This article was originally published in Danish on April 9, 2023.
BOOK REVIEW:
Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé:
On Palestine
Edited by Frank Barat,
Haymarket Books 2015.
Reviewed by Povl H. Riis-Knudsen
There are a number of issues that divide Western nationalists. Ukraine is one, and Palestine is another. It is my firm conviction as an educator that disagreement over such matters is mainly due to a lack of information, and this must be remedied through reading.
The book mentioned above is not a new release either. I picked it up recently at Amman International Airport, where I was looking for something to read, and in Jordan, political literature is scarce. As a young taxi driver said: “We have no real government, we have no politics, we have no money—but we have peace!” And peace in those parts is by no means a given. In that neighborhood, Saudi Arabia is the only country that has peace, and for that, one likely pays a higher price than in Jordan. But that’s not to say there aren’t latent problems in Jordanian society, and the relationship with Israel and the Palestinians is probably the most pressing issue.
It is, however, very difficult to get a Jordanian to comment on anything political. Most keep their mouths shut tight as an oyster. That, of course, also says something about Jordanian society. Jordan and Palestine were together part of the British Mandate territory that emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Even back then, the British promised the Jews the opportunity to establish a state in Palestine. The Arabs were not asked what they thought about it. These plans then materialized after World War II, when the Palestinians ended up paying for the holocaust—without having had anything to do with it. It would have been more logical to establish a Jewish state in Bavaria—but it had to be in Palestine, because an imaginary figure in an ancient book allegedly gave the Jews this land, which they have not inhabited since the year 70, when they rebelled against the Romans and were consequently expelled. This is a dangerous principle for redrawing political maps. What, for example, could Denmark not make a claim to?
The problem with the UN partition plan of 1948, in which the Jews were given one part of Palestine and Jordan the other (what is today the West Bank), was, however, that people were already living in this area. The Jews, however, found a way around this, as terrorist groups burned down Palestinian villages and murdered the population. So-called Danish Jews also participated in these crimes without ever being held accountable. The ruthless and bloody terror caused a very large number of Palestinians to flee to Jordan and Lebanon. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the rest of Palestine, where Palestinians today are graciously allowed to live in fenced-off “Bantustans,” surrounded by Israeli settlements, which have their own road networks and to which Palestinians have no access. Palestinians are arbitrarily moved around to create exclusively Jewish areas, their homes are arbitrarily demolished, and the settlements divert water from the Jordan River, which today is merely a narrow stream forming the border between Palestine and Jordan.
Gaza is a case apart, where some 2 million people live in what Chomsky describes as the world’s largest prison. This area is completely dependent on supplies from Israel and the UN, and Israel can, by turning the oppression up or down at any time, provoke “terrorist attacks” that provide an excuse for further oppression, including in the West Bank. Not surprisingly, this situation has led to yet another wave of refugees, particularly to Jordan. Where approximately half the population is Palestinian, many of whom are now in their fourth generation living in refugee camps—which may be designated neighborhoods within cities or separate villages—or they may live behind barbed wire in concentration camps, administered by the UN, two of which are very large and located in the barren desert between Zarqa and Azraq, east of the capital Amman. If they attempt to build a new permanent life for themselves in, for example, Jordan, they are accused by other Palestinians of betraying the Palestinian cause. Those who arrived immediately after Al-Naqba (the catastrophe) in 1948 have had the best opportunities to put down new roots in Jordan. Palestinian refugee camps also exist in Lebanon. I asked a Jordanian bookseller if these refugees weren’t a problem. No, he didn’t think so. “But isn’t it a problem for those living in the camps?” I asked follow-up. “Maybe, that’s possible…” That’s about the longest conversation about politics I’ve been able to have in Jordan. But of course it’s a simmering problem, especially after Jordan made peace with Israel and established normal diplomatic relations with the country. This has made normal border traffic possible, and allowed people to stand on one side of the border stream and have a sensible conversation with people on the other side. That’s nice, but where does that leave the Palestinians, who still speak of the day when they can return to a free Palestine? I can’t bring myself to tell them that it will be Saint Never’s Day—that is, never.
Ever since 1948, the Palestinians have been systematically pushed out of their homeland by Jewish immigrants who, strictly speaking, have no direct connection to this piece of land. For many years, they lived as a sort of nomads in various Arab countries, but the Jewish lobby persuaded Europe and the U.S. to open their borders to them and grant them special treatment. This immigration is a deliberate act supported by the State of Israel and further promoted by far too many Jews living here. Over time, the same policy has spread throughout the Middle East, where Jewish and American interference in the internal affairs of well-functioning states has led to popular uprisings and wars. Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Syria—these were all well-functioning states until the U.S.—and the U.S. is merely a Jewish tool—intervened and destroyed them—in some cases with the help of NATO, including Denmark. That the Jews have promoted the emigration of Palestinians to Europe and America is not surprising, as it takes some of the pressure off the region—and it undermines European nation-states and white America, which has been a Jewish goal for over 100 years. However, this is also the reason why there is generally little sympathy for the Palestinian cause in Europe. This is also true among native Danes. “They’re just Muslim ragheads!” people say. But it’s not quite that simple. 30% of Palestinians are Christians—and it is especially they who emigrate because they feel the pressure from two sides, partly from the Jews and partly from the Muslim Palestinians. And ethnically speaking, Christian Palestinians are a far more European-looking population, and they are generally far better educated. Culturally, however, they are strongly influenced by their Muslim neighbors—with the exception of the various religious rules and prohibitions. In any case, justice must be done! It’s hard not to feel sympathy for the Palestinians—both Christian and Muslim—which, however, does not mean they should live here! I would like to emphasize that. But there are three ethnic groups in our part of the world that have been treated truly harshly by history: the Palestinians, the Kurds, and the Armenians. When there is so much talk of justice and all the rhetoric we are constantly hearing in connection with the conflict in Ukraine, this is an area where something could truly be done. And when it comes to the Palestinians, it is Europe and America that have caused the suffering, because they allow a tiny Jewish minority to dictate the policies of our countries. But Europe has also allowed the Turks to carry out ethnic cleansing against the Kurds (Indo-European Muslims) and the Armenians (Indo-European Christians). And the Yazidis are a whole chapter unto themselves!
The Jews have, of course, created their own narrative, which Danish friends of Israel never tire of retelling: The Palestinians moved out of Israel entirely of their own free will. It doesn’t take much source research to disprove this fairy tale1. However, two such different peoples cannot share the same territory—and that is why the Jews seek to displace the Palestinians, so as to ensure that Israel can develop its character as a Jewish state.
This serves as a brief and necessary introduction to the discussion of the book in question, which is a collection of conversations between three Jews: Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, and Frank Barat. What they have in common is that they all take a pro-Palestinian stance. Naturally, there are quite a few Jews who do so—at least on a theoretical level. Let us, however, introduce the three, who cannot necessarily be expected to be known to the general public.
Noam Chomsky is a linguist by profession and resides in the United States. He is one of the founders of generative transformational grammar—and if you don’t know what that is, you are excused. It is a grammatical theory—Jews are fanatical theorists—and in my opinion, it is quite superfluous2. Chomsky has lived as a Jew his entire life and has also resided in Israel, stayed in a kibbutz, etc. However, he was probably one of the first who, after seeing the Palestinians’ situation up close, said: “This is not fair!” And he will always deserve great respect for that.
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian who currently teaches and lives in England. He has debunked a long list of Israeli myths and written extensively about the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. He, too, deserves great respect, for, as we know, the Jewish community is not kind to people who do not toe the line when it comes to Israel3.
Frank Barat is a Jewish human rights activist, film producer, and author. He is known for having coordinated the so-called Russell Tribunal on Palestine from 2008 to 2014. He serves here as moderator and editor.
What they have in common is that they are all communists—even though they are clearly highly intelligent people. It undeniably seems very difficult to combine the two.
When reading the book, a pronounced pessimism appears to have spread among the participants in the conversation. Israel has de facto annexed most of the West Bank, having, as mentioned, transformed what was to become a Palestinian state into a series of isolated enclaves that are today completely dominated by Israeli settlements, which occupy the most fertile parts of the West Bank. Chomsky has little regard for the leaders of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, who have been guaranteed a comfortable life by the Israeli government while the rest of Palestine sinks into poverty. The comparison with white South Africa runs throughout the book. It is believed—rightly so—that Israel is an apartheid state, but unlike South Africa, the Palestinian population is only about one-third of the population of Greater Israel, understood as the State of Israel, the occupied territories (the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and its environs) and the so-called Palestinian autonomous areas in the West Bank and Gaza. In other words, it does not carry the numerical weight that the Black population in South Africa had (and has). Both Chomsky and Pappé are aware that the merely nominal two-state solution, in which Israel and Palestine would live side by side as independent states, is dead. The fragmentation of the West Bank into enclaves means that such a state would not be viable. Furthermore, there is, of course, no direct connection between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Any connection must go through Israel, which has effectively cut off the Gaza Strip from the outside world. By pampering the ruling elite in Ramallah and starving out Gaza in particular, they have also prevented any political unity. Hamas rules in Gaza; it is a hybrid of a political party and a militant resistance movement, a profile that seems tailor-made for the misery of the Gaza Strip, but which is also gradually finding widespread support in the Palestinian “bantustans” of the West Bank. Hamas is a Muslim movement that has further put pressure on the Christian Palestinian population. “Divide and conquer!” has always been the tyrants’ motto, and Israel lives up to this motto very well. As mentioned, the periodic terrorist attacks also play into the Israeli government’s hands, as they cause the Jewish population to rally around the government.
Chomsky’s solution is a one-state solution, a Greater Israel with complete equality between Jews and Palestinians—indeed, typically enough, Chomsky believes that all borders should be abolished so that we all can become one big family. If anyone sees a Jewish tendency in this, they are not mistaken. In this way, one would effectively abolish all nation-states and any internal solidarity. But back to Israel. What would this actually mean, and who would promote this development, which would de facto mean the abolition of the Jewish state, given that the Palestinian population is growing faster than the Jewish one? Added to this is the contentious issue of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland—and, in the extreme, to reclaim their property. This would increase the number of Palestinians by several million.
Where would this change come from? Chomsky and Ilan Pappé find it unrealistic to imagine that the international community could impose such a solution on Israel. Furthermore, the international community would never dream of imposing anything on Israel against the will of the Israeli people. The global power of the Jewish community is far too great for that. Of course, these gentlemen know this as well, and Chomsky says that this shift in attitude must necessarily come from within. The Israeli people must come to the conclusion that this is their only chance for a stable peace.
But does that sound realistic? No, honestly—and it’s surprising that a brilliant mind like Chomsky’s could conceive of such a scenario. It strikes me as the result of understandable despair. I have—unfortunately—never visited Israel. I’m not sure I’d be welcome, and David Duke’s experiences during a visit to the country are frightening4. But I have, of course, known many people—including in Israel. Life in the Jewish part of Israel—excluding the strictly Orthodox neighborhoods—is extremely civilized and very European. Well-ordered, well-organized—and pleasant! I think it’s a place where most Europeans could easily feel at home. The Jews are well acquainted with life in neighboring countries, and frankly, it falls short of life in Israel. It is one thing to sympathize with the Palestinians on a theoretical level and understand their plight—it is quite another to have to live in the society they would create if given the chance. To that, most Jews would probably politely say, “No, thank you!” I would too! Then there is the religious aspect. The Jews want to be able to live as Jews—the Palestinians as Muslims (and a steadily dwindling number as Christians). In my opinion, that plan is dead on arrival. The parallel with South Africa doesn’t quite hold up either. Admittedly, the attitude among the white South African elite did change, and a large part of that elite was in fact Jewish, but this shift in attitude was supported by ever-increasing external pressure—far more than one could possibly expect in the case of Israel.
Today there are large demonstrations against Netanyahu’s highly Jewish nationalist government, but let us not forget that this government was elected by the people. It is an expression of the will of the Israeli people. And the demonstrations do not directly concern the Palestinian issue. There is a vast gulf between the will of the people as expressed through the parliamentary election and Chomsky’s utopia. The demonstrators want to have their cake and eat it too. They want a liberal, yet still Jewish state. The two things cannot be reconciled. If they still want a Jewish state, it must be a strong state like the one Netanyahu will guarantee—and that will not be liberal. A weak liberal state will end up as a Palestinian state and thus probably fulfill part of Chomsky’s dream, but it will become a Jewish nightmare, for it is guaranteed to end in an armed confrontation between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
But what, then, is the solution? Honestly: I don’t think there is a solution. This is a Gordian knot, bound with steel wires, that cannot be cut. The only solution would be Israel’s annihilation, but you don’t just annihilate a nuclear power like that, not even Israel5. And that would undeniably create other problems as well. Furthermore, the Arabs simply lack both the strength and the will. They have been either destroyed or bought off by Israel’s American colony. Moreover, they have always had a hard time agreeing on anything. “Divide and conquer” is easy here! The only possibility for a potentially fatal weakening of Israel would be if the U.S., Israel’s primary protector and cash cow, were to disappear as a superpower—either in a future nuclear war, or simply because the country wears itself down in internal conflicts with the potential for civil war. This scenario is not as unrealistic as many might think.
With Israel, a highly sensible state has been established—for Jews—according to the principles that the same circles deny the rest of us the right to organize ourselves by. A state for Danes, a state for Germans, and so on. If we do it, it’s “Nazi”—if they do it, it’s perfectly fine. Public opinion is, after all, also a matter of power—specifically, power over the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, cultural life, academia—and politicians. Anyone who isn’t completely blind can see who holds this power. If someone were to describe Israel as the world’s only existing Nazi state, it would be difficult to find sound arguments against it. Here we have a population that, based on biblical writings, considers itself to be God’s chosen people, far superior to other nations—including the Palestinians, who are treated much as the Jews were treated in Germany in the 1930s —in both cases with the aim of forcing out the unwanted population group. When the war made this impossible, Hitler resorted to more forceful methods, but for Israel, it is still possible to drive the Palestinians out—and this is also a weapon deliberately used against the naive nations that have opened their borders. Israeli leaders are clever people! They are much cleverer than our politicians.
Conversation books like this one, after all, in a way absolve one of any obligation to come up with solutions. They are books of talk, and as Chomsky himself said in a speech to the UN General Assembly, there are problems in the world that are so complex that it is difficult simply to come up with ideas on how to at least mitigate them. And the Israeli-Palestinian problem is one of them. When I look at my bookshelf and flip through 35-year-old books on this issue, it is striking that they discuss exactly the same problems as Chomsky and Pappé in this book6.
But what does that have to do with us?
True. In principle, I believe one needs as much knowledge as possible to truly make sense of the world. What makes this problem more relevant than the conflict over East Timor or Eritrea are two things. First, we should naturally take an interest in the global influence of the Jews, for it affects us to a very great extent as well. Second, the constant immigration from the entire Middle East is something that concerns us all.
In Denmark, there is an ingrained hostility toward Jews—and thus toward the State of Israel. This is, of course, partly due to our Christian cultural heritage, but primarily it is due to the constant holocaust propaganda intended to influence sensitive Europeans and make them turn a blind eye to the actions of the Jewish elite—and to the State of Israel’s treatment of the country’s indigenous population. Furthermore, Judeophilia serves as a means of polishing the national halo, stemming from the Danes’ rescue of the Jews during the war—a rescue that, however, took place in exchange for quite a substantial payment. Any violation of human rights and any ethnic cleansing can be excused in light of the holocaust—even though the Jews should actually be the first—precisely because of their historical experience—to abide by all these rules. Nationalist Danes who wish to understand the conflicts in the Middle East and their significance must abandon their role as uncritical cheerleaders for Israel and begin to analyze both Israel and the Jewish elite more closely7. Those who dismiss all criticism as anti-Semitic out of hand could, for example, start by reading authors such as Chomsky and Pappé, who can hardly be accused of being anti-Semites, even though they are self-aware Jews. And they are, in any case, worth reading!
Notes
- If one wants to understand the Palestinian problem thoroughly, one must read Issa Nakhleh: Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem I-II, Intercontinental Books, New York 1991. It is a very comprehensive and very thorough work with many large pages—but it is worth it! ↩︎
- Generative transformational grammar is another way of analyzing sentences—but I do not find it in any way revolutionary or of any practical use. It was, however, originally a prerequisite for the creation of analytical translation machines, but the idea of building such machines has today been more or less abandoned. Modern translation machines rely on access to enormous amounts of text, which form the basis for the translation. Today, it is inexpensive to store these colossal amounts of data, whereas previously it was prohibitively expensive and technically quite impossible. But as a barren theory, transformational grammar lives on and provides jobs for an army of parasites. ↩︎
- See, for example, Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy: By Way of Deception. The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 1990, and the sequel The Other Side of Deception: Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad’s Secret Agenda. ↩︎
- David Duke: My Awakening, Free Speech Press, 1998, pp. 528ff. ↩︎
- See Seymour M. Hersh: The Samson Option. Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Random House 1991. ↩︎
- See, for example, Andrew J. Hurley: Israel and the New World Order, Fithian Press, Foundation for a New World Order, 1991; Ahmed Rami: What Is Israel?, Kultur Publishing Förlag, 1988. Reading through the Journal of Palestine Studies over the years is not encouraging either. ↩︎
- See, for example, Kevin MacDonald: A People that Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, Praeger 1994; Separation and its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism, Praeger 1998; The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements, 1st Books 1998. The latter is by far the most important. It is available in a Swedish translation. ↩︎
Danmarks Frihedsraad 