On Palestine

by Noam Chomsky

The Palestine question is emblematic of what is wrong with the world. The role played by Western states, the complicity of corporations and of various institutions make this case a very special one.

The third paradox is that while specific Israeli policies are severely criticized and condemned, the very nature of the Israeli regime and the ideology that produces these policies are not targeted by the solidarity movement. Activists and supporters demonstrated against the massacre in Gaza in 2009 and the assault on the flotilla in 2010, yet in this arena of open and public protest nobody, it seems, dares to attack the ideology that is behind these aggressions. There is no demonstration against Zionism, because even the European Parliament regards such a demonstration as anti-Semitic. Imagine, in the days of supremacist South Africa, if you were not allowed to demonstrate against the apartheid regime itself, but only against the Soweto massacre or any other particular atrocity committed by the South African government.

The Israeli version is a Jewish state next to two bantustans, divided into twelve enclaves in the West Bank, and contained in a huge ghetto in the Gaza Strip, with no connection between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and run by a small municipality in Ramallah operating as the seat of government. Official Israel insists that in the interest of national security a Palestinian state, if at all allowed, would be modeled along these lines.

So if you already have huge Jewish settlement blocks all over the West Bank, you cannot think about dismantling them. You may think about the exchange of territories but not about dismantling these settlements. So the past becomes an obstacle in the eyes of the so-called mediators, but the past is everything in the eyes of the occupied and the oppressed people.

President Obama says: “Well let’s forget about the crimes that were committed, the invasion of Iraq, let’s just go on.” In others words, let’s continue the same way we’ve been proceeding. That’s the weapon of the powerful.

Zionism today is an ideology of power that is quite peculiar in history as it is directed against one particular group of people. Usually ideologies have wider implications for people. Zionism is very focused.