Op gezette tijden ontvang ik per email scheldkanonnades van ene Wiesje de Lange, waaruit vooral blijkt dat de woordenschat van Wiesje uiterst beperkt is en alleen in dienst staat van de zogeheten 'Joodse staat'. Soms verneem ik tijdenlang niets van haar, maar dan ineens is er weer een stortvloed racune. Of het nu met het jaargetijde te maken heeft dan wel de maanstand of het feit dat het Israelisch extremisme niet langer meer verzwegen wordt, weet ik niet. Ik weet wel dat Wiesje een joodse fundamentaliste is die het Oude Testament letterlijk neemt. Ze beweert van alles zoals dat Israel 'een zegen [is] voor heel de wereld' hetgeen aantoonbaar onjuist is omdat de Palestijnse en Libanese burgerbevolking al vele jaren door deze schurkenstaat worden geterroriseerd. Ik zal aan het slot van dit stukje Chomsky's meest recente analyse van Israel opnemen. Vandaag reageerde Wiesje naar aanleiding van het Volkskrantartikel
Zelfkritiek gaat IsraĆ«li’s slecht af
dat ik op mijn weblog had overgenomen.
http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2010/05/israel-als-schurkenstaat-121.html
Wiesje de Lange schreef:
Ja, wanneer men Israel zo ziekelijk haat dat men het een schurkenstaat pleegt te noemen dan zijn dansende Israelische soldaten vanzelf een doorn in het oog. Kan het erger? Ze leven en ze dansen ook nog. Waarom hebben ze zoveel plezier? Dat vermeldt niemand, En het doet er ook niet toe. Israeli's, Joden mogen nooit plezier hebben, het zijn rotlui nietwaar?
Er is een U ontsnappend verschil tussen critiek en vuilbekkerij. Of Joden al dan geen zelfcritiek hebben? Ze hebben dat in sterke mate maar men moet zelf een edel mens zijn om dit in te zien. Vuilbekkerij, het uitschelden voor "Schurk" van al de Joden in de wereld heeft met zelfcritiek niets gemeen, integendeel, het is schandelijk en in een land als Israel zou het b.v. verboden zijn om welke ethnische groep dan ook op deze wijze te bejegenen. Schande, schande, schande. Ik snap nu beter waarom het westen naar de knoppen gaat, men heeft daar alle respect voor de medemens verloren en de Moslims gaan als een mes door de boter door Europa heen. Jammer voor de goede mensen die daar toch ook wonen. Het is verre van mij hen allen met de zeer verachtelijke stan van houcke op een lijn te stellen.
Wiesje schrijft over de Israelische soldaten die net grootscheepse oorlogsmisdaden hadden gepleegd, zoals we nu weten, waarbij tenminste 300 Palestijnse kinderen werden vermoord: 'Waarom hebben ze zoveel plezier?' Ja, Wiesje, leg het ons uit waarom mensen kunnen dansen nadat ze anderen hebben vermoord? Deze mensen zijn geen Duitse Nazi's maar Joodse Israeli's. Leg het ons uit, je bent per slot van rekening schrijver. Je krijgt van mij alle ruimte om je uiteenzetting over dit onderwerp te geven. Ik zal er geen komma aan veranderen. Soms bescherm ik je tegen jezelf door al te dolle reacties van je te verwijderen, maar nu ik een rationele vraag aan je heb, verwacht ik een rationeel antwoord van je. Leg ons uit waarom soldaten dansen terwijl hun 'buitensporig geweld' heeft geleid tot de dood van meer dan 300 Palestijnse kinderen. Je schrijft over 'het uitschelden voor "Schurk" van al de Joden in de wereld.' Wie doet dat en waar? Je beweert maar wat, in een poging je gelijk te halen. Waarom verdedig je een systeem dat land van anderen steelt en met geweld een volksopstand hiertegen probeert te onderdrukken? Vanwaar jouw steun aan terreur?
In 2008 is het boek 'Erfdeel en oogappel - Israƫl in politiek en profetie' van schrijfster Wiesje de Lange verschenen. De schrijfster nodigt in dit boek de lezer uit om naar de unieke positie van Israƫl te kijken. Het land is een zegen voor heel de wereld. Door te kijken naar de profetieƫn in de Tenach kunnen we lezen wat Gods plannen zijn met het Land en Volk van Israƫl. De auteur probeert antwoord te geven op de vraag 'waarom de wereld hier geen vrede mee heeft'
Gegevens
- titel: Erfdeel en oogappel - Israƫl in politiek en profetie
- auteur: Wiesje de Lange
- uitgeverij: Kok
- jaar: 2008
- ISBN: 9 789043 515429
Over de auteur
Wiesje de Lange (1938) woont in Israƫl en is een Jodin van Nederlandse komaf. Ze publiceert regelmatig over Israƫl. Ze heeft verschillende boeken geschreven, waaronder: Een tocht voor Trinie, Om je tranen te lachen, Een klaagmuur in Rijssen, Nadenken over Israƫl, Wanneer gij ten strijde trekt.Nederlandse Jodin woonachtig in Israƫl (Jeruzalem)
Wiesje de Lange is een Nederlandse Jodin die sinds 1963 in Israƫl woont. In dat jaar ging ze op alijah, zoals de emigratie naar Israƫl wordt genoemd. Wiesje komt oorspronkelijk uit Nijverdal (gemeente Hellendoorn).Schrijfster ten faveure van Israƫl
Sinds lange tijd is Wiesje de Lange actief als schrijfster. Zij is een groot en uitmuntende verdedigster van de Joodse staat. Talloze boeken staan op haar naam, te weten:- Om je tranen te lachen
- Wanneer gij ten strijde trekt
- Een tocht voor Trinie (werd ook vertaald in het Engels)
- Lepelen in de linzensoep
- Breng mijn zonen van verre
- Een klaagmuur in Rijssen
- Historische overzichten over Israƫl
- Het eeuwige volk vreest de lange weg niet
- Zwartboek van Jasser Arafat
- Nadenken over Israel
- Meeluisteren met Israel
- Erfdeel en oogappel
- Plus honderden artikelen in het Nederlands en Engels
In deze special zullen zoveel mogelijk van haar boeken besproken worden (zie onderaan). U kunt een reactie achterlaten onder aan de artikelen.
Ook kunt u zich abonneren op haar nieuwsbrief die door Christenen voor Israƫl wordt uitgegeven: In Nederland: 033 245 88 24 of via e-mail: projecten@christenenvoorisrael.nl
Anja Meulenbelt is misschien de enige die een goed woord zegt over Amira. Een toepasselijke naam. “Amira” (mijn volk is slecht) Hass (Haat). Amira haat met diepe haat haar eigen volk dat zij altijd aftekent als slecht. Zij is naar de geest lid van een “ander Joods geluid” waaraan vanzelf niets Joods is. Amira Hass is de NSB’er van Israel. In het beste geval.Elk volk heeft een hekel aan leden die heulen met de vijand.
Reactie door Wiesje de Lange — zondag 25 oktober 2009 @ 11.18
http://anjameulenbelt.sp.nl/weblog/2009/10/24/hulde-voor-amira-hass/
Wiesje behoort tot de club van fanatici als Gidi Markuszower van Likoed Nederland, de oud PVV-kandidaat voor de Tweede Kamer, wiens loyaliteit niet ligt bij de Nederlandse multiculturele rechtsstaat, maar bij een etnisch zuivere 'Joodse staat'. Daarom stelde hij zelfs voor om joden van bijvoorbeeld Een Ander Joods Geluid zwaar te straffen omdat ze 'verraders in ons midden' zouden zijn. En die joodse 'verraders' betitelde hij als 'verachtelijke joodjes,' ongetwijfeld net zo 'verachtelijk' als Wiesje mij vindt. Hoe dan ook Wiesje, val me niet meer lastig met je gekte, ik ben geen dokter die je kan helpen, maar een journalist, die met feiten probeert mensen bewust te maken van de werkelijkheid. Ga nu serieus in op mijn voorstel en lees allereerst dit van Noam Chomsky:
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: I’m away on vacation this week and largely off the grid, so don’t expect answers to emails or requests until the first week of May. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt adapted -- with a new TomDispatch beginning by the author -- from Noam Chomsky’s latest work, his must-read Hopes and Prospects, which can be preordered today, even as it wings its way toward local bookstores and Amazon. The book is a deep dive into the bone-chilling waters of the first years of the twenty-first century, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In such phenomena as the democratic wave that has swept Latin America, however, Chomsky does see hope for our collective future -- and even on the subject of Gaza and the Palestinians, he sees possibilities, long blocked unfortunately by Washington and Tel Aviv. He is, as always, a man to contend with. And be sure to check out Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Chomsky discusses the prospect of an Israeli attack on Iran, the feasibility of an Israel-Palestine two-state solution, and the concept of international law, by clicking here or, if you prefer to download it to your iPod, here. Tom]
A Middle East Peace That Could Happen (But Won’t)
In Washington-Speak, “Palestinian State” Means “Fried Chicken”
By Noam Chomsky
The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world’s conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders -- with “minor and mutual modifications,” to adopt official U.S. terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s.
The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas). A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the U.N. Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states. Israel refused to attend the session. The U.S. vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980. The record at the General Assembly since is similar.
There was one important and revealing break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism. After the failed Camp David agreements in 2000, President Clinton recognized that the terms he and Israel had proposed were unacceptable to any Palestinians. That December, he proposed his “parameters”: imprecise, but more forthcoming. He then stated that both sides had accepted the parameters, while expressing reservations.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 to resolve the differences and were making considerable progress. In their final press conference, they reported that, with a little more time, they could probably have reached full agreement. Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, however, and official progress then terminated, though informal discussions at a high level continued leading to the Geneva Accord, rejected by Israel and ignored by the U.S.
A good deal has happened since, but a settlement along those lines is still not out of reach -- if, of course, Washington is once again willing to accept it. Unfortunately, there is little sign of that.
Substantial mythology has been created about the entire record, but the basic facts are clear enough and quite well documented.
The U.S. and Israel have been acting in tandem to extend and deepen the occupation. In 2005, recognizing that it was pointless to subsidize a few thousand Israeli settlers in Gaza, who were appropriating substantial resources and protected by a large part of the Israeli army, the government of Ariel Sharon decided to move them to the much more valuable West Bank and Golan Heights.
Instead of carrying out the operation straightforwardly, as would have been easy enough, the government decided to stage a “national trauma,” which virtually duplicated the farce accompanying the withdrawal from the Sinai desert after the Camp David agreements of 1978-79. In each case, the withdrawal permitted the cry of “Never Again,” which meant in practice: we cannot abandon an inch of the Palestinian territories that we want to take in violation of international law. This farce played very well in the West, though it was ridiculed by more astute Israeli commentators, among them that country’s prominent sociologist the late Baruch Kimmerling.
After its formal withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israel never actually relinquished its total control over the territory, often described realistically as “the world’s largest prison.” In January 2006, a few months after the withdrawal, Palestine had an election that was recognized as free and fair by international observers. Palestinians, however, voted “the wrong way,” electing Hamas. Instantly, the U.S. and Israel intensified their assault against Gazans as punishment for this misdeed. The facts and the reasoning were not concealed; rather, they were openly published alongside reverential commentary on Washington’s sincere dedication to democracy. The U.S.-backed Israeli assault against the Gazans has only been intensified since, thanks to violence and economic strangulation, increasingly savage.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, always with firm U.S. backing, Israel has been carrying forward longstanding programs to take the valuable land and resources of the Palestinians and leave them in unviable cantons, mostly out of sight. Israeli commentators frankly refer to these goals as “neocolonial.” Ariel Sharon, the main architect of the settlement programs, called these cantons “Bantustans,” though the term is misleading: South Africa needed the majority black work force, while Israel would be happy if the Palestinians disappeared, and its policies are directed to that end.
Blockading Gaza by Land and Sea
One step towards cantonization and the undermining of hopes for Palestinian national survival is the separation of Gaza from the West Bank. These hopes have been almost entirely consigned to oblivion, an atrocity to which we should not contribute by tacit consent. Israeli journalist Amira Hass, one of the leading specialists on Gaza, writes that
“the restrictions on Palestinian movement that Israel introduced in January 1991 reversed a process that had been initiated in June 1967. Back then, and for the first time since 1948, a large portion of the Palestinian people again lived in the open territory of a single country -- to be sure, one that was occupied, but was nevertheless whole.… The total separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is one of the greatest achievements of Israeli politics, whose overarching objective is to prevent a solution based on international decisions and understandings and instead dictate an arrangement based on Israel’s military superiority.…
“Since January 1991, Israel has bureaucratically and logistically merely perfected the split and the separation: not only between Palestinians in the occupied territories and their brothers in Israel, but also between the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and those in the rest of the territories and between Gazans and West Bankers/Jerusalemites. Jews live in this same piece of land within a superior and separate system of privileges, laws, services, physical infrastructure and freedom of movement.”
The leading academic specialist on Gaza, Harvard scholar Sara Roy, adds:
“Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers.… Gaza’s subjection began long before Israel’s recent war against it [December 2008]. The Israeli occupation — now largely forgotten or denied by the international community — has devastated Gaza’s economy and people, especially since 2006…. After Israel’s December [2008] assault, Gaza’s already compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible.
“In Gaza today, there is no private sector to speak of and no industry. 80 percent of Gaza’s agricultural crops were destroyed and Israel continues to snipe at farmers attempting to plant and tend fields near the well-fenced and patrolled border. Most productive activity has been extinguished.… Today, 96 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Programme, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a March [22, 2009] decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of May 10, at best meeting 23 percent of required need. Israel now allows only 30 to 40 commercial items to enter Gaza compared to 4,000 approved products prior to June 2006.”
It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008–9 attack on Gaza, with full U.S. support and illegally using U.S. weapons. Near-universal opinion asserts the contrary, claiming that Israel was acting in self-defense. That is utterly unsustainable, in light of Israel’s flat rejection of peaceful means that were readily available, as Israel and its U.S. partner in crime knew very well. That aside, Israel’s siege of Gaza is itself an act of war, as Israel of all countries certainly recognizes, having repeatedly justified launching major wars on grounds of partial restrictions on its access to the outside world, though nothing remotely like what it has long imposed on Gaza.
These Israeli naval attacks began shortly after the discovery by the BG (British Gas) Group of what appear to be quite sizeable natural gas fields in Gaza’s territorial waters. Industry journals report that Israel is already appropriating these Gazan resources for its own use, part of its commitment to shift its economy to natural gas. The standard industry source reports:
“Israel’s finance ministry has given the Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) approval to purchase larger quantities of natural gas from BG than originally agreed upon, according to Israeli government sources [which] said the state-owned utility would be able to negotiate for as much as 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Marine field located off the Mediterranean coast of the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip.
“Last year the Israeli government approved the purchase of 800 million cubic meters of gas from the field by the IEC…. Recently the Israeli government changed its policy and decided the state-owned utility could buy the entire quantity of gas from the Gaza Marine field. Previously the government had said the IEC could buy half the total amount and the remainder would be bought by private power producers.”
The pillage of what could become a major source of income for Gaza is surely known to U.S. authorities. It is only reasonable to suppose that the intention to appropriate these limited resources, either by Israel alone or together with the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, is the motive for preventing Gazan fishing boats from entering Gaza’s territorial waters.
There are some instructive precedents. In 1989, Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans signed a treaty with his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas granting Australia rights to the substantial oil reserves in “the Indonesian Province of East Timor.” The Indonesia-Australia Timor Gap Treaty, which offered not a crumb to the people whose oil was being stolen, “is the only legal agreement anywhere in the world that effectively recognises Indonesia’s right to rule East Timor,” the Australian press reported.
Asked about his willingness to recognize the Indonesian conquest and to rob the sole resource of the conquered territory, which had been subjected to near-genocidal slaughter by the Indonesian invader with the strong support of Australia (along with the U.S., the U.K., and some others), Evans explained that “there is no binding legal obligation not to recognise the acquisition of territory that was acquired by force,” adding that “the world is a pretty unfair place, littered with examples of acquisition by force.”
It should, then, be unproblematic for Israel to follow suit in Gaza.
A few years later, Evans became the leading figure in the campaign to introduce the concept “responsibility to protect” -- known as R2P -- into international law. R2P is intended to establish an international obligation to protect populations from grave crimes. Evans is the author of a major book on the subject and was co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which issued what is considered the basic document on R2P.
In an article devoted to this “idealistic effort to establish a new humanitarian principle,” the London Economist featured Evans and his “bold but passionate claim on behalf of a three-word expression which (in quite large part thanks to his efforts) now belongs to the language of diplomacy: the ‘responsibility to protect.’” The article is accompanied by a picture of Evans with the caption “Evans: a lifelong passion to protect.” His hand is pressed to his forehead in despair over the difficulties faced by his idealistic effort. The journal chose not to run a different photo that circulates in Australia, depicting Evans and Alatas exuberantly clasping their hands together as they toast the Timor Gap Treaty that they had just signed.
Though a “protected population” under international law, Gazans do not fall under the jurisdiction of the “responsibility to protect,” joining other unfortunates, in accord with the maxim of Thucydides -- that the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must -- which holds with its customary precision.
Obama and the Settlements
The kinds of restrictions on movement used to destroy Gaza have long been in force in the West Bank as well, less cruelly but with grim effects on life and the economy. The World Bank reports that Israel has established “a complex closure regime that restricts Palestinian access to large areas of the West Bank… The Palestinian economy has remained stagnant, largely because of the sharp downturn in Gaza and Israel’s continued restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement in the West Bank.”
The World Bank “cited Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints hindering trade and travel, as well as restrictions on Palestinian building in the West Bank, where the Western-backed government of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas holds sway.” Israel does permit -- indeed encourage -- a privileged existence for elites in Ramallah and sometimes elsewhere, largely relying on European funding, a traditional feature of colonial and neocolonial practice.
All of this constitutes what Israeli activist Jeff Halper calls a “matrix of control” to subdue the colonized population. These systematic programs over more than 40 years aim to establish Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s recommendation to his colleagues shortly after Israel’s 1967 conquests that we must tell the Palestinians in the territories: “We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.”
Turning to the second bone of contention, settlements, there is indeed a confrontation, but it is rather less dramatic than portrayed. Washington’s position was presented most strongly in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s much-quoted statement rejecting “natural growth exceptions” to the policy opposing new settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with President Shimon Peres and, in fact, virtually the whole Israeli political spectrum, insists on permitting “natural growth” within the areas that Israel intends to annex, complaining that the United States is backing down on George W. Bush’s authorization of such expansion within his “vision” of a Palestinian state.
Senior Netanyahu cabinet members have gone further. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz announced that “the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria.” The term “legal” in U.S.-Israeli parlance means “illegal, but authorized by the government of Israel with a wink from Washington.” In this usage, unauthorized outposts are termed “illegal,” though apart from the dictates of the powerful, they are no more illegal than the settlements granted to Israel under Bush’s “vision” and Obama’s scrupulous omission.
The Obama-Clinton “hardball” formulation is not new. It repeats the wording of the Bush administration draft of the 2003 Road Map, which stipulates that in Phase I, “Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).” All sides formally accept the Road Map (modified to drop the phrase “natural growth”) -- consistently overlooking the fact that Israel, with U.S. support, at once added 14 “reservations” that render it inoperable.
If Obama were at all serious about opposing settlement expansion, he could easily proceed with concrete measures by, for example, reducing U.S. aid by the amount devoted to this purpose. That would hardly be a radical or courageous move. The Bush I administration did so (reducing loan guarantees), but after the Oslo accord in 1993, President Clinton left calculations to the government of Israel. Unsurprisingly, there was “no change in the expenditures flowing to the settlements,” the Israeli press reported. “[Prime Minister] Rabin will continue not to dry out the settlements,” the report concludes. “And the Americans? They will understand.”
Obama administration officials informed the press that the Bush I measures are “not under discussion,” and that pressures will be “largely symbolic.” In short, Obama understands, just as Clinton and Bush II did.
American Visionaries
At best, settlement expansion is a side issue, rather like the issue of “illegal outposts” -- namely those that the government of Israel has not authorized. Concentration on these issues diverts attention from the fact that there are no “legal outposts” and that it is the existing settlements that are the primary problem to be faced.
The U.S. press reports that “a partial freeze has been in place for several years, but settlers have found ways around the strictures… [C]onstruction in the settlements has slowed but never stopped, continuing at an annual rate of about 1,500 to 2,000 units over the past three years. If building continues at the 2008 rate, the 46,500 units already approved will be completed in about 20 years.… If Israel built all the housing units already approved in the nation’s overall master plan for settlements, it would almost double the number of settler homes in the West Bank.” Peace Now, which monitors settlement activities, estimates further that the two largest settlements would double in size: Ariel and Ma’aleh Adumim, built mainly during the Oslo years in the salients that subdivide the West Bank into cantons.
“Natural population growth” is largely a myth, Israel’s leading diplomatic correspondent, Akiva Eldar, points out, citing demographic studies by Colonel (res.) Shaul Arieli, deputy military secretary to former prime minister and incumbent defense minister Ehud Barak. Settlement growth consists largely of Israeli immigrants in violation of the Geneva Conventions, assisted with generous subsidies. Much of it is in direct violation of formal government decisions, but carried out with the authorization of the government, specifically Barak, considered a dove in the Israeli spectrum.
Correspondent Jackson Diehl derides the “long-dormant Palestinian fantasy,” revived by President Abbas, “that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees.” He does not explain why refusal to participate in Israel’s illegal expansion -- which, if serious, would “force Israel to make critical concessions” -- would be improper interference in Israel’s democracy.
Returning to reality, all of these discussions about settlement expansion evade the most crucial issue about settlements: what the United States and Israel have already established in the West Bank. The evasion tacitly concedes that the illegal settlement programs already in place are somehow acceptable (putting aside the Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders) -- though the Bush “vision,” apparently accepted by Obama, moves from tacit to explicit support for these violations of law. What is in place already suffices to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian self-determination. Hence, there is every indication that even on the unlikely assumption that “natural growth” will be ended, U.S.-Israeli rejectionism will persist, blocking the international consensus as before.
Subsequently, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared a 10-month suspension of new construction, with many exemptions, and entirely excluding Greater Jerusalem, where expropriation in Arab areas and construction for Jewish settlers continues at a rapid pace. Hillary Clinton praised these “unprecedented” concessions on (illegal) construction, eliciting anger and ridicule in much of the world.
It might be different if a legitimate “land swap” were under consideration, a solution approached at Taba and spelled out more fully in the Geneva Accord reached in informal high-level Israel-Palestine negotiations. The accord was presented in Geneva in October 2003, welcomed by much of the world, rejected by Israel, and ignored by the United States.
Washington’s “Evenhandedness”
Barack Obama’s June 4, 2009, Cairo address to the Muslim world kept pretty much to his well-honed “blank slate” style -- with little of substance, but presented in a personable manner that allows listeners to write on the slate what they want to hear. CNN captured its spirit in headlining a report “Obama Looks to Reach the Soul of the Muslim World.” Obama had announced the goals of his address in an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “‘We have a joke around the White House,’ the president said. ‘We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.’” The White House commitment is most welcome, but it is useful to see how it translates into practice.
Obama admonished his audience that it is easy to “point fingers… but if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.”
Turning from Obama-Friedman Truth to truth, there is a third side, with a decisive role throughout: the United States. But that participant in the conflict Obama omitted. The omission is understood to be normal and appropriate, hence unmentioned: Friedman’s column is headlined “Obama Speech Aimed at Both Arabs and Israelis.” The front-page Wall Street Journal report on Obama’s speech appears under the heading “Obama Chides Israel, Arabs in His Overture to Muslims.” Other reports are the same.
The convention is understandable on the doctrinal principle that though the U.S. government sometimes makes mistakes, its intentions are by definition benign, even noble. In the world of attractive imagery, Washington has always sought desperately to be an honest broker, yearning to advance peace and justice. The doctrine trumps truth, of which there is little hint in the speech or the mainstream coverage of it.
Obama once again echoed Bush’s “vision” of two states, without saying what he meant by the phrase “Palestinian state.” His intentions were clarified not only by the crucial omissions already discussed, but also by his one explicit criticism of Israel: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” That is, Israel should live up to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, rejected at once by Israel with tacit U.S. support, as noted -- though the truth is that Obama has ruled out even steps of the Bush I variety to withdraw from participation in these crimes.
The operative words are “legitimacy” and “continued.” By omission, Obama indicates that he accepts Bush’s vision: the vast existing settlement and infrastructure projects are “legitimate,” thus ensuring that the phrase “Palestinian state” means “fried chicken.”
Always even-handed, Obama also had an admonition for the Arab states: they “must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.” Plainly, however, it cannot be a meaningful “beginning” if Obama continues to reject its core principles: implementation of the international consensus. To do so, however, is evidently not Washington’s “responsibility” in Obama’s vision; no explanation given, no notice taken.
On democracy, Obama said that “we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election” -- as in January 2006, when Washington picked the outcome with a vengeance, turning at once to severe punishment of the Palestinians because it did not like the outcome of a peaceful election, all with Obama’s apparent approval judging by his words before, and actions since, taking office.
Obama politely refrained from comment about his host, President Mubarak, one of the most brutal dictators in the region, though he has had some illuminating words about him. As he was about to board a plane to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the two “moderate” Arab states, “Mr. Obama signaled that while he would mention American concerns about human rights in Egypt, he would not challenge Mr. Mubarak too sharply, because he is a ‘force for stability and good’ in the Middle East… Mr. Obama said he did not regard Mr. Mubarak as an authoritarian leader. ‘No, I tend not to use labels for folks,’ Mr. Obama said. The president noted that there had been criticism ‘of the manner in which politics operates in Egypt,’ but he also said that Mr. Mubarak had been ‘a stalwart ally, in many respects, to the United States.’”
When a politician uses the word “folks,” we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse, that is coming. Outside of this context, there are “people,” or often “villains,” and using labels for them is highly meritorious. Obama is right, however, not to have used the word “authoritarian,” which is far too mild a label for his friend.
Just as in the past, support for democracy, and for human rights as well, keeps to the pattern that scholarship has repeatedly discovered, correlating closely with strategic and economic objectives. There should be little difficulty in understanding why those whose eyes are not closed tight shut by rigid doctrine dismiss Obama’s yearning for human rights and democracy as a joke in bad taste.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Hegemony or Survival and Failed States. His newest book, Hopes and Prospects, is out this week from Haymarket Books.
[Note: All material in this piece is sourced and footnoted in Noam Chomsky’s new bookHopes and Prospects.]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/
En als dit je niet overtuigt, Wiesje de Lange, dan weet ik het ook niet meer.
