Noam Chomsky: an interview - Hicham Yezza

Sixty books, hundreds of academic papers, thousands of lectures, interviews and talks over five continents and five decades: at 80, Noam Chomsky is an intellectual, cultural and personal phenomenon. Yet the more interesting thing about the man is probably the fact that he seems completely unfazed, when not downright irritated, at his status as the “Elvis of Academia” (as U2’s Bono calls him).

Whether he is seen as a prophet or a charlatan, Chomsky certainly leaves very few indifferent. And it is this ability to bring out the mind of his listener out of its atrophied comfort that continues to excite and stimulate. In his interview with Ceasefire - the first of two parts - you can see the trademark rigour, intellectual honesty and genuine humility that have characterized his life and his work. His profile as the “world’s greatest intellectual” (a formulation he has incidentally denounced as meaningless) certainly shows no signs of diminishing. Whenever a major crisis erupts (9/11, The Iraq War, The Georgian War), or a major event takes place, Chomsky’s opinion on the matter is always quickly solicited (and dissected) by disciples and foes alike. This is as good a definition of “being relevant” as you’re likely to find.

Ultimately, whether as oracle or as nemesis, Chomsky’s relevance is set to continue for many decades to come. As far as we’re concerned: Amen to that!

The interview

August 18, 2008

Is a two-state solution to the Middle-East conflict still possible? Edward Said ended up supporting a binational-state position.

A two-state settlement in accord with the very broad and longstanding international consensus remains possible. An agreement along those lines was almost reached at Taba Egypt in January 2001, the one significant departure of the US and Israel from the rejectionist stand that has been primarily responsible for undermining this outcome. And though there have been changes for the worse since, they are not irreversible.

My own view, since I reached political consciousness in the 1940s, is that a binational state would be the most reasonable solution for all concerned. From 1967 to the mid-1970s, steps could have been taken towards federalism and in the longer term binationalism. I wrote and spoke about the matter quite extensively at the time. By the mid-1970s, that opportunity was lost, and the only way to approach federalism and closer integration is in stages, the first stage being a two-state settlement. It is intriguing that when the proposal was feasible, it elicited utter outrage, but now that it is not feasible (except as a late stage in a long-term project), it is welcomed within the mainstream (New York Times, New York Review, etc.). The reason, I suspect, is that the proposal is basically a gift to hard-line rejectionists, who can claim that “they want to destroy us” so we had better take all we can.

We should attend carefully to the crucial distinction between proposal and advocacy. We can propose that everyone should live in peace and harmony. It rises to the level of advocacy when we sketch a feasible path from here to there. The only advocacy of a binational state that I know of is the one I described: in stages, beginning with a two-state settlement.

Supporters of a one-state settlement often argue that if Israel takes over all of Palestine, it will face an internal struggle for civil rights resembling the anti-apartheid movement. That is an illusion, however. Israel and the US can simply persist in their current programs of incorporating whatever is of value to them within Israel, while taking no responsibility for Palestinians in the scattered fragments that remain, and leaving them to rot and turn on each other, as is happening in Gaza......