Noam Chomsky and 'Left' Apologetics for Injustice in Palestine 

by Noah Cohen, 8/21/04 

(member of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine) 

1. It's particularly interesting in the case of Palestine to see where
US intellectuals and progressives decide that it's necessary to be
"realistic" and where "principled;" where they choose to accept more or
less the general media consensus about "the boundaries of acceptable
discourse" and where they reject it. In the case of Palestine, people
who are generally on record as calling for forthrightness and honesty in
the demand for justice in political discourse, who criticize a false
"pragmatism" oriented toward the corporate media and academic political
consultants and who question generalizing statements about popular
consensus, suddenly become believers in pragmatism and the limits of
what the discourse will allow. An interview with Noam Chomsky published
on Znet under the title "Justice for Palestine?" (Znet, March 30, 2004)
is an exemplary contribution to this genre of left apologetics. Since it
contains so many of the arguments generally advanced to legitimize some
form of continued existence for an Israeli system of colonialism and
Apartheid--and to shore up rear-guard support for it among US
progressives--it is worth examining in full. 

In general, the argument rests on two pillars: 

i) Israel's history of colonial occupation and expansion must be
separated from all other colonial histories as a special case and
special consideration must be given to Zionist colonial settlers as a
historically vulnerable group; 

ii) Since this "historically vulnerable group" also has massive military
power, nuclear weapons, and U.S. military and economic support, calling
for an end to the colonial regime is unrealistic; it only hurts the
colonized, and should be redirected to more useful activities. 

The first is a tortured attempt to meet arguments about justice; the
second is an attempt to make them moot by arguments about realism. 

These essentially are the two arguments that Chomsky advances against
calls for democracy and equal rights for all the people of historic
Palestine. In this case, their particular form runs as follows: a
democratic Palestine, in all of historic Palesine, with equal rights for
everyone would only end up making Jews an oppressed minority (moral
argument); such calls are unrealistic in any case, and will only be used
by Zionist extremists to further justify their program of ethnic
cleansing against Palestinians (pragmatic argument). Palestine is thus
not like South Africa morally, where in the discourse against Apartheid
the fact that whites were a minority was not supposed to give them the
right to maintain special privileges by military force--they were a
colonial-settler regime, and special privileges were exactly what the
anti-Apartheid movement was opposing. Somehow in the case of the "Jewish
state" a colonial-settler minority is supposed to be able to maintain a
privileged status by force on land seized through military aggression.
Palestine is not like South Africa pragmatically, since calls for an end
to the colonial-settler regime are doomed to failure because they will
never get sufficient international support to be effective. 

As in the famous case of Freud's "leaky-pot logic" of dreams, one should
ask oneself whether these two arguments don't rather cancel each other
out--the first providing the unspoken assumptions and motivations of the
second. 

2. Here is how the discussion works in Chomsky's hands. Asked by
interviewers Stephen S. Shalom and Justin Podur how he views the
possibility of a "single-state solution, in the form of a democratic,
secular state," he responds as follows: 

"There has never been a legitimate proposal for a democratic secular
state from any significant Palestinian (or of course Israeli) group. One
can debate, abstractly, whether it is 'desirable.' But it is completely
unrealistic. There is no meaningful international support for it, and
within Israel, opposition to it is close to universal. It is understood
that this would soon become a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority,
and with no guarantee for either democracy or secularism (even if the
minority status would be accepted, which it would not). Those who are
now calling for a democratic secular state are, in my opinion, in effect
providing weapons to the most extreme and violent elements in Israel and
the US." 

Reading these comments, one wonders how Chomsky understands the words
"legitimate" and "significant." Do Palestinians ever qualify? Both the
DFLP and the PFLP explicitly proposed a "democratic secular state" in
all of historic Palestine as early as 1969, and the foremost official
representatives of the larger PLO umbrella organization expressed this
goal within the same year. This continued to be the vision of the core
left within the PLO for years to come. More importantly, the Palestinian
idea of liberation expressed in the PLO charter of 1968 rejected the
colonial construction of ethnic and religious division: all the historic
people of Palestine, regardless of religion, were considered
Palestinians; all were entitled to freedom of worship. The PLO rejected
not Jewish people, but colonial settlers and the state created for their
exclusive interests. The "democratic, secular state" espoused by a
significant portion of the Palestinian movement throughout the 1970s was
an implicit concession to the settler community--a generous attempt to
include settlers and their descendants in a liberated Palestine,
provided that they were willing to renounce special privileges. This
generosity was never answered by any significant movement within Israel.
Does this Israeli rejection condition then the limits of justice for
which Palestinians and their supporters should struggle? 

What's clear is that Israelis will necessarily determine the limits of
the discourse for Chomsky; anything that they do not accept is
"unrealistic." Pressed again on the subject, Chomsky becomes even more
emphatic: 

"The call for a 'democratic secular state,' which is not taken seriously
by the Israeli public or internationally, is an explicit demand for the
destruction of Israel, offering nothing to Israelis beyond the hope of a
degree of freedom in an eventual Palestinian state. The propaganda
systems in Israel and the US will joyously welcome the proposal if it
gains more than even marginal attention, and will labor to give it great
publicity, interpreting it as just another demonstration that there is
'no partner for peace,' so that the US-Israel have no choice but to
establish 'security' by caging barbaric Palestinians into a West Bank
dungeon while taking over the valuable lands and resources. The most
extreme and violent elements in Israel and the US could hope for no
greater gift than this proposal." 

This last threat is rather curious. When I visited Palestine in the
summer of 2003, the Israelis were in the process of caging Palestinians
into a system of open-air prisons in the name of "security," and were
busily annexing their land to settlements, even as representatives of
the Palestinian Authority were meeting with Sharon and Bush to discuss
the "Road Map to Peace." None of this required anyone proposing a
"democratic, secular state"--since that, according to Chomsky, wasn't
even on the table. 

3. It's especially disturbing to see Chomsky so consistently placing the
limits of activism at the limits of the prevailing discourse--what is
"taken seriously" by "the Israeli public" or "the US public" or
"internationally" 

In his article "The Bounds of Thinkable Thought" (The Progressive,
1986), Chomsky argued that a genuine criticism of U.S. imperial policies
in Vietnam had been kept out of the mainstream political debate largely
through a process of self-censorship oriented toward the boundaries of
acceptable discourse. According to Chomsky, anyone not wishing to be
considered "beyond the pale" knew that it was necessary to funnel all
opposition to U.S. policy through the discourse of "winability"-not to
challenge U.S. goals in Vietnam, but rather to challenge tactics and
strategy. The prevailing discourse allowed for two positions: 1) the
U.S. was successfully defending democracy in Vietnam, and could win the
war by intensifying its military operations; 2) the U.S. was attempting
to defend democracy in Vietnam, but its possibilities for success were
increasingly poor, and casualties both to U.S. soldiers and to the
Vietnamese made the war unsupportable from the perspective of a
cost-benefit analysis. According to this model, even those within the
mainstream debate who may not have supported the basic assumptions of
the discourse-e.g. those who recognized that the U.S. was in Vietnam in
order to pursue U.S. regional hegemony, against the interests of the
people who lived there-learned to couch their opposition within the
acceptable terms. This was done to preserve "credibility" and to serve
the pragmatic goal of ending the war. 

As Chomsky observed, this means that the basic assumptions at work in
U.S. propaganda for its various wars of expansion and domination are
never significantly challenged within mainstream debate. This makes it
difficult to build a movement that opposes basic policies. Even a
limited "pragmatic" victory for the opposition-e.g. success in shifting
U.S. policy away from troop deployment in Vietnam-can be effectively
absorbed within the overall system of empire. The subsequent writing of
history created what was called the "Vietnam syndrome"-narrowly
understood as a tactical problem in winning ground wars against guerilla
resistance in foreign lands-and George Bush the First was thus able to
declare the "syndrome" broken after the intensive aerial bombardment of
Iraq and the deliberate massacre of tens of thousands of retreating
troops and fleeing civilians on the Basra highway in 1991. By then the
"Vietnam syndrome" did not include the deliberate massacre of civilians
and other war-crimes, but only significant losses to U.S. forces. 

>From someone with this analysis regarding Vietnam, it's all the more
distressing to see Chomsky's repeated insistence on what the discourse
will allow in the case of Palestine. To say that one should not speak on
behalf of a democratic Palestine with equal rights for everyone because
there is no broad support for that position and it will only play into
the hands of Israel's right wing supporters is rather like the
equivalent argument continually advanced within certain sectors of the
anti-war movement in the case of Vietnam (and still continually advanced
today): Talking about U.S. goals in Vietnam as "imperialism"--or worse,
speaking of "the right of the Vietnamese people to defend themselves
against U.S. invasion"-will only make us all look like a bunch of
left-wing fanatics out of touch with the rest of America; that's exactly
what the pro-war crowd wants us to do; we had better confine ourselves
to criticizing the "winability" of the war and decrying U.S. casualties.

Now listen to Chomsky on the right of return: 

"there is no detectable international support for it, and under the
(virtually unimaginable) circumstances that such support would develop,
Israel would very likely resort to its ultimate weapon, defying even the
boss-man, to prevent it. © In my opinion, it is improper to dangle hopes
that will not be realized before the eyes of people suffering in misery
and oppression. Rather, constructive efforts should be pursued to
mitigate their suffering and deal with their problems in the real
world." 

The right of return--a fundamental human right that Palestinian refugees
posses both collectively and individually, and that cannot be bargained
away on their behalf by anyone--is thus dispensed with in a few
sentences referring to prevailing "international support." Notice the
kindly paternalism with which Chomsky refuses to "dangle hopes that will
not be realized before the eyes" of the Palestinian people--as if the
right of return were something that he, or "we," could offer or withdraw
to an oppressed community that is entirely passive and dependent on his
benevolence, and not a right for which the Palestinian refugee community
has organized itself in an international struggle. The right of return
is not a "hope" which Chomsky can "dangle before the eyes" of
Palestinians; it is a right which they possess and which they are
actively fighting to realize. He can either support their struggle or
fail to support it. 

It is a striking fact about the entire interview that Palestinians
nowhere occur as a people with historical agency. When Chomsky tells us
that a majority of Israelis and US citizens now support a two-state
solution, he fails to mention that the very recognition of the existence
of the Palestinian people--in the face of half a century of genocidal
Israeli attempts to negate their society, their history and their
culture--is a direct product of Palestinian resistance against
overwhelming military, economic and political odds. It also seems that
Chomsky's assessments of "international support" are very much out of
touch with the global opinion on the streets. Wherever one finds masses
of people showing serious opposition to U.S. and European systems of
empire--whether against imperial wars, or against the instruments of
economic conquest--the Palestinian resistance has captured the
imagination and sympathy of the global community. "Globalize the
Intifada!" is now a rallying cry from Europe to South America. 

4. Against the call for justice and equal rights for everyone--a call
that we are being told is at once unjust and too idealistic--Chomsky
offers his realistic compromise of justice: a two-state solution based
on the Geneva Accords. (That is to say, if only the US would back
it--which it just might do if we deluded pro-Palestine activists would
devote our energies to that realistic solution.) Here is Chomsky's
calculus of compromise: 

"Which compromises should be accepted and which not? There is, and can
be, no general formula. Every treaty and other agreement I can think of
has been a 'compromise' and is unjust. Some are worth accepting, some
not. Take Apartheid South Africa. We were all in favor of the end of
Apartheid, though it was radically unjust, leaving highly concentrated
economic power virtually unchanged, though with some black faces among
the dominant white minority. On the other hand, we were all strenuously
opposed to the 'homelands' ('Bantustan') policies of 40 years ago, a
different compromise. The closest we can come to a formula -- and it is
pretty meaningless -- is that compromises should be accepted if they are
the best possible and can lead the way to something better. That is the
criterion we should all try to follow. Sharon's two-state settlement,
leaving Palestinians caged in the Gaza Strip and about half of the West
Bank, should not be accepted, because it radically fails the criterion.
The Geneva Accords approximates the criterion, and therefore should be
accepted, in my opinion." 

It's notable that Chomsky recognizes, in the case of South Africa, that
the compromise ultimately reached falls short of justice: even the
official end of Apartheid does not undo the immense inequality in the
concentration of wealth and power among white South Africans. In the
case of Palestine, "realism" demands that Palestinians strive not even
for this much, since Chomsky's solution is to impose some version of
what the anti-Apartheid movement rejected in South Africa 40 years ago:
a militarized state "for Jews only" next to a system of demilitarized
Bantustans. Make no mistake--in spite of all of Chomsky's claims, this
really is the solution offered by the Geneva Accords. 

5. It's good that, at least in this case, we know what the "realistic"
demand for a two-state solution looks like. In the usual variants of
this argument from pragmatism, there is the added wrinkle that the
spokesman only believes in a highly idealized, utopian two-state
solution, which he can't quantify exactly with details. It's usually a
two-state solution that isn't like any of the proposals advanced so far;
one that "really gives both sides equal rights" and has them living
happily ever after "along side one another" and "in peace." Here Chomsky
at least does give us something specific and historical--a solution
based on the Geneva Accords. 

What the Geneva Accords are in reality--what they actually are meant to
accomplish for Israel--is best expressed by one of their foremost
negotiators and spokesmen, Amram Mitzna (the Israeli Labor candidate
famous in the US as a candidate for "peace," and infamous among
Palestinians as the man who instituted the bone-crushing policy against
Palestinian children during the first Intifada). The following passages
are culled from Mitzna's article on the Geneva Accords published in
Haarezt ("They are Afraid of Peace," October 16, 2003). I quote them
here at some length because they demonstrate, better than any discussion
I might give, that "negotiation" is here merely a continuation of
colonial war by other means: 

"If the prime minister decided to implement the Geneva initiative, he
would go down in history for confirming the state of Israel as a Jewish
and democratic state, by agreement. That would be even more important
than the declaration of the state in 1948, since that was unilateral and
recognized by only a few other countries at the time." © 

"For three years the prime minister brainwashed the public on the
grounds that only force will bring victory. 

He and his colleagues made the public believe that there truly is
"nobody to talk to," that "the IDF can win" and that if we use more
force, the Palestinians will break. 

They told the citizens that if we are strong, the terror will end. But
the situation only worsened. The assassinations became the government's
only policy and instead of eradicating terror threaten to wipe out all
that remains of the country. 

The terror is intensifying, the economy continues to collapse, and
society to break down, and the demographic reality threatens the
existence of Israel as a Jewish state. But none of that has made the
government change course and try a different tack." © 

"©We conducted battles for Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and Gush Etzion.
We fought for the permanent borders of the state of Israel, for the very
existence of the state and its character, and we reached many
achievements. 

For the first time in history, the Palestinians explicitly and
officially recognized the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish
people forever. They gave up the right of return to the state of Israel
and a solid, stable Jewish majority was guaranteed. The Western Wall,
the Jewish Quarter and David's Tower will all remain in our hands. 

The suffocating ring was lifted from over Jerusalem and the entire ring
of settlements around it-Givat Ze'ev, old and new Givon, Ma'ale Adumim,
Gush Etzion, Neve Yaacov, Pisgat Ze'ev, French Hill, Ramot, Gilo and
Armon Hanatziv will be part of the expanded city, forever. None of the
settlers in those areas will have to leave their homes." 

Two things are clear from Mitzna's discussion: 1) the second Intifada
has been far more successful than anyone would imagine from the press
here in the US, or from Chomsky's discussion, in threatening the
continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state; 2) the Geneva Accords
were meant to accomplish by means of negotiation what the Sharon regime
has failed to accomplish by means of force--to break the Palestinian
resistance, to give full and permanent international legitimacy to '48
occupied land, and to increase by one huge bound the amount of '67
occupied territory that would belong to this now fully legitimate
"Israel." As Mitzna puts it, it is a matter of trying "a different
tack." 

At the same time, the Geneva Accords would be an international treaty
giving legal legitimacy to a set of conditions on the ground that set
the stage for Israel's then inevitable ongoing colonial expansion. The
agreement would ensure that the "Palestinian state" has no means of
defending itself against Israeli aggression and that Israel would
maintain the de facto power to invade at any time. The dense settlements
around Jerusalem, which contain the highest concentration of settlers in
the West Bank, and which effectively cut the West Bank in half, would be
conceded as part of "Israel" forever. The only guarantee that Israel
would not continue to expand these settlements, build more of them, and
re-invade militarily whenever Palestinians attempt to defend themselves
from these encroachments is a vague promise that the majority of
Israelis "really want to live in peace." Once again, neither the history
of Israel nor the general history of colonial projects is supposed to
guide us in assessing the realism of this "realistic" scenario. 

A far more realistic assessment of all such treaty negotiations was
written during the Oslo process by Norman Finkelstein. Entitled
"History's Verdict: the Cherokee Case," the article is a sustained
comparison between the Zionist project in Palestine and the US
colonial-settler project of dispossessing the Cherokee people of all of
their native land through a combination of settler encroachment,
military assault and treaty negotiations. Within this process, settlers
steal land; natives defend themselves; self-defense is widely published
as "savagery" or "terrorism"; this propaganda is then used to justify
military attacks as acts of "self-defense;" and finally treaty
negotiations are employed to enlist a certain number of the indigenous
people--either those who are simply exhausted by the sustained military
assault, or those who can be bribed into collaborating--to cede more of
their land to the settlers with the guarantee that the remaining land
will be theirs "in perpetuity." Perpetuity lasts for about 10 to 20
years, and then the cycle begins again (if it doesn't simply continue
unabated). The treaty negotiations are particularly useful in dividing
the colonized within themselves over their possible hopes; stopping
resistance struggles under the guise of a negotiated peace; and finally
giving a spurious appearance of legitimacy to the entire process. 

6. There is unmistakable racism in the way in which Chomsky evaluates
the realism of different scenarios: he tells us that it's entirely
unrealistic to imagine that Jewish people could live safely as a
minority in a Palestinian state based on principles of democracy and
equal rights. More disturbingly, this concern over the possible fate of
Jews as a minority in a Palestinian state is so significant in his mind
as to justify opposition to ending an actual situation in which Jewish
people live as privileged colonizers on Palestinian land. Here we are
supposed to apply the author's concept of realism. On the other hand,
it's supposed to be realistic, in spite of all proven history to the
contrary, for Palestinians to expect that a neighboring Israel, under a
two-state solution, will respect their territory even though they have
no arms to defend themselves. Or, even more amazing, that the US, under
pressure from US citizens, could be expected to protect them. His hope
for this rests apparently on the good will of Israelis and US citizens.
(Even in the aftermath of decades of genocidal US policies in other
countries, and protest movements that have never reached a level capable
of stopping a US invasion.) Here idealism is supposed to apply. 

In deciding what is realistic, we are supposed to ignore the most
obvious historical facts: that Palestine had centuries of religious
co-existence before Zionism--a co-existence to which all parties in the
history of the Palestinian struggle for liberation have officially
committed themselves; that the US, Europe and now Israel have an
unbroken history of violating treaties and international agreements
(including the highest conventions of international law) respecting
territorial integrity--especially the territorial integrity of native
peoples--and that this process has generally ended in near total
genocide wherever such peoples have put down their arms and ceased to
defend themselves. 

7. The concept of "realism" as Chomsky employs it has a striking
resemblance to the colonial discourse of "manifest destiny": Good or
bad, right or wrong--so the argument goes--these are the facts on the
ground; this is the way of history. In the name of this "realism,"
activists and intellectuals in the international community have
simultaneously asserted themselves as pro-Palestinian, and yet taken it
upon themselves to concede every fundamental right to which the
Palestinian people lay claim. In pointing to the Geneva Accords as a
legitimate compromise, Chomsky concedes all of the following rights on
their behalf: 

--the right to reclaim sovereignty over the land stolen from them in
  1948; 

--the right of refugees even to return to this land; 

--the right to reclaim the most densely settled land in the West Bank; 

--the right to freedom of movement within the new Palestinian "state"
  (since the West Bank settlements--to be declared permanently a part of
  "Israel"--cut that territory into isolated cantons, and these cantons
  are in turn separated from Gaza); 

--the right to full sovereignty over borders and airspace; 

--the right to maintain an independent military capable of self-defense;

--the right to full control of resources. 

In general, this means that the "best possible compromise," that
promises to "lead to something better," requires first that Palestinians
officially concede all of the material conditions on which the right to
self-determination depends. It's hard to see how these concessions could
possibly lead to "something better." 

More importantly for our purposes--however one evaluates the realistic
possibilities available to the Palestinian people in their struggle for
liberation--it's impossible to see how anyone in the international
community can help their struggle by conceding ground on matters of
fundamental principle. Honesty in these matters is our minimum
responsibility; if we believe that colonialism, racism and Apartheid are
unjust, we should oppose them systematically on principle and fight them
with every means at our disposal. 

Faced with the apologetics of pragmatism, a friend long active in the
struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, and now equally active in
the struggle for justice in Palestine, put the matter succinctly: Since
when is it the role of solidarity activists from the society of the
oppressor to make concessions on behalf of the oppressed? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHOMSKY'S RESPONSE:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[This is a reply to an article by Noah Cohen, which in turn is a
response to an interview Chomsky gave with Shalom and Podur several
months ago.] 

Noah Cohen’s charges raise some interesting questions about advocacy,
principle, and realism, which have much broader applications. Let’s
focus on his particular case – defense of Palestinian rights -- bringing
up the broader issues in this context. The core question, then, has to
do with the stands that can be taken by people with serious concerns for
the fate of the Palestinians, who have suffered severely and face an
even more miserable future unless we find ways to reverse the processes
now underway, for which we bear considerable responsibility and
accordingly, can influence if we choose. 

Among the options under discussion are one-state and binational
approaches. These are crucially different. There are many forms of
multinationalism in the world: Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, etc. The
concept is a cover term for arrangements that allow forms of autonomy
for groups within complex societies, not necessarily only those that
choose to regard themselves as “nations.” Quite different are one-state
systems, with no form of autonomy for various communities. In the US,
for example, Latinos do not have autonomy or control over language or
education in the areas stolen by violence from Mexico (or elsewhere);
nothing approaching, say, the partial autonomy in Catalonia, to mention
one of many cases of some form of multinationalism. 

Let’s turn to some of the relevant background. Pre-1948, binationalism
was a minority position within the Zionist movement. From 1967-73 Israel
had a real opportunity to institute a binational settlement in
cis-Jordan in the context of a full peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan,
hence the relevant part of the Arab world. There was no interest. The
PLO had no interest. US articulate opinion was bitterly opposed. My own
writings on the topic were harshly attacked from all sides. 

After the 1973 war, that option was effectively closed. Palestinian
national rights were, for the first time, clearly and forcefully
articulated in the international arena. A two-state settlement was
brought to the UN Security Council in January 1976, vetoed by the US, an
act condemned by Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the PLO. Since then there has
been a broad international consensus in favor of a two-state settlement,
blocked by the US and Israel alone. It should be unnecessary to review
this history once again. 

In contrast, there has been no support for a one-state solution from any
significant actor throughout this period. It has never been considered
an option in the international arena. The PLO spoke about “democratic
secularism,” but in a form that called for liquidation of all Jewish
political, social, and cultural institutions within an “Arab nation.”
For this reason alone – there were many others – the stance had no
impact, except as a weapon for advocates of US-Israeli rejectionism.
These matters were discussed in print in the 1970s; there is a brief
review in my book Toward a New Cold War (1982, 430n). To say that the
idea has had no support in Israel is an understatement. It is rejected
with virtual unanimity and considerable fervor, and would be even if
there some basis for taking seriously the rhetoric about democratic
secularism. Under the (virtually unimaginable) circumstance that some
meaningful international support would develop for such a plan, Israel
would oppose it by any possible means: that includes the ultimate
weapons, which Israel has available and can use. 

Since the late ‘90s, a "one-state settlement" has become a welcome topic
of discussion in elite circles, so much so that the New York Times
Magazine and the New York Review of Books have run major articles
proposing this approach – I won’t say “advocating” it, for reasons to
which I will return. Same in similar circles elsewhere. It is worth
bearing in mind that when the solution was realistic and would have
saved a lot of blood and agony, it was utter anathema. Why the change?
The only explanation I have seen is what appears in the interview with
Shalom-Podur, which I won’t repeat. But let us put that aside, and turn
to the current situation. 

Right now, there are several possible stands that might be taken by
those concerned with the people of the region, justice for Palestinians
in particular. Evidently, such stands are of only academic interest
unless they are accompanied by programs of action that take into account
the real world. If not, they are not advocacy in any serious sense of
the term. 

Perhaps another word of clarification is in order. Attention to feasible
programs of action is sometimes dismissed as “realism” or “pragmatism,”
and is placed in opposition to “acting on principle.” That is a serious
delusion. There is nothing “principled” about refusal to pay attention
to the real world and the options that exist within it – including, of
course, the option of making changes, if a feasible course of action can
be developed, as was clearly and explicitly the case with regard to
Vietnam, discussed in the comments that Cohen brings up and completely
misunderstands. Those who ignore or deride such “realism” and
“pragmatism,” however well-intentioned they may be, are simply choosing
to ignore the consequences of their actions. The delusion is not only a
serious intellectual error, but also a harmful one, with severe human
consequences. That should be clear without further elaboration. 

I will keep here to advocacy in the serious sense: accompanied by some
kind of feasible program of action, free from delusions about “acting on
principle” without regard to “realism” -- that is, without regard for
the fate of suffering people. 

One stand is support for a two-state settlement in terms of the
overwhelming and long-standing and very broad international consensus
(including the Palestinian Authority), barred by the US and Israel
though supported by the majority of the US population and acceptable to
majorities, possibly large majorities, within Israel (depending on how
questions are asked in polls). There are various concrete forms. One
version is the Geneva Accords, which, as noted in the interview, “gives
a detailed program for a 1-1 land swap and other aspects of a
settlement, and is about as good as is likely to be achieved.” The terms
and maps are readily available. Since Cohen does not address these
matters, apart from citation of an irrelevant source, and does not
suggest anything that is more “likely to be achieved,” there is no need
to go beyond the interview. These proposals constitute a basis for
negotiations that is vastly improved over the Clinton-Barak Camp David
proposals as well as the (much less unacceptable) Taba proposals that
followed. For the first time, they open the doors to a 1-1 land swap
that could be meaningful, and they break from the cantonization programs
of earlier proposals. They still have objectionable features, but the
operative question is whether they can be taken as a serious basis for
negotiations, and whether there is an alternative that is likely to
offer more to the Palestinians than proceeding on this basis. 

If there is such an alternative, let’s by all means hear it. Those who
do not want to undertake that responsibility are choosing, in effect, to
take part in an academic seminar among disengaged intellectuals on Mars.

Support for the international consensus is true advocacy, not posturing
or academic debate. The reason is straightforward, as discussed in the
interview: there are obvious and realistic programs of action associated
with this stand. The main task is to bring the opinions and attitudes of
the large majority of the US population into the arena of policy. As
compared with other tasks facing activists, this is, and has long been,
a relatively simple one. Relatively; no such tasks are easy. What has
been lacking is commitment, not opportunities. Those who are unwilling
to undertake the commitment have only themselves to blame for the likely
outcome, which is taking shape before our eyes, in directions that are
all too clear. To the extent that US policy can be shifted towards the
international consensus and domestic opinion, support will increase in
Israel, almost automatically, as a result of the dependency relation
that Israel consciously adopted over 30 years ago. There will
undoubtedly be settler resistance, but at least in the judgment of the
most senior Israeli security officials, the problem should not be too
difficult to deal with, as quoted in the interview. 

A second possible stand is support for a binational settlement, perhaps
a federal arrangement of the kind that has long been discussed and
exists successfully elsewhere, or in some other form. This stand moves
from rhetoric and posturing to true advocacy when it is accompanied by a
feasible program of action. There is such a program, with two essential
steps. The first is to implement a two-state settlement in accord with
the international consensus, and reversing the escalating cycle of
hostility, hatred, violence, repression, and dispossession. The second
step is to proceed from there. For reasons that are clear to anyone
familiar with the region, two states in cis-Jordan make little sense,
and both communities have good reasons to seek further integration. That
is a feasible program, but only in steps. Those who think otherwise have
the responsibility of formulating their program to implement directly
the alternative they propose; as noted, that was possible before the
mid-1970s, but not since. Until we see that program, there is nothing to
discuss, and there is no advocacy in the serious sense of the term. 

A third possible stand is support for a no-state settlement,
generalizing multinationalism (in the broad sense indicated) beyond the
borders of a state. That approach would be based on the recognition that
the nation-state system has been one of the must brutal and destructive
creations of Europe and its offshoots, imposed by force on much of the
rest of the world, with horrendous consequences for centuries in Europe,
and elsewhere until the present. For the region, it would mean
reinstating some of the more sensible elements of the Ottoman system
(though, obviously, without its intolerable features), including local
and regional autonomy, elimination of borders and free transit, sharply
diminishing or eliminating military forces, etc. Applied elsewhere, say
to North America, it would entail, to mention just one example,
reversing Clinton’s post-NAFTA militarization of the (previously quite
porous) Mexico-US border, with a severe human cost, and dealing in some
humane way with the fact that the US is sitting on half of Mexico,
acquired by brutal conquest. Similar issues arise throughout the world. 

For what it’s worth, I’ve also advocated that in public, and in fact
have been (maybe still am) under investigation for the crime of
“separatism” by the Turkish security system for remarks on this matter
in a talk in the semi-official Kurdish capital of Diyarbakir, later
published, maybe posted on Znet. There’s also an (implicit) advocacy of
something like that in Charles Glass’s excellent book Tribes with Flags.

Is there a feasible program for this, so that it reaches the level of
true advocacy? Yes, along the path of advocacy of the more limited
binational proposal. The no-state stand is more reasonable and probably
more feasible in the longer term than the one-state position. At least
this approach recognizes the realities of the region, and the importance
of some form of self-determination and autonomy for the complex array of
intermingled groups and interests. 

How should we rank these objectives in order of preference? My own
judgment, since childhood and still today, is that among these
alternatives, the no-state solution is by far the best (not just in this
region), a binational state second, and a two-state solution worst. Note
that I have omitted the one-state version. One reason I have already
indicated: a binational system is much better suited to the needs and
concerns of the two communities, and I suspect would be preferable to
them if it can be approached in steps. But we need not speculate about
that. Until the immediate one-state proposal accepts the discipline of
“realism,” and is accompanied by some indication of a feasible program
of action, we are back to the Martian seminar. 

As already mentioned, I presume this is why the proposal has become
acceptable in elite intellectual circles, as distinct from the years
when a binational version was feasible and was anathema. Now the ideas
are welcome, demonstrating our humanity, but without concern that they
might lead anywhere. There are, however, those who greatly welcome this
proposal as an immediate demand, rejecting the intermediate stages, and
hope that it will be widely adopted. To quote the interview: 

“The propaganda systems in Israel and the US will joyously welcome the
proposal if it gains more than even marginal attention, and will labor
to give it great publicity, interpreting it as just another
demonstration that there is "no partner for peace," so that the
US-Israel have no choice but to establish "security" by caging barbaric
Palestinians into a West Bank dungeon while taking over the valuable
lands and resources. The most extreme and violent elements in Israel and
the US could hope for no greater gift than this proposal.” 

If the only alternative open is a “one-state settlement” without
preliminary stages, we can have little doubt that Israeli and US hawks
would rejoice, and would proceed, with overwhelming public support to
impose their own brutal arrangements on the occupied territories. Since
Cohen ignores these matters entirely, I’ll leave it at that, simply
noting that we do not reach the level of advocacy, in a serious sense,
unless these topics are addressed with care. 

Much the same holds with regard to the “right of return.” As stated
explicitly in the interview, “Palestinian refugees should certainly not
be willing to renounce the right of return.” That is not in question
(Cohen’s misrepresentation omits this crucial sentence). A different
question is whether the right will be implemented. In this case too,
under the (virtually unimaginable) circumstances that any meaningful
support might develop for it, Israel would resort to its ultimate
weapons to prevent it. Those who have any concern for the fate of the
refugees will not dangle before their eyes hopes that will not be
realized. And they can hardly claim that to do so is a moral stance. 

The same is true generally, including the other examples mentioned here.
The Cherokees have the right of return to the lands from which they were
driven, and “should certainly not be willing to renounce” that right.
The 10-15 million Kurds of Turkey have the right to self-government in a
much broader Kurdistan, and “should certainly not be willing to
renounce” that right. Suppose that someone were to dangle in front of
the eyes of Cherokees or Turkish Kurds the hope that those rights will
be realized if only they reject any arrangements that to some extent
mitigate their grim circumstances. Such a person might believe
him/herself to be a “defender of the Cherokees” or of the Kurds, and to
be acting “on principle,” but would be seriously misled. 

I have been assuming so far that the discussion is among people who care
about the people involved and their fate, in particular the
Palestinians, the most miserable victims. There is, of course, another
possibility. We might shift to the academic seminar among disengaged
intellectuals on Mars. We can then join them in deriding “realism” and
feasibility – that is, attention to the real world and consideration of
the consequences of our actions for the victims. And we can engage in
abstract discussion of what might be “right” and “just” in some
non-existent universe. But if partipicants in these exercises decide to
come down to earth, and to have some concern and compassion for the
victims, they have the duty of explaining to us how we proceed from here
to there. If they have a suggestion, let’s hear it so we can evaluate
it, and if it is reasonable, act on it. Those who are convinced by the
proposals if they are ever presented should by all means pursue them,
but for the moment the matters is entirely academic, since there are no
meaningful proposals for action other than the step-by-step ones already
outlined; at least none that I have ever seen. For the reasons I
explained, I think that those who take these stands without reaching the
level of serious advocacy are serving the cause of the extreme hawks in
Israel and the US, and bringing even more harm to suffering
Palestinians. Since the comments have not been addressed, I have to
leave it at that. 

I don’t see anything substantive in Cohen’s charges that has not already
been answered. To illustrate the pointlessness of response, I will
simply take the first charge, skipping the rhetorical flow that
precedes: 

“In general, the argument rests on two pillars: 

1) Israel's history of colonial occupation and expansion must be
separated from all other colonial histories as a special case and
special consideration must be given to Zionist colonial settlers as a
historically vulnerable group; 2) Since this "historically vulnerable
group" also has massive military power, nuclear weapons, and U.S.
military and economic support, calling for an end to the colonial regime
is unrealistic; it only hurts the colonized, and should be redirected to
more useful activities. 

The first is a tortured attempt to meet arguments about justice; the
second is an attempt to make them moot by arguments about realism.” 

Pillar 1) is an invention, unless Cohen means that this is a “special
case” in the exact sense in which every other case is a “special case,”
with its own properties that should be taken into consideration by
anyone who has the slightest concern for the people involved, in
particular the Palestinians. The rest of 1) we can ignore. 

In pillar 2), Cohen is quoting himself, not me. The reference to “U.S.
military and economic support” is also his invention: the interview to
which he refers, and everything I’ve written and said about that topic
for many decades, make it unmistakeably clear that ending that support
should precisely be our objective – not reinforcing that support by
adopting a stand that is extremely welcome to the ultra-hawks, as just
explained. To the extent that the charge of “realism” is accurate, I
certainly accept it, and would recommend it to anyone who hopes to do
something useful in this world, and therefore takes into account real
world circumstances and the consequences of our actions for suffering
people. 

The rest continues along the same lines. If any reader thinks there is
some point that should be addressed, I’ll be glad to consider it. 

continue


more