Time and again it has been asked why is ‘peace’ so elusive in the Middle East. To understand the problem in Palestine one has to analyze the partial and self-interested role of America. Does America really want peace in the region? Herein lies the problem.
The answer to this question has been elucidated years ago by author such as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Israel Shahak and the late Ismail Al Faruqi. In some quarters these personalities do not exist or never existed at all. I once quoted from Israel Shahak`s work ‘Jewish History, Jewish Religion’ to a Jewish Professor who questioned the existence of Israel Shahak. (Shahak is a retired Professor of Organic Chemistry who taught at the University of Jerusalem in Tel Aviv)
In the forward of Noam Chomsky`s book ‘Fateful Triangle- the United States, Israel and the Palestinians’, Edward Said comments: Chomsky`s major claim is that Israel and the United States, especially the latter- are rejectionists opposed to peace, whereas the Arabs, including the PLO, have for years been trying to accommodate themselves to the reality of Israel. Chomsky supports his case by comparing the history of the Palestine-Israel conflict- so profoundly inhuman, cynical and deliberately cruel to the Palestinian people with its systematically rewritten record as kept by those whom Chomsky calls “The supporters of Israel”
“é Chomsky includes invaluable material on Oslo and Wye accords- an unnecessary line of Arab capitulation by which Israel has achieved all its tactical and strategic objectives at the expense of every proclaimed principle of Arab and Palestinian Nationalism and struggle. For the first time in the twentieth century, an anti- colonial liberation movement has not only discarded its own considerable achievements but has made an agreement to cooperate with a military occupation before that occupation has ended.”
Israel Shahak is of the same view that Israel has not really changed and like America do not want peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs.
So coming to the crux of the question as to the real intention of America in the region, the late Ismail Al- Faruqi sites two overriding American interests: dictated assumption by the United States of the whole burden of European colonialism in the area following World War II: Anti-Soviet military strategy and oil.
The creation of the state of Israel served at once all the purposes, strategy and interest of America, viz:
To provide, in case of another world war, a friendly base whose friendship to the West depends upon its own inevitable need for protection by the West for survival.
To provide a sore capable of draining all energies and resources of the surrounding areas so as to retard, if not to render impossible, any reconstruction that would make them more capable of resisting Christian Western domination.
Since the discovery of oil in the Arabian Peninsula in the thirties, to provide a strong but dependent friendly Israel which can be counted upon to assist in the security of this tremendous and vital resource.
To provide a cause which would throw the whole area into constant turmoil and thereby enable Western domination to fulfill its colonialist exploitative objectives more cheaply and easily.
To provide an apparently non-Western ‘hatchet’ which can be manipulated and hurled by the West at any state seeking to rid the area of Christian influence.
To provide relief to the Christian Western conscience ridden with the guilt- complex of Christendom’s crimes against the Jews over two millennia.
To subvert the worldly power of Islam by splitting it into an Asian half and an African half separated by an insurmountable barrier.
Noam Chomsky is also of the view that the strategic importance of the region lies primarily in its immense petroleum reserves and the global power accorded by control over them; and, crucially, from the huge profits that flow to the Anglo-American rulers, which have been of critical importance for their economics.
It has been necessary to ensure that this enormous wealth flows primarily to the West, not to the people of the region. That is one fundamental problem that will continue to cause unrest and disorder. Another is the Arab- Israel conflict with its many ramifications, which have been closely related to the major US strategic goal of dominating the regions resources and wealth.