Chomsky : Undermining Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Foreign Policy In Focus
January 16, 2009

DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?

CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's left of the indigenous population.

I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.

continued at FPIF ...

"Building facts on the ground"
The "ceasefire" negotiated by the 2nd highest recipient of US foreign aid, Israel, and the 3rd highest recipient of US foreign aid, Egypt, is the new name for the continued supervision of the collapse of Gaza. Previously it was called "ending the occupation" or "the disengagement".

h/t Waterbaby for FPIF link
Cross-posted at Creekside