In his piece today at TomDispatch, Noam Chomsky explores the succession of ceasefire agreements, which Israel regularly chose not to abide by, and the various assaults on Gaza it then launched, followed by yet more ceasefires that led to the fury of the most recent destruction of significant parts of the Gaza Strip. In doing so, he offers a devastating history of the unrelenting assault on Gaza, why it has been so basic to Israeli policy, and what we can expect in the wake of the most recent ceasefire. This is a Chomsky-ian tour de force, which he concludes in this fashion: “Like other states, Israel pleads ‘security’ as justification for its aggressive and violent actions. But knowledgeable Israelis know better. Their recognition of reality was articulated clearly in 1972 by Air Force Commander (and later president) Ezer Weizmann. He explained that there would be no security problem if Israel were to accept the international call to withdraw from the territories it conquered in 1967, but the country would not then be able to ‘exist according to the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.’ “For a century, the Zionist colonization of Palestine has proceeded primarily on the pragmatic principle of the quiet establishment of facts on the ground, which the world was to ultimately come to accept. It has been a highly successful policy. There is every reason to expect it to persist as long as the United States provides the necessary military, economic, diplomatic, and ideological support. For those concerned with the rights of the brutalized Palestinians, there can be no higher priority than working to change U.S. policies, not an idle dream by any means.”
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:00:00 +0000
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