ZNet | Israel/Palestine
Confrontation with Hamas and Hezbollah
by Noam Chomsky; July 29, 2006
[The following excerpt is from the Epilogue to Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Noam Chomsky & Gilbert Achcar, edited with a Preface by Stephen R. Shalom, to be published by Paradigm Publishers September 15, 2006...]
...A broader analysis is suggested by retired colonel Pat Lang, former head of the Middle East and terrorism desk at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency: "This is basically tribal warfare. If you have someone who's hostile to you and you're unwilling to accept a temporary truce, as Hamas offered, then you have to destroy them. The Israeli response is so disproportionate to the abduction of the three men it appears it's a rather clever excuse designed to appeal both to their public and to the U.S."
Speculation about motives and conflicting factors should not blind us to the tragedy that is unfolding. Lebanon is being destroyed, Israel's Gaza prison is suffering still more savage blows, and on the West Bank, mostly out of sight, the United States and Israel are consummating their project of the murder of a nation, a grim and rare event in history.
These actions, and the Western response, illustrate all too clearly the amalgam of savage cruelty, self-righteousness, and injured innocence that is so deeply rooted in the imperial mentality as to be beyond awareness. One can easily understand why Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, is alleged to have said that he thought it might be a good idea.
-- July 20, 2006
The rest at <http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle. cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10663>.