Apartheid

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continue to control that ‘peace process’, the Israeli and American elites. 150
My Values and Views on Responsibilities for the Middle East Conflict
In my opinion, research should be accompanied by a declaration of values by the
researcher. Although I hold objectivity and truth to be eminently worthy goals of research, I
also believe they are impossible to attain in the strict sense. We should not, however, stop
trying to attain them. Most if not all of the contents of our mental lives do have unconscious
elements or aspects, which can become more explicit through critical thought, analysis, and
dialog. It is therefore reasonable to inform readers of the researcher’s conscious values. In this
last section of the introduction, I will try to explicate my views on the most controversial
subject of this book, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I will also attempt to
provide some reasons for these evaluations here, based upon the facts and theoretical
considerations outlined so far in this introduction to the topic.
I believe that no human being deserves to die, to be killed, or to be murdered. I am
opposed to elitism, ethnicism, and racism in all forms, and I am in favor of human rights,
cultural diversity, and biodiversity. Each of these three touchstones of my positive values has
philosophically problematic aspects and relationships to the others, which I will not pursue
further in this investigation.
I hold Israeli Jews ultimately responsible for the tragic and violent events in the
region, but I also believe that the USA, the UK, apartheid South Africa, and Europe, including
Nazi Germany and other persecutors of Jews, in general, should share some of the blame.
Only in a third tier of responsibility do I consider Palestinians and other Arabs responsible.
Although all human rights violations should be sanctioned or punished on an individual basis,
in my view, there are circumstances involved in this conflict that should be considered
structural, and the overriding such circumstance is apartheid. This does not mean that
Palestinian murderers should be treated with silk gloves, but their crimes should be sanctioned
in proportion to the crimes perpetrated by Israelis, and I believe the latter can quite easily be
shown to be the worse ones (see Part II). I will return to the hoary problem of proportional
punishment and amnesty in the service of peace and reconciliation in Part III, below.
One of the most conspicuous, yet hardly ever questioned features of the (so-called)
peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians is the identity of the chief ‘negotiator’,
the USA. While the world’s most powerful country takes sides with the militarily most
powerful country in the Middle East, it effectively bullies the rest of the world into accepting
it in its role as negotiator. The USA is in fact Israel’s closest ally, politically and militarily.
Tellingly, it was only apartheid South Africa that ever came as close to Israel as the USA has.
The latter is now referred to, even in the so-called ‘quality media’, as a mediator or a middle
man, often creating the false impression that all or most Palestinians are extremists on a par
with Zionist fanatics:
The reward for his [US President Bill Clinton’s ‘peacemaking’] work
is already a string of mixed reviews, flanked by bitter attacks on his
Middle East legacy from the two extremes in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
One lesson he must have learned is that he who dares to stand in the
middle often ends up in the crossfire. 151
150 Chomsky: The Chomsky Reader, 1995 (1987): 375. As the first Intifada gets underway, Chomsky warns of a
scenario for Israel that includes: ‘expulsion of a substantial part of the Arab population on some pretext, and
conversion of Israel into a society on the South African model with some form of Bantustans, committed to
regional disruption, etc.’ See also Chomsky 2 1999: 544-563
151 Wright: Clinton Earns Mixed Reviews for Mideast Efforts, 2001. Similarly, the UN, dependent on funds from
its greatest financial resource – the USA – and from the outset open to manipulation for that very reason,
endorses anything that the USA will do for ‘peace’ in Israel and Palestine. See for example N.N.: Annan Backs
New U.S. Middle East Peace Initiative, November 19, 2001; Waddington: Outgoing U.N. Rights Chief Says Fell