Page 2 Portland Observer. August 18, 1982
LIGHTING SPECIALTIES
For Israel, what's after Beirut?
by Noam Chomsky
Pacific News Service
Noam Chom sky is professor
of m odern languages and lin ­
guistics at
author of nu­
merous books, (including Peace
in the M iddle East and Towards a
New Cold War), and was active in
the movement against the V iet­
nam War.
One question which preys on the
minds o f those who are deeply dis­
turbed over Israel's invasion o f Leb­
anon may be stated very sim ply:
What lies beyond Beirut?
To seek an answer, we must place
the Lebanese invasion in its broad,
historical context. I f the conclusion
we arrive at seems darkly pessimis­
tic, it is nonetheless one which many
observers consider a plausible and
logical extension o f past and present
Israeli actions.
Since 1973, Israel and the United
States have been committed to re­
moving Egypt from the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Only after the October war
were they willing to accept Sadat’s
o ffe r, quite e xp licit in February
1971, o f a fu ll peace treaty that
would turn Egypt into an American
client state while leaving Israel in a
position to control the bulk o f the
occupied territories.
A t the same time, it was necessary
to fend o ff annoying Arab efforts to
settle the conflict peaceably on es­
sentially the terms proposed by Sad­
at in 1971, but now with a Palestini­
an state in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. The U.S. was compelled to
veto a UN Security Council resolu­
tion to this effect in January 1976
(the resolution, which was in tro ­
duced and backed by the A rab
“ c o n fro n ta tio n states’ ’ and sup­
ported by the PLO, called for a two-
state settlement w ith recognized
borders and guarantees fo r the se­
c u rity and te rrito ria l in te g rity o f
both states).
The Camp David agreements car­
ried the arrangements further, lead­
ing fin a lly to Israeli w ithdraw al
from the Sinai.
The second significant event o f
this period was the annexation (in
effect) o f the Golan Heights. And a
third was the implementation o f the
Sharon-Milson plan for suppressing
Chicago
(Continued fro m page I column 6)
Dr. Kenneth Goodman, the o u t­
going president o f the International
Reading Association (IR A ) sharpie
criticized mastery learning at a na­
tional convention in Chicago this
spring. Goodman, professor o f ele­
mentary education at the University
o f Arizona, said mastery learning
doesn’ t teach children to read.
“ He’s an idiot academician who
doesn’ t spend his time in class­
rooms,” Katims said o f Goodman.
“ The IR A as an institution should
hang its head in shame. They’ve pre­
sided over declining test scores for
20 years.”
Controversy doesn’ t bother
Equalizers president Tillm an, who
has challenged school policy fo r
years. She’s been jailed for disrupt­
ing meetings o f the board o f educa­
tion, and was jailed again in July for
demonstrating outside o f the may­
or’s residence on another issue.
The parent group is in no mood to
compromise, and appears ready to
carry out its threat o f a strike this
fall if the reading program remains
part o f the curriculum.
any form o f independent political
expression in the occupied te rrito ­
ries. These policies led to the harsh
and brutal repression that received
some limited attention in the U.S.
press.
The next step was the invasion o f
Lebanon, the primary aims o f which
were to destroy the social and politi­
cal structures o f the PLO while
eliminating the possibility o f any re­
sponse as Israel proceeds towards
more efficient control in the occu­
pied territories, leading to ultimate
annexation. A further aim was to es­
tablish, at leaset in the southern part
o f Lebanon, an Israeli client regime
that w ill sooner or later provide Is­
rael with access to the waters o f the
Litam River, a long-standing aim o f
Israeli government policy with roots
in early Z io n ist thin kin g . As the
father o f modern Israel, David Ben-
Gurion, remarked at the time o f the
British partition proposal in 1937:
“ We shall accept a state in the
boundaries fixed today, but the
boundaries o f Zionist aspirations are
the concern o f the Jewish people
and no external factor will be able to
lim it them.”
Though the final outcome o f the
present offensive is not yet fully de­
termined, it is likely that Israel will
achieve its objectives. The next steps
are easy to imagine. Israel will con­
tinue to move towards annexation
o f the occupied territories, employ­
ing whatever measures will be neces­
sary. The logical extension o f this
process is that Jordan must be con­
verted into the “ Palestinian state”
that it already is in Israeli propagan­
da. Then conditions can be created
in which the Arabs o f the occupied
territories (and, who knows, per­
haps those o f Israel, too) w ill “ vol­
untarily emigrate" to Jordan as pro­
posed years ago by the Labor Party
leadership. This “ Palestinian state”
w ill then be hostage to Israeli a t­
tack, perhaps a fter such flim sy
“ provocations” as those that suf­
ficed to ju s tify the Lebanon inva­
sion to the American audience.
Wasting no time, Israel dissolved
the elected city councils o f Dura and
Nablus on the West Bank, replacing
the city councils o f Dura by “ five
Arab moderates,” a euphemism for
Arab collaborators.
Longer term planning is also fair­
ly predictable. Syria is ruled, with
quite extraordinary brutality, by a
minority sect. Israel will work to de­
stabilize it, so that Syria and Leb­
anon w ill be restored to a system
rather like that o f the Ottoman Em­
pire, with local dependencies o f an
ethnic-religious character dom ­
inated by Israel, a powerful militar­
ized state serving as an American
“ strategic asset."
Similar plans are being contem­
plated for Iraq, where Israel's inter­
est lies in an eventual partition into
Sunni, Shi’ ite, and Kurdish states,
as observed by m ilitary commenta­
tor Ze’ ev S ch iff in the daily
Ha’aretz in June. This is one motive
for Israel’ s support for Iran in the
Iran-Iraq conflict. Another motive
is that Israel perceives the possibility
o f a m ilita ry coup (perhaps post-
Khomeini) that will restore the kinds
o f Israeli-Iranian relations that ex­
isted under the Shah. To this end, it
is im portant to maintain contacts
w ith the Iranian m ilita ry . Jacob
N im rodi, form erly head o f the Is­
raeli secret police in Iran under the
Shah, expounded on these possibil­
ities over BBC radio last February.
The long-term objective may be
an alliance o f Iran (now restored to
the West), Turkey and Israel ruling
the region in alliance w ith the
United States, the ultimate source o f
their power. “ The chance o f strate­
gic understanding among Iran, Tur­
key and Israel should not be ruled
out as something that can surface
again,” according to an Israeli “ ex­
p e rt” quoted in the New York
Times.
Some Israeli commentators go
further still. In the official theologi­
cal journal o f the World Zionist O r­
ganization, Oded Yinon suggests
that “ the political goal o f Israel in
the 1980s on its Western front” is to
dismember Egypt after reconquest
o f the Sinai, overturning the “ mis­
taken peace agreement” with Sadat.
He outlines, with specific detail, a
plan such as that just reviewed for
the restoration o f an Ottoman Em­
pire-style arrangement fo r the re­
gion, including also the A rabian
peninsula. A plausible (though un­
stated) further consequence is that
Israel w ill control the region’ s en­
ergy reserves.
On a still broader scale, this a lli­
ance may be extended to include
South Africa, which has been the re­
cipient o f direct Israeli assistance in
its own rather comparable efforts to
m uintain in s ta b ility and disorder
along its borders. According to nu­
merous sources, it appears that Is­
rael and South A frica are also ad­
vancing towards a large-scale nu­
clear weapons capacity in their joint
endeavors, including development
of neutron bombs, missile delivery
systems (that can reach targets in the
USSR), and a wide range o f strate­
gic and low-yield nuclear weapons.
Israel and South A fric a have also
been reported to be engaged in joint
development o f cruise missiles with
Taiwan.
Much o f this is projection rather
than accomplished fact, but it is
within the bounds o f plausibility in
substantial measure. As long as the
United States provides Israel with
the requisite military force, there is
every reason to believe that Israel
w ill proceed along such a path, to
the extent that it is within its power.
C learly, the risks o f expanded
war, engaging the superpowers and
possibly leading to nuclear war, are
not inconsiderable—a fact which
has not gone entirely unnoticed in
Washington. Several years ago, cer­
tain elements in the Pentagon began
to fear that the U.S. had created a
Frankenstein monster by flooding
Israel w ith advanced armaments.
Anthony Cordesman, who had held
a variety o f high-level adm inistra­
tive and intelligence positions in the
Pentagon, wrote in the Armed
Forces Journal in 1977 that the
United States “ may now find itself
aiding an Israel which may use its
military strength to take permanent
control o f former Arab territory in
direct opposition to U.S. policy,
and be locked into an indefinite cold
war with the Arabs,” leading to “ a
major national security problem”
for the United States.
Cordesman’ s in terpreta tion o f
U.S. policy may be open to ques­
tion, but his early warning was apt.
United States-backed Israeli adven­
turism is creating a security problem
o f immense p ro po rtio n . The U.S.
disarmament movement dooms it ­
self to near irrelevance if it disre­
gards this.
accurate information in town is not
presented in Willamette Week,” she
retorted.
Asked if the trial balloon to fire
Hepburn had been floated because
she feared Hepburn would emerge
from the civil service process as a
qualified candidate, Strachan stated
em phatically, “ My God, I hoped
she’ d emerge as a top-three con­
tender.”
Strachan, known for her outspok­
en advocacy on a wide variety o f ci­
tizen and planning issues such as re­
cent support o f a Police Review
Committee and efforts to keep open
and rehabilitate the Evergreen
Apartments in Northwest Portland,
stated that she made decisions based
on the good o f the city and not pop­
ular choice. She does not, she said,
“ test the w in d ,” but attempts to
make sound management decisions
and informed decisions on Council.
In a related matter, Strachan said
she put no pressure to resign on Joe
Gonzales, D irector o f the CETA
program within the HRB. Gonzales,
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Strachan responds to questioning
(Continued fro m page 1, column 6)
were too few managers in HRB at
the time.
The Observer questioned why
Mayor Ivancie's chief assistant, Jim
Kuffner, had been called with a trial
balloon floated about replacing
Hepburn. Strachan replied, “ I did
net call Ivancie’s o ffic e ." When re­
minded that her ch ie f assistant,
Richard Forrester had talked to
Kuffner, according to the August 10
W illam ette Week, Strachan an­
swered, “ T h a t’ s what the paper
said.”
Following discussion with Forres­
ter, Kuffner reportedly called Anna
Street, an aide to Commissioner
Jordan and a close friend o f Hep­
b u rn ’ s. Asked why she thought
Street had been notified, Strachan
said she “ had not talked to Anna
about it.”
Strachan said she did not know
that Charlie Graham, in the office
o f Fiscal A d m in is tra tio n under
Ivancie, had been mentioned by
Forrester as a possible temporary re­
placement for Hepburn. “ The most
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she said, had recommended that his
position be downgraded to save
money. Gonzales and other s ta ff
have been laid o ff while some HRB
staff resigned, cutting staff costs.
Re-evaluation o f Gonzales* and
other positions will be accomplished
by September 30. Gonzales w ill
leave the bureau September 1.
Strachan preferred to call the dis­
pute between her and Hepburn a
“ discussion” rather than an issue.
She agreed that the city does not
need another black-w hite issue.
Voicing concern that "in hard times
certain people are scapegoated,”
Strachan added, “ anything that
adds to that problem is bad.”
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