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Chomsky on Israel: "A Pretty Crazy State"

A Q & A with Noam Chomsky on Information Clearing House.      Chomsky has never held back from criticising Israel even if the usual epithets of self-hating Jew, etc. have been hurled at him.    His assessment of Israel, here, is sober and sobering.

 "LEZAMA: That’s an interesting point regarding the timing of the attacks. Right now, we have to pick between one really bad candidate, and Romney. It seems like the Israeli government is taking advantage of the Obama administration’s bid for re-election. Israel is talking a lot about attacking Iran, and trying to mobilize support for it in the U.S. These kinds of things tend to have consequences for Palestine; what will happen in Palestine? I think Israel is bluffing, and looking for something else.

CHOMSKY: Well, Israel is a pretty crazy state. My suspicion is that they are trying to create the circumstances under which the U.S. will attack Iran – they don’t want to do it themselves.

LEZAMA: They want to set up a rationale?

CHOMSKY: I would not be surprised if they staged some kind of an incident in the Persian Gulf, which would not be hard. You and I can do it. The Persian Gulf is lined with U.S. Naval missiles, aircraft carriers, destroyers, and so on. Any small incident, a skiff, or, a boat bumping into an aircraft carrier could lead to a vicious response.

Actually, we should bear in mind that the United States is already at war with Iran by Pentagon standards. The assassinations – which is terrorism – the cyberwar, the economic warfare, are all considered by the United States as acts of war if they are done to us, but not if we do it to them. So, by our standards, we are already attacking Iran. The question is how much further we will take it. An important aspect of this never discussed in the United States. You never read about it. I write about it, maybe two or three other people, but you never read about it. There is a pretty straightforward solution to this, a diplomatic solution. Namely, move towards establishing a nuclear weapons free-zone in the region. That is strongly supported by virtually the entire world. The U.S. has been blocking the solution for years. However, support for it is so strong that Obama was forced to agree to it in principle, but stated that Israel has to be excluded. Well, that is a joke. Israel has hundred of nuclear weapons, carries out aggression, is a violent state, refuses to allow inspections, and so on. To say that Israel has to be exempted, then, kills the prospect of a nuclear-weapons free zone in the Middle East. This situation is coming to a head in December. There is to be an international conference on a nuclear weapons free-zone in the Middle East; Israel just announced that it is refusing to participate."

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