Dear Prof. Chomsky 2

This is a blog about nothing. Not about politics or the Arab-Israeli conflict. But since I posted already two posts about my conversation with Prof. Noam Chomsky, let me update you on that. After Prof. Chomsky replied in the last post, I replied the following:

Thank you Prof. Chomsky for taking some time to reply.

I already saw Mark Regev and he indeed said that. But do you think we can conclude by that the fact that Hamas, even though is the ruling power in Gaza, doesn’t have enough political strength to make other smaller groups stop their attacks on Israel?

In addition, could you please refer me to the sources in which you based your arguments regarding Iran and Hamas’ Ismael Haniyeh accepting a two-states proposal?

Thanks,

DB

Prof. Chomsky replied almost immediately:

I believe it would have been appropriate, and I hope you agree, for you to open your letter by acknowledging that your criticism was incorrect and my words were precisely accurate, as you now say you already knew. But put that aside, though you might want to think about it.

You are now raising an entirely different question. And the answer, as Regev will surely tell you (and Israeli intelligence if you proceed further), is that Hamas does not fully control other groups, like Islamic Jihad and other splinters. Israel, with incomparably more force at its command, and full control over the occupied territories extending vastly beyond what Hamas can hope to attain, was not able to stop terrorist attacks.

Note that we're discussing a footnote, about which my comments were precisely accurate. The text, which you're ignoring, is that Hamas lived up to the cease-fire fully and that total rocketing sharply declined, while Israel never for a moment lived up to the cease-fire -- as noted in my letter -- and went beyond on Nov. 4, under the cover of the US election, with a direct military violation, offering a pretext too absurd even to bother ridiculing, as Israeli commentators correctly observed.

On Haniyeh, one well-known example of his advocacy of the international consensus is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/10/AR2006071001108.html, W Post July 12 2006. But if you just google you'll find others, including reports in the Israeli press. Of course, Israeli hasbara claims that Haniyeh didn't go far enough -- though we both know that that charge is pure cynicism, since he went far beyond what any Israeli leader has.

On Khamenei's endorsement of the Arab League position, see among others, http://www.khamenei.ir/EN/News/detail.jsp?id=20060604A. It's also well-known to Iran specialists, e.g., Ervand Abrahamian, in Barsamian ed., Targeting Iran. Again, Israeli hasbara will claim that he didn't go far enough -- just much farther than any Israeli leader.

All of this ignores the far more important facts that I reviewed briefly last night, and that I'm sure you already know. Immediately after the 67 war, Israel was informed by its highest legal advisers -- Meron and Shapira -- that any settlement in the occupied territories was a serious violation of the core of international humanitarian law, acknowledged by Moshe Dayan, who said it didn't matter. And you're I'm sure aware that for over 30 years, the US and Israel have virtually alone -- and by now completely alone -- barred the international consensus, while carrying very serious crimes in the occupied territories. If anything remotely similar were happening to Jews, I'm sure you would be the first to condone resistance, perhaps as violent as that of the Zionist resistance under the British. If so, and I presume it is so, you are hardly in a position to condemn the elected government of Palestine for not going far enough towards the international consensus (though of course much farther than Israel, the occupying power).

I think that should be clear.

Noam Chomsky

To which I replied:

Dear Prof. Chomsky,

Thank you again for taking the time to reply to me. When I said I saw Mark Regev I meant that I watched after reading your mail, so it is not the case that I was aware of that particular interview before that. I apologize if you perceived that I was being rude to you. I am thankful to have this discussion and I appreciate that you are answering me.

I just read Haniyah’s article, and I must tell you that as far as I understand, the international consensus does not include the right of return to Palestinian refugees from 1948, because that, as you may know, is an indirect denial of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish AND Democratic state, which is the Israel that the peace movements in both sides are aspiring. The right of return to Palestinian refugees into Israel is not consistent with a two state solution. That is a fact.

Unfortunately, the link to the Iranian source didn’t work. However, how would you reconcile Iran's 'support' for a two state solution with their call to wipe Israel off the map. I believe that, aside from the Iranian sources you are sending me, there is no official declaration of the Iranian government in any international well-known news station, agency or newspaper (such as BBC for example).

Let me just say something about your assumption about me condoning ‘Jewish resistance’. I am an Israeli, born in Venezuela to a second-generation Holocaust survivors and immigrated to Israel in 2004. I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair and Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) movement, and currently an elected member in the National Convention of the Meretz Party. I am currently doing Graduate school in Harvard University. To make it clear, I condemn any act of terrorism, either Muslim, Jewish or any other form of it. I condemn Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as well simply because I believe they are an obstacle to peace and are the core of the Israeli occupation. I do not praise Begin either for his terrorist acts in the pre-state era, but I do have some respect him for bravely putting together the Peace treaty with Egypt. Similarly I respect Fatah and the PLO for accepting a two state solution and renouncing to violence. But I also condemn Palestinian violent resistance from other groups. I think it is immoral to target civilians and the Palestinian resistance in my opinion is actually hurting the Palestinian cause more than helping.

We can go back in history and find thousands of quotes from Dayan, and even the more classic ‘socialist-zionists’ such as Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Rabin making statements against the Palestinians. I think those are unfortunate now, but I believe that they should be kept in that historic context and not use them to try to diminish all the efforts that the same and other Israeli leaders have done for Peace in the last decades. You know that anybody could come with thousand of quotes (and even actions beside words) of PLO and even AP members stating clearly anti-Israeli positions in violent languages before the Oslo Accords – and even after. However, I think that those kind of political attitudes do not contribute to constructive discussions. That is why Prof. Chomsky, I think that the event we shared – me as a humble viewer – and you as the main panelist, DID NOT contribute to find solutions for peace, but rather lacked of any academic spirit of discussion and learning and was purely propaganda (mainly when for every question the panel instead of answering they diminished publicly the student by calling them ‘illiterate’). The Israeli-Arab conflict is extremely complex. I wish it was as black and white as the panelist tried to present it. But if your narrative really wants to help bring peace, I would humbly suggest you to try engage also with mainstream Israelis, understand their fears and help them get past them. I felt that the talk did not help give Israelis, like me, the space to work for peace. Moreover, talks like this cause Israelis - even those on the left - to close ranks and retreat into a sort of intellectual ghetto.

Thank you again for reading my thoughts,

Respectfully,

DB

I'll keep you -- literally -- posted...