Noam Chomsky: Edward W Said Lecture: Violence and Dignity -- Reflections on the Middle East

thank you thank you good evening everyone I'm very sorry for the slight delay as you saw the weather was atrocious and a lot of people were late so we now have more or less a packed house and I'd like to welcome you tonight on behalf of the organizing committee of the Edward Sayid annual lecture Mariam Saeed who will introduce professor Chomsky Mary Kay Wilmers I haven't seen yet I hope she's here at Hef's wife and Jacqueline Rose also on behalf of the London Review of Books and the am Curtin foundation I welcome you tonight this is our fourth lecture in a series which I hope will go on for many years and tonight we present professor Chomsky speaking about violence and dignity reflections on the Middle East professor Chomsky needs no introduction for over 60 years he's helped generations of citizens including students activists and intellectuals unravel and analyze some of the most challenging and complex questions facing them facing us and in an astonishing number of disciplines ranging from linguistics to international relations and so on but it is his principled engagement with and struggle against injustice throughout these years that have made his insights so very forceful and necessary helping many of us in our attempts not only to better understand the world but to also strive to make it more just and equitable before we begin however I'd also like to thank Mary whet Mary Kay Wilmers again and the London Review of Books for their fantastic and generous support to us this year - Fiona McMurray and her team who have handled press relations so very effectively and the mosaic groom's team who have worked tirelessly to make this evening a success I think you can see that we're already there more or less professor Chomsky will be introduced by Miriam and will speak for approximately 40 minutes he'll then take a small number of questions afterwards he has also very generously signed a limited number of copies of his new book power systems which are available to purchase in the outside hall please join me in welcoming Miriam side I would like to start by thanking all the people our Martha thanked from the London Review of Books to the team who made all this possible and also the a.m. Catan Foundation who has been our biggest supporter from the inception of this lecture series good evening everybody we all know that Professor Noam Chomsky needs no introduction I will try to be as brief as I can in order not to take too much of his time reknowned academics public intellectuals activists and humanists are the words used to describe Noam Chomsky and my late husband Edward sight exceptional people with vision responsible intellectuals whose interpretations on what is what is taking place in the real world is unique and different they're respected fields had to do with the importance of language Chomsky as a linguist and Edward as a literary critic what they say is always create clear and precise Noam and Edward met in the 1960s and over the years maintained an off-and-on conversation on various subjects including current affairs and policy formation at some point they toyed with the idea of collaborating together on a book both were very busy unfortunately this idea never materialized the telephone the Xerox machine and the mail were the only means of communication during the 1960s and 70s copies of hard-to-find printed information such as newsletters or translations of foreign language articles would be sent by mail Edward and Noam had a friend who was a very important source of this kind of alternate information his name was Israel shocked and Israeli professor of chemistry a Holocaust survivor a remarkable man who spent hours and hours every day translating from Hebrew to English you paper articles that appear in the Israeli press and commenting on them in the beginning he would write his translations by hand eventually he accepted to use the typewriter both Eduard and norm were recipient of his diligent work and his analysis challenged them and others to Bro to probe further nowadays we are privileged to have the world of cyberspace news and images are received instantly thanks to the internet and cellular phones with cameras however it takes a very long time to sift through the massive amounts of alternate information Edward was getting overwhelmed with the barrage of information Nomi introduced him to a wonderful woman called Chiffre stern a paralegal by profession and like Israel Jacques had taken it upon herself to provide others with hard to find information Chiffre spends hours on the internet compiling information from unknown sources and emails her output and emails her output to people like Noam and Edward during the last few years of his life Edward would eagerly await Chiffre input and after going through her package would say to me Chiffre is amazing before he passed before Edward passed away he wrote a new preface for the twenty five year anniversary edition of Orientalism and I caught and lastly most important humanism is the only and I would go as far as to say the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and in justices that disfigure human history we are most privileged to have with us tonight a rare voice with deep insight and intuition please join me in welcoming professor Noam Chomsky the most prolific humanist and resistor whose value will work over 60 years income income passes the whole word globe and rich is the first farthest corners of the earth thank you thank you I am a Swedish novelist Henning Mankell tells of an experience in Mozambique at the peak of the hideous atrocities of the apartheid era he describes how he saw his walking towards the village he saw a man walking towards him and ragged clothes in his words in his deep misery the wretched survivor had painted shoes on his feet in a way to defend his dignity when everything was lost he had found the colors from the earth and he had painted shoes on his feet seems like that will evoke many poignant memories among people who've witnessed cruelty and degradation and also the steady resistance of the Sami Dean Baro Rajesh ahadith term for the those who endure remarkable book on Palestinians under occupation thirty years ago like many of you and in fact much less than many of you I've witnessed many scenes like that throughout the world over many years once again last October when I was able to visit Gaza for the first time I tried earlier but couldn't make it greeting me on my return home were the reports on the latest outburst of shocking crimes the November Israeli assault supported by the United States and tolerated politely by Europe as usual one of the first reports I received was a photograph by a young Gaza journalist man have known for some years met again in Gaza the photograph showed a doctor in a hospital ward holding the hideously charred corpse of a murdered infant the doctor is the director and a head of surgery at the han eunice hospital and south of Gaza were actually a few days earlier I had heard his passionate appeal for drugs and surgical equipment so that patients would not have to rise in agony a wild awaiting simple surgery that cannot be performed for lack of facilities as the November attack exploded the United Nations released its weekly review of the permanent humanitarian crisis in Gaza it reported that 40% of essential drugs are out of stock consequence of the Israeli blockade and Western complicity which we should not forget and the unwillingness of the new Egyptian government to offend the masters it appears that the court in credible reports that the borders are still under the control of Mubarak's dreaded Mahabharat secret police is closely linked to the CIA and Israeli Mossad just last week I received another article by the same Gaza journalist you may have seen describing the terrible impact of the Morsi government's latest assault against the people of Gaza it has devised a new way to block the tunnels that are a lifeline for people imprisoned under our siege and constant attack flooding them with filthy sewage same days news brought a report by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem on a new device adopted by the Israeli army to overcome the ingenuity of the Sammy Dean hidden coping with tear gas spraying protestors and homes with powerful Jets of raw sewage sewage this is punishment for the weekly nonviolent protests against ills Israel's illegal separation wall actually an annexation wall so more evidence that great minds have similar thoughts in this kind case combining criminal repression with a useful humiliation the tragedy of Gaza dates back to 1948 hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and fled in terror or were forcibly expelled across the border by the conquering Israeli forces they actually continued to truck them across the border after the official ceasefire for at least four years we've recently learned a recent Israeli scholarship notably the very important work of avi Roz it reveals sykes documentary evidence that the government's goal was to drive the refugees into the Sinai and if feasible also the rest of the population of Palestine these long-standing goals may well be a factor contributing to Egypt's reluctance to open the border to free passage of people and goods that barred by the cruel western-backed Israeli siege getting rid of the Arabs of Gaza was only one facet of much broader goals during the 1948 expulsion Israeli government Arabists predicted that the refugees would either assimilate elsewhere or would be crushed and died while most of them would turn into human dust and the waste of society and join the most first classes in the Arab countries as for the Arabs of what called the Land of Israel themselves Prime Minister David ben-gurion held that they have only one function left to them to run away the causes of the refugee flight are no longer seriously in question there very few who would question the conclusions of the most prominent Israeli historian of the topic Ben Morris in his words the refugee problem was caused by attacks by Jewish forces on Arab villages and towns and by the inhabitants fear of such attacks compounded by expulsion atrocities rumours of atrocities and by the crucial Israeli cabinet decision in June 1948 right in the middle of the atrocities at the barre refugee return leaving the Palestinians crushed with some 700,000 driven into exile Morris is critical of Israeli atrocities in part because they are too limited ben-gurion great error he says perhaps a fatal mistake was not to have cleansed the whole country the whole Land of Israel as far as the Jordan River there's actually evidence just appeared in the last few days from recently declassified Israeli cabinet records that ben-gurion apparently had the same same reaction to the failure the fatal mistake of not completing the purification of the land as it's called from the earliest days Arabs were regarded as an alien implant in the land of is as the Balfour Declaration was released hi invites Minh as you know Israel's first president the most respected Zionist figure he remarked that the is a British had informed him that in Palestine there are a few hundred thousand Negroes Schwartz's affection he said but that's a matter of no significance veidt's Minh in turn had informed Lord Balfour that the issue known as the Arab problem in Palestine will be of merely local character and in effect anyone cognizant of the situation that does not consider it a highly significant factor so displacement of the inhabitants by the Jewish settlement raises no moral issue a later President Israeli president crime heretic also incidentally a labor dove he articulated the basic guidelines in 1972 the dates important this is often attributed to nom beggin and laocoön but it's not it's a old labor party program he said I do not deny the Palestinians any place or stand or opinion on every matter but certainly I am not prepared to consider them as partners in any respect in a land that has been consecrated in the hands of our nation for thousands of years for the Jews of this land there cannot be any partner that's the does that I'm quoting the humanists Lord Balfour himself who was a devoted Christian Zionist he expressed similar views these were actually quite a common element of elite Christian Zionism which long predates Jewish Zionism it included the leading figures in the United States as well that was primarily a British phenomenon that they were immersed in the holy book with lessons that the Land of Israel was promised to the Jews others are interlopers Woodrow Wilson Harry Truman many others it's for example why one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's leading advisors an important cabinet member described the Jewish return to Palestine as the most remarkable event in history in the United States a traditional elite Christian Zionism is now buttress by an enormous right-wing Christian movement passionately pro-israel deeply a D Semitic forms much of the current base of the current Republican Party it's important to recognize that to understand lots of things that take place regularly like the Chuck Hagel hearings a few weeks ago at Christian Zionism is an important factor in shaping policy towards Israel Palestine from early years there are others it's noteworthy for example that the strongest support for Israel in the international arena comes from the countries that are called the Anglosphere Britain and soft shoes US Canada and Australia these are unusual in history of imperialism and that there are settler colonial societies based on extermination or expulsion of indigenous populations in favour of a higher race and in them such behaviors kind of instinctively considered unnatural and praiseworthy so what Israel's doing looks entirely normal quite apart from the religious element the crucial factors certainly since 1967 our strategic and economic and still prevail but others shouldn't be overlooked well going back to Gaza after Israel's 1967 conquests torture took new forms at too awful the review all seems to be pretty much under control until December 1987 when the Intifada suddenly broke out first in Gaza spreading quickly throughout the territories largely nonviolent it stimulated quite impressive popular organization anyone who visited I was there could see that large respects revolt against the feudal society the Palestinian society it elicited brutal repression became reached its peak of savagery under the orders of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin's another admired of he informed the peace now delegation at the peak of the state crimes that meaningless us dialogue with the PLO was designed to grant Israel on quoting him at least a year to suppress the uprising by force the inhabitants of the territories are subject to harsh military and economic pressure robbing explain that in the end they will be broken abandon battening their hopes for a life of dignity Gaza was placed under closure that time breaking any connection to the rest of Palestine this was extended shortly after within the framework of the Oslo Accords of 1993 at which if anyone cares declared that Gaza and the West Bank are an indivisible territorial unity which cannot be separated us and Israel we're doing the opposite and that remains us Israeli policy to the present it's quite significant separation of the two regions guarantees that if any limited autonomy is gained in the West Bank it will have no access to the outside world except through Jordan and that's being barred by the systematic expulsion of the inhabitants of the Jordan Valley expulsion that the Israeli press accurately called calls T her Bobby Cobb purification of the valley cleansing of the valley these are programs that have slowly reduced its population from 300,000 in 1967 to less than 60,000 today they continue steadily with extreme cruelty will soon be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accords they were held at the time as a historic breakthrough on the path towards resolution of the israel-palestine conflict and not universally held of course certainly not by prominent Palestinian figures who could see easily what's happening among them was Raja Shahada he was Palestinian Palestine is leading legal specialists he'd been trying in vain for years to block Israel's violations of international law and the territories he recognized right away that the Accords were a surrender in the interests of Israel and the tunis based PLO leadership which was being marginalized within the territories but is now restored to power through the side channel in Oslo another one was Edward Sayed who saw exactly what was happening and condemned the capitulation at once another was a historian Rashid Khalidi he was actually an advisor to the Palestinian negotiators at the Madrid negotiations he described the Oslo agreements as an infernal trap still another was Haider Abdullah fee is probably the most respected Palestinian within the territories he headed the Palestinian delegation at the us-run Madrid and he refused to capitulate the us-israeli demands he insisted that any agreement must at the very least bar illegal Israeli settlement in the territories that issue was ignored at Oslo and Abdel Shafi refused to attend the signing of the ceremony on the White House lawn described as a day of awe in the American press there were many illusions about Gaza but no basis for them whatsoever to understand what was taking place that was sufficient to read the short several pages of the Declaration of Principles the document that emerged these were quite explicit about satisfying Israel's demands and completely silent on Palestinian national rights article 1 of the declaration states that the end result of the process noticed the end result when everything's finished is to be a permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 anyone familiar with diplomacy knows that these resolutions say nothing at all about Palestinian rights apart from vague reference to just settlement of the refugee problem though mention of Palestinians there are UN resolutions referring to Palestinian national rights but these were ignored in the Declaration of Principles so if the culmination of the peace process would be as clearly articulated in the Declaration of Principles then Palestinians could kiss goodbye to any hopes for some meaningful form of autonomy of national rights in the former Palestine the assault on the people of Gaza mounted very sharply in January 2006 when Palestinians committed one of their major crimes in the first free election in the Arab world they voted the wrong way such insubordination conflicts very sharply with the really existing passion for democracy that's regularly proclaimed by Western leaders in the political class and at once the US and Israel with Europe toddling obediently behind that it usually does instituted the harsh measures to punish the miscreants actually punishment became even more severe your year later when Gazans committed an even worse crime immediately after the elections with their unwelcome outcome Washington turned through standard operating procedure when criminal populations vote improperly prepare a military coup this was to be led by Fatah strongman Muhammad Allah the elected government preempted the coup that's an event denounced in the West as Hamas is a violent takeover of Gaza context suppressed it's bad enough to vote the wrong way in a free election but preventing a us run military coup to overthrow the government that's a truly unspeakable crime and accordingly the siege and other punishments were sharply increased in retaliation we then move on to Operation Cast Lead other atrocities I won't review the shocking story which Westerners should know by heart given their critical role throughout well throughout these years Gaza has been a showcase for violence of every imaginable crime kind the record shows such sadistic and very carefully planned atrocities as Operation Cast Lead called infanticide by the Norwegian physician mots Gilbert who worked tirelessly at Gaza's al-shifa hospital with his dedicated Palestinian and Norwegian colleagues right through the criminal assault the term infanticide is appropriate hundreds of children were massacred and from there the violence ranges through just about every kind of cruelty that humans have used their higher mental faculties to devise up to the pain of Exile that Edward Edward Sade wrote about so eloquently this is particularly stark and Gaza where older people can still look across the border towards the homes a few miles away from which they were driven or to be more precise they could do that if they were able to approach the border without being killed one form of punishment has been to close off the Gaza side of the border that includes almost half the arable land according to the leading academic scholar of the Gaza and Harvard's and Sarah Roy while a showcase for the human capacity for violence and humiliation the Gaza zijn also an inspiring exemplar of the demand for dignity the first phrase wasn't here is in Gaza when asking about personal aspirations is for a life of dignity the distinguished human rights lawyer internationally known human rights lawyer Raji surrani writes from his Gaza home that what has to be kept in mind is that the occupation and the absolute closure is an ongoing attack on the human dignity of the people in Gaza in particular and all Palestinians generally it is systematic degradation humiliation isolation fragmentation of the Tinian people while bombs were once again raining down on defenseless civilians in Gaza last November he repeated that we demand justice and accountability we dream of a normal life in freedom and dignity and others perceive the same reality in the lancet leading International Medical Journal a visiting Stanford physician who was appalled by what he witnessed described Gaza as something of a laboratory for observing an absence of dignity a condition that has devastating effects on physical mental and social well-being still quoting him the constant surveillance from the sky collective punishment through blockade and isolation the intrusion into homes and communications restrictions on those trying to travel or marry or work and make it difficult to live the dignified life in Gaza young woman professional who managed to escape from Gaza to Canada doctor there nada agiels her name she writes about her a couple of weeks ago about her 87 year old grandmother who still trapped in the Gaza prison before her expulsion she writes she owned a house farms and land and she enjoyed honor dignity and hope and amazingly like Palestinians rather generally she hasn't given up hope so I keel continues when I saw my grandmother in November 2012 as she was unusually happy or in the midst of the latest atrocities surprised by her high spirits I asked for an explanation she looked me in the eye and to my surprise said that she was no longer worried about her native village and the life of dignity that she is lost for her irrevocably when I see you her grandmother said I know that our native village long ago destroyed is in your heart and I also know that you're not alone in your journey don't be discouraged we're getting there the call for dignity resounds through the Arab Spring which despite all of its uncertain outcomes is doubtless development of historic significance prominent Lebanese commentator rummy Horry writes that the process at hand now in Tunisia and Egypt will continue to ripple through the entire Arab world as ordinary citizens realize that they must seize and protect their birth rights of freedom and dignity the uprising as you know was sparked by the self-immolation of Muhammad was easy in reaction to his humiliating and degrading treatment Muhammad did what he did for the sake of his dignity his mother recounts on the anniversary of his suicide cart statue he was a hadn't sold things with cart the cart statue was unveiled in his honor in the town where he carried out the action that triggered the uprising spreads throughout Middle East North Africa the ceremony was attended by two newzeas first elected president who thanked him and those he inspired for bringing dignity to the entire Tunisian people in the oil dictatorships the uprisings have been suppressed often by violence much to the relief of Western powers but not entirely so in quoits while protesters were fleeing from the riot police equate the political scientist commented that people want dignity and political participation and equality before the law and a revolution not the kwaity citizens at least great majority who do the work might have other ideas in mind such driving sentiments of oppressed people extend far beyond the Arab Spring we've just passed the centenary of the great textile strike of immigrant workers in Lawrence Massachusetts near where I live led by the Wobblies who played a leading role in the labor movement until it was crushed a few years later by Woodrow Wilson's Red Scare the work the strikers won won the strike under the banner Bread and Roses now famous slogan sustenance and dignity and today immigrant workers in immigrant activists in the United States organize in what they call the immigrant dignity campaign the lively labor press of the early industrial revolution bitterly condemned the rising industrial system for depriving those driven to the mills of their dignity as free human beings the early 1970s witnessed the last militant strike wave in the United States before the labor month movement has once again been crushed under the neoliberal assault on the population which taking place everywhere you're suffering from it here the strikes were called for we're a call for bread and roses for workers control of the workplace so that they could uphold their basic dignity and that continues today with the spread of work Iran enterprises and cooperatives on the rather impressive scale these aspirations have been suppressed by violence throughout history but the sparks never extinguished and continues to burst into flames the search for dignity is understood instinctively by those who hold the clothes and who recognize that apart from violence the best way to undermine it is by humiliation that's second nature in prisons everywhere it reaches its sordid extreme in places like Bagram and Guantanamo portrayed unforgettably by Victoria Britain who's recently broadened the shameful picture to include the fate of the women left behind the normal practice in Israeli prisons has gained some attention the last couple of weeks because of the concern that it might spark another uprising third intifada after the death of a young man Arafat Jaradat he was arrested at his home at midnight of course that's to properly intimidate the family he was charged with having thrown stones and a Molotov cocktail a few months earlier during israel's november attack on Gaza he was healthy and vigorous when arrested he was last seen alive by in court by his lawyer who describes him as doubled over scared confused and shrunken the court reacted by remanding him to another 12 days of what's called interrogation and he was found dead in his cell Israeli journalist Amira Hass writes that Palestinians do not need an Israeli investigation for them Jarrah that's death is much bigger than the tragedy he and his family have suffered from their experience Jarrah that's death is proof that the Israeli system routinely uses torture and from their experience they know that the goal of torture is not only to convict someone but to deter and subjugate an entire people by humiliation degradation terror familiar features of repression at home and abroad and Europeans should not overlook their willing and significant participation in the latest phase of Washington's reign of tortures I say latest phase because there are Apple presidents the Open Society Institute just released its study called globalizing torture a CIA secret detentions and extraordinary rendition you know what that means sending people to the most miserable dictatorships that could be tortured properly without us saying we're doing it the study reveals that 54 countries participated in the campaign that included most of Europe and most of the rest of the world actually one region of the world was exempt a Latin America virtually alone it refused to participate in globalizing torture and that's quite a remarkable fact only a few years ago the Latin America remained Washington's obedient backyard did what it was told and it was also during this period one of the torture capitals of the world not any longer one can easily see why Western elites are so concerned about the threat of democracy and so committed to limiting it most recently in the Middle East the need for humiliating those who raise their heads is an inner Attica element of the Imperial mentality just one typical case was a highly regarded liberal commentator of the New York Times also a the East specialist Thomas Friedman he was asked on TV for his recommendations for the US UK occupying army a couple of months after the invasion and his answer was elegant and forthright quoted he said we needed to go over there basically take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world what Muslims needed to see was American boys and girls going from house to house from bus route to Baghdad and saying which part of this sentence don't you understand you don't think we care about our open society you think this bubble of terrorism fantasy we're just going to let it grow well suck on this mainly what they did so in short a severe dose of humiliation administered by American boys and girls will teach the terrified women and children whose houses they break in to teach them they better stop terrorizing us well as usual it elicited a little comment the part from people who are called the misguided sentimentalists the need not just control but also to humiliate the victims is second nature to political leaders as well case after case one interesting case was in 1988 a year when the Palestinian National Council formally accepted the international consensus on a two-state settlement the US by then was becoming an international laughingstock with its unwillingness to hear Yasser Arafat's call for peaceful diplomacy and the reasons were explained by Secretary of State George Shultz in his memoirs also respected statements statesmen he informed his boss Ronald Reagan that Arafat was saying in one place UNK and he was saying at another place click the club but nowhere will he yet bring himself to say uncle in the style of abject surrender that's demanded of the lower orders well Israel actually did hear the call for a political settlement and it reacted at once by declaring that there could be no additional Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan Jordan's a Palestinian state by Israeli fire whatever misguided Jordanians and Palestinians might think Washington very quickly endorsed Israel's reaction it's the James Baker plan of December 1989 all of this has been quite effectively excised from history there's no need to sample the reflexive resort to the principle in imperial history one case that probably has not been forgotten by the victims is the attitudes of the anglo-iranian oil company administers towards what they called the woggs during the glory days of the of the company in their words the only way to handle the logs is to browbeat them to cal them into submission with the iron fist always poised when such gentler means do not suffice Lorenza brave and dignified a leader Mohammed Mossadegh it was subjected to ugly abuse and humiliation by the British government and the educated classes in the u.s. to because he sought to implement Iran's right to take control of its own reserves resources these incidentally are called our resources in internal documents which by accident happen to be somewhere else my thought I was a dedicated constitutionalist he insisted on keeping the completely nonviolent means like I ended and he paid for it with the US UK military coup in 1953 which was greatly lauded in the West so the New York Times editors for example soberly explained that underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism it's perhaps too much to hope that Iran's experience will prevent the rise of Musa those and other countries but that experience may at least strengthen the hands of more reasonable and more foreseeing leaders who will have a clear-eyed understanding of the principles of decent behavior meaning crawl properly and say uncle when you're supposed to and it did for many years though by the 1970s the tide of independent nationalism could no longer be crushed by violence these attitudes are so close to the surface that they break through at the slightest provocation that happened at once when the woggs asserted their rights in the early 70s and sought to overcome the sharp decline in oil prices relative to other commodities which had been so beneficial to the West thanks to its effective controls influential intellectual irving kristol he's one of the godfathers of contemporary conservatism he wrote that in significant nations like insignificant people can quickly experience delusions of significance which has to be driven from their primitive minds by force and truth explained the days of gunboat diplomacy are never over gunboats are as necessary for international order as police cars are for domestic orders thoughts widely echoed sometimes humiliation can take slightly more subtle forms the one was the topic of a lecture here two years ago an honor Edwards alien by Rashid Khalidi his title was a human dignity in Jerusalem prep somebody heard it holiday discussed a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center which is dedicated to promotion of human rights and dignity the project was to build a Center for human dignity in Jerusalem the site they chose is the mamela Cemetery in Jerusalem the most venerated Muslim burial place in Palestine where companions of the prophet or reputedly very many other honored figures actually parts had already been taken for a parking lot on the site of Israel's independence square the idea of desecrating a cemetery to construct a Center for human dignity that could only occur to people so dedicated to humiliation of their victims as they can't perceive what they're doing there was an appeal to bar the project it was denied by the Israeli Supreme Court well finally I'd like to say a few words on how these themes which just run through history how they arise in the foreign policy issues that are of primary significance for US policymakers and for the US political class at least if we judge by the presidential debates Chuck Hagel senatorial hearings and the coverage they've received in the there was a foreign policy debate last of the debates before the election they too contestants the two countries predominated overwhelmingly Israel and Iran Obama Romney two candidates vied with each other in proclaiming their undying loyalty to Israel and in identifying Iran as the gravest threat to world peace in the Hagel hearings there were 136 mentions of Israel 135 of Iran scattered mentions of mention of other countries foreign policy issues a Hagel was berated by the Republicans and it's crucial to remember that it was the Republicans for being insufficiently loyal to Israel and not sufficiently dedicated to bombing Iran if it does not capitulate well in the case of Israel there's been near unanimous international consensus on a diplomatic settlements been blocked by the United States for 35 years with tacit European acceptance I've mentioned some of the reasons a contempt for the worthless victims is no small part of the barrier to achieving a settlement with at least a modicum of justice and respect for human dignity and rights it's not beyond imagination that the barrier can be overcome that'll take dedicated work as has happened in other cases on Iran I'd like to suggest the U of you not familiar with it a fine talk by Jon Snow about a year ago at the Chatham House so those Iran very well he had much of interest to say his main point was that the West must overcome its contempt for Iran and its people he ended the talk by calling for esteem esteem esteem which is respect around its history its civilization while also making it quite clear that we condemn its government we should engage with Iran by trade the cultural interchange other measures he brings up one highly successful case a cooperative exhibition of Iranian artistic treasures by the British Museum and Iran which is another example more recent there was an International Congress in Teheran last October on hiv/aids American scientists participated just a couple weeks ago with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of science main scientific organization the u.s. participants in the Tehran conference described Iran as a model for the rest of the region in its response to AIDS and added that we can learn a lot from what Iranians are doing or could they add if it weren't for the fact that these efforts are now being severely undermined by the harsh sanctions but the most coming back to snow is the most important step he emphasized would be to overcome the contempt that has guided the West for a century it's primarily Britain the United States since it largely replaced Britain in 1953 when the two overthrew the parliamentary government installed the harsh tyranny of the Shah I will review the disgraceful record of contempt and purposeful humiliation actually explored in depth in a new book the first the best scholarly study of the coup there about abrahama ins very revealing works it's just appeared it should evoke shame and deep regret in Britain in the United States and we should also remember that in the last 60 years not a single day has passed when the US and Britain were not brutally punished Iranians at first by installing and backing the Shah than by supporting Saddam Hussein's aggression then our sanctions now the open threat of war which is a violation of the UN Charter and a sentimentalists about you care the current issue is Iran's nuclear programs interesting to ask who shares the Western perception that's the obsession that this is the greatest threat to world peace and that questions are easy to answer the obsession is not shared by the non-aligned countries it's most of the world they continue their vigorous support outspoken support for Iran's right to enrich uranium as signers of the non-proliferation treaty it's not shared in the Arab world where the population dislikes --red for all kind of reasons that go way back but does not consider it much of a threat now the population does perceive threats primarily Israel in the United States the people I'm talking about Western commentary keeps to the oil dictators who do see Iran is a threat this helps explain why the West is so opposed to democracy in the Arab world they had any disregarding the usual boilerplate if you have some kind of functioning democracy public opinion has some sort of influence on policy and the last thing that the West wants is for policy to focus on the threats that are perceived of us and Israel and not on the threat that the West is obsessed with the alleged threat of Iran well secondly whatever the threats alleged to be is there a way to address it a short of sanctions that punish the population and war well there are a number of possibilities one approach would be to revive the try to revive the Terran agreement of May 2010 then Tehran Iran accepted a Turkish Brazilian proposal to send a low enriched uranium for storage abroad in Turkey and that have the nuclear powers and satisfy REMS needs for needs for its medical reactors the US government and the media bitterly condemned Turkey in Brazil for overcoming the greatest threat to world peace and Obama quickly rushed through new sanctions at the United Nations the u.s. refused to accept yes for an answer is putting Mohamed ElBaradei the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency the Brazilian foreign minister was rather annoyed by this and he released a letter from Obama to president Lula da Silva of Brazil proposing exactly to what Turkey and Brazil had achieved presumably Obama was assuming that Iran would reject the proposal and get some propaganda points the incident was glossed over rather quietly but the option may remain one of several and there's also a broader approach to the problem which is worth thinking seriously about it was vigorously it's it was actually proposed by the non-aligned conference that met in Tehran last August it renewed long-standing proposal which has been vigorously advanced by Egypt in particular for many years and has such overwhelming international support that Washington has been compelled to express its formal agreement but only formal reservations that had can't do it it's also supported by some of the most prominent US and Israeli strategic analysts that proposal would be to establish to move towards establishing a nuclear weapons free zone in the region if even steps were taken towards that it would mitigate whatever crisis is perceived might be a way to end them well an opportunity to carry forward the program arose last December an international conference was to be held in Finland to move towards implementation under UN auspices in November Iran agreed to attend a few days later Obama canceled the conference the core issue of course is that the US will not allow Israel's nuclear weapons to be subject to inspection or even discussion well a few days after Obama cancelled the conference of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution that calling on Israel to join the non-proliferation treaty 174 to 6 joining Israel in voting know where the United States Canada several US Pacific island dependencies I didn't check but I suspect that Britain abstained the u.s. then proceeded to carry out a nuclear weapons test once again banning international inspectors from the test site shortly after that a meeting took place under the auspices of the Washington Institute for Near East policy some offshoot of the Israeli Lobby the press likes to pretend that they're independent experts the there was an enthusiastic report in the Israeli press it said that Dennis Ross Elliott Abrams of other former top advisors to Obama and Bush assured the audience that the president coding at the president will strike Iran next year if diplomacy doesn't succeed well one reason why diplomacy won't succeed is that there's no protest against what's happening and there can't be that can't be any protest for the failure of diplomacy or efforts to seek the yet to end the greatest threat to world peace for a very simple reason hardly a word about these recent events in fact virtually nothing has been reported in the United States so another interesting illustration of how free speech can be restricted in a very free society with essentially no government coercion I haven't investigated but I suspect that the same is true here you can tell me there are other possibilities that none can be seriously pursued unless the powerful are capable of learning to respect the dignity of their victims if this is beyond their means impassable barriers will remain and the world will be doomed to violence cruelty and bitter suffering you you

Channel: TheEthanwashere

Views: 45,507

Rating: 4.8215613 out of 5

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Id: nZ0VzkahoGE

Length: 63min 5sec (3785 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/JawnSchirring]

Q&A can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Acw-bMT7o

[u/tedemang]

Just watched this earlier today. It's solid.

[u/JawnSchirring]

A recent article from Glenn Greenwald regarding Chomsky. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/23/noam-chomsky-guardian-personality