Noam Chomsky: U.S. Directly Responsible For ‘Unremitting Brutality’ Of Ariel Sharon

[Purveyor]

Speaking to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now today, renowned linguist and political scientist Noam Chomsky spared no barb in his estimation of the life of recently deceased former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“[T]here is a convention that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently dead, which unfortunately imposes a kind of vow of silence because there’s nothing else to say–there’s nothing good to say,” Chomsky said.

“He was a brutal killer,” Chomsky continued. “He had one fixed idea in mind, which drove him all his life: a greater Israel, as powerful as possible, as few Palestinians as possible.”

According to Chomsky, Sharon’s career was “one of unremitting brutality, dedication to the fixed idea of his life. He doubtless showed courage and commitment to pursuing this ideal, which is an ugly and horrific one.”

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/13/noam-chomsky-u-s-directly-responsible-for-unremitting-brutality-of-ariel-sharon/

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. More

Chomsky agreed with Rashid Khalidi, who was also on the program and described the response to Sharon’s death as one in which “a war criminal and mass murderer” is being “turned into a god in the American media.”

“What Rashid has said is exactly accurate,” Chomsky said. Sharon “was a brutal killer” committed to the idea that the Palestinians “should somehow disappear” and that Israel should “be powerful enough to dominate the region.”

He went on to discuss Sharon’s separation of the West Bank from the Gaza Strip: “Israel will keep the people in Gaza on a diet. We won’t let them starve to death; that won’t look good in the international world,” he said. “We’ll just give them just enough to stay barely alive in this open-air prison, as Rashid Khalidi correctly described it, and they’ll be separated from the West Bank.”

I wonder if this tidbit from Chompsky will get a lot of play in I/P. or will it be misquoted endlessly?

Once all of the "war criminals and mass murderers" are laid to rest who will the Israeli right look up to as their next great leaders? Bibi doesn't seem to have it in him. Perhaps Naftali Bennet will pick up the scythe and blaze a path for nostalgia's sake.

[William deB. Mills]

2. Sharon and Anti-Muslim Empire-Building

It is hard to determine the degree to which the Butcher of Beirut (1982, for those who have forgotten) made U.S. foreign policy vs. Washington making Sharon, but the evolution of U.S./Israeli policies toward Islam from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 through the U.S. invasion of Iraq and today's endless Presidential war by drone against whatever Muslim he is pleased to attack is one of mutual support, mutual inspiration, and group think in a vicious cycle of self-defeating violence.

One of many sources noting the linkages between current U.S. and Israeli tactics is the Christian Science Monitor (4-20-04 - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0420/p05s01-woiq.html) following the U.S.attack on Fallujah: "Even if we crush the resistance, it is only temporary," warns Charles Smith, head of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. "There are too many cases, like in Israel, of [US forces] doing target practice on anything that moves. What you are doing is creating more terrorism against yourself."

The "endless war" against radical Islam that U.S. empire-builders so much like to rave about and the trap that the U.S. has created for itself in the Muslim world (defeats or costly yet only temporary military "victories" in Somalia, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan) are very much Sharon's legacy.

[oberliner]

3. The Lebanese were the ones who did the actual butchering

People always have a tendency to leave that part out.

The Phalangists themselves almost never come up, and are almost never held responsible for their actions.