Arabs friend

we spend the hours in an extended with one of the leading dissidents and scholars in the United States, and that is Noam Chomsky. He is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest For Global Dominance, 9-11, Power and Terror and dozens of other books. Noam Chomsky has appeared on this articls the past years speaking about US foreign policy, occupation, war and resistance. i wanted to bring you some of Noam Chomskys personal story and books and interviews. this human this free man and arabs friend.
Rzzag.L.

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who is NOAM CHOMESKY
Noam Avram Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 7, 1928. He received his early education at Oak Lane Country Day School and Central High School, Philadelphia. He continued his education at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied linguistics, mathematics, and philosophy. In 1955, he received his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania, however, most of the research leading to this degree was done at Harvard University between 1951 and 1955. Since receiving his Ph. D., Chomsky has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he now holds the Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Language and Linguistics. Noam was married to Carol Schatz on December 24, 1949 and has two children.
Chomsky has made his reputation in linguistics. He learned some of the historical principles of linguistics from his father, William, who was a Hebrew scholar. In fact, some of his early research, which he did for his Masters, was on the modern spoken Hebrew language. Among his many accomplishments, he is most famous for his work on generative grammar, which developed from his interest in modern logic and mathematical foundations. As a result, he applied it to the description of natural languages. As a student, Noam was heavily influenced by Zellig Harris, who was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. It was Chomsky’s sympathy to Harris’s political views that steered him toward work as a graduate student in linguistics.
Noam has always been interested in politics, and it is said that politics has brought him into the linguistics field. His political tendencies toward socialism and anarchism are a result of what he calls "the radical Jewish community in New York." Since 1965 he has become one of the leading critics of U.S. foreign policy. He published a book of essays called American Power and the New Mandarins which is considered to be one of the most substantial arguments ever against American involvement in Vietnam.
Chomsky is very respected and has been honored numerous times in the academic arena. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of London and the University of Chicago, as well as having been invited to lecture all over the world. In 1967, he delivered the Beckman Lectures at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1969, he presented the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford and Sherman Memorial Lectures at the University of London.
Noam Chomsky was born December 7, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of William Chomsky, an emigrant from Russia. His father was a teacher of Hebrew and published a scholarly edition of a medieval Hebrew grammar. Between 1940 and1945 he became acquainted with the workings of the socialist-anarchist New York City Jewish intellectual community and considered emigrating to Israel to work for Arab-Jewish cooperation.
Between 1945 and1950 Chomsky was a student at the University of Pennsylvania and began his study of linguistics. During this time, he proofread Zellig Harris’s Methods in Structural Linguistics and developed a sympathy for Harris’s ideas on politics. He was also a student of Nelson Goodman, the radical-empiricist philosopher. In 1951, he accepted nomination by Goodman as a Junior Fellow to Harvard University. In 1953, Chomsky traveled to Europe. En route, he resolved that his attempt to formalize structural linguistics would not work because language was a highly abstract generative phenomenon. Determined that his further work should concern models of this phenomenon.
During the year of 1955, he left his Fellowship at Harvard University and obtained a position at MIT where he taught for the next 19 years. He was also married to Carol Chomsky, a Professor at Harvard. Noam now holds Ferrari P. Ward Chair of Modern Languages and Linguistics. Between 1965 and1973, he played a major role in the American resistance against the Vietnamese policy of the United States Government, he published views on Southeast Asia and United States policy in magazines such as New York Review of Books and Ramparts and spent a week in North Vietnam just before Cambodian invasion. Truly, Noam Chomsky is an impressive man.

The articls that follow are talks about arab conflicts in the Palestinian libanon and irak.and israel and usa policy.
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On the US-Israeli Invasion of Lebanon
Noam Chomsky
Al-Adab, August 19, 2006
Though there are many interacting factors, the immediate issue that lies behind the latest US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon remains, I believe, what it was in the four preceding invasions: the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the most important case, the devastating US-backed 1982 Israeli invasion was openly described in Israel as a war for the West Bank, undertaken to put an end to annoying PLO calls for a diplomatic settlement (with the secondary goal of imposing a client regime in Lebanon). There are numerous other illustrations. Despite the many differences in circumstances, the July 2006 invasion falls generally into the same pattern.
Among mainstream American critics of Bush administration policies, the favored version is that “We had always approached [conflict between Israel and its neighbors] in a balanced way, assuming that we could be the catalyst for an agreement,” but Bush II regrettably abandoned that neutral stance, causing great problems for the United States (Middle East specialist and former diplomat Edward Walker, a leading moderate). The actual record is quite different: For over 30 years, Washington has unilaterally barred a peaceful political settlement, with only slight and brief deviations.
The consistent rejectionism can be traced back to the February 1971 Egyptian offer of a full peace treaty with Israel, in the terms of official US policy, offering nothing for the Palestinians. Israel understood that this peace offer would put an end to any security threat, but the government decided to reject security in favor of expansion, then mostly into northeastern Sinai. Washington supported Israel’s stand, adhering to Kissinger’s principle of “stalemate”: force, not diplomacy. It was only 8 years later, after a terrible war and great suffering, that Washington agreed to Egypt’s demand for withdrawal from its territory.
Meanwhile the Palestinian issue had entered the international agenda, and a broad international consensus had crystallized in favor of a two-state settlement on the pre-June 1967 border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments. In December 1975, the UN Security Council agreed to consider a resolution proposed by the Arab “confrontation states” with these provisions, also incorporating the basic wording of UN 242. The US vetoed the resolution. Israel’s reaction was to bomb Lebanon, killing over 50 people in Nabatiye, calling the attack “preventive” – presumably to “prevent” the UN session, which Israel boycotted.
The only significant exception to consistent US-Israeli rejectionism was in January 2001, when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came close to agreement in Taba. But the negotiations were called off by Israeli Prime Minister Barak four days early, ending that promising effort. Unofficial but high-level negotiations continued, leading to the Geneva Accord of December 2002, with similar proposals. It was welcomed by most of the world, but rejected by Israel and dismissed by Washington (and, reflexively, the US media and intellectual classes).
Meanwhile US-backed Israeli settlement and infrastructure programs have been “creating facts on the ground” in order to undermine potential realization of Palestinian national rights. Throughout the Oslo years, these programs continued steadily, with a sharp peak in 2000: Clinton’s final year, and Barak’s. The current euphemism for these programs is “disengagement” from Gaza and “convergence” in the West Bank – in Western rhetoric, Ehud Olmert’s courageous program of withdrawal from the occupied territories. The reality, as usual, is quite different.
The Gaza “disengagement” was openly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. Having turned Gaza into a disaster area, sane Israeli hawks realized that there was no point leaving a few thousand settlers taking the best land and scarce resources, protected by a large part of the IDF. It made more sense to send them to the West Bank and Golan Heights, where new settlement programs were announced, while turning Gaza into “the world’s largest prison,” as Israeli human rights groups accurately call it. West Bank “Convergence” formalizes these programs of annexation, cantonization, and imprisonment. With decisive US support, Israel is annexing valuable lands and the most important resources of the West Bank (primarily water), while carrying out settlement and infrastructure projects that divide the shrinking Palestinian territories into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful corner of Jerusalem will be left to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan Valley, and of course any other access to the outside world.
All of these programs are recognized to be illegal, in violation of numerous Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court any part of the "separation wall" that is built to “defend” the settlements is “ipso facto” illegal (U.S. Justice Buergenthal, in a separate declaration). Hence about 80-85% of the wall is illegal, as is the entire “convergence” program. But for a self-designated outlaw state and its clients, such facts are minor irrelevancies.
Currently, the US and Israel demand that Hamas accept the 2002 Arab League Beirut proposal for full normalization of relations with Israel after withdrawal in accord with the international consensus. The proposal has long been accepted by the PLO, and it has also been formally accepted by the “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that Hezbollah would not disrupt such an agreement if it is accepted by Palestinians. Hamas has repeatedly indicated its willingness to negotiate in these terms.
The facts are doctrinally unacceptable, hence mostly suppressed. What we see, instead, is the stern warning to Hamas by the editors of the New York Times that their formal agreement to the Beirut peace plan is “an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government.” Like others, the NYT editors fail to mention that the US and Israel forcefully reject this proposal, and are alone in doing so among relevant actors. Furthermore, they reject it not merely in rhetoric, but far more importantly, in deeds. We see at once who constitutes the “lawless opposition” and who speaks for them. But that conclusion cannot be expressed, even entertained, in respectable circles.
The only meaningful support for Palestinians facing national destruction is from Hezbollah. For this reason alone it follows that Hezbollah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hezbollah is too deeply embedded within Lebanese society to be eradicated, so Lebanon too must be largely destroyed. An expected benefit for the US and Israel was to enhance the credibility of threats against Iran by eliminating a Lebanese-based deterrent to a possible attack. But none of this turned out as planned. Much as in Iraq, and elsewhere, Bush administration planners have created catastrophes, even for the interests they represent. That is the primary reason for the unprecedented criticism of the administration among the foreign policy elite, even before the invasion of Iraq.
In the background lie more far-reaching and lasting concerns: to ensure what is called “stability” in the reigning ideology. “Stability,” in simple words, means obedience. “Stability” is undermined by states that do not strictly follow orders, secular nationalists, Islamists who are not under control (in contrast, the Saudi monarchy, the oldest and most valuable US ally, is fine), etc. Such “destabilizing” forces are particularly dangerous when their programs are attractive to others, in which case they are called “viruses” that must be destroyed. “Stability” is enhanced by loyal client states. Since 1967, it has been assumed that Israel can play this role, along with other “peripheral” states. Israel has become virtually an off-shore US military base and high-tech center, the natural consequence of its rejection of security in favor of expansion in 1971, and repeatedly since. These policies are subject to little internal debate, whoever holds state power. The policies extend world-wide, and in the Middle East, their significance is enhanced by one of the leading principles of foreign policy since World War II (and for Britain before that): to ensure control over Middle East energy resources, recognized for 60 years to be “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”

The standard Western version is that the July 2006 invasion was justified by legitimate outrage over capture of two Israeli soldiers at the border. The posture is cynical fraud. The US and Israel, and the West generally, have little objection to capture of soldiers, or even to the far more severe crime of kidnapping civilians (or of course to killing civilians). That had been Israeli practice in Lebanon for many years, and no one ever suggested that Israel should therefore be invaded and largely destroyed. Western cynicism was revealed with even more dramatic clarity as the current upsurge of violence erupted after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25. That too elicited huge outrage, and support for Israel's sharp escalation of its murderous assault on Gaza. The scale is reflected in casualties: in June, 36 Palestinian civilians were killed in Gaza; in July, the numbers more than quadrupled to over 170, dozens of them children. The posture of outrage was, again, cynical fraud, as demonstrated dramatically, and conclusively, by the reaction to Israel's kidnapping of two Gaza civilians, the Muamar brothers, one day before, on June 24. They disappeared into Israel's prison system, joining the hundreds of others imprisoned without charge -- hence kidnapped, as are many of those sentenced on dubious charges. There was some brief and dismissive mention of the kidnapping of the Muamar brothers, but no reaction, because such crimes are considered legitimate when carried out by “our side.” The idea that this crime would justify a murderous assault on Israel would have been regarded as a reversion to Nazism. The distinction is clear, and familiar throughout history: to paraphrase Thucydides, the powerful are entitled to do as they wish, while the weak suffer as they must.
We should not overlook the progress that has been made in undermining the imperial mentality that is so deeply rooted in Western moral and intellectual culture as to be beyond awareness. Nor should we forget the scale of what remains to be achieved, tasks that must be undertaken in solidarity and cooperation by people in North and South who hope to see a more decent and civilized world.

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The Israel Lobby?
Noam Chomsky
ZNet, March 28, 2006
I've received many requests to comment on the article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (henceforth M-W), published in the London Review of Books, which has been circulating extensively on the internet and has elicited a storm of controversy. A few thoughts on the matter follow.
It was, as noted, published in the London Review of Books, which is far more open to discussion on these issues than US journals -- a matter of relevance (to which I'll return) to the alleged influence of what M-W call "the Lobby." An article in the Jewish journal Forward quotes M as saying that the article was commissioned by a US journal, but rejected, and that "the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication." But despite the fact that it appeared in England, the M-W article aroused the anticipated hysterical reaction from the usual supporters of state violence here, from the Wall St Journal to Alan Dershowitz, sometimes in ways that would instantly expose the authors to ridicule if they were not lining up (as usual) with power.
M-W deserve credit for taking a position that is sure to elicit tantrums and fanatical lies and denunciations, but it's worth noting that there is nothing unusual about that. Take any topic that has risen to the level of Holy Writ among "the herd of independent minds" (to borrow Harold Rosenberg's famous description of intellectuals): for example, anything having to do with the Balkan wars, which played a huge role in the extraordinary campaigns of self-adulation that disfigured intellectual discourse towards the end of the millennium, going well beyond even historical precedents, which are ugly enough. Naturally, it is of extraordinary importance to the herd to protect that self-image, much of it based on deceit and fabrication. Therefore, any attempt even to bring up plain (undisputed, surely relevant) facts is either ignored (M-W can't be ignored), or sets off most impressive tantrums, slanders, fabrications and deceit, and the other standard reactions. Very easy to demonstrate, and by no means limited to these cases. Those without experience in critical analysis of conventional doctrine can be very seriously misled by the particular case of the Middle East(ME).
But recognizing that M-W took a courageous stand, which merits praise, we still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion. I've reviewed elsewhere what the record (historical and documentary) seems to me to show about the main sources of US ME policy, in books and articles for the past 40 years, and can't try to repeat here. M-W make as good a case as one can, I suppose, for the power of the Lobby, but I don't think it provides any reason to modify what has always seemed to me a more plausible interpretation. Notice incidentally that what is at stake is a rather subtle matter: weighing the impact of several factors which (all agree) interact in determining state policy: in particular, (A) strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby.
The M-W thesis is that (B) overwhelmingly predominates. To evaluate the thesis, we have to distinguish between two quite different matters, which they tend to conflate: (1) the alleged failures of US ME policy; (2) the role of The Lobby in bringing about these consequences. Insofar as the stands of the Lobby conform to (A), the two factors are very difficult to disentagle. And there is plenty of conformity.
Let's look at (1), and ask the obvious question: for whom has policy been a failure for the past 60 years? The energy corporations? Hardly. They have made "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" (quoting John Blair, who directed the most important government inquiries into the industry, in the '70s), and still do, and the ME is their leading cash cow. Has it been a failure for US grand strategy based on control of what the State Department described 60 years ago as the "stupendous source of strategic power" of ME oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled "material prize"? Hardly. The US has substantially maintained control -- and the significant reverses, such as the overthrow of the Shah, were not the result of the initiatives of the Lobby. And as noted, the energy corporations prospered. Furthermore, those extraordinary successes had to overcome plenty of barriers: primarily, as elsewhere in the world, what internal documents call "radical nationalism," meaning independent nationalism. As elsewhere in the world, it's been convenient to phrase these concerns in terms of "defense against the USSR," but the pretext usually collapses quickly on inquiry, in the ME as elsewhere. And in fact the claim was conceded to be false, officially, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Bush's National Security Strategy (1990) called for maintaining the forces aimed at the ME, where the serious "threats to our interests... could not be laid at the Kremlin's door" -- now lost as a pretext for pursuing about the same policies as before. And the same was true pretty much throughout the world.
That at once raises another question about the M-W thesis. What were "the Lobbies" that led to pursuing very similar policies throughout the world? Consider the year 1958, a very critical year in world affairs. In 1958, the Eisenhower administration identified the three leading challenges to the US as the ME, North Africa, and Indonesia -- all oil producers, all Islamic. North Africa was taken care of by Algerian (formal) independence. Indonesia and the ME were taken care of by Suharto's murderous slaughter (1965) and Israel's destruction of Arab secular nationalism (Nasser, 1967). In the ME, that established the close US-Israeli alliance and confirmed the judgment of US intelligence in 1958 that a "logical corollary" of opposition to "radical nationalism" (meaning, secular independent nationalism) is "support for Israel" as the one reliable US base in the region (along with Turkey, which entered into close relations with Israel in the same year). Suharto's coup aroused virtual euphoria, and he remained "our kind of guy" (as the Clinton administration called him) until he could no longer keep control in 1998, through a hideous record that compares well with Saddam Hussein -- who was also "our kind of guy" until he disobeyed orders in 1990. What was the Indonesia Lobby? The Saddam Lobby? And the question generalizes around the world. Unless these questions are faced, the issue (1) cannot be seriously addressed.
When we do investigate (1), we find that US policies in the ME are quite similar to those pursued elsewhere in the world, and have been a remarkable success, in the face of many difficulties: 60 years is a long time for planning success. It's true that Bush II has weakened the US position, not only in the ME, but that's an entirely separate matter.
That leads to (2). As noted, the US-Israeli alliance was firmed up precisely when Israel performed a huge service to the US-Saudis-Energy corporations by smashing secular Arab nationalism, which threatened to divert resources to domestic needs. That's also when the Lobby takes off (apart from the Christian evangelical component, by far the most numerous and arguably the most influential part, but that's mostly the 90s). And it's also when the intellectual-political class began their love affair with Israel, previously of little interest to them. They are a very influential part of the Lobby because of their role in media, scholarship, etc. From that point on it's hard to distinguish "national interest" (in the usual perverse sense of the phrase) from the effects of the Lobby. I've run through the record of Israeli services to the US, to the present, elsewhere, and won't review it again here.
M-W focus on AIPAC and the evangelicals, but they recognize that the Lobby includes most of the political-intellectual class -- at which point the thesis loses much of its content. They also have a highly selective use of evidence (and much of the evidence is assertion). Take, as one example, arms sales to China, which they bring up as undercutting US interests. But they fail to mention that when the US objected, Israel was compelled to back down: under Clinton in 2000, and again in 2005, in this case with the Washington neocon regime going out of its way to humiliate Israel. Without a peep from The Lobby, in either case, though it was a serious blow to Israel. There's a lot more like that. Take the worst crime in Israel's history, its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 with the goal of destroying the secular nationalist PLO and ending its embarrassing calls for political settlement, and imposing a client Maronite regime. The Reagan administration strongly supported the invasion through its worst atrocities, but a few months later (August), when the atrocities were becoming so severe that even NYT Beirut correspondent Thomas Friedman was complaining about them, and they were beginning to harm the US "national interest," Reagan ordered Israel to call off the invasion, then entered to complete the removal of the PLO from Lebanon, an outcome very welcome to both Israel and the US (and consistent with general US opposition to independent nationalism). The outcome was not entirely what the US-Israel wanted, but the relevant observation here is that the Reaganites supported the aggression and atrocities when that stand was conducive to the "national interest," and terminated them when it no longer was (then entering to finish the main job). That's pretty normal.
Another problem that M-W do not address is the role of the energy corporations. They are hardly marginal in US political life -- transparently in the Bush administration, but in fact always. How can they be so impotent in the face of the Lobby? As ME scholar Stephen Zunes has rightly pointed out, "there are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies, the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races."
Do the energy corporations fail to understand their interests, or are they part of the Lobby too? By now, what's the distinction between (1) and (2), apart from the margins?
Also to be explained, again, is why US ME policy is so similar to its policies elsewhere -- to which, incidentally, Israel has made important contributions, e.g., in helping the executive branch to evade congressional barriers to carrying out massive terror in Central America, to evade embargoes against South Africa and Rhodesia, and much else. All of which again makes it even more difficult to separate (2) from (1) -- the latter, pretty much uniform, in essentials, throughout the world.
I won't run through the other arguments, but I don't feel that they have much force, on examination.
The thesis M-W propose does however have plenty of appeal. The reason, I think, is that it leaves the US government untouched on its high pinnacle of nobility, "Wilsonian idealism," etc., merely in the grip of an all-powerful force that it cannot escape. It's rather like attributing the crimes of the past 60 years to "exaggerated Cold War illusions," etc. Convenient, but not too convincing. In either case.

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It's Imperialism, Stupid
Noam Chomsky
Khaleej Times, July 4, 2005
In his June 28 speech, President Bush asserted that the invasion of Iraq was undertaken as part of "a global war against terror" that the United States is waging. In reality, as anticipated, the invasion increased the threat of terror, perhaps significantly.
Half-truths, misinformation and hidden agendas have characterised official pronouncements about US war motives in Iraq from the very beginning. The recent revelations about the rush to war in Iraq stand out all the more starkly amid the chaos that ravages the country and threatens the region and indeed the world.
In 2002 the US and United Kingdom proclaimed the right to invade Iraq because it was developing weapons of mass destruction. That was the "single question," as stressed constantly by Bush, Prime Minister Blair and associates. It was also the sole basis on which Bush received congressional authorisation to resort to force.
The answer to the "single question" was given shortly after the invasion, and reluctantly conceded: The WMD didn't exist. Scarcely missing a beat, the government and media doctrinal system concocted new pretexts and justifications for going to war.
"Americans do not like to think of themselves as aggressors, but raw aggression is what took place in Iraq," national security and intelligence analyst John Prados concluded after his careful, extensive review of the documentary record in his 2004 book "Hoodwinked."
Prados describes the Bush "scheme to convince America and the world that war with Iraq was necessary and urgent" as "a case study in government dishonesty ... that required patently untrue public statements and egregious manipulation of intelligence." The Downing Street memo, published on May 1 in The Sunday Times of London, along with other newly available confidential documents, have deepened the record of deceit.
The memo came from a meeting of Blair's war cabinet on July 23, 2002, in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, made the now-notorious assertion that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of going to war in Iraq.
The memo also quotes British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime."
British journalist Michael Smith, who broke the story of the memo, has elaborated on its context and contents in subsequent articles. The "spikes of activity" apparently included a coalition air campaign meant to provoke Iraq into some act that could be portrayed as what the memo calls a "casus belli."
Warplanes began bombing in southern Iraq in May 2002 — 10 tons that month, according to British government figures. A special "spike" started in late August (for a September total of 54.6 tons).
"In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq," Smith wrote.
The bombing was presented as defensive action to protect coalition planes in the no-fly zone. Iraq protested to the United Nations but didn't fall into the trap of retaliating. For US-UK planners, invading Iraq was a far higher priority than the "war on terror." That much is revealed by the reports of their own intelligence agencies. On the eve of the allied invasion, a classified report by the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community's center for strategic thinking, "predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict," Douglas Jehl and David E. Sanger reported in The New York Times last September. In December 2004, Jehl reported a few weeks later, the NIC warned that "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalised' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself." The willingness of top planners to risk increase of terrorism does not of course indicate that they welcome such outcomes. Rather, they are simply not a high priority in comparison with other objectives, such as controlling the world's major energy resources.
Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the more astute of the senior planners and analysts, pointed out in the journal National Interest that America's control over the Middle East "gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region." If the United States can maintain its control over Iraq, with the world's second largest known oil reserves, and right at the heart of the world's major energy supplies, that will enhance significantly its strategic power and influence over its major rivals in the tripolar world that has been taking shape for the past 30 years: US-dominated North America, Europe, and Northeast Asia, linked to South and Southeast Asia economies.
It is a rational calculation, on the assumption that human survival is not particularly significant in comparison with short-term power and wealth. And that is nothing new. These themes resonate through history. The difference today in this age of nuclear weapons is only that the stakes are enormously higher.

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Understanding the Bush Doctrine
Noam Chomsky
Information Clearing House, October 2, 2004
Perhaps the most threatening document of our time is the U.S. National Security Strategy of September 2002. Its implementation in Iraq has already taken countless lives and shaken the international system to the core.

In the fallout from the war on terror is a revived Cold War, with more nuclear players than ever, across even more dry-tinder landscapes around the world.

As Colin Powell explained, the NSS declared that Washington has a "sovereign right to use force to defend ourselves" from nations that possess weapons of mass destruction and cooperate with terrorists, the official pretexts for invading Iraq.

The obvious reason for invading Iraq is still conspicuously evaded: establishing the first secure US military bases in a client state at the heart of the world’s major energy resources.

As old pretexts collapsed, President Bush and his colleagues adaptively revised the doctrine of the NSS to enable them to resort to force even if a country does not have WMD or programmes to develop them. The "intent and ability" to do so is sufficient.

Just about every country has the ability, and intent is in the eye of the beholder. The official doctrine, then, is that anyone is subject to attack.

In September 2003, Bush assured Americans that "the world is safer today because our coalition ended an Iraqi regime that cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction." The president’s handlers know that lies can become Truth, if repeated insistently enough.

The war in Iraq incited terror worldwide. In November 2003, Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges found it "simply unbelievable how the war has revived the appeal of a global jihadi Islam that was in real decline after 9-11." Iraq itself became a "terrorist haven" for the first time, and suffered its first suicide attacks since the 13th century CK assassins.

Recruitment for Al Qaeda networks has risen. "Every use of force is another small victory for bin Laden," who "is winning," writes British journalist Jason Burke in Al-Qaida, his 2003 study of this loose array of radical Islamists, now mostly independent.

For them, bin Laden is hardly more than a symbol. He may be even more dangerous after he is killed, becoming a martyr who will inspire others to join his cause. Burke sees the creation of "a whole new cadre of terrorists," enlisted in what they see as a "cosmic struggle between good and evil," a vision shared by bin Laden and Bush.

The proper reaction to terrorism is two-pronged: directed at the terrorists themselves, and at the reservoir of potential support. The terrorists see themselves as a vanguard, seeking to mobilise others. Police work, an appropriate response, has been successful worldwide. More important is the broad constituency that the terrorists seek to reach, including many who hate and fear them but nevertheless see them as fighting for a just cause.

We can help the terrorist vanguard mobilise this reservoir of support, by violence. Or we can address the "myriad grievances," many legitimate, that are "the root causes of modern Islamic militancy," Burke writes.

That basic effort can significantly reduce the threat of terror, and should be undertaken independently of this goal.

Violent actions provoke reactions that risk catastrophe. US analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted response to Bush administration bellicosity. On both sides, nuclear warheads remain on hair-trigger alert. The Russian control systems, however, have deteriorated. The dangers ratchet up with the threat and use of force.

As anticipated, US military plans have provoked a Chinese reaction as well. China has announced plans to "transform its military into a technology-driven force capable of projecting power globally by 2010," Boston Globe correspondent Jehangir Pocha reported last month, "replacing its land-based nuclear arsenal of about 20 1970s-era intercontinental ballistic missiles with 60 new multiple-warhead missiles capable of reaching the United States."

China’s actions are likely to touch off a ripple effect through India, Pakistan and beyond. Nuclear developments in Iran and North Korea, also in part at least a response to US threats, are exceedingly ominous. The unthinkable becomes thinkable.

In 2003, at the UN General Assembly, the United States voted alone against implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and alone with its new ally India against steps toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The United States also voted alone against "observance of environmental norms" in disarmament and arms control agreements, and alone with Israel and Micronesia against steps to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East -- the pretext for invading Iraq. Presidents commonly have "doctrines," but Bush II is the first to have "visions" as well, possibly because his handlers recall the criticism of his father as lacking "the vision thing."

The most exalted of these, conjured up after all pretexts for invasion of Iraq had to be abandoned, was the vision of bringing democracy to Iraq and the Middle East. By November 2003, this vision was taken to be the real motive for the war.

The evidence for faith in the vision consists of little more than declarations of virtuous intent. To take the declarations seriously, we would have to assume that our leaders are accomplished liars: While mobilising their countries for war, they were declaring that the reasons were entirely different. Mere sanity dictates scepticism about what they produce to replace pretexts that have collapsed.

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How America Determines Friends and Foes
Noam Chomsky
The Toronto Star, March 14, 2004
Every self-respecting president has a doctrine attached to his name. The core principle of the Bush II doctrine is that the United States must "rid the world of evil," as the president said right after 9/11. A special responsibility is to wage war against terrorism, with the corollary that any state that harbours terrorists is a terrorist state and should be treated accordingly.
Let's ask a fair and simple question: What would the consequences be if we were to take the Bush doctrine seriously, and treat states that harbour terrorists as terrorist states, subject to bombardment and invasion?
The United States has long been a sanctuary to a rogues' gallery of people whose actions qualify them as terrorists, and whose presence compromises and complicates U.S. proclaimed principles.
Consider the Cuban Five, Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in 2001 as part of a spy ring.
To understand the case, which has prompted international protests, we have to look at the sordid history of U.S.-Cuba relations (leaving aside here the issue of the crushing, decades-long U.S. embargo).
The United States has engaged in large- and small-scale terrorist attacks against Cuba since 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the bizarre plots to kill Castro. Direct U.S. participation in the attacks ended during the late '70s — at least officially.
In 1989, the first president Bush granted a pardon to Orlando Bosch, one of the most notorious anti-Castro terrorists, accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. Bush overruled the Justice Department, which had refused an asylum request from Bosch, concluding: "The security of this nation is affected by its ability to urge credible other nations to refuse aid and shelter to terrorists, whose target we too often become."
Recognizing that the United States was going to harbour anti-Castro terrorists, Cuban agents infiltrated those networks. In 1998, high-level FBI officials were sent to Havana, where they were given thousands of pages of documentation and hundreds of hours of videotape about terrorist actions organized by cells in Florida.
The FBI reacted by arresting the people who provided the information, including a group now known as the Cuban Five.
The arrests were followed by what amounted to a show trial in Miami. The Five were sentenced, three to life sentences (for espionage; and the leader, Gerardo Hernandez, also for conspiracy to murder), after convictions that are now being appealed.
Meanwhile, people regarded by the FBI and Justice Department as dangerous terrorists live happily in the United States and continue to plot and implement crimes.
The list of terrorists-in-residence in the United States also includes Emmanuel Constant from Haiti, known as Toto, a former paramilitary leader from the Duvalier era. Constant is the founder of the FRAPH (Front for Advancement of Progress in Haiti), the paramilitary group that carried out most of the state terror in the early 1990s under the military junta that overthrew president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
At last report, Constant was living in Queens, N.Y.
The United States has refused Haiti's request for extradition. The reason, it is generally assumed, is that Constant might reveal ties between Washington and the military junta that killed 4,000 to 5,000 Haitians, with Constant's paramilitary forces playing the leading role.
The gangsters leading the current coup in Haiti include FRAPH leaders.
For the United States, Cuba has long been the primary concern in the hemisphere. A declassified 1964 State Department document declares Fidel Castro to be an intolerable threat because he "represents a successful defiance of the United States, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and a half," since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to U.S. dominance would be tolerated in the hemisphere.
Venezuela now presents a similar problem. A recent lead article in the Wall Street Journal says, "Fidel Castro has found a key benefactor and heir apparent to the cause of derailing the U.S.'s agenda in Latin America: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez."
As it happens, last month, Venezuela asked the United States to extradite two former military officers who are seeking asylum in the United States. The two had taken part in a military coup supported by the Bush administration, which backed down in the face of outrage throughout the hemisphere.
The Venezuelan government, remarkably, observed a ruling of the Venezuelan supreme court barring prosecution of the coup leaders. The two officers were later implicated in a terrorist bombing, and fled to Miami.
Outrage over defiance is deeply ingrained in U.S. history. Thomas Jefferson bitterly condemned France for its "attitude of defiance" in holding New Orleans, which he coveted. Jefferson warned that France's "character (is) placed in a point of eternal friction with our character, which though loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded."
France's "defiance (requires us to) marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation," Jefferson advised, reversing his earlier attitudes, which reflected France's crucial contribution to the liberation of the colonies from British rule.
Thanks to Haiti's liberation struggle of 1804, unaided and almost universally opposed, France's defiance soon ended. But, then as now, the guiding principles of American outrage over defiance remain in place, determining friend and foe.

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The Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Noam Chomsky
ZNet, October 31, 2003
Establishment critics of the war on Iraq restricted their comments regarding the attack to the administration arguments they took to be seriously intended: disarmament, deterrence, and links to terrorism.
They scarcely made reference to liberation, democratization of the Middle East, and other matters that would render irrelevant the weapons inspections and indeed everything that took place at the Security Council or within governmental domains.
The reason, perhaps, is that they recognized that lofty rhetoric is the obligatory accompaniment of virtually any resort to force and therefore carries no information. The rhetoric is doubly hard to take seriously in the light of the display of contempt for democracy that accompanied it, not to speak of the past record and current practices.
Critics are also aware that nothing has been heard from the present incumbents -- with their alleged concern for Iraqi democracy -- to indicate that they have any regrets for their previous support for Saddam Hussein (or others like him, still continuing) nor have they shown any signs of contrition for having helped him develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when he really was a serious danger.
Nor has the current leadership explained when, or why, they abandoned their 1991 view that "the best of all worlds" would be "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" that would rule as Saddam did but not make the error of judgment in August 1990 that ruined Saddam's record.
At the time, the incumbents' British allies were in the opposition and therefore more free than the Thatcherites to speak out against Saddam's British-backed crimes. Their names are noteworthy by their absence from the parliamentary record of protests against these crimes, including Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon, and other leading figures of New Labour.
In December 2002, Jack Straw, then foreign minister, released a dossier of Saddam's crimes. It was drawn almost entirely from the period of firm US-UK support, a fact overlooked with the usual display of moral integrity. The timing and quality of the dossier raised many questions, but those aside, Straw failed to provide an explanation for his very recent conversion to skepticism about Saddam Hussein's good character and behavior.
When Straw was home secretary in 2001, an Iraqi who fled to England after detention and torture requested asylum. Straw denied his request. The Home Office explained that Straw "is aware that Iraq, and in particular the Iraqi security forces, would only convict and sentence a person in the courts with the provision of proper jurisdiction," so that "you could expect to receive a fair trial under an independent and properly constituted judiciary."
Straw's conversion must, then, have been rather similar to President Clinton's discovery, sometime between September 8 and 11, 1999, that Indonesia had done some unpleasant things in East Timor in the past twenty-five years when it enjoyed decisive support from the US and Britain.
Attitudes toward democracy were revealed with unusual clarity during the mobilization for war in the fall of 2002, as it became necessary to deal somehow with the overwhelming popular opposition.
Within the "coalition of the willing," the US public was at least partially controlled by the propaganda campaign unleashed in September. In Britain, the population was split roughly fifty-fifty on the war, but the government maintained the stance of "junior partner" it had accepted reluctantly after World War II and had kept to even in the face of the contemptuous dismissal of British concerns by US leaders at moments when the country's very survival was at stake.
Outside the two full members of the coalition, problems were more serious. In the two major European countries, Germany and France, the official government stands corresponded to the views of the large majority of their populations, which unequivocally opposed the war. That led to bitter condemnation by Washington and many commentators.
Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the offending nations as just the "Old Europe," of no concern because of their reluctance to toe Washington's line. The "New Europe" is symbolized by Italy, whose prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was visiting the White House. It was, evidently, unproblematic that public opinion in Italy was overwhelmingly opposed to the war.
The governments of Old and New Europe were distinguished by a simple criterion: a government joined Old Europe in its iniquity if and only if it took the same position as the vast majority of its population and refused to follow orders from Washington.
Recall that the self-appointed rulers of the world -- Bush, Powell, and the rest -- had declared forthrightly that they intended to carry out their war whether or not the United Nations (UN) or anyone else "catches up" and "becomes relevant." Old Europe, mired in irrelevance, did not catch up. Neither did New Europe, at least if people are part of their countries.
Poll results available from Gallup International, as well as local sources for most of Europe, West and East, showed that support for a war carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies" did not rise above 11 percent in any country. Support for a war if mandated by the UN ranged from 13 percent (Spain) to 51 percent (Netherlands).
Particularly interesting are the eight countries whose leaders declared themselves to be the New Europe, to much acclaim for their courage and integrity. Their declaration took the form of a statement calling on the Security Council to ensure "full compliance with its resolutions," without specifying the means.
Their announcement threatened "to isolate the Germans and French," the press reported triumphantly, though the positions of New and Old Europe were in fact scarcely different. To ensure that Germany and France would be "isolated," they were not invited to sign the bold pronouncement of New Europe -- apparently for fear that they would do so, it was later quietly indicated.
The standard interpretation is that the exciting and promising New Europe stood behind Washington, thus demonstrating that "many Europeans supported the United States' view, even if France and Germany did not."
Who were these "many Europeans"? Checking polls, we find that in New Europe, opposition to "the United States' view" was for the most part even higher than in France and Germany, particularly in Italy and Spain, which were singled out for praise for their leadership of New Europe.
Happily for Washington, former communist countries too joined New Europe. Within them, support for the "United States' view," as defined by Powell -- namely, war by the "coalition of the willing" without UN authorization -- ranged from 4 percent (Macedonia) to 11 percent (Romania).
Support for a war even with a UN mandate was also very low. Latvia's former foreign minister explained that we have to "salute and shout, 'Yes sir.' . . . We have to please America no matter what the cost."
In brief, in journals that regard democracy as a significant value, headlines would have read that Old Europe in fact included the vast majority of Europeans, East and West, while New Europe consisted of a few leaders who chose to line up (ambiguously) with Washington, disregarding the overwhelming opinion of their own populations.
But actual reporting was mostly scattered and oblique, depicting opposition to the war as a marketing problem for Washington.
Toward the liberal end of the spectrum, Richard Holbrooke stressed the "very important point [that] if you add up the population of [the eight countries of the original New Europe], it was larger than the population of those countries not signing the letter." True enough, though something is omitted: the populations were overwhelmingly opposed to the war, mostly even more so than in those countries dismissed as Old Europe.
At the other extreme of the spectrum, the editors of the Wall Street Journal applauded the statement of the eight original signers for "exposing as fraudulent the conventional wisdom that France and Germany speak for all of Europe, and that all of Europe is now anti-American." The eight honorable New European leaders showed that "the views of the Continent's pro-American majority weren't being heard," apart from the editorial pages of the Journal, now vindicated. The editors blasted the media to their "left" -- a rather substantial segment -- which "peddled as true" the ridiculous idea that France and Germany spoke for Europe, when they were clearly a pitiful minority, and peddled these lies "because they served the political purposes of those, both in Europe and America, who oppose President Bush on Iraq." This conclusion does hold if we exclude Europeans from Europe, rejecting the radical left doctrine that people have some kind of role in democratic societies.

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Justice for Palestine?
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Stephen R. Shalom and Justin Podur
ZNet, March 30, 2004
. 1. What do you see as the best solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict?

It depends what time frame we have in mind. In the short term, the only feasible and minimally decent solution is along the lines of the international consensus that the US has unilaterally blocked for the last 30 years: a two-state settlement on the international border (green line), with "minor and mutual adjustments," in the terms of official US policy, though not actual policy after 1971. By now, US-backed Israeli settlement and infrastructure projects change the import of "minor." Nevertheless, several programs of basically that nature are on the table, the most prominent being the Geneva Accords, formally presented in Geneva in December, which gives a detailed program for a 1-1 land swap and other aspects of a settlement, and is about as good as is likely to be achieved -- and could be achieved if the US government would back it, which is of course the one issue that we can hope to influence, hence the most important for us. So far, the US has refused to do so. "The United States conspicuously was not among the governments sending a message of support," the New York Times reported in a (generally disparaging) news story on the December 1 meetings in Geneva where the Accords were presented.

2. There are some people who argue that while a two-state solution may have been possible in the past, factors including the settlements and economic and demographic changes over the last 37 years have so intertwined Israeli Jews and Palestinians that a two-state solution today could not realistically provide for two viable states. How do you assess this argument?

To clarify, the question is whether the two communities are so intertwined in the occupied territories that no division is possible: they have always been intertwined within Israel. I think the argument is incorrect -- as, incidentally, do the former heads of the Israeli Shin Bet (General Security Services, GSS), who recently discussed the matter publicly (Nov. 14, 2003). They were in general agreement that Israel could and should leave the Gaza Strip completely, and that in the West Bank, 85-90% of the settlers would leave "with a simple economic plan" while there are perhaps 10% "with whom we will have to clash" to remove them, not a very serious problem in their view. The Geneva Accords and Ayalon-Nusseibah plans are based on similar assumptions, which appear realistic.

3. A related argument holds that the status quo already is a two-state solution -- that the only two-state solution Israel would accept is a kind of Bantustan, disconnected territories with borders controlled by Israel, under Israeli military and economic domination, and that this is the logic of two-state proposals to date, notably Oslo. How do you assess this argument?

What "Israel will accept" depends on what is decided by the great power that the more astute Israeli commentators call "the boss-man called 'partner'." And that decision is our responsibility. As for what Israelis would accept, polls vary, depending on how questions are asked, but it seems that in general the assessment of the former heads of GSS is widely shared. Oslo was not a two-state proposal. That is a common misunderstanding. The Declaration of Principles of September 1993 stated only that the "permanent status" would be based on UN 242, which offers nothing to the Palestinians, not on UN 242 supplemented with the call for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, the international consensus that the US has blocked since the mid-1970s. The Oslo agreements were, therefore, pure rejectionism. The Rabin and Peres governments following the first Oslo agreement never even mentioned a Palestinian state. More crucially, the Oslo agreements did not bar US-backed Israeli settlement and development programs, which is why the head of the authentic Palestinian negotiating team, Haidar Abdul-Shafi, refused even to attend the White House ceremony in 1993. And as Rabin and Peres made clear, they intended to continue with these programs, and did so. That continued through the entire Oslo process; the peak year for settlement was 2000, Clinton-Barak's last year. By then the issue of a Palestinian state had finally arisen, and the issue was where it would be and with what modalities. The Clinton-Barak Camp David proposals of 2000 were impossible, for reasons that have been discussed at length. There was considerable improvement at the Taba negotiations of January 2001, but these were cancelled by Barak and never formally renewed. Informal negotiations continued, leading to the Geneva Accords. (For discussion of Camp David and the aftermath, see my Hegemony or Survival, chap. 7, and sources cited; and in the mainstream, among others Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, Foreign Affairs, May-June 2002; Jeremy Pressman, International Security, Fall 2003. The most informative continuing analysis is in Geoffrey Aronson's Report on Israeli Settlements, Middle East Foundation.)

It is, incidentally, quite true that none of these proposals deal with the overwhelming imbalance in military and economic power between Israel and an eventual Palestinian state.

4. What do you think of a single-state solution, in the form of a democratic, secular state? Do you think such a solution is desirable today? Is it realistic today?

There has never been a legitimate proposal for a democratic secular state from any significant Palestinian (or of course Israeli) group. One can debate, abstractly, whether it is "desirable." But it is completely unrealistic. There is no meaningful international support for it, and within Israel, opposition to it is close to universal. It is understood that this would soon become a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority, and with no guarantee for either democracy or secularism (even if the minority status would be accepted, which it would not). Those who are now calling for a democratic secular state are, in my opinion, in effect providing weapons to the most extreme and violent elements in Israel and the US.

5. Is it really "understood" by all those now calling for a democratic secular state that such a state would guarantee neither democracy nor secularism? Why is it inevitable that a democratic secular state would degenerate? And can you elaborate on your argument that calling for a democratic secular state in effect provides weapons to the most extreme and violent elements.

What is "understood," I can't say. But what will happen is clear enough. If popular pressures in the US (primarily) and Israel have not even been able to compel the governments to accept a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus, then, a fortiori, they will not be able to compel the governments to accept elimination of Israel in favor of a single Palestinian state in which Israeli Jews will soon be a minority. Furthermore, it is next to inconceivable that more than a very tiny minority of the Israeli public would even consider such a proposal, nor is there the slightest meaningful international support for it. So any further discussion is completely abstract, and has no relation to anything even imaginable today. But if we continue anyway, the (completely abstract) question that arises is not whether it is inevitable that a state declared to be "democratic and secular" will degenerate, but whether there will be any guarantee of democracy and secularism. And there wouldn't be. Israel, for example, already calls itself "democratic and secular," but in practice has devised an elaborate array of mechanisms over the years, ranging from legalistic to administrative practice, which grant enormous privileges to the Jewish population. And the same is true of other states that describe themselves as "democratic" or "secular." In the case of an imagined Palestinian state, there is surely no greater reason to expect guarantees, and no one would have any reason to put any faith in that. That would be true even if there had ever been a credible Palestinian proposal for a "democratic secular state." The call for a "democratic secular state," which is not taken seriously by the Israeli public or internationally, is an explicit demand for the destruction of Israel, offering nothing to Israelis beyond the hope of a degree of freedom in an eventual Palestinian state. The propaganda systems in Israel and the US will joyously welcome the proposal if it gains more than even marginal attention, and will labor to give it great publicity, interpreting it as just another demonstration that there is "no partner for peace," so that the US-Israel have no choice but to establish "security" by caging barbaric Palestinians into a West Bank dungeon while taking over the valuable lands and resources. The most extreme and violent elements in Israel and the US could hope for no greater gift than this proposal.

6. At one time, you urged a single bi-national state as the best solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Do you think such a solution is desirable today? Is it realistic today?

As to its desirability, I have believed that from childhood, and still do. And at times it has also been realistic. From 1967 to 1973 I wrote about it quite a lot, because during those years it was quite feasible. However, there was virtually no support for it among Palestinians or Israelis; rather, it elicited severe criticism, from doves as well, and in the US, near hysteria. In the same years, a full peace treaty with the major Arab states was also quite feasible, and indeed had been offered in 1971 by Egypt, then Jordan. I have discussed the matter extensively in print, then and since, and won't try to summarize. In my opinion, had these measures been pursued, a great deal of suffering, death, and destruction would have been avoided. By 1973 the opportunity was lost, and the only feasible short-term settlement was the two-state proposal. That remains true. If that is implemented, perhaps along the lines of the Geneva Accords, the cycle of violence will be ended and reversed. Perhaps in the longer term, as hostility and fear subside and relations are more firmly developed along non-national lines, there will be a possibility of moving towards a federal version of binationalism, then perhaps on to closer integration, perhaps even to a democratic secular state -- though it is far from obvious that that is the optimal arrangement for complex societies, there or elsewhere, a different matter.

7. What changed? Why is a bi-national state no longer realistic for the short run?

What changed is the 1973 war and the shift in opinion among Palestinians, in the Arab world, and in the international arena in favor of Palestinian national rights, in a form that incorporated UN 242 but adding to it provisions for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, which Israel would evacuate. As I mentioned, the US has been blocking that unilaterally (with Israel) since the mid-1970s, and still does. Personally, I would be very pleased if there were support now for the kind of federal binationalism that could have been implemented in the 1967-73 period. But I am aware of no signs of that.

8. You've said that a democratic secular state and a binational state are both currently unrealistic because they have no support. But you said neither Palestinians nor Israelis endorsed a binational state in the period 1967 to 1973 and yet binationalism was feasible during those years. Obviously if people supported it then, it would have been realistic. But isn't the same true today?

We cannot simply erase from history and consciousness what has happened in the years since. It is simply a fact that on both sides (and crucially, inthe US) there was no interest even in considering a realistic proposal for federal binationalism, perhaps evolving to closer integration as circumstances permit. The result was wars and destruction, harsh military occupation, takeover of land and resources, resistance, and finally an increasing cycle of violence, and of course mutual hatred and distrust. Those outcomes, along with what I've already mentioned before, are facts that cannot be wished away. Accordingly, the basis for moving towards binationalism is far weaker than it was during the period when the proposals were feasible, pre-1973. As a result of the serious failures of the past, the only feasible way to move towards such a solution is by adopting the proposal that does have substantial support among the two communities and overwhelming international support, apart from the US: the longstanding international consensus, in one of its current versions, most plausibly the Geneva Accords. If popular movements for binationalism did take shape, despite the far higher barriers than during the 1967-73 period, I would of course be delighted. But that seems to me a vain hope. Chances are far slighter now than during the earlier period.

It's of some interest that proposals that were bitterly denounced when they were feasible, often with considerable hysteria, are now considered quite tolerable, even published in the New York Times Magazine and New York Review of Books. I presume that the reason is the understanding that the proposals are completely unfeasible, so it is no longer necessary to subject them to vilification and to exclude then from discussion, as was the practice during the years when they were feasible. Now toleration of them demonstrates our humanistic concerns (with no fear that there might be some substantive outcome), and, for the more violent and repressive elements, would be a welcome gift if the proposals moved beyond highly abstract discussion, for the reasons already mentioned.

9. You say a two-state solution is not ideal, but its realization would greatly reduce the suffering of the Palestinian people. Yet in other cases you have opposed "compromise" solutions that (like most likely two-state solutions) reflected the imbalance of power between the Israeli state and the Palestinians -- such as Oslo or the US position at Camp David in 2000. What's the difference?

Which compromises should be accepted and which not? There is, and can be, no general formula. Every treaty and other agreement I can think of has been a "compromise" and is unjust. Some are worth accepting, some not. Take Apartheid South Africa. We were all in favor of the end of Apartheid, though it was radically unjust, leaving highly concentrated economic power virtually unchanged, though with some black faces among the dominant white minority. On the other hand, we were all strenuously opposed to the "homelands" ("Bantustan") policies of 40 years ago, a different compromise. The closest we can come to a formula -- and it is pretty meaningless -- is that compromises should be accepted if they are the best possible and can lead the way to something better. That is the criterion we should all try to follow. Sharon's two-state settlement, leaving Palestinians caged in the Gaza Strip and about half of the West Bank, should not be accepted, because it radically fails the criterion. The Geneva Accords approximates the criterion, and therefore should be accepted, in my opinion. These are always complex judgments about feasibility and about opportunities to move forward.

10. Should Palestinian refugees be willing to renounce the "right of return" as part of a settlement? Does this benefit West Bank and Gaza residents at the expense of those Palestinians living in grim conditions in refugee camps outside Palestine?

Palestinian refugees should certainly not be willing to renounce the right of return, but in this world -- not some imaginary world we can discuss in seminars -- that right will not be exercised, in more than a limited way, within Israel. Again, there is no detectable international support for it, and under the (virtually unimaginable) circumstances that such support would develop, Israel would very likely resort to its ultimate weapon, defying even the boss-man, to prevent it. In that case there would be nothing to discuss. The facts are ugly, but facts do not go out of existence for that reason. In my opinion, it is improper to dangle hopes that will not be realized before the eyes of people suffering in misery and oppression. Rather, constructive efforts should be pursued to mitigate their suffering and deal with their problems in the real world.

11. Why would/could Israel be forced by organized public opinion to accept a two-state settlement but not a democratic or binational settlement or the right of return? Why would Israel resort to its ultimate weapon in the latter cases but not in the former?

A two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus is already acceptable to a very broad range of Israeli opinion -- including, incidentally, extreme hawks, who are so concerned by the "demographic problem" that they are even advancing the (outrageous) proposal to transfer areas of dense Arab settlement within Israel to a new Palestinian state. And one can easily understand why it is acceptable, just as it has been to virtually the entire world since the 1970s -- including a considerable majority of the American population. Therefore, it is not at all inconceivable that organizing/activist efforts in the US could bring the US government into line with the international consensus, in which case, for the reasons already discussed, Israel would be very likely to go along as well. However, there is virtually no possibility of organizing public opinion in the US, or anywhere else, in favor of a settlement that entails elimination of Israel in favor of a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority -- quite a small and scattered minority if refugees return. This is entirely fanciful. And as I mentioned, it would of course be opposed by virtually all Israelis. In this case they would be very likely to resort to their "ultimate weapon" -- which they possess-- to prevent what they would plausibly regard as their destruction. I have already discussed why support for binationalism (with right of return effectively restricted to the Palestinian component) is far less likely to arise than during the feasible period 1967-73, though if it does, I would certainly applaud.

12. As long as the US Government blocks a two-state settlement, it's unlikely to occur. So why do you think the US Government might support a two-state solution?

For the same reason that I thought at one time that the US government might withdraw from Vietnam, might institute a limited medical care system, might inform the Indonesian generals that they hadto withdraw from East Timor, and on, and on. The government might do what organized activist public opinion influences it to do. This happens to be an unusually easy case. About two-thirds of the public supports the so-called Saudi Plan, which calls for Israel to withdraw entirely from the occupied territories. That goes well beyond the Geneva Accords. Similar majorities want US aid to be denied to either party that refuses to enter into negotiations (meaning Israel, for the past several years), and want aid to the two parties to be equalized if they do enter into negotiations (meaning a radical diversion of aid from Israel to Palestinians). Of course, virtually none of this is published, and people are so deprived of relevant information that they probably do not comprehend clearly what they are calling for. But those are the situations in which educational and organizing activities can make an enormous difference.

13. Do you believe that the Israeli public would accept a serious two-state solution?

Even without any US pressure, considerable majorities favor something of this sort -- again, depending on exactly how questions are asked in polls. A change in the US government position would make an enormous difference. I think there is every reason to accept the conclusions of the former heads of GSS, as well as the Israeli peace movement (Gush Shalom and others), that the public would accept such an outcome. But speculation about that is not our real concern. Rather, it is to bring US government policy into line with the rest of the world, and apparently the majority of the US public.

14. Above you note that the 1973 war was a watershed, leading to irreversible changes on the ground. Are we seeing another watershed now? Is Israel attempting to destroy the possibilities for a two-state settlement by escalating its assassination policy, first with the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and now with the announced policy of killing all the Hamas leaders, plus perhaps Arafat, and perhaps Hizbollah's Nasirallah in Lebanon?

The right wing in Israel is undoubtedly trying to destroy the possibility of a meaningful two-state settlement by such methods. More specifically, I presume that the purpose of murdering Sheikh Yassin, destroying Rafah, and other similar measures is to ensure that after a likely Israeli partial withdrawal, the Gaza Strip will be so utterly demolished that the population caged within it will rot and die and turn on each other in desperation, at which point Western humanists can comment sagely on the inability of Palestinians (like Haitians, and other targets of our benevolence) to manage their own affairs even when given a chance. Therefore we must (reluctantly) support Israel's "defensive" moves to take over the valuable land and resources of the West Bank while leaving the remaining population caged in a dungeon there. Lebanon is a somewhat different matter, relating to US-Israel plans with regard to Syria.

These are further reasons why we should not provide the most violent and repressive elements with further weapons.

15. You sometimes say in talks and interviews that you used to be called a 'Zionist', and now you're called an 'anti-Zionist', and that your views haven't changed. Young people working on Israel/Palestine issues today might find this confusing, since those who call themselves Zionists seem to be supporters of the most virulent Israeli government policies. Could you clarify this: What did it mean to be a 'Zionist' back then? What does it mean today?

Until December 1942, the Zionist movement had no formal commitment to a Jewish state. Until the state was established in May 1948, opposition to a Jewish state was within the Zionist movement. Later, the concept "Zionism" was very narrowly restricted for propaganda reasons. By the 1970s, when Israel chose expansion and dependence on the US over security and integration into the region, the concept "Zionism" was narrowed to refer, in effect, to support for the policies of the government of Israel. Thus when the distinguished Israeli Labor Party statesman Abba Eban said that the task of dialogue with the gentile world is to show that "anti-Zionists" are either anti-Semites or neurotic self-hating Jews (his examples were I.F. Stone and me), he was restricting "Zionism" to support for the state of Israel and excluding any such criticism as logically impossible. The concept "anti-Zionism" then becomes analogous to the disgraceful concept "anti-Americanism," drawn from the lexicon of totalitarianism and based on strictly totalitarian principles. By now the term has been so debased by propaganda that it is better abandoned, in my opinion.