Transcript (partial) of Chomsky's interview with Amy Goodman. See video and full transcrip on democracynow website.
Contributed by Lucia from Spain
AMY GOODMAN: We return now to the conclusion of our public conversation with Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We were speaking at Harvard Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We talked about the risks he took as an antiwar activist. But first, I asked him about what he thought of the Obama administration, what it should be doing with Israel and Palestine.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Israel-Palestine happens to be a particularly easy case. I mean, there has been an overwhelming international consensus for thirty-five years on how to settle the problem—short term, at least—namely, a two-state settlement on the international border, which everyone agrees on, with, the phrase was, “minor and mutual modifications.” That was US official policy until the US departed from the world in the early ’70s, as it did.
So, what has Obama had to say about this? Well, it’s interesting. He has this great vision, but if you look—if you go below the vision and take a look at the words, it’s a little different. So his only word so far—there are two, really. One is to politely ask Israel to stop expanding settlements. Well, first of all, that’s meaningless. The issue is the existence, not the expansion of the settlements. But furthermore, those words were also meaningless. He was quoting Bush. In fact, he was quoting the—what’s called the Road Map, the official—you know, supposedly the agreed-upon scenario for moving forward. He was quoting it. OK, that’s meaningless, but that’s part of his great vision.
The other part, which is more interesting, was a few days after he took office, and he gave his one, and so far only, serious talk about Israel-Palestine. That’s when he was introducing George Mitchell as his negotiator, which is a good choice, if he’s given any leeway. And Obama explained what he was going to do. He said—this was his, you know, being very forthcoming to the Arab world. He said, well, there’s a constructive proposal on the table, the Arab peace proposal—you know, pat people on the head for producing it.
And then he went on to say, “Well, it’s time for the Arabs to live up to their peace proposal. They should start normalizing relations with Israel.” Well, you know, Obama is literate, intelligent. I suppose he chooses his words carefully. He knows perfectly well that that was not the Arab peace proposal. The Arab peace proposal re-endorsed the longstanding international consensus and said, in the context of a two-state settlement, the Arab states will proceed even beyond to normalize relations with Israel. Well, Obama picked out the corollary, but omitted the substance, which is a way of saying we’re going to maintain our rejectionist stance. Couldn’t have been clearer. And that’s what’s happened.
With regard to his repetition of the call to stop expansion of settlements, he did go a little bit farther—not he, but his spokespersons in press conferences. They were asked, is the administration going to do anything about it if Israel rejects it? And they said, “No, it’s purely symbolic.” In fact, explicitly said that the administration is not going to do what George Bush the 1st did. George Bush the 1st had some light taps on the wrist if Israel continued to reject what the US was asking for. Clinton pretty much withdrew that, and Obama withdrew it totally. He said, “No, this is just symbolic.” Well, that’s telling Benjamin Netanyahu, “Go ahead and do what you like. We’ll say we don’t like it, but there will be a wink saying, yeah, go ahead. Meanwhile, we participate in it. You know, we send you the arms. We give you the diplomatic support and a direct participation.”
That’s the vision. You know? It could hardly be clearer.
Now, what can we do about it? Well, you know, we can get the United States to join the world. In this case it’s literally the whole world. Just accept—join the world and accept the international consensus and stop the direct participation in violating it—I mean, what Israel is doing. And I should have said what the US and Israel are doing. Everything Israel does is a joint operation. They can’t go beyond what the US permits and participates in. So what the US and Israel are doing in Gaza and in the West Bank is destroying the hope of the—for realization of the international consensus.
And there’s no alternative around, I should say, with regard to a lot of the anti-—to pro-Palestinian—you know, supporters of the Palestinians. In fact, some of the leading Palestinian activists themselves are saying, well, we ought to give up on the two-state solution and just let Israel take over all the territories, maybe annex them, and then there will be a civil rights struggle and like an anti-apartheid struggle, and that can work like South Africa. That’s just blindness. That’s not going to happen. The US and Israel are not going to permit that to happen. They’re going to continue with exactly what they’re doing: strangling Gaza, separating it from the West Bank, in violation of international agreements, and in the West Bank take over whatever they want.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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