by Noam Chomsky
nation of the present contains within itself the principle of the development from the concept of mankind to the concept of the nation,” a development that he appears to regard as a desirable and progressive one, and that places the “Jewish question” in a new light. Assimilation was natural in an era of liberalism and under the impact of the mistaken ideals of the Enlightenment. But for the present era, what is needed is the principle of “recognition of the Jewish nation and the Jewish race.” As for the Nazi State, “A state which is built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can have esteem and respect for the Jews only when they identify themselves in the same manner,” as people “of one nation and one race,” abandoning Enlightenment errors.4
Similar conceptions are found in many national movements. They are particularly striking in the case of Zionism because of the Jewish contributions to 19th and 20th century intellectual and artistic culture and to the Enlightenment ideals; and also, of course, because of what the “principle of purity of nation and race” soon came to mean for the Jews of Europe. Throughout the history of the Zionist movement, these issues have been central ones, and they only took on new forms with the establishment of Israel as “the sovereign State of the Jewish people.” This act raised the question of “Who is a Jew?” to one of law and national policy, along with the question of the status of “national institutions” devoted to “the benefit of people of Jewish race, religion and origin” rather than citizens of the state, and including Jewish citizens of other states. With the decline of secularism and the growth of religious chauvinist tendencies in the expansionist post-1967 period, these questions are once again reformulated, often in an ugly way. Mordechai Nisan’s version is one example. Western left-liberal “supporters of Israel,” many of them of the post-1967 variety, have sought to suppress these issues, insisting that the society was tending towards secularism, egalitarianism and democratic socialism precisely at the time when exactly the opposite was true as a direct consequence of the state policies that they were supporting. Typical examples have been cited above; the consequences of this “support” should by now at last be clear.
We have seen, in chapter 4, the expression of ideas of the sort that Nisan again puts forth from the pens of religious-chauvinist extremists in their own journals (see. e.g., chapter 4, section 5.1). As this and many other examples indicate, however, such “Khomeinism is far broader. A further indication of its scope is given by the Israeli writer Amos Oz in a series of articles in Davar, based on interviews. One group is from the settlement of Tekoah south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, a “detestable area,” one settler explains, because the Arabs “raise their heads” here. A recent American immigrant from a religious family in New York tells him that she hopes for a war or a “terrible disaster to the Jews abroad” so that “they shall be persecuted” and come to Israel. There will never be peace, she says:
The hatred the Gentiles feel towards the Jews is eternal. There never was peace between us and them except when they totally beat us or when we shall totally beat them. Maybe if they will give someone like Sharon the chance to kill off as many of them as possible, destroy their countries, until the Arabs will understand that we did them a favor in letting them remain alive... We are powerful now and power should talk now. The Gentiles only understand the language of power.
Those who have had the pleasure of addressing an audience of young American Zionists, chanting their slogans and waving their AntiDefamation League handouts like Little Red Books, will recognize the mood and the sentiments, which are having their own corrupting effect in Israel.
Her husband, from Aden, considers himself “far more extreme,” but knowing the Arabs, he sees possibilities of living with them. “We know that the Arab is an obedient good creature as long as he is not incited and no one puts ideas into his head… He just has to be told exactly what his right place is... They must understand who the master is. That’s all.” A recent immigrant from the U.S. with degrees from Yeshiva and Columbia Universities, now teaching social science at Bar Ilan University, adds his contribution. “Western culture is not for us,” he explains, echoing Khomeini: “The Torah is far more modern than western culture,” giving a person “freedom without permissiveness.” “The ways of God are great” and “gradually all our opponents will understand that they are mistaken.”
As for the Arabs, they are “a trial,” but if we are “strong and obstinate, it will be the beginning of salvation. All the difficulties are the pains of the coming of the Messiah… One must be totally blind not to see that [the settlement in the occupied territories] is the beginning of true salvation.”
An unidentified settler in a Moshav—a well-established farmer, educated, of western origin, apparently a person of some distinction who speaks with a sense of authority—takes a rather different stand.* In his view, Israel should be “a mad state,” so that people “will understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal,” quite capable of “burning the oil fields” or “opening World War III just
* This man’s views are taken quite seriously by Oz and many others. See, for example, Boaz Evron, “The Nightmares of C” (as he is identified in Oz’s interview), Davar, Feb. 4, 1983, a detailed point-by-point refutation of his arguments, which are by no means dismissed as idiosyncratic.
like that,” with nuclear weapons if necessary. Then “they will act carefully around us so as not to anger the wounded animal.” Essentially, Richard Nixon’s “madman theory.” The Lebanon war was fine, but didn’t go far enough (“it’s a pity we didn’t wipe that wasps nest completely off the ground,” referring to Ain el-Hilweh; “we should have done it with our own delicate hands,” referring to Sabra-Shatila, instead of leaving it to the Phalange—“can you call 500 Arabs a massacre”?). “We shall open another similar war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough.” One great achievement of the Lebanon war was that it aroused anti-Jewish passions throughout the world, so that now “they hate all those nice Zhids” (an anti-Semitic slur) who write books and play music, all those now often derided in Israel as “beautiful souls.” He is pleased with the designation “Judeo-Nazi” used by Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz in a despairing indictment of what he fears Israel is becoming. This man’s goal is “to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel, to burn them, to make us hated by all, to make the ground unstable beneath the feet of the Jews in the Diaspora so that they shall be forced to rush here crying.” He wants to imitate the Australians who exterminated the natives of Tasmania, or Truman who destroyed hundreds of thousands with two bombs. If instead of writing books, Jews had come to Palestine and “killed six million Arabs, or one million,” then they would now be a people of 25 million, “from the Suez canal to the oil fields.” It was a mistake that should not be made again. Afterwards, there will be time for culture and civilization.5
If things continue on their present course, within the constraints that are at least induced, if not imposed, by “support” from the United States of the sort tendered in recent years, there is reason to expect that these will sooner or later become the authentic voices of Israel. Note that contrary to many oversimplified accounts, these are not the voices of Sephardic slum-dwellers from the Arab countries, but of educated people of western orientation and origin.
2.2 The Next Round As 1983 began, concerns were mounting about the next round, Katyusha rockets again fell near the northern settlements, something that had not happened until Israeli violence destroyed the 1981 Habib cease-fire. Galilee settlements were advised to introduce special alerts for an expected intensification of terrorist attacks.6 Meanwhile, “Diplomatic sources in Damascus said yesterday that Syria has rebuilt its army in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley in expectation of an Israeli attack in late spring or early summer.” The USSR installed a new and more advanced air defense system in Syria, locating the bases near Damascus and staffing them with Russian personnel. Israel’s new Defense Min
ister, Moshe Arens, warned that Israel “could resort to a pre-emptive strike against Syria if the buildup of long-range Soviet SAMS [anti-aircraft] missiles continues there and the Israelis conclude they are faced with a ‘mortal threat’.” The USSR has warned Washington that it would intervene directly in the event of an Israeli attack on Damascus, and “placing Soviet military men in Syrian bases would make this warning a great deal more credible,” the London Economist observes. Ned Temko reports from Moscow that the USSR has warned Israel not to strike the SAM-5 missiles. John Yemma adds from Lebanon that
the underlying fear is that Israel may be tempted towards a preemptive strike against the Soviet missiles in Syria. And if this were to occur, the Soviet soldiers manning the installations might be harmed. This, in turn, could precipitate heavier Soviet intervention in Syria and possibly a crisis between the two superpowers.
If there are clashes between Israel and Syrian soldiers in Lebanon, as may occur if no serious withdrawal plan involving both Syria and Israel is developed and implemented, the Israelis will want air cover “and, to achieve it, Israeli warplanes might go after Syria’s Soviet antiaircraft missiles.”7 These prospects are not remote, and will remain threatening in the absence of a comprehensive political settlement.
Israeli military experts believe that as a result of the Lebanon war Syria has intensified its arms acquisitions and military training programs, and by the end of 1983 will have the operational capacity to undertake offensive action—an analysis which, whether valid or not, is likely to elicit a preemptive Israeli strike. One result of the war in Lebanon, Ze’ev Schiff writes, was to prompt Syria to create a larger and more mechanized army. He also notes that in ground combat Syrian units fought well, though they were heavily outnumbered, and that their confidence increased for that reason. “By seeking a general land engagement with the Syrian army in Lebanon in order to expel it from that country,” Israel has “accelerated a process detrimental to ourselves.” Schiff reports further that General Amos Gilboa expects that “one of the Arab lessons from the [1982] war will be to obtain nuclear weapons,” perhaps in alliance with Pakistan.8
Long-term predictions in the volatile Middle East are a risky proposition. In early 1983, however, Syria probably viewed its strategy of supporting Iran against Iraq and maintaining its military position in Lebanon as relatively satisfactory; and in fact, its options are limited as long as return of the Golan Heights is not part of the “peace process” as envisaged by the United States. Even under the most optimistic assumptions concerning Lebanon, the chances that another war will erupt are not small.
3. The Threat to the United States and the World 3.1 The Risk of Superpower Confrontation
T
he disasters threatening the Palestinians and Israel are evident enough. It also does not take a great deal of thought to perceive the risks to the United States, and in fact the entire world, from the unresolved Israel-Arab conflict. The world contains many
trouble spots, but none pose such dangers of superpower confrontation as the Middle East, and of the many conflicts in this region, none approaches the Israel-Arab conflict—and at its heart, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians—in the threat it poses of global, nuclear war. In comparison, the threat of a superpower confrontation in Europe, or elsewhere, seems slight.9 Sheer self-interest alone, apart from anything else, should make it a priority item for Americans—or for anyone interested in survival—to seek a resolution of this conflict. The question is a particularly urgent one for Americans to address in the light of the role of U.S. rejectionism in perpetuating the conflict and undermining the possibility for political settlement.
The risk that a nuclear war might erupt from a Middle East conflict is nothing new. When Eisenhower sent U.S. forces to Lebanon in 1958, it was his judgment that there was a risk of “general war with the Soviet Union” (Eisenhower’s words, in his memoirs), an opinion shared by some of his advisers, for example, Loy Henderson, who felt that “we should face the risk now as well as any time.”10 At the time of the 1967 war, the “hot line” between Washington and Moscow was used for the first time. There was apparently another close call, one that is never listed in the records of the all-too numerous occasions when a nuclear war may have been imminent. When the U.S. Liberty was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats during the June 1967 war, F-4 Phantom jets were dispatched from a Sixth Fleet aircraft carrier to defend the ship, “authorized to use force including destruction if necessary” (Smith, quoting the official court of inquiry), nuclear-armed and recalled only by a direct order from Secretary of Defense McNamara and the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, according to James Ennes. It was unclear at the time who the attackers were; Ennes, who observed all of this as an officer on the Liberty, writes that the jets “might have saved the ship, or they might have initiated the ultimate holocaust.” In 1973, the U.S. called a strategic nuclear alert in the final stages of the October war. Reviewing this incident, Blechman and Hart conclude that “there was a serious threat of military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.”11 This is, in fact, a typical example of how a nuclear war is likely break out, sooner or later, possibly through inadvertence or mistaken judgment as to intent.
During the 1982 Lebanon war, American nuclear forces were not alerted, so far as we know, but the danger of superpower confrontation was not slight. In their sharp condemnation of the Israeli invasion, the foreign ministers of the European Community warned that it posed the risk of “leading to a generalized war” (see chapter 2, section 3). The U.S. and Soviet fleets were present in force in the Eastern Mediterranean. A senior Soviet official “expressed concern the Mideast fighting may provoke a full-scale confrontation between Israel and Syria, triggering greater Soviet involvement,” and it has been alleged that “the Russians had threatened to intervene militarily, if the fighting [between Israel and Syria] did not stop.”12 If Israel’s attack on Syrian forces had continued and the fighting had escalated a notch or two higher, the USSR might have made some move in defense of its Syrian ally, a step that surely would have brought about a U.S. military response and possibly a superpower confrontation. As noted earlier, the USSR has warned that it would become directly involved if Damascus were attacked, and the war might well have escalated to Israeli bombing or shelling of Damascus. By September, Israeli forces were deployed north of Beirut and Syrian forces in Eastern Lebanon had been cut off, with Israeli artillery in a position to shell Damascus. It is possible that further steps would have been taken in what military analyst Ze’ev Schiff describes as Israel’s war “to expel Syria from Lebanon,” had it not been for the unexpected international reaction to the Beirut massacres. It is, in short, not impossible that the victims of this atrocity saved the world from nuclear confrontation.
Even apart from the Syrian phase of the war, the risk of superpower involvement was considerable. The Soviet Embassy was hit on several occasions and was “heavily damaged” during the Israeli shelling of West Beirut. Furthermore, during the Israeli invasion of West Beirut, Israeli troops occupied parts of the Soviet Embassy and held them for two days, a gratuitous act of defiance in the course of the conquest of a virtually undefended city.13 Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle disclosed subsequently that Israeli jets killed 11 Russians whom they observed investigating a downed Israeli reconnaissance plane in Lebanon.14
All of this was passed over calmly here, because we take it for granted that the USSR will back down in any confrontation apart from its immediate borders. Luckily for the world, this expectation once again turned out to be correct. But this should not prevent us from perceiving the seriousness of the provocation. Suppose that the situation had been reversed. Suppose that a Cuban army had invaded Costa Rica or Guatemala, purposely killing 11 American advisers, shelling the U.S. Embassy and occupying it in the course of conquering the capital city. How would the U.S. have reacted? Of course, the question is academic, since at the first appearance of Cuban forces we
would have blockaded or bombed Havana or perhaps even Moscow. But as we interpret the rules of the game, the Russians are expected to accept passively affronts that the U.S. would never tolerate for a moment. And so far they have, or we would not be here to discuss the matter.
The Soviet Embassy was, incidentally, not the only one to have been occupied during the Israeli takeover of West Beirut. The governments of Iran and Algeria reported that their Embassies had been taken over as well, with safes broken into and documents and official papers taken.15 As noted earlier (see chapter 5, section 8.1), Lebanese sources allege that all embassies and other major institutions of governments that Israel regarded as unfriendly were shelled, looted, or otherwise damaged.
3.2 The Evasions of the Peace Movement When the Ambassador of Lebanon, Ghassan Tueni, spoke at the UN Disarmament session on June 22, 1982 (see chapter 5, note 175), he observed that “the war in Lebanon was becoming a danger not to Lebanon alone, but to others as well, and probably to the entire world.” His statement was by no means exaggerated, and the fear was shared by many others. It is a startling fact that this quite obvious threat was ignored by the organizers of the huge antiwar demonstration mounted in New York in connection with the UN disarmament session that took place shortly after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. To be more accurate, the issue had been discussed, but it was decided to suppress it, though not all participants in the demonstration remained silent on the point.
There have been many examples of a similar sort. Let me give just one personal experience. My article on directions for the disarmament movement cited in note 9 was excerpted in Worldview, a journal published by the Council on Religion and International Affairs. The main point of the article was that it was crucial for the disarmament movement to focus attention on situations in which local conflicts or outside intervention might come to engage the superpowers, leading to global nuclear conflict. Indeed, one would think that this question would receive top priority among people concerned to avert this catastrophe. I listed five examples of such conflicts, the fifth and by far the most significant being the Israeli invasion of Lebanon with U.S. backing. The first four cases appeared in the published excerpts; the fifth and most important case was omitted. One can only conclude that for the editors, the threat of nuclear war is a relatively insignificant matter when measured against the importance of protecting the policies of Israel from scrutiny and evading the question of the U.S. role in the Middle East.16 All of this is surely to be understood as simply another facet of the “ideological support” for Israel discussed earlier, and of the still more general tendency to deflect critical analysis of one’s own state and its policies and actions.
