© shamantrixx.deviantart.comProfessor Noam Chomsky tells it like it is.
Chomsky told Democracy Now that U.S. coverage of the shelling reflected Israeli propaganda, and he dismissed a widely quoted remark by Israel's former prime minister, Golda Meir, as dishonest and cruel.
Bob Schieffer, host of CBS' Face the Nation, repeated the quote - "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children" - on a recent broadcast, and Chomsky said U.S. media coverage has been "shameful."
"I guess maybe the best comment about that was made by the great Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who just described (Meir's remark) as 'sadism masked as compassion,'" Chomsky said. "That's about the right characterization."
He said the U.S. had violated its own laws by providing military and monetary support to Israel in its campaign against Gaza.
"You look at U.S. foreign assistance law, it bars any military assistance to any one country, unit, whatever, engaged in consistent human rights violations," Chomsky said. "Well, you know, Israel's violation of human rights violations is so extreme and consistent that you hardly have to argue about it. That means that U.S. aid to Israel is in - military aid, is in direct violation of U.S. law."
Chomsky noted that President Barack Obama had expressed continued support for Israel and tried to block a United Nations investigation into possible human rights violations.
"The United States continues to provide, as (the U.N. high commissioner or human rights) pointed out, the critical, the decisive support for the atrocities," Chomsky said. "When what's called Israeli jet planes bomb defenseless targets in Gaza, that's U.S. jet planes with Israeli pilots, and the same with the high-tech munition and so on and so forth. So this is, again, sadism masked as compassion. Those are the actions."
But he said public opinion on Israel's policies had changed drastically in the U.S. in recent years, particularly among young people.
"You can see it on college campuses - I mean, I see it personally," Chomsky said. "I've been giving talks on these things for almost 50 years. I used to have police protection, literally, even at my own university. The meetings were broken up violently, you know, enormous protest. Within the past, roughly, decade, that's changed substantially by now that Palestinian solidarity is maybe the biggest issue on campus. Huge audiences. There isn't even - hardly get a hostile question. That's a tremendous change."
However, he's not sure how much that opinion shift will matter.
"There's something we have to remember about the United States: It's not a democracy; it's a plutocracy," Chomsky said. "There's study after study that comes out in mainstream academic political science which shows what we all know or ought to know - that political decisions are made by a very small sector of extreme privilege and wealth, concentrated capital. For most of the population, their opinions simply don't matter in the political system. They're essentially disenfranchised."
Still, he remained optimistic that public opinion would eventually change U.S. policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Even in dictatorships, the public can't be ignored, and in a partially democratic society like this, even less so," Chomsky said. "So ultimately, this will make a difference - and how long 'ultimately' is, well, that's up to us."
Chomsky pointed to the shift in U.S. policy toward apartheid-era South Africa as a possible model for change.
"In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid," he said. "To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by 'apartheid' you mean South African-style apartheid. What's happening in the Occupied Territories is much worse."Chomsky said South African Nationalists needed black people, which was about 85 percent of the population, to fill its workforce and sustain the economy.
"The Israeli relationship to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is totally different," he said. "They just don't want them. They want them out, or at least in prison. And they're acting that way. That's a very striking difference, which means that the apartheid analogy, South African apartheid, to the Occupied Territories is just a gift to Israeli violence. It's much worse than that."
Comment: The U.S. military and monetary support of Israel is not only a violation of U.S. law, it is also a violation of International Humanitarian Law based on the Geneva Conventions and its subsequent protocols and the Hague Convention.
- Soldiers who surrender or who are hors de combat are entitled to respect for their lives and their moral and physical integrity. It is forbidden to kill or injure them.
- The wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power. Protection also covers medical personnel, establishments, transports and equipment. The emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red crystal is the sign of such protection and must be respected.
- Captured combatants are entitled to respect for their lives, dignity, personal rights and convictions. They must be protected against all acts of violence and reprisals. They must have the right to correspond with their families and to receive relief.
- Civilians under the authority of a party to the conflict or an occupying power of which they are not nationals are entitled to respect for their lives, dignity, personal rights and convictions.
- Everyone must be entitled to benefit from fundamental judicial guarantees. No one must be sentenced without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court. No one must be held responsible for an act he has not committed. No one must be subjected to physical or mental torture, corporal punishment or cruel or degrading treatment.
- Parties to a conflict and members of their armed forces do not have an unlimited choice of methods and means of warfare. It is prohibited to employ weapons or methods of warfare of a nature to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering.
- Parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare civilian population and property. Adequate precautions shall be taken in this regard before launching an attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is regarded as the "guardian" of the Geneva Conventions and the various other treaties that constitute international humanitarian law. It cannot, however, act as either policeman or judge. These functions belong to governments, the parties to international treaties, who are required to prevent and put an end to violation of IHL. They have also an obligation to punish those responsible of what are known as "grave breaches" of IHL or war crimes.