TRANSCRIPT OF NOAM CHOMSKY'S LECTURE"THE CURRENT CRISES IN THE MIDDLE EAST:
WHAT CAN WE DO?"MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
December 14, 2000

Transcription by Angie D'Urso, Feb 2, 2001.
Audio/Video Webcast of Chomsky Lecture:
http://www.media.mit.edu/~nitin/mideast/chomsky.html

MIT must be relaxing its standards if this many people can show up right on the eveof finals.
Well, just how dangerous is the crisis in the Middle East? There is a UN Special
Envoy, a Norwegian, Roed-Larson. A couple of days ago, he warned that Israel’s
blockade of the Palestinian areas is leading to enormous suffering and could rapidly
detonate a regional war.
Notice that he referred to the blockade. He didn’t refer to the killings, and the otheratrocities. And he’s right about that. The blockade is the crucial tactic. There can bea blockade which is very effective because of the way the so-called ‘peace’ process
has evolved under U.S. direction, meaning hundreds of isolated Palestinian enclaves,some of them tiny, which can be blocked off and strangled by the Israeli occupying
forces. That’s the basic structure of what’s called here the peace process. So, there
can be an extremely effective blockade. And a blockade is a sensible tactic for theUnited States and Israel, and it’s always together. Remember that anything that
Israel does, it does by U.S. authorization, and usually subsidy and support.

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The blockade is a tactic to fine-tune the atrocities so that they don’t become too
visible, visible enough to force Washington or the West (which means Washington
essentially) to make some kind of response.
There have been mistakes in the past and the United States and Israel have certainly
learned from them. So in 1996 for example, when Shimon Peres launched yet
another attack on Lebanon, killing large numbers of people and driving
hundreds/thousands out of their home, it was fine and the U.S. was able to support it
and Clinton did support it, up until one mistake, when they bombed a UN Camp in
Qana, killing over a hundred people who were refugees in the camp. Clinton at firstjustified it, but as the international reaction came in, he had to back off, and Israel
was forced, under U.S. orders in effect, to call off the operation and withdraw. That’s
the kind of mistake you want to avoid. So, for those of you going into the diplomatic
service, you can’t allow that kind of mistake to happen. Yo u want low level atrocities,
fine-tuned, so that an international response is unnecessary. [Laughter]
The same thing happened more recently, just a year ago, last September, when the
U.S.-backed slaughter in East Timor, which had been going on nicely for about 25
years, finally got out of hand to such a degree that Clinton was compelled, after theCountry was virtually destroyed, to essentially tell the Indonesian generals that thegame is over, and they instantly withdrew. So that, you want to avoid.
In this particular case, there is a clear effort to keep killings, which is what hits thefront pages, at roughly the level of Kosovo before the NATO bombing. In fact, that’s
about the level of killings right now, so that the story will sort of fade into thebackground.
Now, of course, the Kosovo story was quite different. At that time, the propaganda
needs were the opposite. The killings were under fairly similar circumstances and thelevel of Serbian response was approximately like Israel’s response in the occupied
territories. (Then, in fact, there were attacks from right across the border, so it would
be as if Hizbollah was carrying out attacks in the Galili, or something like that). Thattime, the propaganda needs were different, so therefore, it was described2

passionately as genocide. A well designed propaganda system can make thosedistinctions. So in that case it was genocide, and in this case it’s unnoticeable andjustified reprisal.
The general idea, and I think you can expect this to continue for awhile, is for thetactics to be restricted to: assassination; lots and lots of people wounded (severely many of them will die later, but that doesn’t enter into consciousness); starvation(according to the UN, there are about 600,000 people facing starvation, but againthat is below the level); and curfews (24 hour curfews, like in Hebron, for weeks at atime, while a couple of hundred Israeli settlers strut around freely, but the rest of the
population, tens of thousands of people, are locked in their homes, allowed out acouple of hours a week).
The isolation in the hundreds of enclaves, and so on, is so that suffering can be kept
below the level that might elicit a Western response. And the assumption, which ispretty plausible, is that there is a limit to what people can endure, and ultimately they
will give up.
Well, there is, however, a problem in the Arab world, which is more sensitive to these
massive atrocities, and it could explode, and that’s what Roed-Larson is warning
about. The governance in the Arab world is extremely fragile, especially in the crucial
oil producing region. Any popular unrest might threaten the very fragile rule of the
U.S. clients, which the U.S. would be unwilling to accept. And it might, equallyunacceptably, induce the rulers of the oil monarchies to move to improve relations(particularly with Iran, which, in fact, they’ve already been doing), which would
undermine the whole framework for U.S. domination of the world’s major energy
reserves.
Back in 1994, Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake, described what hecalled a paradigm for the post cold war era, and for the Middle East. The paradigm
was what’s called “dual containment”, so it contains Iraq and Iran, but as he pointed
out, dual containment relies crucially on the Oslo process, the process that brings
about relative peace between Israel and the Arabs. Unless that can be sustained,3the dual containment can’t be sustained, and the whole U.S. current policy forcontrolling the region will be in serious danger. That’s happened already.
Just two years ago in December 1998, the U.S. and Britain bombed Iraq with outrightand very explicit contempt for world opinion, including the UN Security Council.
Remember that the bombing was timed just at the moment when the Security Council
was having an emergency session to consider the problems of inspection in Iraq, andas they began, they got the announcement that the U.S. and Britain had pre-empted
it by bombing. That, and the events before it, lead to a very negative reaction in the
Arab World, and elsewhere for that matter, and did lead to very visible steps,
particularly by the Saudi ruling monarchy, but also others, towards accommodation toIran, and indication of some degree of acceptance of an Iranian position that has
been around for awhile, that there should be a strategic alliance in the region that’s
independent of Western (meaning primarily U.S.) power. That is something that the
U.S. is highly unlikely to accept and could lead to very dangerous consequences.
Furthermore, on top of this, the countries in the region, Iran and Syria in particular,
are testing missiles, which might be able to reach Israel. The United States andIsrael are working not only on missiles, but also on an anti-missile system, the Arrowanti-missile system. When armaments are at that level, tensions can easily break out
suddenly and unpredictably and lead to a war with advanced weapons, which can
get out of hand pretty quickly.
Well, how dangerous is that? Turn to another expert, General Lee Butler, recently
retired. He was head of the Strategic Command at the highest nuclear agency under
Clinton, STRATCOM. He wrote a couple of years ago that it’s dangerous in theextreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East, one nation
has armed itself, ostensibly with stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the hundreds, andthat inspires other nations to do so as well, and also to develop other weapons ofmass destruction as a deterrent, which is highly combustible and can lead to very
dangerous outcomes. All of this is still more dangerous when the sponsor of that one
nation is regarded generally in the world as a rogue state, which is unpredictable and4out of control, irrational and vindictive, and insists on portraying itself in that fashion.
In fact, the Strategic Command under Clinton has, in its highest level pronouncement,
advised that the United States should maintain a national persona, as they call it, of
being irrational and vindictive and out of control so that the rest of the world will befrightened. And they are. And the U.S. should also rely on nuclear weapons as thecore of its strategy, including the right of first use against non-nuclear states,
including those that have signed the Non-Proliferation treaty. Those proposals havebeen built into presidential directives, Clinton-era presidential directives, that don’t
make much noise around here, but it is understood in the world, which is naturally
impelled to respond by developing weapons of mass destruction of its own in self
defense.

But these are prospects that are indeed recognized by U.S. intelligenceand high level U.S. analysts. About two years ago, Harvard professor SamuelHuntington wrote an article in a very prestigious journal, Foreign Affairs, in which hepointed out that for much of the world, he indicated most of the world, the UnitedStates is considered a dangerous rogue state, and the main threat to their national
existence. And it’s not surprising, if you look at what happens in the world fromoutside the framework of the U.S. indoctrination system. That’s very plausible evenfrom documents, and certainly from actions, and much of the world does see it thatway, and that adds to the severe dangers of the situation.
Well, the recent history of the Middle East provides quite a few further warnings. I’ll
just mention one example, which is very crucial in the present context right now that’s 1967, in the June 1967 war when Israel destroyed the Arab armies, the armiesof the Arab states, Egypt most importantly, and it conquered the currently occupied
territories. That set the stage for what’s still going on right now. At that time, theSoviet Union was still around, and the conflict there became serious enough so that it
almost led to a war – a nuclear war, which would have been the end of the story.
Then Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later observed, in his words, “we damned
near had war”. At the end of the June war there were hot line communications,apparently President Kosygin warned that if you want to have war, you can have it.
There were naval confrontations between the Russian and the U.S. fleets in the
Eastern Mediterranean.
5There was also another case. There was an Israeli attack on a U.S. spy ship, USS
Liberty, which killed about 35 sailors and crewman and practically sank the ship. The
Liberty didn’t know who was attacking it. The attackers were disguised. Before they
were disabled, they got messages back to the 6th Fleet Headquarters in Naples, who
also didn’t know who was attacking it. They sent out Phantoms, which were nucleararmed, because they didn’t have any that weren’t nuclear-armed, to respond towhoever was attacking it, and they didn’t know who they were supposed to bomb –Russia, Egypt, you know, anybody. Apparently the planes were called back directlyfrom the Pentagon sort of at the last moment. But that event alone could have leadto a nuclear war.
All of this was understood to be extremely hazardous. Most of this probably had to
do with Israel’s plans to conquer the Golan Heights, which they did after theceasefire. And they didn’t want the United States to know about it in advancebecause the U.S. would have stopped them, and probably that’s what lies behindmost of this. Documents aren’t out, so we can only speculate, and they will probably
never come out. Anyhow, the situation was ominous enough so that the great
powers on all sides figured that they better put a stop to it, and they very quickly met
at the Security Council and accepted a resolution, UN 242, the famous UN 242 from
November 1967, which laid out a framework for a diplomatic settlement.
And it’s worth paying close attention to what UN 242 was and is. It’s different now
from what it was then. The information about this is public technically, but barely
known and often distorted, so just pay attention to what it is. You can easily check it
if you like.
UN 242 called for - the basic idea was full peace in return for a full withdrawal. So,
Israel would withdraw from the territories that it just conquered, and in return, theArab states would agree to a full peace with it. There was kind of a minor footnote,that the withdrawal could involve minor and mutual adjustments. So, for example,
regarding some line or curve, they could straighten it out, that sort of thing. But thatwas the policy, and that was U.S. policy - it was under U.S. initiative. So, full peace6

in return for full withdrawal. Notice that this very crucially, and it’s very crucial now,that UN 242 was completely “rejectionist”.
I use the term “rejectionist” now in a slightly non-standard sense, in a non-racist
sense. It is usually used in a completely racist sense. So the rejectionists are those
who deny Israel’s right to national self-determination. But, of course, there are twonational groups contesting, and I am using the term rejectionist in a neutral sense,
hence non-standard, to refer to a denial of the rights of either of the two contestants,
including denials of Palestinian rights. That terminology is never used in the UnitedStates, and can’t be used, because if it is used, it will turn out that the United Statesis the leader of the rejectionist camp, and we can’t have that. So therefore the term isalways used in a racist sense. So, you will understand that I’m switching from normal
usage now.
UN 242 was completely rejectionist. It offered nothing to the Palestinians. There wasno reference to them, except the phrase that there was a refugee problem thatsomehow had to be dealt with. That’s it. Apart from that, it was to be an agreement
among the states. The states were to reach full peace treaties in the context ofcomplete Israeli withdrawal from the territories. That’s UN 242.
Well, without proceeding, for the local people in the region, the Israelis and thePalestinians, the crisis is obviously extremely grave. It could lead to a regional warthat could easily escalate to a global war with weapons of mass destruction withconsequences that are unimaginable, and that could happen at almost any time.
Secondly, the U.S. role is highly significant. That’s always true throughout the world
just because of U.S. power, but it’s particularly true in the Middle East, which has
been recognized in high level planning for 50 years (and goes back beyond that, but
explicitly for 50 years) as a core element in U.S. global planning. Just to quote
documents from 50 years ago, declassified documents, the Middle East was
described as the “strategically most important region of the world”, “a stupendous
source of strategic power”, “the richest economic prize in the world”, and, you know,
on and on in the same vein. The U.S. is not going to give that up. And the reason is7

very simple. That’s the world’s major energy reserves, and not only are they valuable
to have because of the enormous profit that comes from them, but control over themgives a kind of veto power over the actions of others for obvious reasons, which wererecognized right away at the time. So, that’s a core issue. It’s been the prime
concern of U.S. military and strategic planning for half a century. The gulf region, theregion of major energy reserves, has always been the target of the major U.S.
intervention forces, with a base system that extends over a good part of the world,from the Pacific to the Azores, with consequences for all of those regions because
they are backup bases for the intervention forces targeting the gulf region, also
including the Indian Ocean.
And this is a big issue right now, in England at least, and much of the world, but not in
the United States. The inhabitants of an Indian Ocean island, the Diego Garcia, thatwere kicked out and unceremoniously dumped on another island, Mauritius, someyears ago, and those who managed to survive it, have been fighting through the
British Courts (this was a British dependency) to try to gain the right to return to theirhomes. They finally won a couple of months ago in the High Court in England andwere granted the right to return, except that the U.S. won’t relinquish the Island,
where it has a major military base that’s used for the Middle East targeted forces.
Just a couple of days ago, they asked for indemnity of about 6 billion dollars, and the
U.S. is refusing, of course. Madeline Albright commented on it. She said it’s just an
issue between Britain and Mauritius. We don’t have anything to do with it, eventhough we hold the Island and refuse to allow them to return, and refuse to pay
indemnities. I think you’ll search pretty far to find some discussion of this in the U.S.
press, but that’s part of the base system for targeting the Middle East.
Well, for years, there was a kind of a public pretext for all of this. The public pretext
was that we had to defend ourselves against the Russians. That was the pretext foreverything, and the pretext for this in particular. There is a pretty rich internal record,bequest by documents, which tells quite a different story, however. The story it tells
is that the Russians were, at most, a marginal factor, often no factor. But, fortunately
there is no need to debate the matter anymore because it has been conceded8

publicly. It was conceded, in fact, immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, whichsort of got rid of the pretext. You can’t appeal to the Russian threat anymore.
A couple of weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bush Administration submitted
its annual message to Congress, calling for a huge military budget, and it was a very
interesting document. Unfortunately it wasn’t reported, but it was very important
obviously - the first call for a huge military budget after the fall of the Berlin Wall,when you can’t appeal to the Russians anymore. So, therefore, it’s revealing andtells you what’s really going on. As expected, the Russian threat was gone. We
don’t need a huge Pentagon budget because of the Russians who aren’t aroundanymore, but we still need it. In fact, it turned out to be exactly as it was in the past,
and we needed it for reasons which are now frankly expressed. We needed it
because of what they called the technological sophistication of Third World countries,
which is a way of saying they pose a danger of becoming independent. And, weneed it because we have to maintain what’s called the defense industrial base, which
is what pays our salaries among other things. The defense industrial base is just aterm for hi-tech industry, which has to be funded by the public, which has to bear thecosts and risks of development. MIT is one of the funnels for that. That has to be
maintained. We have to keep the source of the dynamic sectors of the economy,
which are substantially in the public sectors, so we have to maintain the defense
industrial base. And we also have to keep the intervention forces that we’ve always
had still targeting the Middle East, the gulf region. Then it adds (where the threat toour interests that involve possible military action could not be laid at the Kremlin’s
door – contrary to half a century, forty years, of lies), sorry, folks, we’ve been lying toyou, but we still need them there because of the technological sophistication of Third
World powers, that is, the threat that they may become independent.
Notice that the threat to our interests could also not be laid at Iraq’s door at that time
because Saddam Hussein was still a nice guy. He had only been gassing Kurds, andtorturing dissidents, and that sort of thing. But he was considered obedient, so he
was a friend and ally. This is early 1990. It changed a few months later.

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So, we don’t have to debate the question of the war with the Russians. It’s now
conceded that that was not a significant threat, could not be laid at the Kremlin’sdoor, and the threat, in fact, is what it is all over the world, and has been right throughthe cold war, the threat of what’s called “radical nationalism” or “independent
nationalism”. It doesn’t make much of a difference where it is in the political
spectrum. But, if it’s independent, it’s a danger and you have to undermine it as away of threatening what’s called stability, that is, the subordination of the world to thedominant interests that the U.S. represents.
Actually U.S. relations with Israel developed in that context. The 1967 war was amajor step forward, when Israel showed its power and ability to deal with Third World
radical nationalists, who were, at that time, threatening, particularly Nasser. Nasser
was engaged in a kind of proxy war with Saudi Arabia, which is the most important
country, that’s where all the oil is, and the Yemen. And Israel put an end to that bysmashing Nasser’s armies and won a lot of points for that, and U.S. relations with
Israel really became solidified at that point. But it had been recognized 10 years
earlier and the U.S. intelligence had noted that what they called the logical corollary
to opposition to radical Arab nationalism is support for Israel as a reliable base for
U.S. power in the region. And Israel is reliable because it’s under threat, andtherefore it needs U.S. support, which has another logical corollary, that for the U.S.
interests’, it’s a good idea for Israel to be under threat. That essentially continues,
and a good deal of the relationship is based on the way that context developed. If
there was time, I could talk about it, but I’ll skip it.
Anyhow, we can thankfully put the pretext aside at this point, and just look at thereasons which are now on the table - it’s the threat of independent nationalism, and in
the case of the Gulf region, that’s particularly important because that’s the world’s
major energy reserves.
Well, the final consideration, on to the topic, is that the U.S. role is not the only one,of course. It’s one factor in a complicated mixture, but it is a decisive factor, andcrucially, it’s the one factor that’s under our control. We can directly influence it. So,10we can bewail the terrible actions of other people, but we can do something about ourown actions. That’s a rather critical difference, in personal life and in international
affairs. And it’s illuminating to observe how much attention is given to the crimes ofothers, which most of the time we can’t do anything about, and compare it with theamount of attention that is given to our own crimes, which we can do a great deal
about. That’s an instructive comparison, and if you take the trouble to work it out, youlearn a lot about the intellectual culture in which we live and to which we’re expected
to contribute. For that reason alone, and it’s far from the only one, we ought to be
discussing primarily the U.S. role. And furthermore, that role is little understood. It’s
often just suppressed, which is another reason to focus on it.
Well, let me illustrate the things that are happening right at this moment. The
Intifada, the current uprising, began on September 29th, that was the day after
General Ariel Sharon appeared at the Haram al Sharif with a lot of troops. That event
alone was provocative, but it probably would have gone by without any reaction.
What happened the next day, however, was different. The next day is the Friday, theday of prayers, and there was a huge military presence, mostly border guards who
were kind of like the paramilitaries, the ones you farm out atrocities to, and they were
there in force, and as people came out of the Mosques, it was obviously extremely
provocative. Some rock throwing took place. They shot into the crowds, killed four ormore people, wounded over a hundred. And after that, it just took off. This isincidentally Barak, not Sharon. It’s easy to blame Sharon, and there’s plenty toblame on him for fifty years of atrocities but this happened to be Barak’s planning.
Let me just consider one aspect of what has gone on since, mainly the use ofhelicopter gunships. On October 1 st, right after this, Israel military helicopters,
meaning U.S. helicopters with Israeli pilots, killed two Palestinians in Gaza. On
October 2 nd, the next day, they killed 10 Palestinians, wounded 35 others in Gaza at
Netzarim, which if you follow this closely, you’ll notice is the scene of many of the
major atrocities, including the famous photo of the 12 year old boy who was killed.
What’s Netzarim? Well, the fact is, Netzarim is just an excuse to split the Gaza Strip
in two. There’s a small settlement south of Gaza, the only purpose of which is to11require a big military outpost to protect it, and the military outpost then requires aroad, a huge road, which cuts the Gaza Strip in two, so that separates Gaza City, themain population concentration, from the Southern part of the strip, and Egypt, andinsures that in any outcome, Gaza will be imprisoned inside Israel in effect. There
are other breaks down farther South, but Netzarim is the main one, and that is wherea lot of the atrocities have been. So this October 2 nd killing of 10 and wounding of 35
at Netzarim by helicopters is just one of these many incidents.
On October 3 rd, the next day, the Defense Correspondent of Ha'aretz, which is the
major serious Hebrew newspaper, reported the largest purchase of militaryhelicopters in a decade – that means U.S. military helicopters. These wereBlackhawks, and spare parts for Apaches. Apaches are the main attack helicopters.
These had been delivered a few weeks earlier. They were getting spare parts, also
jet fuel.
The next day, October 4 th, Jane’s Defence Weekly, which is the major military journalin the world, the British military journal, reported that the Clinton administration had
further approved a new sale of attack helicopters, Apache attack helicopters,
because they had decided that upgrading the ones that they had just sent would not
be sufficient, so they really had to send new, more advanced ones. The same day
the Boston Globe reported that Apache attack helicopters were attacking apartmentcomplexes with rockets, again in Netzarim. The international press agencies at thattime quoted Pentagon officials, as saying, and I’m quoting a Pentagon official, “U.S.
weapon sales do not carry a stipulation that the weapons cannot be used against
civilians. We cannot second guess an Israeli commander who calls in helicopter
gunships.” Okay, so, the story so far - U.S. helicopter gunships are being used toattack civilians, but they aren’t advanced enough, and Israel doesn’t have enough ofthem, so therefore, the Clinton administration had to move in with the biggest
purchase in a decade. Purchase means American taxpayers pay for it in someindirect fashion. And then it had the next day to extend it further, sending them moreadvanced Apache helicopters, and there’s no stipulation going along with them that12

they can’t be used against civilians. Well, that carries us up to October 4 th.Then
come more and more attacks on civilians, and I’ll skip them.
The first reference in the U.S. press to any of this is on October 12th. There was an
opinion piece in the Raleigh North Carolina newspaper, which said they thought thiswas kind of a bad idea. That’s also the last reference to it in the U.S. press, meaning
the only reference. It’s not that editors don’t know about this. Of course they know
about it. In fact, it has been explicitly brought to the attention of editors of leading
newspapers, as if they didn’t know already. And it’s not that it’s unimportant,because it is obviously very important. It’s just the kind of news that’s not fit to print.
And that’s very typical, not only in this part of the world, but everywhere. It’s
extremely important that the public be kept in the dark about what’s being done,
because if they know about it, they’re not going to like it. And if they don’t like it, theymight do something about it. So, there’s a grave responsibility on the media, and on
intellectuals generally, the educational system and so on, to ensure that people are
kept in the dark about things that it’s better for them not to know, like this for example.
And the task is carried out with very impressive dedication. This is not an untypicalexample.
On October 19th, Amnesty International published a report condemning the UnitedStates for providing new military helicopters to Israel. They were also reporting theatrocities. That was not reported in the United States. It was elsewhere.
On November 10th, Amnesty International published a much broader condemnationof the excessive use of force and terror, and so on, that was barely mentioned. So it
continues.
Well, let’s turn to the question what can we do? The answer is we have choices. We
can do a lot. So, for example, we can continue to provide helicopter gunships andother military support to ensure that Israel is able to attack civilians, maintain ablockade, starve them to death, and so on. And we can provide the funding thatallows Israel to continue to integrate the occupied territories within Israel proper as it
has been doing, settlements, infrastructure, etc. It doesn’t matter which government13

is in office. It goes on under Barak about the same way it did under Netanyahu. And
it’s anticipated to go on next year. The budget provisions have already been madefor next year. So we can continue with that if we’d like. Or, we can act to stop their
participation in these activities, which is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t requirebombing or sanctions. It just means stop participating in atrocities, the easiest thing
to do. That’s a choice. And, in fact, we may even go further and call them off, as ispretty easily done when a country has the power that the United States has. I gave acouple of examples.
Well, if we decide on the latter choice, which is always open here and elsewhere,
there’s a prerequisite. The prerequisite is that we know what’s going on. So you
can’t make that choice, say to stop providing military helicopters (and you know thehelicopters are just an illustration of a much bigger picture) unless you know about it.
Again, the grave responsibility of the intellectual world, the media, journals,
universities, and others, is to prevent people from knowing. That takes effort. It’s noteasy. As in this case, it takes some dedication to suppress the facts and make surethat the population doesn’t know what’s being done in their name, because if they do,they aren’t going to like it, and they’ll respond. Then you get into trouble.
Well, the very same applies to the diplomatic record. Let me turn to that. Let’s begin
with the current phase of diplomacy, what started in September 1993, that’s thefamous Oslo process. In September 1993, there was a meeting on the White House
lawn, very august, with the Boston Globe having a headline describing it as “a day ofawe”. The Israelis and the Palestinians agreed, under Clinton’s supervision, towhat’s called a Declaration of Principles. There were at that time a number of issues,and it’s crucial to understand how the Declaration of Principles dealt with them.
Okay, so one issue, was territory - what’s going to happen with the occupied
territories, how they are going to be assigned – that’s issue number one.
Number two, is the issue of national rights. Now that issue only arises forPalestinians. There is no question in the case of Israel, that’s just not in question and14

hasn’t been in question at all. The only question is what about the rights of thePalestinians?
The third question is what about the right to resist? And do the Palestinians, or the
Lebanese for that matter, have the right to resist military occupation. That’s the third
question.
The fourth question, which is kind of a counterpart to that, is whether the occupying
power (does Israel, which means the U.S. here) have the right to attack in theoccupied territories and in Lebanon? Those are the four main questions.
There were answers in the Declaration of Principles. With regard to territory, theDeclaration of Principles stated that the permanent settlement would be on the basisof UN 242, but that raises a question. What does UN 242 mean? Here, we have to
go to the earlier diplomatic record. I’ll return to it in a moment.
The second, with regard to national rights, again, is settled in terms of UN 242. And
anyone who is paying attention in September 1993 could see exactly where this wasgoing. The Declaration of Principles states that the permanent settlement, long term
outcome, you know, the end of the road, will be based upon UN 242 alone. Now for
20 years, the issue in international diplomacy had been the rejectionism of UN 242.
Remember, UN 242 says nothing about the Palestinians. For 20 years there havebeen a series of efforts by the whole world to supplement UN 242 to include
Palestinian rights alongside the rights of Israel, which were never in question. That
was the issue from the mid-70’s right up until Oslo, and the U.S. won flat out on that
one. Palestinian rights are not to be considered. It’s just UN 242, no Palestinian
rights. They are not mentioned and that’s the permanent settlement. So, territories,
it’s UN 242, which means what the U.S. decides (I’ll come back to that), nationalrights – U.S. wins flat out, the rest of the world capitulates. What about the right toresist?
Well, Arafat agreed at the signing of the Declaration of Principles to abandon any
right to resist, and it’s taken for granted that in Lebanon the population also has no15

right to resist. It’s called terrorism if they resist. Why did Arafat have to state this?
He actually said it over and over again. You know, he made solemn pronouncements
to that effect over and over, but the purpose here was just pure humiliation. You
have to make sure you humiliate the lower breeds to make sure that they don’t get
too big for their britches. George Schultz, Secretary of State, who is consideredsomething of a dove, put it pretty plainly. He said it’s true that Arafat has said unc,
unc, unc, and he said oh, oh, oh, but he hasn’t said uncle, uncle, uncle in a
sufficiently submissive tone, and we ought to make sure that he does, over and overagain. That’s the way you treat the lower breeds. So, once again, Arafat had to say
uncle, loudly and submissively, and thank you Massa, and sign a statement saying,
you know, once again, we reject the right to resist. Same in Lebanon, it isn’t even aquestion.
What about the fourth question, the right to attack? A counterpart is Israel’s right toattack. Well, they’ve retained that right, and Israel continues to use it repeatedly with
U.S. support before and after. Notice that over this period there is virtually no
defensive pretext, contrary to what you read in U.S. commentary. That goes way
back. But, contrary to propaganda, almost the entire series of U.S./Israeli attacks,
certainly in the occupied territories, but in Lebanon as well, were not for any
defensive purpose. They were initiated. That includes the 1982 invasion, and that’s
no small matter. I mean, it’s not considered a big deal here, but during the 22 years
that Israel illegally occupied Southern Lebanon in violation of Security Council orders(but with U.S. authorization), they killed about maybe 45,000 or 50,000 Lebanese andPalestinians, not a trivial number. This included many very brutal attacks going on
after the Oslo accords as well, in 1983, 1986, and so on.
Incidentally, you might again want to compare this with Serbia and Kosovo. The
comparison in this case has to be kind of like a thought experiment, because it never
happened. But, imagine if Serbia had been bombing Albania to the extent that Israel
was bombing Lebanon, that would be an analogy. It didn’t happen, but you can justimagine what the reaction would have been. It tells you again something about our

16values and of the need to maintain discipline on these issues, so that people don’t
think it through.
Well, the PLO accepted all this, just abjectly. Israel in return and the Declaration of
Principles committed itself to absolutely nothing. You should take a look back at what
happened on the White House lawn, on “the day of awe”. Prime Minister Rabin madea very terse comment, a couple of lines, in which, after Arafat agreed to all of thisstuff, he said that Israel would now recognize the PLO as the representative of thePalestinians – period. Nothing about national rights. Nothing. We just recognize you
as the representative of the Palestinians, and his Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres,considered a dove, explained why right away in Israel, in Hebrew. He said, well,yeah, we can recognize them now because they’ve capitulated, so there is no
problem in recognizing them. They can now become a kind of junior partner incontrolling the Palestinian population, which follows a traditional colonial pattern.
Israel and the United States had made a rather serious error in the occupied
territories. It’s not a good idea to try to control a subject population with your own
troops. The way it is usually done is, you farm it out to the natives. That’s the way
the British ran India for a couple of hundred years. India was mostly controlled byIndian troops, often taken from other regions, you know like the Gurkhas and so on.
That’s the way the United States runs Central America, with mercenary forces, which
are called armies, if you can keep them under control. That’s the way South Africa
ran the Black areas. Most of the atrocities are carried out by Black mercenaries, andin the Bantustans, it was entirely Blacks. That’s the standard colonial pattern and it
makes a lot of sense. If you have your own troops out there, it causes all kinds ofproblems. You know, first of all they suffer injuries, and these are people who don’t
like to feel good about killing people, and their parents get upset and so on and soforth, but if you have mercenaries or paramilitaries, you don’t have those problems.
So, Israel and the United States were going to turn to the standard colonial patternand have the Palestinian forces, who in fact mostly came from Tunis, control the local
population – control them economically and politically, as well as militarily. That was
the idea, a sensible reversion to standard colonial practice.
17

Well, let’s move a little back to the earlier diplomatic record, which helps put all of thisin context. So, what about the right to resist? The right to resist military occupationin the territories, and in Lebanon? That actually has been discussed in theinternational community, though you wouldn’t know it here. In December 1987, which
was right at the peak of all of the furor about international terrorism, you know, theplague of the modern world, and so on and so forth, the UN General Assembly
considered and passed a resolution condemning terrorism very strongly, you know,international terrorism is the worst crime there is, and had all of the right wording in it
and so on and so forth. The resolution was passed 153 to 2, which is actually pretty
normal. The two were the usual ones, the United States and Israel. One country
only abstained, Honduras, for unknown reasons, so it was essentially unanimous
except for the United States and Israel. Now, why would the United States and Israel
reject, and that means veto since it’s a U.S. vote against, a resolution denouncing
terrorism? Well, the reason is because it contained one paragraph which said that
nothing in this resolution prejudices the right of people to struggle against racist andcolonialist regimes and foreign military occupation and to gain the support of others
for their struggle for freedom under these conditions. Well that, the U.S. won’t accept
of course. For example, that would have given the A.N.C. in South Africa the right toresist the South African regime, which is unacceptable. It would have given the
Lebanese the right to resist Israeli military occupation and attacks which can’t be
accepted, and it would have extended to the occupied territories as well. So,
therefore, the U.S. and Israel rejected it, and in fact, as usual, it is vetoed from
history. It was never reported here, it was never mentioned, it might as well not exist
unless you read this in the literature. It’s there, I mean if you go to the UN’s dusty
records you can find it. But that’s the right to resist, which was blocked by the UnitedStates in 1987 and is out of history.
What about the right to attack? Well, that exists by U.S. fiat, as I mentioned during
the 22 years of Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. With U.S. authorization, they
killed tens of thousands of people, probably 40,000 to 50,000, and there are plenty of
atrocities, terrorist iron fist operations in 1985 for example. But, it’s not only there.
The right extends much further. So 1985 and 1986 are interesting years. That was18the peak of the hysteria about international terrorism, you know, the top story and soon and so forth. And, in fact, there was plenty of international terrorism in those
years. For example, in 1985 Israel bombed Tunis, killing 75 people, Tunisians andPalestinians, no pretext. The United States publicly backed it, although Schultz, then
Secretary of State, backed off when the Security Council condemned it unanimously
as an act of armed aggression, namely a war crime, with the U.S. abstaining. The
U.S. was directly involved. The 6 th Fleet in the Mediterranean sort of pulled back sothat the Israeli planes would be able to refuel with the 6 th Fleet pretending not to
notice them, and the United States did not warn Tunisia, an ally, that this bombing
attack was coming. So that’s a major act of terrorism outside the local area of the
Middle East, and there are many others. In fact, the main act of terrorism in thatyear, sort of garden variety terrorism, was a car bombing in Beirut which killed 80
people and wounded about 200, set off by the C.I.A., British Intelligence, and Saudi
Intelligence, in an effort to kill a Muslim cleric who they missed, but they got a lot of
their people. It was a car bombing right outside a mosque, timed to go off right when
everybody would be coming out, so you get maximum killing of civilians. That’s
there, but also not in the annals of terrorism, anymore than the bombing of Tunis, orfor example, the U.S. bombing of Libya the next year, which is another act of armed
aggression, but considered okay.
I should say that Arab opinion in the Middle East, and here too, is very misled about
all this in my opinion, pretty clearly in fact. It very consistently, if you read it now or in
the past, claims that the United States overlooks Israeli terrorism because of theJewish influence or Jewish lobby, or something like that. And this is simply untrue.
It’s missing the fact that a much more general principle applies to this case and to
many others. The principle is that the United States has the right of terrorism andthat right is inherited by its clients, and it doesn’t matter who they are. So, Israel
happens to be a U.S. client, so it inherits the right of terror.
And you can see this very easily in other parts of the world. Just to give one
illustration from a different part of the world at the same time, 1987, the State
Department conceded what anyone paying attention knew, that the U.S. terrorist
19

forces attacking Nicaragua were being directed, commanded, and trained to attack
what were called “soft” targets, meaning defenseless civilian targets, like agricultural
cooperatives and health centers and so on. And they were able to do this because
the U.S. had total control of the air, and surveillance, and was able to communicate
the position of the Nicaraguan army forces to the local terrorist forces attacking from
Honduras, that they could go somewhere else, and so on. That was all conceded
publicly, but nobody paid much attention except those who are interested in thesethings. But the human rights groups did protest. Americas Watch protested against
this, and said this was really awful.
And there was a response, an interesting response that you should read, by Michael
Kinsley, who was a kind of representative of the dovish left in mainstream
commentary, and still is. He had an article in which he pointed out, speaking from thedovish left, that it’s perfectly true that these terrorist attacks against undefended
targets, in his words, “caused vast civilian suffering but they may nevertheless be
sensible and legitimate”, and the way we decide this is by carrying out “cost benefit
analysis”, namely, and I’m quoting all through this, we have to measure “the amountof blood and misery that we will be pouring in” and compare it with the outcome, youknow, democracy in our sense, meaning ruled by the business world with the
population crushed. And if the cost benefit analysis comes out okay, then it’s right topour in blood and misery and cause vast suffering. In short, aggression and terror
have to meet a pragmatic criterion, and we are the ones who decide whether it’s met,
not anybody else, and U.S. clients inherit that right – and it doesn’t have to be Israel.
It can be anybody else. So, it can be Arabs for example. Saddam Hussein is a
striking case. In 1988 remember, Saddam Hussein was still a loyal friend and ally,
and that’s when he committed his worst crimes, that’s the gassing of the Kurds, andso on. The U.S. thought that was okay and they continued to support him. They
downplayed it, and provided him with military equipment, sent agricultural assistancewhich he badly needed. The Kurds were in an agricultural region, so Iraq was shortof food, so the Bush Administration moved in and that continued. In fact, Iraq, an
Arab state, was allowed to do something that up until then only Israel had been
allowed to do, mainly attack a U.S. ship and kill sailors. Iraq was permitted to attack
20

the USS Stark, the destroyer, and kill 37 crewmen with missiles, and didn’t even get atap on the wrist. That means you’re really privileged if you are allowed to do that. Up
until then, the only country that had been allowed to do that was Israel in 1967 in thecase of the USS Liberty. And remember, this is an Arab state. That was important.
Again, nobody pays much attention here, but in the region people paid attention. In
particular, Iran paid attention. This was part of what convinced Iran to capitulate to
Iraq as the U.S. wanted. The other major event that convinced Iran that the U.S. wasreally serious was the shooting down of an Iranian airliner. Killing 290 people by an
American warship in Iranian airspace, it wasn’t even a problem. Again it’s kind of
fluffed off here, not very important, but for the Iranians, that was important, and they
understood from these acts that the U.S. was going to go to any lengths to ensurethat Saddam Hussein won, so they capitulated, not a small point in the politics of theregion. Here, people don’t want to think about it, but elsewhere in the world they do.
So, I think the thing to be recognized is, contrary to a lot of the Arab commentaryabroad and here, Washington really is an equal opportunity employer. That is, it
adheres pretty well to a policy of non-discrimination in advocacy of terror and war
crimes, and so on. Other issues are involved, not, you know, who you are.
Well, let’s go a couple of steps back further, to 242. Remember that UN 242, thebasic document and the permanent settlement according to the current process, wasstrictly rejectionist, nothing for the Palestinians. It was taken really seriously. There
was a threat of war at the time, nuclear war. It called for full peace in return for fullwithdrawal. There was a deadlock. Israel refused full withdrawal, the Arab states
refused full peace. That deadlock was broken in 1971, when President Sadat of
Egypt, who had just come into office, offered to accept the official U.S. position. So,
he said, yeah, he’ll accept full peace with Israel in return for partial withdrawal, didn’t
even go as far as 242, namely withdrawal from Egyptian territory. So, if Israel would
withdraw from the Sinai, Sadat would agree to full peace. Didn’t say anything about
the Palestinians, nothing about the West Bank. Israel recognized that officially inresponse as a genuine peace offer. Rabin in his memoirs later called it a “famous
milestone on the path to peace”.
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Internally in Israel it was understood that they could have peace at this point, generalpeace. One of the leading Labor Party officials, a retired general, Haim Bar-Lev,
wrote in a Labor Party journal at the time, that’s okay, with this offer we can have fullpeace. The conflict’s over, if we decide it’s over, but I think we should refuse,because if we hold out, we can get more. This would require us to withdraw from the
Sinai, and I don’t think we have to. So therefore, we should hold out and abandon
peace, and that’s what Israel did. Its response was that it would not withdraw to the
pre-June borders.
Well, the U.S. was then in a dilemma. Should it continue with its official policy, thepolicy which in fact it had initiated, UN 242, or should it abandon it, and that means
siding with Sadat-Egypt against Israel, or should it abandon its policy and side with
Israel against Egypt, but that means rescinding UN 242 in effect? And there was aninternal conflict. The State Department was in favor of keeping to this policy.
Kissinger, National Security Advisor, wanted what he called stalemate, meaning no
diplomacy, no negotiations, just force. And in the internal conflict, Kissinger won out.
The U.S. effectively rescinded UN 242, which no longer exists and people should
understand that.
UN 242 now means what the United States says it means, as do other things, that’s
the meaning of power. It means withdrawal, insofar as the U.S. and Israel determine,and that’s what it’s meant ever since. So when Palestinians or Arab states now
complain that Israel isn’t living up to 242, they are just choosing to ignore thehistorical record and blindness is not a helpful position if you are in world affairs. Youmight as well have your eyes open. UN 242 since February 1971 does not exist. It
exists only in the Kissingerian sense. Now, here you have to be a little nuanced,
because officially the U.S. continues to endorse UN 242 in its original sense. So you
can find statements by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, or you know
speechwriters, and George Bush, saying yeah, we insist on 242 in its original sense.
You can’t find statements by Clinton. Clinton, I think, is the first president not evenhaving given lip service to it. But the fact is that the lip service is pure hypocrisy,
because while they are adhering to it for public purposes, they are also providing
22Israel with the wherewithal, the funds, the military support, the diplomatic support, toviolate it, namely to act to integrate the occupied territories within Israel, so theendorsement of it is hypocritical and you should compliment Clinton on having thehonesty simply to withdraw it, in effect.
Well, that brings us up to February 1971. The United States has also blocked allother UN resolutions, except for one, UN resolution 194, December 11, 1948, whichcalled for the right of return of refugees, or a compensation. That was technicallyendorsed by the United States, like they voted for it at the UN every year, but purehypocrisy. And again Clinton overcame the hypocrisy. He withdrew support for it.
So the last vote was unanimous with Israel and the United States opposed, and theClinton Administration also declared all other related UN resolutions null and void. It
will now only be the Oslo process, so that’s honesty again.
Sadat in 1971 made it very clear, and continued for several years, to make it clearthat if the United States refused to accept a negotiated settlement, he would beforced to go to war. Nobody took him seriously. A lot of racism here, it was assumed
that Arabs didn’t know which end of the gun to hold and that sort of thing. Finally war
came in 1973, and it turned out to be a very close thing, and it scared everyone.
There was another near nuclear confrontation and Israel was in deep trouble forawhile. And it was understood that Egypt can’t just be written off. They’re not just abasket case. So, Kissinger moved to the natural fall back position, namely exclude
Egypt from the conflict. It’s the only Arab deterrent, so we can’t just ignore it, so
exclude it from the conflict, then you get shuttle diplomacy. In 1977, comes Sadat’s
famous trip to Jerusalem, where he was hailed as a kind of a saint for being the first
Arab leader to be willing to talk to Israel. In fact, in Jerusalem, if you look at his
speech, it was less forthcoming than his offer in February 1971. In February 1971,
he offered full peace, with nothing about the Palestinians. In his trip to Jerusalem, heinsisted on rights for the Palestinians. But that’s allowed to enter history. February1971 is out of history. I mean you can’t even find it in the scholarly literature. But,
the trip to Jerusalem is in history because at that time the U.S. was compelled toaccept the offer, whereas in February of 1971 it was able to reject the offer. So one
23

is out of history, the other is in history. Sadat is a secular saint because of his trip in
1977, not because of his more forthcoming offer in February 1971.
Well, that goes on to Camp David in 1978 and 1979, under Carter, and it’sconsidered a grand moment of the peace process. Israel did agree to withdraw from
Sinai as Egypt had offered seven years earlier, and the U.S. at this point had nochoice but to agree. The result, however, was understood very clearly in Israel. One
leading Israeli military strategic analyst, Avner Yaniv, pointed out right away that theCamp David settlement eliminates the only Arab deterrent and therefore allows Israel
to continue at will to integrate the occupied territories into Israel and to attack its
northern neighbor, to attack Lebanon, with massive U.S. support in both cases. The
Carter Administration rapidly increased support to more than half of the total U.S. aid
overseas, to make sure that these ends could be achieved.
Well, while all this was going on, there was another current. The international
consensus on the issue had shifted. In 1967, there was nothing for the Palestinians,no Palestinian rights. By the early 70’s that was changing. By the mid-70’s there
was an extremely broad international consensus, including just about everybody,
calling for Palestinian national rights, alongside of Israel. It included the Russians, it
included Europe, it included Asia, Latin America, virtually everyone.
That came to a head in January 1976, another very important event, crucial forunderstanding what’s happening now, but out of history, because it tells the wrong
story. You can find it, but you know, it’s out of history, again even out of scholarship.
In January 1976, the United Nations Security Council considered a resolution callingfor a two state settlement. It included all the wording of UN 242, so everything about
Israel’s rights and so on, but it added national rights for the Palestinians in the
territories that had been occupied, from which Israel was to withdraw according to theoriginal understanding of 242. Well, what happened to that? Well that resolution was
actually brought by what are called the confrontation states, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan.
It was strongly supported by the PLO, though they may have forgotten that. In fact, I
suspect they have. But in fact according to Israel’s UN representative, Chaim Herzog

24

(later President), the resolution was actually prepared by the PLO. I don’t think that’s
likely, but that’s what Israel perceives at least. Anyhow, it was certainly supported bythem, and by the confrontation states, and indeed, by virtually the entire world.
Maybe Khaddafi didn’t support it, I don’t remember, but essentially the whole world
supported it.
And Israel and the United States had to react. Israel reacted in a typical way, by
bombing Lebanon. It bombed Lebanon, killing 50 people in some village that waschosen at random. That was reported here, but considered insignificant. It was
retaliation against the United Nations, in effect. The United States reacted in a
simpler way, namely by vetoing the resolution, so it was vetoed by Carter, and thatmeans vetoed from history. Remember, it’s very common for the U.S. to veto
Security Council resolutions. In fact, it’s the champion of the world by a long shot.
But they disappeared from history as well. Carter did the same thing in 1980, same
resolution. But, meanwhile, the international consensus persisted.
Here you can begin to understand the significance of the fact that the Declaration of
Principles in September of 1993 referred to UN 242 and nothing else. Because bythen, there is a whole raft of resolutions vetoed by the U.S. at the Security Council,
but passed at the General Assembly, calling for Palestinian national rights, and they
were not to be part of the permanent settlement under the U.S. version of the peace
process. The General Assembly had votes year after year, I won’t run through thedetails, but their wording varied a little bit, but they were more or less the same, youknow, kind of a two state settlement, national rights for both groups. The votes were
150 to 2, or something like that. Occasionally the U.S. would pick up another vote,from El Salvador, or somebody, but that was year by year, essentially never reported.
They will, in fact, probably never report it.
The last vote was December 1990, 144 to 2, and the date is important. Shortly after
that, a couple of weeks after, the United States and Britain bombed Iraq. Saddam,
remember, had shifted from loyal friend and ally to reincarnation of Hitler, notbecause of any crimes, the crimes were fine, but because he had disobeyed orders,25

or maybe misunderstood orders, and that’s not permitted, so that’s a standardtransition, and therefore, you had to get rid of the beast of Baghdad, and you know,
it’s obvious where the power was, so that worked. During the bombing, George Bushannounced, probably the coming of the New World Order. He defined it very simply.
What we say goes, said it sort of clearly, certainly with regard to the Middle East.
The rest of the world understood that. Everybody backed off. Europe disappeared,
the Third World was in disarray, Russia was gone.
At this point, the U.S. could simply ram through its own extreme rejectionist position,and it did. The Madrid conference took place a few months later, and then you gostraight on to Oslo. Then come successive agreements and the integration of theterritories continues right through the Oslo period. The various agreements - it’s lateso I won’t run through them, authorize this, the U.S. funds it, it protects it
diplomatically, which brings us up to Camp David and the year 2000.
Regarding the public discussion about Barak’s remarkable offers and, you know,
forthcoming this and that, and willing to give away everything - there is absolutely nobasis for any of that.
There was a focus on Jerusalem, and for good reasons. Jerusalem is probably theeasiest of all of the problems to solve, and for Clinton and Barak it made good sense
to focus on Jerusalem because then you would divert attention away from what’s
important, namely what’s going on in the occupied territories, the settlement, theinfrastructure development, the enclaves, and so on. For Arafat it also made good
sense to focus on Jerusalem because he is desperately eager to get support from theArab states, and the Arab states don’t give a damn what happens to the Palestinians.
Their populations may, but certainly not the leaders. On the other hand, they will find
it difficult to abandon control over the religious sites, because if they do that, their
populations will blow up. So, by focusing on the religious sites, it’s kind of anegotiating ploy for Arafat, so they all focused on that, neglecting the crucial problem,
what’s gone on elsewhere.

26

I have a couple of Israeli maps with me. These are final status maps, you know, what
it’s supposed to look like in the long term. And what it looks like in the long term,
briefly, is what’s called Jerusalem extends all the way to the Jordan river, so thatsplits the West Bank in two, with a substantial city, Ma’ale Adumim in the middle andextension all the way. There is another break in the North right through Samaria,
includes towns that are settled there. Israel keeps the Jordan river. Jericho isisolated. You end up with four Palestinian camptowns, separated from one another,
separated from Jerusalem, but there’s some hint that in the long term, somemeaningless connection will be established between them, but they are essentiallycompletely controlled and surrounded. What’s called Jerusalem extends north ofRamallah, and south of Bethlehem. If you look at the map, that’s the area which
splits the northern and central and southern settlement areas. It’s kind of modeled on
South Africa’s policies in the early 60’s. The population concentrations should beunder local administration, but everything else is taken over by the dominant power,
the resources, the useable land, and so on. And there is massive infrastructuredevelopments that sort of lie behind this.
The U.S. is paying for all of it, of course. That’s the marvelous offer that was given.
And apart from what’s talked about, what actually counts, of course, is what’s
happening on the ground. And what’s happening on the ground has been
implementing this. Finally you can’t spend half a day driving through the West Bank
without seeing it. It’s a little harder to drive through Gaza, because it’s usually closed
off, but essentially the same thing is happening there.
And the situation is extremely serious. Right through the occupation from 1967 to
1993, Israel was making sure, and again, when I say Israel, I mean the United States,
was making sure that there would be no development in the occupied territories. So,
right after 1993, when Israeli journalists who had covered the territories were finallyable to go to Jordan, they were shocked by what they saw and they wrote about it in
the Hebrew press. Jordan is a poor country, and Israel is a rich country. Before the1967 war, the populations in Jordan and the Palestinian populations were pretty
comparable, in fact, there was more development in the West Bank. By 1993, it was27totally different. In the poorer country Jordan, there were agricultural development,
universities, schools, roads, health services, all sorts of things. In the West Bank
there was essentially nothing. The people could survive by remittances from abroad,or by doing dirty work in Israel, but no development was allowed, and that was very
shocking to Israeli reporters, and it is also backed up in the statistics. The mostimportant work on this topic, if you want to learn about, is by Sara Roy, a researcher
at Harvard who has spent an awful lot of time in the Gaza Strip. Just to give you acouple of her figures, current ones, in 1993 electric power usage in the West Bankand Gaza was two thirds that of Egypt, half that of Jordan – and those are poorer
countries, remember. Israel is a rich country. Sanitation and housing in the WestBank and Gaza was about 25 percent for Palestinians, 50 percent in Egypt, and 100
percent in Jordan, and the figures run through that way. GDP, per capita, andconsumption per capita declined and then it got worse. After 1993, it’s been theworst. So GDP, per capita, and consumption per capita have dropped, according toher, about 15 percent in the West Bank and Gaza since 1993 - that’s even with large
foreign assistance pouring in, from Europe, mostly.
It’s gotten worse in other respects. Up until 1993, the U.S. and Israel permitted
humanitarian aid to come into the territories. UN humanitarian aid was permitted into
the West Bank and Gaza. In 1993, that was restricted. This is part of the peace
process. After Oslo, heavy customs duties were imposed, lots of other restrictions
were imposed, you know various kinds of harassment. Now, it’s blocked. Right now,
humanitarian aid is blocked. The UN is protesting, but it doesn’t matter. If the UN
protests the blocking of humanitarian aid, and it doesn’t register here, it doesn’t
matter. And it doesn’t register here because it’s not reported. So, they can say, yeah
the Israelis are stopping humanitarian aid from coming in, and people are starving,and so on, but what does it matter as long as people in the United States don’t know
about it. They can know in the Middle East, they can know in Europe, but it makes
no difference. These are our choices again.
For the Palestinians themselves, they are under a dual repression, very much like theBantustans again, the repression of Israel and the United States, and then the28

repression of the local mercenaries who do the work for the foreigner, and enrichthemselves. It’s again a standard, colonial pattern. Anyone who has ever taken alook at the Third World sees it.
As for the goals of Oslo, they were stated very nice and neatly by one of the leading
Israeli doves, who is now the Minister of Security in the Barak government, and atemporary foreign minister, known as an academic dove, Shlomo Ben-Ami. In an
academic book, 1998, so before he got into the government, he described the goalsof Oslo as to impose what he called a permanent neo-colonialist dependency in theWest Bank and Gaza. And that’s pretty much accurate, that’s what the U.S. has
been aiming for through the peace process - period.
As for the population, it’s kind of hard to improve on a description by Moshe Dayan
about 30 years ago. He was in the Labor Party, and among the Labor Party leaders,
he was one of those most noted for his sympathetic attitude towards Palestinians,
and also his realism. And he described what Israeli policy ought to be, U.S. policy as
well. He said the Palestinians should live like dogs and whoever wishes may leave,
and we’ll see where this leads. Reasonable policy, and that’s U.S. policy as well, andit will continue that way as long as we agree to permit it.

Updated: Feb 8, 2001

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