SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Turkey has taken the strongest stance against Israeli military aggression in Gaza while the United States bears the greatest responsibility for the assault, according to political commentator and activist Noam Chomsky.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Anadolu Agency, Chomsky talked broadly on the latest Israeli attack on the Palestinian enclave, reserving his praise for Turkey and his ire for the U.S..
The author identified Turkey as the only country to openly criticize Israeli’s ground and air operation against Gaza.
“Turkey is, at the moment, the only country that has taken a strong stand against Israel, telling the whole world that it is against Israeli massacres in Gaza,” he said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led criticism of Israel, calling it a “terror state” and even accusing it of having “surpassed” Nazi atrocities.
Chomsky, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the expectation that the international community would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a false one as the concept of an international community was an illusion.
“States simply follow their own strategic interests,” he said. “It is clear that the United States openly backs Israel. The European Union doesn’t care much about people in Gaza. The Arab world is also both split and impotent to do to something important.”
It is America that Chomsky holds mostly responsible for the present carnage in Gaza, where more than 800 Palestinians, many of them helpless civilians, have been killed since the start of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.
“The U.S. gives Israel military, political, diplomatic and ideological support for the killing of Palestinians in a direct and explicit way,” Chomsky explained.
“That is, Israeli armed forces are using U.S. weapons to carry out slaughter against Palestinians, thus seriously violating international law.”
It is this involvement in the Middle East that is the root cause of persistent anti-Americanism among Muslims around the world.
“After all the incidents in the Muslim world, it will be hard for the U.S. to convince Muslims that it wants a friendly and sincere dialogue,” Chomsky added. “By providing support to Israel, the U.S. causes a deep anti-Americanism among Muslims.”
This is compounded by hypocrisy in its dealings with the Islamic world, where America’s words are very different from its deeds.
“Hypocrisy is the name of the game, not just in this case,” he said. “The U.S has betrayed the Islamic world once again and from now on the co-operation between the two sides will be more difficult to achieve.”
www.aa.com.tr/en
