Post by Salem6 on Feb 23, 2004 17:32:44 GMT
By Noam Chomsky
The New York Times
23 February 2004
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead
security concerns when they undertake any controversial action,
often as a pretext for something else. Careful scrutiny is always in
order. Israel's so-called security fence, which is the subject of
hearings starting today at the International Court of Justice in The
Hague, is a case in point.
Few would question Israel's right to protect its citizens from
terrorist attacks like the one yesterday, even to build a security
wall if that were an appropriate means. It is also clear where such
a wall would be built if security were the guiding concern: inside
Israel, within the internationally recognized border, the Green Line
established after the 1948-49 war. The wall could then be as
forbidding as the authorities chose: patrolled by the army on both
sides, heavily mined, impenetrable. Such a wall would maximize
security, and there would be no international protest or violation
of international law.
This observation is well understood. While Britain supports
America's opposition to the Hague hearings, its foreign minister,
Jack Straw, has written that the wall is "unlawful." Another
ministry official, who inspected the "security fence," said it
should be on the Green Line or "indeed on the Israeli side of the
line." A British parliamentary investigative commission also called
for the wall to be built on Israeli land, condemning the barrier as
part of a " deliberate" Israeli "strategy of bringing the population
to heel."
What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is
also -- as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described
Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians -- helping
turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the
bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty
and self-determination.
Even before construction of the barrier was under way, the United
Nations estimated that Israeli barriers, infrastructure projects and
settlements had created 50 disconnected Palestinian pockets in the
West Bank. As the design of the wall was coming into view, the World
Bank estimated that it might isolate 250,000 to 300,000
Palestinians, more than 10 percent of the population, and that it
might effectively annex up to 10 percent of West Bank land. And when
the government of Ariel Sharon finally published its proposed map,
it became clear the the wall would cut the West Bank into 16
isolated enclaves, confined to just 42 percent of the West Bank land
that Mr. Sharon had previously said could be ceded to a Palestinian
state.
The wall has already claimed some of the most fertile lands of the
West Bank. And, crucially, it extends Israel's control of critical
water resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as
they choose, while the indigenous population often lacks water for
drinking.
Palestinians in the seam between the wall and the Green Line will be
permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes;
Israelis automatically have the right to use these lands. "Hiding
behind security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic
language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion," the
Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote in the daily Haaretz. " Drop by
drop, unseen, not so many that it would be noticed internationally
and shock public opinion." The same is true of the regular killings,
terror and daily brutality and humiliation of the past 35 years of
harsh occupation, while land and resources have been taken for
settlers enticed by ample subsidies.
It also seems likely that Israel will transfer to the occupied West
Bank the 7,500 settlers it said this month it would remove from the
Gaza Strip. These Israelis now enjoy ample land and fresh water,
while one million Palestinians barely survive, their meager water
supplies virtually unusable. Gaza is a cage, and as the city of
Rafah in the south is systematically demolished, residents may be
blocked from any contact with Egypt and blockaded from the sea.
It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are
American-Israeli policies -- made possible by unremitting United
States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has
been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a
full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In
1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling
for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming
international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a
majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if
Washington wanted to do so.
At most, the Hague hearings will end in an advisory ruling that the
wall is illegal. It will change nothing. Any real chance for a
political settlement -- and for decent lives for the people of the
region -- depends on the United States.
Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, is the author of "Hegemony or Survival:
America's Quest for Global Dominance.
The New York Times
23 February 2004
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead
security concerns when they undertake any controversial action,
often as a pretext for something else. Careful scrutiny is always in
order. Israel's so-called security fence, which is the subject of
hearings starting today at the International Court of Justice in The
Hague, is a case in point.
Few would question Israel's right to protect its citizens from
terrorist attacks like the one yesterday, even to build a security
wall if that were an appropriate means. It is also clear where such
a wall would be built if security were the guiding concern: inside
Israel, within the internationally recognized border, the Green Line
established after the 1948-49 war. The wall could then be as
forbidding as the authorities chose: patrolled by the army on both
sides, heavily mined, impenetrable. Such a wall would maximize
security, and there would be no international protest or violation
of international law.
This observation is well understood. While Britain supports
America's opposition to the Hague hearings, its foreign minister,
Jack Straw, has written that the wall is "unlawful." Another
ministry official, who inspected the "security fence," said it
should be on the Green Line or "indeed on the Israeli side of the
line." A British parliamentary investigative commission also called
for the wall to be built on Israeli land, condemning the barrier as
part of a " deliberate" Israeli "strategy of bringing the population
to heel."
What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is
also -- as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described
Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians -- helping
turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the
bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty
and self-determination.
Even before construction of the barrier was under way, the United
Nations estimated that Israeli barriers, infrastructure projects and
settlements had created 50 disconnected Palestinian pockets in the
West Bank. As the design of the wall was coming into view, the World
Bank estimated that it might isolate 250,000 to 300,000
Palestinians, more than 10 percent of the population, and that it
might effectively annex up to 10 percent of West Bank land. And when
the government of Ariel Sharon finally published its proposed map,
it became clear the the wall would cut the West Bank into 16
isolated enclaves, confined to just 42 percent of the West Bank land
that Mr. Sharon had previously said could be ceded to a Palestinian
state.
The wall has already claimed some of the most fertile lands of the
West Bank. And, crucially, it extends Israel's control of critical
water resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as
they choose, while the indigenous population often lacks water for
drinking.
Palestinians in the seam between the wall and the Green Line will be
permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes;
Israelis automatically have the right to use these lands. "Hiding
behind security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic
language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion," the
Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote in the daily Haaretz. " Drop by
drop, unseen, not so many that it would be noticed internationally
and shock public opinion." The same is true of the regular killings,
terror and daily brutality and humiliation of the past 35 years of
harsh occupation, while land and resources have been taken for
settlers enticed by ample subsidies.
It also seems likely that Israel will transfer to the occupied West
Bank the 7,500 settlers it said this month it would remove from the
Gaza Strip. These Israelis now enjoy ample land and fresh water,
while one million Palestinians barely survive, their meager water
supplies virtually unusable. Gaza is a cage, and as the city of
Rafah in the south is systematically demolished, residents may be
blocked from any contact with Egypt and blockaded from the sea.
It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are
American-Israeli policies -- made possible by unremitting United
States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has
been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a
full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In
1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling
for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming
international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a
majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if
Washington wanted to do so.
At most, the Hague hearings will end in an advisory ruling that the
wall is illegal. It will change nothing. Any real chance for a
political settlement -- and for decent lives for the people of the
region -- depends on the United States.
Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, is the author of "Hegemony or Survival:
America's Quest for Global Dominance.