Noam Chomsky, a far-Left Jewish-American political commentator, was in Lebanon recently to give a lecture about America's foreign policy in the Middle East. The famous linguist and philosopher spoke to Weekend Review about his views on various developing issues in the Middle East.
There aren't many people in the West who speak up and are critical of Israel and the issues of the Middle East like you. If there is any criticism, what kind of criticism is it?
There is a fair amount of critical commentary on Israel — not from my point of view — but in fact some of it is extreme. I am considered somewhat moderate (laughs). What reaches the mainstream is criticism that is, from my point of view, unprincipled criticism. It is criticism that warns Israel that it is going on a very dangerous path. So there is a good deal of mainstream criticism of that kind.
There are people such as Martin Indyk whose origins were in the Israeli lobby. He was also Bill Clinton's main political analyst and ambassador to Israel. But he has come out publicly, essentially warning Israel that it is following a dangerous course.
There is a comparable group in Europe also very strongly pro-Israel who have come out with a similar critical position. I would say it is unprincipled in the sense it doesn't ask questions of right and wrong and its commitment is to the security, progress and safety of Israel, not of anyone else. From that point of view, they are raising criticism. That is the kind of criticism you get generally.
American Jews have the right to visit and live in Israel on what is called ‘birthright', while Palestinian refugees who can prove they belong to the land don't have that right. Why does the West not see anything wrong with that?
That is part of the basic law that is established by the high court. One of its principles is that Israel is the sovereign state of the Jewish people in Israel and the diaspora, so it is their state but not the state of even the Palestinians who live there. That is the core legal principle under which the state is founded. [It is] the same reason that Stalin didn't see anything wrong with Stalin's purge. You don't see anything wrong with the state you are loyal to.
That is unfortunately close to uniform — not just the people in the street [but] even the intellectual community doesn't see anything wrong with it. That is why they use the phrase ‘Democratic Jewish State' which is just a self-contradiction.
In the 1960s and 1970s you wrote about a bi-national state for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Do you think this is far-fetched now?
I was a Zionist youth leader in the 1940s but I was part of the Zionist movement that was opposed to a Jewish state. There was such a position. In fact, the Zionist movement wasn't officially committed to a Jewish state until 1942 right in the middle of the war.
The estimates are that about 25 per cent of the pre-state Jewish population in Palestine were probably bi-national, so it wasn't a marginal position. Once the state was established, my reluctant conclusion is, it should have the rights of any state in the international system. After 1967 there was an opportunity to move towards some kind of federal or other kind of arrangement.
There were calls for local autonomy in the Occupied Territories mostly from mayors. There were elements of Israeli military intelligence that favoured that and I did write about it at the time.
I thought it was a good direction to move in. In 1975 that option was over. Palestinian nationalism had emerged. Right now, everyone accepts a two-state solution — the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Conference which includes Iran, and Europe.
It is only blocked by the United States and Israel. There is rising talk about a one-state or bi-national solution but you have to make a distinction between what you may call proposal and advocacy. We can propose sitting here that everybody should live in peace. OK, we proposed it. It is not advocacy. We advocate that everyone should live in peace if we say how to get from here to there, which will be in stages. It is the same in this case.
If you want to advocate a one-state solution, you have to tell us how to get there. I have only heard one suggestion — start with a two-state solution and then move on. As the level of violence declines and communities make natural relations, they will become more integrated. It has happened and it does happen. There is no other way to get to a bi-national state, so most of the talk about that in my view is empty.
It also partially accounts for the failure of the Palestinians and indeed the Arab states for not concretely dealing with the options that are available. You have to do that even though it may feel like you're giving up on your principles. You really have to do that if you want to live in this world.
Are we even close to a two-state solution?
There is one barrier. The US doesn't accept it. If the US were to join the rest of the world, Israel would be more or less compelled to go along; they are highly dependent on the US. It could happen. In my view, the crucial issue is whether or not the US is going to change its position.
What is your position on Hezbollah? Do you think there will be another war with Israel?
I am very critical of many of their positions but they have a perfectly legitimate right to resist aggression in their country.
They were right to resist the Israeli occupation. They were right to commemorate the success of driving the Israeli army out after 22 years. They were right to respond to the 2006 invasion. Every country has a right to resistance but the US doesn't accept that. I can't read the thinking of the Israeli military but my suspicion is very strong that it doesn't want to get involved in a ground war again.
So my guess is if there is a war, it will be an intense air war over most of Lebanon and it will be part of a general war against Iran. I can't imagine that Israel would just attack Lebanon. It would be too dangerous for them and there will be retaliations.
What do you think of the new alliance of Brazil, Turkey and Iran?
That is quite interesting. Brazil's the most important country in the South. Turkey is the most important regional country. It is hard to ignore. They made a deal with Iran. The US wants to keep control of the situation and responded instantly by ramming through a Security Council resolution to try to push aside the Brazilian-Turkish initiative. The sanctions are also meaningless. The sanctions permit Russia to send anti-aircraft missiles to Iran and they permit them to continue with their activities in Iran related to nuclear power. Same with China. It is a formal resolution designed to try to overcome the threat that somebody else may take control.
Any comments on your denial of entry to the West Bank? Why do you think Israel acted that way?
They [Israelis] didn't expect the negative publicity and ended up blaming the border official who has absolutely nothing to do with it.
He was just transmitting instructions from the ministry. He was in touch with the ministry all along and they know that. But the easiest way to get out of it was to blame some low-level official.
It is kind of hard to predict because the country has become pretty irrational. This is a very minor incident. But the way they treated the Turkish ambassador a few months ago — that was outlandish. No country behaves like that. It is not part of diplomacy to humiliate an ambassador and it is particularly stupid in this case because it is their ally. So to purposely humiliate your one ally is not smart.
For instance, in the case of the Goldstone Report, they have turned it into an international incident. If they had reacted sensibly to the Goldstone Report, they would have thanked Goldstone because he gave them a gift. His report is based on the assumption that the attack was legitimate.
Once you say the attack is legitimate, the discussion's over and the rest is footnotes. What they should have said is thank you for taking this favourable position. And then they would have published a 2,000-page document which no one would have looked at, going through every charge saying we didn't notice this or didn't notice that and it would have been over.
But what they did instead is turn it into an international incident that discredited them. They are very paranoid about it. It is amazing how powerful the US-Israeli propaganda is. All over the whole world it is assumed that the attack was legitimate. But that is not true. There was no justification at all for the attack.
How do you want to spend the rest of your time when you go back to the US?
I will keep doing what I have been doing for 60 years as long as I can. (laughs.)