Part 7, NOAM CHOMSKY: The New World Order
November 23, 1991
NOAM CHOMSKY:
It's U.S. turf. Nobody is allowed in. So no international conference.
Two: All international efforts to advance the peace process have at least a
rhetorical commitment, whether anybody believes it or not. But they have some rhetoric
about self-determination for the Palestinians. And that's unacceptable to the United
States, not because the U.S. has anything in particular against the Palestinians,
(basically, they don't exist) but because that would entail Israeli withdrawal from the
Occupied Territories, and it's been U.S. policy that they should essentially maintain
continued control over those territories. Therefore, for those two reasons, the U.S. has
always blocked the peace process.
Now, turning to Madrid, you'll notice that it overcomes these two defects. It's
completely unilateral. Nobody else is allowed in. Actually, to be more precise, Gorbachev
was invited in, but that's because he is the completely powerless leader of a non-existent
state, and therefore, he could provide a certain propaganda cover that people could talk
about in the international conference. But anyone who had even met the minimal condition
of existence would not be allowed in.
Secondly, you'll notice again that there was nothing for the Palestinians. In
fact, that's built into the very structure of the conference. They are part of a joint
Palestinian-Jordanian delegation, which is the traditional U.S. policy that there is no
independent Palestinian nationalism, hence, no issue for them to talk about. And the
outcome of both that meeting and any aftermath will be determined by U.S. policy. So,
going back to that: What is U.S. policy? Well, here you can find out, actually.
There, the U.S. Government has been kind enough to inform us. There's the public
record. You can't find it in the media, as far as I'm aware, but it's there. You can pull
out the documents. Some of it is even in the media occasionally. The U.S. position
was made very clear in the fall of 1989 by James Baker with what was then called "the
Baker Plan". The Baker Plan then had to do with negotiations between Jordan, Israel
and Egypt, with some Palestinians, whom we like, allowed in. Baker presented five points,
and the five points were that .... you can read them in the State Department bulletin, but
one point was directed at the Palestinians.
It said that any Palestinians who are permitted in by their overseers, the
United States and Israel, will be permitted to discuss one topic; namely, implementation
of the so-called Shamir Plan. In public statements, at the same time, Baker made it clear
and explicit that, as he put it, the only plan under consideration is the Shamir Plan.
There is no other initiative on the table. So if we want to find out what U.S.
policy is, we turn to the Shamir Plan which is, in fact, the Shamir-Peres Plan -- the
coalition plan of the Labor-Likud Government (two major parties in Israel) -- which had
been put forth in May and was now endorsed.
The Shamir-Peres Plan (actually, the Shamir-Peres-Baker Plan) has three basic
principles. Principle One says (I'm quoting it): "There can be no additional
Palestinian state," meaning there already is a Palestinian state: Jordan; and if
Palestinians, Jordanians and the rest of the world don't agree, that just shows they're
anti-Semites or ignorant Arabs, or something like that. So there's no issue of
Palestinian self-determination. There already is a Palestinian state. That's Jordan; and
there cannot be an additional one. There can be no change in the status of the Occupied
Territories (they don't call it "Occupied" Territories, but
"territories", meaning the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) except in accordance
with the basic guidelines of the Government of Israel which bar any form of Palestinian
self-determination. Point Number Three says: "no PLO", meaning that Palestinians
can't pick their own representatives, even to sign a capitulation. Point Four says: there
will be what are called "free elections", run under Israeli military control
(and if you've ever looked at a television set, you know what that means), with most of
the Palestinian national leadership rotting away in prison camps without charges. Those
are "free elections." So that's it. That's the Shamir-Peres-Baker Plan.
Nothing much has changed. Sometimes it's called autonomy. That's the current
term for it. In the Israeli Press, more honest than here, one of the leading and most
respected Israeli journalists, Danny Rubinstein (right in the mainstream, and no
particular dove) just a couple of weeks ago described autonomy as "the kind of
autonomy that exists in a prisoner-of-war camp" (I'm quoting it), "where the
prisoners are autonomous to cook their own meals and run cultural events."
Furthermore, he went on to say that the autonomy is exactly what the Palestinians have
now; namely, the right to run their own services. And there's a reason for that, he
explained. He's pointed out that even the most extreme expansionists ("Greater
Israel" enthusiasts) don't call for literal annexation of the Territories because
that would have a problem associated with it. It would mean that you would have to extend
to the Territories Israeli law, including the minimal services that are provided for the
second-class citizens of Israel itself, the Arab citizens. Obviously, that would bankrupt
the treasury and, he estimates, would probably double the income in the Territories. So
it's much more efficient to have heavy taxation, but to provide nothing in return under
autonomy; namely, the autonomy of a prison camp. Well, that's what's being offered now,
exactly as it was offered at Camp David. That's why it's so praised in the United States.
Well, there's a history to this. Somebody stop me if I go on too long. But I'll
give a little bit of history. It's worth looking at. U.S. policy has undergone some
changes. From 1967 to 1971, U.S. policy was right in the mainstream. It called for what
was then the international consensus, which meant a political settlement on the pre-1967
borders, with the wording that I just read. That was actually drawn from the resolutions
at the time, reiterated in 1976: territorial guarantees, and security, and the right to
live in peace, and so on and so forth. At that time, there was nothing for the
Palestinians. They weren't part of it. It was just a settlement on those borders. Official
U.S. policy said that there might be minor territorial adjustments which would,
furthermore, be mutual. "Minor" and "mutual" territorial adjustments,
just to fix things up, but that was the position.
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