| Here are excerpts from Noam Chomsky's take on the Israel war with Palastine and Lebanon, and the solution to this conflict, which he says Israel and US governments have " unilaterally blocked for thirty years".
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Noam Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine
By Kaveh Afrasiabi of Global Interfaith Peace 08/07/06 "Information Clearing House"
- The "moral justification" is supposed to be that capturing soldiers in a cross-border raid, and killing others, is an outrageous crime... Yet the day before, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother, and sent them to the Israeli prison system where they can join innumerable other Palestinians, many held without charges -- hence kidnapped. That fact alone demonstrates, with brutal clarity, that there is no moral justification for the sharp escalation of attacks in Gaza or the destruction of Lebanon, and that the Western show of outrage about kidnapping is cynical fraud.
- US-backed Israeli crimes in Lebanon, four invasions before this one, occupation in violation of Security Council orders for 22 years, and regular killings and abductions.
- 70% of Lebanese called for the capture of Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchange.
- Israel certainly has a right to defend itself, but no state has the right to "defend" occupied territories.
- The withdrawal of a few thousand illegal settlers from Gaza was publicly announced as a West Bank expansion plan... a program of annexation of valuable occupied lands and major resources (particularly water) and cantonization of the remaining territories, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful piece of Jerusalem will be granted to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned, since Israel is to take over the Jordan valley. Gaza, too, remains imprisoned and Israel carries out attacks there at will.
- It is Israel and the United States that are radically violating international law. They are now seeking to consummate long-standing plans to eliminate Palestinian national rights for good.
- They may also hope to set up a client regime in Lebanon of the kind that Ariel Sharon sought to create when he invaded Lebanon in 1982, destroying much of the country and killing some 15-20,000 people.
- One very likely consequence, as the United States and Israel surely anticipated, is a significant increase in jihadi-style terrorism as anger and hatred directed against the United States, Israel, and Britain sweep the Arab and Muslim worlds.
What steps do you recommend for the current hostilities to be brought to an end and a lasting peace established?
- The basic steps are well understood: a cease-fire and exchange of prisoners; withdrawal of occupying forces; continuation of the "national dialogue" within Lebanon; and acceptance of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement for Israel-Palestine, which has been unilaterally blocked by the United States and Israel for thirty years. There is, as always, much more to say, but those are the essentials.
full interview: http://www.informationclearinghouse...rticle14404.htm |
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