On Palestine by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Frank Barat

testimony from the past for what, and against what, the struggle is all about. The refugees are already part of the demographic balance. How these people will return and how other refugees will return is a question that has to be at the center and not on the margins of the public debate about Palestine in this century.
    The third and last area is the absence of any socialist discourse from the conversation about Palestine. This absence is one of the main reasons the so-called peace camp in Israel (and the same is true regarding the lobbyists on J Street in the United States) has no issue with neo-liberalism. This worldview is not opposed to Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories but has no position on the harsh economic and social oppression that does not distinguish between a West Bank inhabitant and an Israeli citizen. It is true that, unfortunately, some of the Jewish oppressed classes in Israel, in particular the Arab Jews, who see themselves as Jews first, subscribe to extreme racist views, but their plight is another good reason not to give up on a worldview that challenges the present economic, not just political, regime between the River Jordan and the sea.
    The absence of this angle also weakens our ability to understand the Oslo Accords, the creation of the PA, projects such as People to People, and the maintenance of the occupation by EU and USAID money as neoliberal projects. Economic elites supported the “peace process” because it was perceived to lead to an economic bonanza.
    The importance of insisting on a socialist worldview can be gleaned from the example of post-apartheid South Africa, which has proven so disappointing as it maintains an economic structure that still discriminates against the African community there. Those who represent institutionally, collectively, or individually this worldview have a responsibility to make sure the conversation about it will not stop at the Green Line but will relate to Palestine as a whole; and who knows, it may kick off a serious conversation about the future of the Middle East in its entirety.
    Heading toward 2020, we will all most probably face a racist, ultra-capitalist, and more expanded Israel still busy ethnically cleansing Palestine. There is however a good chance that such a state will become a global pariah and the people around the world will ask their “leaders” to act and end any relations they have with it. What they should not hear are the past slogans, which are no longer relevant in the struggle for a more just and democratic Palestine.

Part One

    Dialogues

Chapter Two

    The Past
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    Frank Barat: How important is the role of the past in understanding the present? More and more, people are asking the Palestinians to move on—to forget about the past, the Nakba of 1948, the refugees. How would you respond to that?
    Noam Chomsky: Well, it’s not just on this issue. It’s quite standard for those who hold the clubs to say: “Forget about everything that happened and let’s just go on from here.” In other words, “I’ve got what I want, and you forget what your concerns are. I’ll just take what I want.” That’s what it translates as—in this case too. To forget about the past means forgetting about the future because the past involves aspirations, hopes, many of them entirely justified, that will be dealt with in the future if you pay attention to them. It’s essentially saying, “Let’s dismiss just hopes and aspirations because we’ve got what we want.”
    Ilan Pappé: I definitely agree with this. I would say that in the case of Palestine, and why we continue to receive requests to speak and give our views, the clock of destruction continues at every historical juncture at a much faster pace than our clock of ideas on how to get out of this. This stalemate continues however because the perception of those who manage the so-called peace