A few weeks back Karen Ocana posted something of Kissinger's/ I spoke
with since then and we discussed. I thought it would be of interest to all
of you to read what Noman Chomsky has to say, andwisely I believe about eh
old gangster. Karen has been and contineus to be offline for a while as I
shall be . but when I saw this, I thought, oh, they should see it. Itts
fort hose who are interested in this area of the plateau.
and as I mentioned I will be busy aand away for a while. But I will be
back. So peaccce and love and double disjunctions to -
Clifford Duffy
__________________________________________________________________________Re
Kissinger
I don't think there is much significance in the failure to publish K's
comments quoted in the "Jerusalem Post." They scarcely deviate from
official US position, or from the Bantustan model advocated by the Clinton
administration and both political groupings in Israel (Labor,
Likud). Netanyahu and Likud have already called for moving to the "final
settlement," skipping the step-by-step process, and the Clintonites are
not opposed. Furthermore, even the ultra-right in Israel is willing to
call whatever sectors are left to Palestinian administration a "state." If
you don't mind, I'll quote myself, from a talk at an academic conference
in Israel in June on 30 years of occupation, to be published (in theory):
`Whether the US and Israel decide to call the cantons a "state" or
something else -- perhaps "fried chicken" as David Bar-Illan elegantly
suggested -- the results are likely to resemble the Bantustan model.'
Bar-Illan is the ultra-chauvinist spokesperson for the Netanyahu
government; technically, director of Communications and Policy Planning in
the office of the Prime Minister.
There's nothing surprising about this. The Bantustans, after all, were
called "states" too. And if the US had initiated and supported the
Apartheid system, the establishment of the Bantustans would have been
called a "peace process" by journalists and other commentators, across the
political spectrum. They would also have been denouncing the ANC and other
terrorists, and the white "extremists" (probably Commie rats) in White
South Africa who were anti-Apartheid, who were seeking to undermine the
peace process, an illustration of a "noble phase" in US foreign
policy. The US didn't support the Apartheid system for various reasons
(including plenty of public protest), so establishment of Transkei
(etc.) wasn't hailed as a great advance in the "peace process" and yet
another sign of our magnificence. But there is no reason to be surprised
if Kissinger takes the position quoted on the current application of the
Bantustan model.
There's also near-universal agreement (from Peres to the ultra-right) that
the issue is the borders. Furthermore, they don't disagree much on what
the borders should be. In a book called "World Orders Old and New" I
reviewed the various peace proposals of Israeli governments over the
years, including the 1992 proposals from ultra-right (Sharon) to left
(Labor-Meretz). They scarcely differ, as you can check. The Oslo
Agreements, particularly Oslo II (which is very detailed), spell out one
version of these (I had an article about Oslo II in Z, and it's discussed
in greater detail in the epilogue to the 1996 paperback edition of WOON,
if you are interested). So Kissinger is simply repeating the obvious.
Incidentally, he's been a bit disingenuous in describing himself as "the
first to advocate the step-by-step process to the Arabs and
Israelis." True, he did advocate that -- after his stupidity and ignorance
had been exposed by Egyptian success in the 1973 war, and even he realized
that Egypt couldn't simply be dismissed as a basket case as he had
assumed, so he moved to the fall-back position of excluding the major Arab
deterrent from the conflict. For details, see the above, and many earlier
publications, back to the mid-'70s. Also Norman Finkelstein's very good
book "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict," last chapter.
Noam Chomsky