'Savage Cruelty, Self-Righteousness, Injured innocence'

Q: How would you assessthe Israeli and U.S. responses to the election of Hamas, and to the ensuingconflicts in Gaza and Lebanon?

Noam Chomsky: The U.S.response reveals, once again, that the United States supports democracy if andonly if it conforms to U.S. strategic and economic objectives.

Perhaps it would be useful toreview some highlights since Hamas was elected in late January 2006.

On February 12, the statementsof Osama bin Laden were reviewed in the New York Times by NYU lawprofessor Noah Feldman. He described bin Laden's descent into utter barbarism,reaching the depths when he advanced "the perverse claim that since theUnited States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for itsgovernment's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets." Utterdepravity, no doubt. Two days later, the lead story in the Times casuallyreported that the United States and Israel are joining bin Laden in the lowerdepths of depravity. Palestinians offended the masters by voting the wrong wayin a free election. The population must therefore be punished for this crime.The "intention," the correspondent observed, "is to starve thePalestinian Authority of money and international connections" so thatPresident Mahmoud Abbas will be "compelled to call a new election. The hopeis that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they willreturn to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement." Mechanisms ofpunishment of the population are outlined. The article also reports thatCondoleezza Rice will visit the oil producers to ensure that they do not relievethe torture of the Palestinians. In short, bin Laden's a "perverseclaim"; but when the United States advances the claim, it is not ultimateevil but rather righteous dedication to "democracy promotion."¹

These paired articles elicitedno comment that I could discover. Also overlooked was the fact that bin Laden's"perverse claim" is standard operating procedure. Familiar examplesare "making the economy scream" when Chileans had the effrontery toelect Salvador Allende -- the "soft track"; the "hard track"brought Pinochet. Another pertinent illustration is the U.S.-UK sanctions regimethat murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, devastated the country, andprobably saved Saddam Hussein from the fate of other monsters like him (oftensupported by the United States and Britain to the very end). Not quite binLaden's doctrine; rather, much more perverse, not only in terms of scale butalso because Iraqis could not by any stretch of the imagination be heldresponsible for Saddam Hussein.

The most venerableillustration is Washington's forty-seven-year campaign of terror and economicstrangulation against Cuba. From the internal record, we learn that theEisenhower and Kennedy administrations determined that "[t]he Cuban peopleare responsible for the regime," so they must be punished with theexpectation that "[r]ising discomfort among hungry Cubans" will causethem to throw Castro out (JFK). The State Department advised that "[e]verypossible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba[in order to] bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of thegovernment."² The doctrine remains in force.

Without continuing, we findample evidence that it is no departure from the norm to adopt bin Laden's mostperverse claim in order to punish Palestinians for their democratic misdeeds.

The United States and Israelthen proceeded to implement their "intention," with scrupulous care.Thus, for example, an EU proposal to provide some desperately needed aid forhealth care was stalled when U.S. "officials expressed concerns that someof this money might end up paying nurses, doctors, teachers and otherspreviously on the government payroll, thereby helping to finance Hamas."Another achievement of the "war on terror." With U.S. backing, Israelalso continued its terrorist atrocities and other crimes in Gaza and the WestBank -- in some cases, perhaps, in an attempt to induce Hamas to violate itsembarrassing cease-fire, so that Israel could respond in"self-defense," another familiar pattern.³

In May 2006, Israeli PrimeMinister Olmert announced his plan to formalize Sharon's West Bank expansionprograms, which were announced along with the "Gaza disengagement."Olmert chose the term "convergence" ("hitkansut") as aeuphemism for annexation of valuable land and resources (including water) of theWest Bank, programs designed to break the continually shrinking Palestinianareas into separated cantons, virtually isolated from one another and fromwhatever corner of Jerusalem will be left to Palestinians, all imprisoned asIsrael takes over the Jordan valley and controls air space and any externalaccess. In a stunning public relations triumph, Olmert won praise for hiscourage in "withdrawing" from the West Bank as he put the finishingtouches on the project of destroying any hope for recognition of Palestiniannational rights. We were enjoined to lament the "anguish" of theresidents of scattered settlements that would be abandoned as they"converge" into the territories illegally annexed behind the cruel andillegal "Separation Wall." All of this proceeds, as usual, with akindly nod from Washington, which is expected to fork up the billions of dollarsneeded to carry out the plans, though there are occasional admonitions that thedestruction of Palestine should not be "unilateral": It would bepreferable for President Mahmoud Abbas to sign a surrender declaration, in whichcase everything would be just fine.

The people of Gaza and theWest Bank are supposed to observe all of this submissively, rotting in theirvirtual prisons. Otherwise they are sadistic terrorists.

The latest phase began on June24, when the Israeli army kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother,from their home in Gaza. They were "detained" according to brief notesin the British press. The U.S. media mostly preferred silence.⁴ Theywill presumably join the 9,000 other Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails,1,000 reportedly in prison without charges, hence kidnapped -- as were many ofthe rest, in that they were sentenced by Israeli courts, which are a disgrace,harshly condemned by legal commentators in Israel. Among them are hundreds ofwomen and children, their numbers and fate of little interest. Also of littleinterest are Israel's secret prisons. The Israeli press reported that these havebeen "the entry gate to Israel for Lebanese, especially those who weresuspected of membership in Hezbollah, who were transferred to the southern sideof the border," some captured in battle in Lebanon, others "abductedat Israel's initiative" and sometimes held as hostages, with torture underinterrogation. The secret Camp 1391, possibly one of several, was discoveredaccidentally in 2003, since forgotten.⁵

The next day, June 25,Palestinians kidnapped an Israeli soldier just across the border from Gaza. Thatdid happen, very definitely. Every literate reader also knows the name ofcorporal Gilad Shalit, and wants him released. The nameless kidnapped Gazacivilians are ignored; international law, while rightly insisting that capturedsoldiers be treated humanely, absolutely prohibits the extrajudicial seizure ofcivilians. Israel responded by "bombing and shelling, darkening anddestroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists andnobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to whatright?" as the fine Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote, adding that"[a] state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terrororganization." Israel also kidnapped a large part of the Palestiniangovernment, destroyed most of the Gaza electrical and water systems, andcommitted numerous other crimes. These acts of collective punishment, condemnedby Amnesty International as "war crimes," compounded the punishment ofPalestinians for having voted the wrong way. Within a few days, UN agenciesworking in Gaza warned of a "public health disaster" as a result ofdevelopments "which have seen innocent civilians, including children,killed, brought increased misery to hundreds of thousands of people and whichwill wreak far-reaching harm on Palestinian society. An already alarmingsituation in Gaza, with poverty rates at nearly eighty per cent and unemploymentat nearly forty per cent, is likely to deteriorate rapidly, unless immediate andurgent action is taken."⁶

The pretext for punishingPalestinians is that Hamas refuses to accept three demands: to recognize Israel,cease all acts of violence, and accept earlier agreements. The editors of the NewYork Times instruct Hamas leaders that they must accept the "groundrules that have already been accepted by Egypt and Jordan and by the Arab Leagueas a whole in its 2002 Beirut peace initiative" and, furthermore, that theymust do so "not as some kind of ideological concession" but "asan admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in theprogression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government" -- like us.⁷

Unmentioned is that Israel andthe United States flatly reject all of these conditions. They do not recognizePalestine; they refused to end their violence even when Hamas observed aunilateral truce for a year and a half and called for a long-term truce whilenegotiations proceed for a two-state settlement; and they dismissed with uttercontempt the 2002 Arab League call for normalization of relations, along withall other proposals for a meaningful diplomatic settlement. Even when itaccepted the "Road Map" that is supposed to define U.S. policy, Israeladded fourteen "reservations" that rendered it entirely meaningless,eliciting the usual tacit approval in Washington and silence in commentary.⁸

The Hamas electoral victorywas eagerly exploited by the United States and Israel. Previously, they had topretend that there was "no partner" for negotiations, so they had nochoice but to continue their project of taking over the West Bank, as they hadbeen doing systematically since the Oslo Accords were signed (extending earlieractions). The pace of settlement peaked in 2000, the last year of Clinton andIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then escalated under Bush-Sharon. With Hamasin office, Olmert and his cohorts can lament that there is "nopartner." Therefore, they must proceed with annexation and destruction ofPalestine, counting on articulate Western opinion to applaud politely, perhapswith mild reservations about unilateral "convergence," and to suppressthe fact that while Hamas's programs are in many respects entirely unacceptable,their own are comparable or much worse, and are not just rhetoric: They aresystematically implementing their denial of any meaningful Palestinian rights, acrucial difference.

The next act in this hideousdrama opened on July 12, when Hezbollah launched a raid in which it captured twoIsraeli soldiers and killed several others, leading to an all-out Israeliattack, killing hundreds and destroying much of what Lebanon has painfullyreconstructed from the wreckage of its civil wars and the Israeli invasions.Whatever its motives, Hezbollah took a frightful gamble, for which Lebanon wouldsurely pay dearly. Here we see the danger of processes that have led to the riseof "parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect [civilianpopulations] and deliver essential services" with their own military wings,as veteran Middle East correspondent Rami Khouri has noted.⁹

On the motives, analystsdiffer. "Hezbollah's official line," the Financial Times reports,"was that the capture was aimed at winning the release of the few remainingLebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. But the timing and scale of its attacksuggest it was partly intended to reduce the pressure on the Palestinians byforcing Israel to fight on two fronts simultaneously." Many agree,recalling Hezbollah's reaction to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada inSeptember 2000 -- when it seized soldiers in a cross-border raid that led to aprisoner exchange -- as well as its response to Israel's devastating attacks inthe West Bank in 2002 (Amos Harel).¹⁰ Others highlight the prisonermotive, which is also suggested by the exchange in 2000, by the fact thatHezbollah had attempted capture of soldiers before the recent crisis, and by thematter of Israel's secret prisons, mentioned earlier. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, aLebanese academic specialist on Hezbollah, regards the Gaza connection asprimary, but argues that one should not ignore "the domestic significanceof these hostages."¹¹

Still others regard Iranand/or Syria as the main actors. Many experts and Iranian dissidents disagree,though few doubt that Iran and Syria authorized Hezbollah's actions. Most Arabrulers place the blame on Iran. At an emergency Arab League summit, they werewilling "to openly defy Arab public opinion" because of their concernsabout Iranian influence. One Dubai military specialist commented that theIranians, by means of Hezbollah, "are embarrassing the hell out of the Arabgovernments," who are doing nothing while "[t]he peace process hascollapsed, the Palestinians are being killed. . . . And here comes Hezbollah,which is actually scoring hits against Israel." The criticism of Hezbollahwas opposed by Syria, Yemen, Algeria, and Lebanon; the Iraqi parliament,"in a rare show of unity," condemned the Israeli attack as"criminal aggression," and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whosedesignation Washington applauded, "call[ed] on the world to take quickstands to stop the Israeli aggression." The fact that most Arab leaders,however, are willing to "defy public opinion" may have large-scaleregional implications, strengthening radical Islamist groups. It is noteworthythat the "Supreme Guide" of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, MahdiAkef, sharply condemned the Arab states. "The Brotherhood would win acomfortable majority" in a free election in Egypt, according to Middle Eastscholar Fawwaz Gerges, and has broad influence elsewhere, including with Hamas,one of its offshoots.¹²

A broader analysis issuggested by retired colonel Pat Lang, former head of the Middle East andterrorism desk at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency: "This isbasically tribal warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and you'reunwilling to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas offered, then you have todestroy them. The Israeli response is so disproportionate to the abduction ofthe three men it appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal both totheir public and to the U.S." ¹³

Speculation about motives andconflicting factors should not blind us to the tragedy that is unfolding.Lebanon is being destroyed, Israel's Gaza prison is suffering still more savageblows, and on the West Bank, mostly out of sight, the United States and Israelare consummating their project of the murder of a nation, a grim and rare eventin history.

These actions, and the Westernresponse, illustrate all too clearly the amalgam of savage cruelty,self-righteousness, and injured innocence that is so deeply rooted in theimperial mentality as to be beyond awareness. One can easily understand whyGandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, is alleged to havesaid that he thought it might be a good idea.

--July 20, 2006

Notes

1. Noah Feldman,"Becoming bin Laden" (review of Messages to the World: TheStatements of Osama bin Laden), New York Times Book Review, February12, 2006, p. 12; Steven Erlanger, "U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk ofHamas Ouster," New York Times, February 14, 2006, p. A1.

2. Louis Pérez, "Fearand Loathing of Fidel Castro: Sources of U.S. Policy Toward Cuba," Journalof Latin American Studies 34, no. 2 (May 2002), pp. 227–254.

3. Steven R. Weisman,"Europe Plan to Aid Palestinians Stalls Over U.S. Salary Sanctions," NewYork Times, June 15, 2006, p. A10. See also Tanya Reinhart, "A Week ofIsraeli Restraint," Yediot Ahronot, June 21, 2006. A strikingillustration of this pattern is the intense (and failed) effort to elicitPalestinian violence to justify the planned 1982 invasion. Palestinian violencedoes continue, however, notably in the form of Qassam rocket attacks from Gazaby groups that refused to accept the Hamas truce -- actions both criminal andfoolish.

4. Jonathan Cook, "TheBritish Media and the Invasion of Gaza," Medialens (UK), June30, 2006; Josh Brannon, "IDF Commandos Enter Gaza, Capture Two HamasTerrorists," Jerusalem Post, June 25, 2006; Ken Ellingwood, "2Palestinians Held in Israel's First Arrest Raid in Gaza Since Pullout," LosAngeles Times, June 25, 2006, p. A20. Apart from the Los Angeles Times, therewere only a few marginal words in the Baltimore Sun (June 25) and the St.Louis Post-Dispatch (June 25). Moreover, no mainstream media source chose torefer to this event when discussing Shalit's capture. The only serious coverageI know of in the English-language press appeared in the Turkish Daily News (June25). (Database search by David Peterson.)

5. Aviv Lavie, "InsideIsrael's Secret Prison," Ha'aretz, August 22, 2003; Jonathan Cook,"Facility 1391: Israel's Guantanamo," Le Monde Diplomatique, November2003; Chris McGreal, "Facility 1391: Israel's Secret Prison," Guardian,November 14, 2003, p. 2.

6. Gideon Levy, "A BlackFlag," Ha'aretz, July 2, 2006; Christopher Gunness, "Statementsby the United Nations Agencies Working in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,"July 8, 2006; Amnesty International press release, "Israel/OccupiedTerritories: Deliberate Attacks a War Crime," AI Index: MDE 15/061/2006(Public), News Service No. 169, June 30, 2006.