Part 6, NOAM CHOMSKY: The New World Order
November 23, 1991
NOAM CHOMSKY:
Well, breaking the rules and keeping to English instead of PC-language, the
traditional U.S. policy has been, as I said, rigid opposition to the peace process --
rigid, inflexible, invariant opposition to the peace process, which is why it never gets
anywhere. You can see this very clearly if you just look at the more or less irrelevant,
factual record. The record is irrelevant because it's not "politically correct".
It teaches the wrong lessons. But let's look at it anyway. For example, you could start
with the U.N. General Assembly. The U.N. General Assembly meets every winter and they have
a vote every year on advancing the peace process. I won't run through the whole record,
but the last one was December, 1990 when the vote was 144 to 2 (United States and Israel),
and that's the way it is all the way back. It's always something like that: N to 2, where
N is everybody who wasn't asleep that day, and 2 is the United States and Israel.
Sometimes it varies a little. In 1989, it was 151 to 3. For completely unexplained
reasons, Dominica joined with the United States and Israel. Maybe somebody has some
insight into that. But, in effect, it's the United States and Israel blocking the
peace process at the General Assembly.
Well, what about the Security Council? Notice, incidentally, that the United
States is a very powerful country. That means that if there is a vote at the General
Assembly which is, let's say, 160 to 1 -- and things like that happen pretty commonly --
if the one is the United States, it's vetoed. That's what it means to be in a position to
be able to assert "what we say goes." What about the Security Council? Well, of
course, that's out because there the United States can just flat veto everything, as, in
fact, it's been doing since 1976. In 1976 -- first major U.S. veto -- there was a
resolution which called for (I'll quote it): "an Arab-Israeli peace settlement on the
pre-1967 borders" (that means the internationally recognized borders) "with
guarantees for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of all
states in the area, and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized
boundaries, including Israel, and a new Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza."
That was introduced to the Security Council by Jordan, Syria and Egypt. It was backed by
virtually the whole World. It was publicly backed by the P.L.O. According to Israel -- the
current President of Israel, Chaim Herzog, who was then the U.N. Ambassador -- it was not
only backed by the P.L.O., but actually prepared by the P.L.O. Another example of their
terrorist past. It was vetoed by the United States. It is, therefore, out of history. Try
to find it in the records of the peace process, or in documentary collections, and so on.
In short, it's just not "politically correct." The same thing happened in 1980.
But, in effect, the Security Council is ruled out as an agency for advancing the
peace process. There have been a series of other proposals rejected by the United States,
and Israel was opposed to them. I won't run through the record.
Now, the U.S. is a very powerful country, so we can block a proposal by saying
"no", period! Israel is less powerful, and, therefore, they have to be a little
more vigorous in their opposition. So, in the case of the 1976 Security Council
Resolution, while the U.S. just vetoed it, Israel reacted differently. They reacted by
bombing Lebanon, killing about fifty people in a raid that was described quite openly and,
in fact, even reported as not being a reaction to anything -- which was not exactly
correct. It was actually a retaliation against the United Nations for considering this
resolution.
Then, in 1980, when Saudi Arabia announced the so-called Fahd Plan, which again
was sort of along the same lines (most of those plans are along the same lines), Israel
reacted, according to the Israeli press, by sending Phantoms [American-made & paid F-4
fighter/attack jet aircraft], which probably means nuclear-armed Phantoms over the
oilfields. And the Hebrew press pointed out that foreign intelligence agencies are digging
into their files to look up their records on the capacity of Israel to destroy the
oilfields, meaning: If you push too far, there are things we can do!
Well, that's the way a weaker country has to respond. The U.S. is simpler. We
just say "no", and that means it's off the agenda and it's out of history -- if
you have a well-disciplined commissar class, at least. Well, this problem continued
through the 1980s. Yassir Arafat, for example, kept annoying everybody by calling
for negotiations with Israel, leading to mutual recognition. This required considerable
acrobatics in the doctrinal institutions. So, for example, let's take a typical
case: The current chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman,
who was the Jerusalem correspondent then .... he added new things like, say, if headlines
in the Israeli Press said: ARAFAT OFFERS NEGOTIATIONS. PERES (who is supposed to be the
dove) SAYS "NO" .... there had to be an article by Thomas Friedman a couple days
later saying:
"The Israeli peace movement has never been more distraught.
There are no Palestinians to talk to."
There was an interview with Shimon Peres saying:
"If only there were some Palestinians as beautiful as we are,
we could settle all of this. But, unfortunately, they're all terrorists who won't talk to
us."
And that routine went on year after year. The New York Times not only refused to
publish the facts, but even refused to publish letters referring to the facts, and
occasionally even went as far as writing to correspondents explaining that they were not
going to allow letters on it (actually, some of those are around).
It was all done quite brilliantly. The result was to craft a version of history
which has no relation whatsoever to the facts. Actually, it has a relation to the
facts for the logicians in the audience: the relation of contradiction. Apart from that,
it has no relation to the facts, but it does have striking utility for power. And that was
achieved in a manner which would have been pretty much admired by any totalitarian state.
Now, there are reasons for this. There are reasons why the United States has
been constantly opposed to the peace process. It has two features which the United States
will not accept. One is: it calls for an INTERNATIONAL conference. And remember, the
Monroe Doctrine has been extended to the Middle East long ago. It's too important to allow
anybody to interfere.
| PART I |
PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V |
| PART VI
| PART VII | PART VIII | PART IX | PART X |
