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237 pages, Paperback
First published May 7, 2015
鈥淗ow, then, does one become an activist?
The easy answer would be to say that we do not become activists; we simply forget that we are. We are all born with compassion, generosity, and love for others inside us. We are all moved by injustice and discrimination. We are all, inside, concerned human beings. We all want to give more than to receive. We all want to live in a world where solidarity and companionship are more important values than individualism and selfishness. We all want to share beautiful things; experience joy, laughter, love; and experiment, together.鈥� (introduction)
Many of the world鈥檚 problems are so intractable that it鈥檚 hard to think of ways even to take steps toward mitigating them.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is not one of these.
I admit I鈥檝e fallen prey to the line, re: the occupation of Palestine, 鈥渋t鈥檚 too complex to understand.鈥� Not only is that too easy an out, it鈥檚 an outright lie, as this book thankfully illustrates. Chomsky and Papp茅 cut through the murk of propaganda and politic with much-needed clarity. As per usual, things get spun as a 鈥減eace process鈥� when the real words are too ugly: colonization, ethnic cleansing, and incremental genocide. And when there鈥檚 a profit involved.
The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is a medical miracle: it died several times, was resuscitated for a while, then collapsed again. It holds on not because there is the slight chance it will succeed but because of the dividends its very existence brings to many involved.
That means there鈥檚 a precedent, though, that such things can be stopped once people see through the narrative and start taking a stand. Excellent primer on where to start looking, i.e. how big a role the US plays in the atrocity, and what it will take for that to change.
The dehumanization in Iraq and Syria is widespread and terrifying, as it is in Gaza. But there is one crucial difference between these cases and the Israeli brutality: the former are condemned as barbarous and inhuman worldwide, while those committed by Israel are still publicly licensed and approved by the president of the United States, the leaders of the European Union, and Israel鈥檚 other friends in the world.
[NC:] It took a long time for France to become a state. A lot of violence and repression took place. In fact all state formation is a process of extreme violence. That鈥檚 why Europe was the most violent place in the world for centuries. Once a state is established, any citizen is a citizen of the state. No matter who you are, if you are a French citizen, you are French. If you live in Israel, and you are an Israeli citizen, you are not a Jew [鈥 Why should we accept this unique anomaly?