Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Video & Multimedia
Related: About this forumAmy Goodman Interviews Noam Chomsky for Part II ...ISRAEL/GAZA....
Noam Chomsky: Israels Actions in Palestine are "Much Worse Than Apartheid" in South AfricaPublished on Aug 11, 2014
http://www.democracynow.org - On Gaza, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky says the debate inside the Israeli government is whether to allow "bare survival" or to inflict "misery and starvation," as a former Israeli national security adviser recently proposed. Israeli experts have calculated in detail exactly how many calories, literally, Gazans need to survive, and if you look at the sanctions that they impose, theyre grotesque, Chomsky says. I mean, even John Kerry condemned them bitterly, theyre sadistic just enough calories to survive." Chomsky also addresses the widespread focus on the Hamas charter platform calling for the destruction of Israel. "The only people who pay attention to it are Israeli propagandists, who love it," Chomsky says. "It was a charter put together by a small group of people under siege, under attack in 1988. And its essentially meaningless. There are charters that mean something, but theyre not talked about. So, for example, the electoral program of Israels governing party, Likud, states explicitly that there can never be a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River And they dont only have it in their charter, you know, their electoral program, but they implement it."
Watch Part I of this interview here: BUT it's Not the Full Show...but Snips of issues he addresses are there on YOU TUBE.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/7/...
?list=UUzuqE7-t13O4NIDYJfakrhw
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/8/8/noam_chomsky_what_israel_is_doing
Part 2 of our conversation with famed linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky on the crisis in Gaza, U.S. support for Israel, apartheid and the BDS movement. "In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid," Chomsky says. "To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by 'apartheid' you mean South African-style apartheid. Whats happening in the Occupied Territories is much worse. Theres a crucial difference. The South African Nationalists needed the black population. That was their workforce. The Israeli relationship to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is totally different. They just dont want them. They want them out, or at least in prison."
Click here to watch Part 1 of the interview.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Im Amy Goodman. And were continuing our conversation with Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, has written many books, among them, one of the more recent books, Gaza in Crisis. I want to turn right now to Bob Schieffer, the host of CBSs Face the Nation. This is how he closed a recent show.
BOB SCHIEFFER: In the Middle East, the Palestinian people find themselves in the grip of a terrorist group that is embarked on a strategy to get its own children killed in order to build sympathy for its causea strategy that might actually be working, at least in some quarters. Last week I found a quote of many years ago by Golda Meir, one of Israels early leaders, which might have been said yesterday: "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children," she said, "but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."
AMY GOODMAN: That was CBS journalist Bob Schieffer. Noam Chomsky, can you respond?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, we dont really have to listen to CBS, because we can listen directly to the Israeli propaganda agencies, which hes quoting. Its a shameful moment for U.S. media when it insists on being subservient to the grotesque propaganda agencies of a violent, aggressive state. As for the comment itself, the Israel comment which hepropaganda comment which he quoted, I guess maybe the best comment about that was made by the great Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who just described it as "sadism masked as compassion." Thats about the right characterization.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to also ask you about the U.N.s role and the U.S.vis-à-vis, as well, the United States. This is the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, criticizing the U.S. for its role in the Israeli assault on Gaza.
NAVI PILLAY: They have not only provided the heavy weaponry, which is now being used by Israel in Gaza, but theyve also provided almost $1 billion in providing the Iron Domes to protect Israelis from the rocket attacks, but no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling. So I am reminding the United States that its a party to international humanitarian law and human rights law.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner or human rights. Noam, on Friday, this was the point where the death toll for Palestinians had exceeded Operation Cast Lead; it had passed 1,400. President Obama was in the White House, and he held a news conference. He didnt raise the issue of Gaza in the news conference, but he was immediately asked about Gaza, and he talked abouthe reaffirmed the U.S. support for Israel, said that the resupply of ammunition was happening, that the $220 million would be going for an expanded Iron Dome. But then the weekend took place, yet another attack on a U.N. shelter, on one of the schools where thousands of Palestinians had taken refuge, and a number of them were killed, including children. And even the U.S. then joined with the U.N. in criticizing what Israel was doing. Can you talk about what the U.S. has done and if you really do see a shift right now?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, lets start with what the U.S. has done, and continue with the comments with the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Right at that time, the time of the quote you gave over the radiothat you gave before, there was a debate in the Human Rights Commission about whether to have an investigationno action, just an investigationof what had happened in Gaza, an investigation of possible violations of human rights. "Possible" is kind of a joke. It was passed with one negative vote. Guess who. Obama voted against an investigation, while he was giving these polite comments. Thats action. The United States continues to provide, as Pillay pointed out, the critical, the decisive support for the atrocities. When whats called Israeli jet planes bomb defenseless targets in Gaza, thats U.S. jet planes with Israeli pilots. And the same with the high-tech munition and so on and so forth. So this is, again, sadism masked as compassion. Those are the actions.
AMY GOODMAN: What about opinion in the United States? Can you talk about the role that it plays? We saw some certainly remarkable changes. MSNBC had the reporter Ayman Mohyeldin, who had been at Al Jazeera, very respected. He had been, together with Sherine Tadros, in 2008 the only Western reporters in Gaza covering Operation Cast Lead, tremendous experience in the area. And he was pulled out by MSNBC. But because there was a tremendous response against this, withI think what was trending was "Let Ayman report"he was then brought back in. So there was a feeling that people wanted to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. There seemed to be some kind of opening. Do you sense a difference in the American population, howthe attitude toward whats happening in Israel and the Occupied Territories?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Very definitely. Its been happening over some years. There was a kind of a point of inflection that increased after Cast Lead, which horrified many people, and its happening again now. You can see it everywhere. Take, say, The New York Times. The New York Times devoted a good part of their op-ed page to a Gaza diary a couple of days ago, which was heart-rending and eloquent. Theyve had strong op-eds condemning extremist Israeli policies. Thats new, and it reflects something thats happening in the country. You can see it in polls, especially among young people. If you look at the polling results, the population below 30, roughly, by now has shifted substantially. You can see it on college campuses. I mean, I see it personally. Ive been giving talks on these things for almost 50 years. I used to have police protection, literally, even at my own university. The meetings were broken up violently, you know, enormous protest. Within the past, roughly, decade, thats changed substantially by now that Palestinian solidarity is maybe the biggest issue on campus. Huge audiences. There isnt evenhardly get a hostile question. Thats a tremendous change. Thats strikingly among younger people, but they become older.
However, theres something we have to remember about the United States: Its not a democracy; its a plutocracy. Theres study after study that comes out in mainstream academic political science which shows what we all know or ought to know, that political decisions are made by a very small sector of extreme privilege and wealth, concentrated capital. For most of the population, their opinions simply dont matter in the political system. Theyre essentially disenfranchised. I can give the details if you like, but thats basically the story. Now, public opinion can make a difference. Even in dictatorships, the public cant be ignored, and in a partially democratic society like this, even less so. So, ultimately, this will make a difference. And how long "ultimately" is, well, thats up to us.
Weve seen it before. Take, say, the East Timor case, which I mentioned. For 25 years, the United States strongly supported the vicious Indonesian invasion and massacre, virtual genocide. It was happening right through 1999, as the Indonesian atrocities increased and escalated. After Dili, the capital city, was practically evacuated after Indonesian attacks, the U.S. was still supporting it. Finally, in mid-September 1999, under considerable international and also domestic pressure, Clinton quietly told the Indonesian generals, "Its finished." And they had said theyd never leave. They said, "This is our territory." They pulled out within days and allowed a U.N. peacekeeping force to enter without Indonesian military resistance. Well, you know, thats a dramatic indication of what can be done. South Africa is a more complex case but has similarities, and there are others. Sooner or later, its possibleand thats really up to usthat domestic pressure will compel the U.S. government to join the world on this issue, and that will be a decisive change.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to ask you about your recent piece for The Nation on Israel-Palestine and BDS. You were critical of the effectiveness of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. One of the many responses came from Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund and its educational program, the Palestine Center. He wrote, quote, "Chomskys criticism of BDS seems to be that it hasnt changed the power dynamic yet, and thus that it cant. There is no doubt the road ahead is a long one for BDS, but there is also no doubt the movement is growing ... All other paths toward change, including diplomacy and armed struggle, have so far proved ineffective, and some have imposed significant costs on Palestinian life and livelihood." Could you respond?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, actually, I did respond. You can find it on The Nation website. But in brief, far from being critical of BDS, I was strongly supportive of it. One of the oddities of whats called the BDS movement is that they cantmany of the activists just cant see support as support unless it becomes something like almost worship: repeat the catechism. If you take a look at that article, it very strongly supported these tactics. In fact, I was involved in them and supporting them before the BDS movement even existed. Theyre the right tactics.
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
0 replies, 1022 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (2)
ReplyReply to this post