glad to return to the quiet streets and the endless water and the malls full of cold air and shoes.

My friends and family and homies, the world is seriously sick right now, and the American government has not only proved themselve to be incapable of fixing things, they have also proved that they are the instigators of the sickness. We have a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq, we pushed for and financially supported the war in Lebanon, we support the Occupation of Palestine, and there is talk of war with Iran and North Korea. Please email back if you disagree.

We can't sit back and allow them to do what they want with our tax dollars and our power, because they are abusing it and they are killing people, and meanwhile our own education system has gone to shit, millions of people don't have health insurance, everyone is working two jobs just to get by, New Orleans is still a pile of rubble....it goes on and on. We have to take things into our own hands. We have to start working on the world's problems--and the problems within our own country-- as if they are are our own problems. It's the only way things will change. We have to be brave enough to say "This is not who we want to be anymore. This is not the way we want the world to be anymore." No one is going to do it for you. I repeat--if you are unhappy with the conditions of the world, the conditions of your country and your life, you have to do something about it personally, because no one is going to do it for you.

End sermon. Things seem really bad right now, but at the same time I feel a current of change moving through our people. I think you all are tired of this militaristic, war-driven, corporate-controlled society we live then. I think you all know that there is a better way to live. I think you ready for it to happen, and I trust the day is approaching when you will feel you have the power to make it happen, when we stand strong together and take back our country.

My humble advice? Start small. Start with yourself--examine your job, your lifestyle, the things you buy--investigate how your own actions impact the world at large. Read independent media. Go to a lecture that sounds crazy and progressive and radical, and see what you think. Don't just give your money away to charity--this is still expecting other people to do the work for you. Roll up your sleeves, dig in, do volunteer work, educate yourself on political candidates, call your congressman when you're pissed off. Participate in government--this is what democracy is. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

I don't know anything, I'm not an authority on anything, but I know we can't go on living the way we are, the world cannot sustain it. I know most people are unhappy, and we need to do something about that.

Magan Wiles is an actress who teaches Theater of the Oppressed to young people through the Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma in Saint Louis, Missouri. She can be reached at missmagan3@yahoo.com