Chomsky on Palestine-Israel after the Gaza Massacre

[Jefferson23]

Gaza And Its Aftermath

02.09.2009 | Z Net
By Noam Chomsky
and Assaf Kfoury

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Assaf Kfoury

For more than three weeks, starting December 27th, Gaza and its 1.5 million people bore the brunt of a massive Israeli military campaign, supported and abetted by the US government. While Israel has now stopped its devastating air and ground operations in Gaza, it continues the total blockade from both the land and the sea, still pursuing the futile goal of trying to destroy Hamas and allied resistance groups by punishing the population around them.

Noam Chomsky gives a preliminary assessment of the US-Israel war on Gaza and its consequences in an interview conducted by Assaf Kfoury on January 31, 2009. The Arabic translation of the interview will appear in the Beirut daily as-Safir.

The public response in the US

AK: From the carnage in Gaza in recent weeks, there is a silver lining in the US, at least at the popular level. The devastation of Gaza has elicited something different, compared to the Lebanon war of 2006, or the Lebanon war of 1982, or other episodes of violence visited by Israel on Palestinians and Lebanese.

This time, for the first time perhaps, the public response in the US has been closer to the public response outside the US. Greater sympathy and support for the Palestinians, more criticism and anger at Israel's actions. There were almost daily protests and demos, in major cities in the US, closer to the kind of public expressions we had been accustomed to see in Europe, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere.

remainder here: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2684