Noam Chomsky
Chomsky.info,
November 4, 2012
Source: Noam Chomsky
http://chomsky.info/articles/20121104.htm
Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of
what it means to be under the total control of some external force. And it
hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be
like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million
and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world, are
constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment,
with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade, and with the further goal
of ensuring that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed and that
the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement that will grant
these rights will be nullified.
The intensity of this commitment on the part of the Israeli
political leadership has been dramatically illustrated just in the past few
days, as they warn that they will “go crazy” if Palestinian rights are given
limited recognition at the UN. That is not a new departure. The threat to “go
crazy” (“nishtagea”) is deeply rooted, back to the Labor governments of the
1950s, along with the related “Samson Complex”: we will bring down the Temple
walls if crossed. It was an idle threat then; not today.
The purposeful humiliation is also not new, though it
constantly takes new forms. Thirty years ago political leaders, including some
of the most noted hawks, submitted to Prime Minister Begin a shocking and
detailed account of how settlers regularly abuse Palestinians in the most
depraved manner and with total impunity. The prominent military-political
analyst Yoram Peri wrote with disgust that the army’s task is not to defend the
state, but “to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are
Araboushim (“niggers,” “kikes”) living in territories that God promised to us.”
Gazans have been selected for particularly cruel punishment.
It is almost miraculous that people can sustain such an existence. How they do
so was described thirty years ago in an eloquent memoir by Raja Shehadeh (The
Third Way), based on his work as a lawyer engaged in the hopeless task of
trying to protect elementary rights within a legal system designed to ensure
failure, and his personal experience as a Samid, “a steadfast one,” who
watches his home turned into a prison by brutal occupiers and can do nothing
but somehow “endure.”
Since Shehadeh wrote, the situation has become much worse.
The Oslo agreements, celebrated with much pomp in 1993, determined that Gaza
and the West Bank are a single territorial entity. By then the US and Israel
had already initiated their program of separating them fully from one another,
so as to block a diplomatic settlement and punish the Araboushim in both
territories.
Punishment of Gazans became still more severe in January
2006, when they committed a major crime: they voted the “wrong way” in the
first free election in the Arab world, electing Hamas. Demonstrating their
passionate “yearning for democracy,” the US and Israel, backed by the timid
European Union, at once imposed a brutal siege, along with intensive military
attacks. The US also turned at once to standard operating procedure when some
disobedient population elects the wrong government: prepare a military coup to
restore order.
Gazans committed a still greater crime a year later by
blocking the coup attempt, leading to a sharp escalation of the siege and
military attacks. These culminated in winter 2008-9, with Operation Cast Lead,
one of the most cowardly and vicious exercises of military force in recent
memory, as a defenseless civilian population, trapped with no way to escape,
was subjected to relentless attack by one of the world’s most advanced military
systems relying on US arms and protected by US diplomacy. An unforgettable
eyewitness account of the slaughter — “infanticide” in their words — is given
by the two courageous Norwegian doctors who worked at Gaza’s main hospital
during the merciless assault, Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, in their remarkable
book Eyes in Gaza.
President-elect Obama was unable to say a word, apart from
reiterating his heartfelt sympathy for children under attack — in the Israeli
town Sderot. The carefully planned assault was brought to an end right before
his inauguration, so that he could then say that now is the time to look
forward, not backward, the standard refuge of criminals.
Of course, there were pretexts — there always are. The usual
one, trotted out when needed, is “security”: in this case, home-made rockets
from Gaza. As is commonly the case, the pretext lacked any credibility. In 2008
a truce was established between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli government
formally recognizes that Hamas observed it fully. Not a single Hamas rocket was
fired until Israel broke the truce under cover of the US election on November 4
2008, invading Gaza on ludicrous grounds and killing half a dozen Hamas
members. The Israeli government was advised by its highest intelligence
officials that the truce could be renewed by easing the criminal blockade and
ending military attacks. But the government of Ehud Olmert, reputedly a dove,
chose to reject these options, preferring to resort to its huge comparative
advantage in violence: Operation Cast Lead. The basic facts are reviewed once
again by foreign policy analyst Jerome Slater in the current issue of the
Harvard-MIT journal International Security.
The pattern of bombing under Cast Lead was carefully
analyzed by the highly informed and internationally respected Gazan human
rights advocate Raji Sourani. He points out that the bombing was concentrated
in the north, targeting defenseless civilians in the most densely populated
areas, with no possible military pretext. The goal, he suggests, may have been
to drive the intimidated population to the south, near the Egyptian border. But
the Samidin stayed put, despite the avalanche of US-Israeli terror.
A further goal might have been to drive them beyond. Back to
the earliest days of the Zionist colonization it was argued across much of the
spectrum that Arabs have no real reason to be in Palestine; they can be just as
happy somewhere else, and should leave — politely “transferred,” the doves
suggested. This is surely no small concern in Egypt, and perhaps a reason why
Egypt does not open the border freely to civilians or even to desperately
needed materials
Sourani and other knowledgeable sources observe that the
discipline of the Samidin conceals a powder keg, which might explode any time,
unexpectedly, as the first Intifada did in Gaza in 1989 after years of
miserable repression that elicited no notice or concern,
Merely to mention one of innumerable cases, shortly before
the outbreak of the Intifada a Palestinian girl, Intissar al-Atar, was shot and
killed in a schoolyard by a resident of a nearby Jewish settlement. He was one
of the several thousand Israelis settlers brought to Gaza in violation of
international law and protected by a huge army presence, taking over much of
the land and scarce water of the Strip and living “lavishly in twenty-two
settlements in the midst of 1.4 million destitute Palestinians,” as the crime
is described by Israeli scholar Avi Raz. The murderer of the schoolgirl, Shimon
Yifrah, was arrested, but quickly released on bail when the Court determined
that “the offense is not severe enough” to warrant detention. The judge
commented that Yifrah only intended to shock the girl by firing his gun at her
in a schoolyard, not to kill her, so “this is not a case of a criminal person
who has to be punished, deterred, and taught a lesson by imprisoning him.”
Yifrah was given a 7-month suspended sentence, while settlers in the courtroom
broke out in song and dance. And the usual silence reigned. After all, it is
routine.
And so it is. As Yifrah was freed, the Israeli press
reported that an army patrol fired into the yard of a school for boys aged 6 to
12 in a West Bank refugee camp, wounding five children, allegedly intending
only “to shock them.” There were no charges, and the event again attracted no
attention. It was just another episode in the program of “illiteracy as
punishment,” the Israeli press reported, including the closing of schools, use
of gas bombs, beating of students with rifle butts, barring of medical aid for
victims; and beyond the schools a reign of more severe brutality, becoming even
more savage during the Intifada, under the orders of Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, another admired dove.
My initial impression, after a visit of several days, was
amazement, not only at the ability to go on with life, but also at the vibrancy
and vitality among young people, particularly at the university, where I spent
much of my time at an international conference. But there too one can detect
signs that the pressure may become too hard to bear. Reports indicate that
among young men there is simmering frustration, recognition that under the
US-Israeli occupation the future holds nothing for them. There is only so much
that caged animals can endure, and there may be an eruption, perhaps taking
ugly forms — offering an opportunity for Israeli and western apologists to
self-righteously condemn the people who are culturally backward, as Mitt Romney
insightfully explained.
Gaza has the look of a typical third world society, with
pockets of wealth surrounded by hideous poverty. It is not, however,
“undeveloped.” Rather it is “de-developed,” and very systematically so, to
borrow the terms of Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza. The Gaza
Strip could have become a prosperous Mediterranean region, with rich
agriculture and a flourishing fishing industry, marvelous beaches and, as
discovered a decade ago, good prospects for extensive natural gas supplies
within its territorial waters.
By coincidence or not, that is when Israel intensified its
naval blockade, driving fishing boats toward shore, by now to 3 miles or less.
The favorable prospects were aborted in 1948, when the Strip
had to absorb a flood of Palestinian refugees who fled in terror or were
forcefully expelled from what became Israel, in some cases expelled months
after the formal cease-fire.
In fact, they were being expelled even four years later, as
reported in Ha’aretz (25.12.2008), in a thoughtful study by Beni Tziper
on the history of Israeli Ashkelon back to the Canaanites. In 1953, he reports,
there was a “cool calculation that it was necessary to cleanse the region of
Arabs.” The original name, Majdal, had already been “Judaized” to today’s
Ashkelon, regular practice.
That was in 1953, when there was no hint of military
necessity. Tziper himself was born in 1953, and while walking in the remnants
of the old Arab sector, he reflects that “it is really difficult for me, really
difficult, to realize that while my parents were celebrating my birth, other
people were being loaded on trucks and expelled from their homes.”
Israel’s 1967 conquests and their aftermath administered
further blows. Then came the terrible crimes already mentioned, continuing to
the present day.
The signs are easy to see, even on a brief visit. Sitting in
a hotel near the shore, one can hear the machine gun fire of Israeli gunboats
driving fishermen out of Gaza’s territorial waters and towards shore, so they
are compelled to fish in waters that are heavily polluted because of US-Israeli
refusal to allow reconstruction of the sewage and power systems that they
destroyed.
The Oslo Accords laid plans for two desalination plants, a
necessity in this arid region. One, an advanced facility, was built: in Israel.
The second one is in Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza. The engineer in charge
of trying to obtain potable water for the population explained that this plant
was designed so that it cannot use sea water, but must rely on underground
water, a cheaper process, which further degrades the meager aquifer,
guaranteeing severe problems in the future. Even with that, water is severely
limited. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for
refugees (but not other Gazans), recently released a report warning that damage
to the aquifer may soon become “irreversible,” and that without remedial action
quickly, by 2020 Gaza may not be a “liveable place.”
Israel permits concrete to enter for UNRWA projects, but not
for Gazans engaged in the huge reconstruction needs. The limited heavy
equipment mostly lies idle, since Israel does not permit materials for repair.
All of this is part of the general program described by Israeli official Dov
Weisglass, an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after Palestinians failed
to follow orders in the 2006 elections: “The idea,” he said, “is to put the
Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” That would not
look good.
And the plan is being scrupulously followed. Sara Roy has
provided extensive evidence in her scholarly studies. Recently, after several
years of effort, the Israeli human rights organization Gisha succeeded to
obtain a court order for the government to release its records detailing plans
for the diet, and how they are executed. Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook
summarizes them: “Health officials provided calculations of the minimum number
of calories needed by Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition.
Those figures were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed
to allow in each day ... an average of only 67 trucks — much less than half of
the minimum requirement — entered Gaza daily. This compared to more than 400
trucks before the blockade began.” And even this estimate is overly generous, UN
relief officials report.
The result of imposing the diet, Mideast scholar Juan Cole
observes, is that “[a]bout ten percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under 5
have had their growth stunted by malnutrition ... in addition, anemia is
widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of
schoolchildren, and over a third of pregnant mothers.” The US and Israel want
to ensure that nothing more than bare survival is possible.
“What has to be kept in mind,” observes Raji Sourani, “is
that the occupation and the absolute closure is an ongoing attack on the human
dignity of the people in Gaza in particular and all Palestinians generally. It
is systematic degradation, humiliation, isolation and fragmentation of the
Palestinian people.” The conclusion is confirmed by many other sources. In one
of the world’s leading medical journals, The Lancet, a visiting Stanford
physician, appalled by what he witnessed, describes Gaza as “something of a
laboratory for observing an absence of dignity,” a condition that has
“devastating” effects on physical, mental, and social wellbeing. “The constant
surveillance from the sky, collective punishment through blockade and
isolation, the intrusion into homes and communications, and restrictions on
those trying to travel, or marry, or work make it difficult to live a dignified
life in Gaza.” The Araboushim must be taught not to raise their heads.
There were hopes that the new Morsi government in Egypt,
less in thrall to Israel than the western-backed Mubarak dictatorship, might
open the Rafah crossing, the sole access to the outside for trapped Gazans that
is not subject to direct Israeli control. There has been slight opening, but
not much. Journalist Laila el-Haddad writes that the re-opening under Morsi,
“is simply a return to status quo of years past: only Palestinians carrying an
Israeli-approved Gaza ID card can use Rafah Crossing,” excluding a great many
Palestinians, including el-Haddad’s family, where only one spouse has a card.
Furthermore, she continues, “the crossing does not lead to
the West Bank, nor does it allow for the passage of goods, which are restricted
to the Israeli-controlled crossings and subject to prohibitions on construction
materials and export.” The restricted Rafah crossing does not change the fact
that “Gaza remains under tight maritime and aerial siege, and continues to be
closed off to the Palestinians’ cultural, economic, and academic capitals in
the rest of the [occupied territories], in violation of US-Israeli obligations
under the Oslo Accords.”
The effects are painfully evident. In the Khan Yunis
hospital, the director, who is also chief of surgery, describes with anger and
passion how even medicines are lacking for relief of suffering patients, as
well as simple surgical equipment, leaving doctors helpless and patients in
agony. Personal stories add vivid texture to the general disgust one feels at
the obscenity of the harsh occupation. One example is the testimony of a young
woman who despaired that her father, who would have been proud that she was the
first woman in the refugee camp to gain an advanced degree, had “passed away
after 6 months of fighting cancer aged 60 years. Israeli occupation denied him
a permit to go to Israeli hospitals for treatment. I had to suspend my study,
work and life and go to set next to his bed. We all sat including my brother
the physician and my sister the pharmacist, all powerless and hopeless watching
his suffering. He died during the inhumane blockade of Gaza in summer 2006 with
very little access to health service. I think feeling powerless and hopeless is
the most killing feeling that human can ever have. It kills the spirit and
breaks the heart. You can fight occupation but you cannot fight your feeling of
being powerless. You can't even dissolve that feeling.”
Disgust at the obscenity, compounded with guilt: it is
within our power to bring the suffering to an end and allow the Samidin
to enjoy the lives of peace and dignity that they deserve.
Noam Chomsky visited the Gaza Strip on October 25-30,
2012.
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