To:

Zcom_simple
Home » Z Blogs » Noam Chomsky's Blog » The US, Israel, & Corporate Power

Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

9

Noam Chomsky's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/noamchomsky
Bio: (More)

All Chomsky Blogs

Recent Chomsky Content

Znetarticle_icon ZNet Articles
Zmagarticle_icon ZMag Articles
Zcommentary_icon ZCommentaries
Zaudio_icon ZAudios
Zvideo_icon ZVideos
Zblogpost_icon Blog Posts
Zbook_icon Books
Zvideo_icon ZStores

The US, Israel, & Corporate Power

By Noam Chomsky at Oct 30, 2005

PDF Version

Printer Friendly Version
Change Text Size a- | A+
It's certainly arguable that the US policy towards Israel-Palestine has not been in the interests of US state-corporate power. That's been argued in the mainstream. I suspect if you did a poll of energy corporation CEOs, that's what you'd hear. But then they'd say the same about US policy toward Iran, and much else. On the other hand, it doesn't seem difficult to understand the fairly systematic reasoning of planners. To take just a few high points, in 1958 they suggested that support for Israel would be a "logical corollary" of US opposition to "radical nationalism" -- meaning independent (and then secular) nationalism that sought independent development and use of the resources of the region for its own people. Israel's very welcome victory in 1967 sealed the bargain, and established the arrangements that still persist, which I won't review again. By now, Israel is virtually an off-shore US military base and industrial center, with very close links to US military and high-tech industry -- and some important conflicts too. It's far and away the most powerful state in the region from a military point of view, and the tacit alliance with the oil monarchies isn't really threatened. The Palestinians, in contrast, offer nothing to US global planners. They have no wealth, no military force, very little support from regional elites (who mostly consider them a nuisance because they stir up popular anger, which could turn against them). Not hard to see why US planners line up with the powerful force against the weak. Pretty close to historical truism. It's quite true that joining the international consensus would hardly harm US geostrategic and economic interests in the region, and might benefit it. Clinton came pretty close to it in the final days of his presidency, January 2001, with tolerance of the Taba negotiations, which were coming pretty close to a diplomatic settlement that probably would have been accepted locally and regionally, and certainly by the relevant global actors. Israel called them off, so we don't know whether the remaining open questions could have been resolved, though subsequent informal but high-level negotiations suggest that it might well have been possible, if Bush-Sharon had been willing.

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (5)

Person

Re: The US, Israel, & Corporate Power

By Sophphilo, Zubub at Dec 16, 2005 15:47 PM
Excruciatingly poor analysis. Your guru first implies that the US has turned Israel into the most powerful force in the region, practically a US military base. Then he explains that “US global planners” don't support the Palestinians because “They have no wealth, no military force… Not hard to see why US planners line up with the powerful force against the weak.” Tell me, Chomsky acolytes, is your logic so deformed by your hero worship and his cult of personality that you don't see the blatant circularity here? (Yes, Chomsky, it's a "truism", but not for the reasons you think). Or do you think Palestinians are so congenitally stupid that they could never be armed, trained and enriched by US power? The fact remains that when the US opposes “Zionism equals racism” resolutions in Kurt Waldheim's UN or at Durban, when it protects Israel against widespread regional sentiment reiterated recently by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, it does so ON PRINCIPLE against its own economic interests. It defends Taiwan against Chinese imperialism while the European countries are crawling over themselves to get a bigger share of Chinese markets, and it defends Israel against Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic exterminationist imperialism, both at considerable economic and political cost.

Reply this comment

Person

By Michael, Bobbo at Nov 10, 2005 22:35 PM
Chomsky is of course being a little colourful when he says Israel is an offshore U.S. military base, but the analogy is apt. I think even Yakov Bok can concede that the relationship between the two countries' militaries and military industries are extrememly close. Billions of U.S. taxpayer money is given to Israel every year to "buy" advanced military aircraft, small arms, electronics, radar, etc. from American corporations - all of which is called aid. Indeed it is, of both Israel and the U.S. military corporate sector. Along with Turkey (a well-armed NATO memeber) and Egypt (the runner-up recipient of US military aid next to Israel), this US-based geopolitical system forms a very tight grip on the region and its all important energy reserves. Yakov might not consider this a big deal. But the people who live under this system, including even some Israelis, DO consider it a big deal. They consider Iraq a big deal. And yes, if you're an autocratic government that participates in this system, as all governments in the region do to one degree or another, you will exploit these sentiments to distract from your own corruption and tyranny. In Israel, anti-semitism is exploited for the similar reasons. Governments in general direct the gaze of their masses to the depredations of outsiders so as to avoid spoiling the pleasant image of their pure community. We do not have to believe in this predictable sleight of hand, however.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: The US, Israel, & Corporate Power

By Cacioppo, Jonas at Nov 05, 2005 10:59 AM
Excuse me, but where is the merit in engaging in these ad hominem attacks? Refute Yakov's arguments if you wish, but leave him as a person out of it. I'm sick of this sort of argument; it's counter-productive and it just translates into a shouting-match. This can apply to any and all comments. So I'm not just singling you out, Christie.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: The US, Israel, & Corporate Power

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Nov 03, 2005 01:16 AM
Yes, but the US continues to be the promoter of Israeli policy to the world through its veto power in the UN and through its continued economic support. I would also posit that Israel is the scapegoat for US foreign policy and continues to be the US justification for allowing the totalitarian governments of middle east countries to continue. The violence, which is constructed on both sides by US meddling, is the justification for the brutal regimes to stand that allows the oil spigets to remain fully open.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: The US, Israel, & Corporate Power

By Bok, Yakov at Nov 02, 2005 05:14 AM
What is this psycho babble attempting to say? Meanwhile, in the real world, there are no U.S. military bases in Israel. And considering the recent admission by the Kuwaiti press that anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian sentiment exists in the Arab world chiefly to serve as a scapegoat for internal mismangement, Sharon doesn't deserve the credit brother number one gives him.

Reply this comment

Loading_border