Why is Israel targeting innocent Palestinians? Nobody can adequacy answer the question except Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT.
He is internationally recognized as one of the most astute analysts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Middle East politics in general, and is a leading voice in the struggle to liberate Palestine. Among his many writings on the topic are The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and Palestinians; Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians; and On Palestine.
In an interview with C.J. Polychroniou, Chomsky explained as to why is Israel targeting civilian population and killing innocent Palestinians. “For what became the dominant tendency in the Zionist movement, there has been a fixed long-term goal,” he said. “Put crudely,” said Chomsky, “the goal is to rid the country of Palestinians and replace them with Jewish settlers cast as the “rightful owners of the land” returning home after millennia of exile”.
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He further argued that “Zionist policies since have been opportunistic”. “When possible, the Israeli government — and indeed the entire Zionist movement — adopts strategies of terror and expulsion. When circumstances don’t allow that, it uses softer means,” he explained.
US supports Israel
Chomsky explained that: Israel’s 1967 conquests made it possible to extend similar measures to the conquered territories, in this case in gross violation of international law, as Israeli leaders were informed right away by their highest legal authorities. The new projects were facilitated by the radical change in U.S.-Israeli relations. Pre-1967 relations had been generally warm but ambiguous. After the war they reached unprecedented heights of support for a client state.”
“The Israeli victory was,” argued Chomsky, “a great gift to the U.S. government.” “A proxy war had been underway between radical Islam (based in Saudi Arabia) and secular nationalism (Nasser’s Egypt). Like Britain before it, the U.S. tended to prefer radical Islam, which it considered less threatening to U.S. imperial domination. Israel smashed Arab secular nationalism,” he said.
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Chomsky also believes that Israel is free to adopt the present policy when and as it deemed appropriate. He explained: “Israel was free to pursue the policies that persist today, always with massive U.S. support despite occasional clucks of discontent. The Israeli government’s immediate policy goal is to construct a “Greater Israel,” including a vastly expanded “Jerusalem” encompassing surrounding Arab villages; the Jordan valley, a large part of the West Bank with much of its arable land; and major towns deep inside the West Bank, along with Jews-only infrastructure projects integrating them into Israel.”