Fwd: Re: The Crimes of Empire?

[Brad DeLong]

>X-From_: sackerman at FAIR.ORG  Tue Sep 10 13:19:19 2002
>From: Seth Ackerman <sackerman at FAIR.ORG>
>To: "'dhenwood at panix.com'" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Subject: Re: The Crimes of Empire?
>Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 13:21:07 -0400
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Status: O
>X-Status:
>
>>...The Crimes of 'Intcom'
>>By Noam Chomsky
>>
>>...One does not read that for 25 years the United States has barred
>>the efforts of the international
>>community to achieve a diplomatic settlement of the
>>Israeli-Palestinian conflict along the lines
>>repeated, in essence, in the Saudi proposal adopted by the Arab
>>League in March 2002. That
>>initiative has been widely acclaimed as a historic opportunity that
>>can only be realized if Arab
>>states agree at last to accept the existence of Israel. In fact,
>>Arab states (along with the
>>Palestine Liberation Organization) have repeatedly done so since
>>January 1976, when they joined the
>>rest of the world in backing a U.N. Security Council resolution
>>calling for a political settlement
>>based on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories with
>>"appropriate arrangements ... to
>>guarantee ... the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political
>>independence of all states in
>>the area and their right to live in peace within secure and
>>recognized borders"...
>
>I had thought that the Arab states and the PLO made it clear back in
>1976 that, in their eyes, Israel was not a "state". "States" have
>rights to live in peace within secure and recognized borders.
>"Zionist entities" do not.
>Am I misremembering the history, or is Chomsky lying to us?
>Brad DeLong
>
>---
>
>...The resolution was in line with the PLO's then-current "theory of 
>stages" in
>which the Arabs would recognize Israel as the first step towards some future
>recapture of all Palestine. This was recognized by most people as
>ideological cover for a recent decisive shift among the PLO leadership
>towards a two-state solution.
>
>If you're into comparisons, Israel's position at the time under the Rabin
>government was that Israel would never negotiate with the PLO even if it
>renounced terrorism and recognized Israel. Israel therefore boycotted the
>Security Council session and the US vetoed the resolution.
>
>Seth

OK. Chomsky's claim is that the PLO had already gone the "extra mile" in 1976.

Now we have Seth Ackerman, who claims that the PLO in 1976 supported 
the resolution calling for guarantees for the sovereignty, 
territorial integrity, and political independence of all states, 
including Israel.

But then Mr. Ackerman says that the PLO took this position in 
accordance with its then-current "'theory of stages' in which the 
Arabs would recognize Israel as the first step towards some future 
recapture of all Palestine." In short, that whatever guarantees of 
Israel's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political 
independence didnt' mean a damned thing.

But then Mr. Ackerman says that at a still deeper level, the PLO's 
plan to issue guarantees and then, later, break them and resume the 
war was itself cover for a genuine desire on the part of the PLO 
leadership to live in peace with Israel under a two-state solution.

So it seems to me Mr. Ackerman has a big problem: which of the many 
positions taken by the PLO in 1976 were lies, and how does he know 
which were the lies?

Brad DeLong