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Testing Out Repression in Israel

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Dennis Bernstein
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So, really the elites in every country, and then if you take it within the world system, the capitalist elites certainly, the capitalist part of the corporation, and so on, are looking for, "How do we keep the people under control?" Now, where's a better place to go for a model than Israel? The United States doesn't have that experience. Europe hasn't had colonial wars for 50 years now. So Israel is in the middle of an ongoing century-long war of counterinsurgency against the Palestinian people.

All these years, it has the tactics, it has the methods, it has the weaponry. It has the systems of security, systems of surveillance, all in place to export. And so that's, I think, how you can explain how Israel gets away with it. It delivers for the elites. "We'll deliver you the means of repressing your own populations, and in return you let us keep the occupation."

DB: I'm not sure how to ask this question, but is there evidence of the training ground part of this, in which, say, for instance, weapons are introduced for the first time on the battlefield, or drones, in Palestine? How does this theory [work], in terms of testing the weapons first and then exporting war?

JH: Well, first of all I document it and write about it in my book. There are a thousand footnotes, in the book.

DB: We love footnotes.

JH: But what's interesting is the Israeli arms dealers, security companies are proud of this. I mean we're talking now ... this could be seen in two ways. This could be seen as being critical of Israel, and the capitalist world. ... I think people understand that that's where we're coming from in this program. But I could be saying the same thing, and I could sound like the Israeli Chamber of Commerce. "Wow, that's great, I mean Israel developing these effective systems, they're helping keep the bad people and the terrorists under control, they're securing us. Wow, that's great." And so [on].

DB: And they are training police departments in the U.S.

JH: That's right, exactly. Especially, not especially, but also in California. So, in other words, the arms companies, and the security companies, (there's about 500 of them in Israel, alone, which is an old country), think this is a great thing. In other words, they're not embarrassed by it ... and so the best source of information is just their web sites. Because what's the point of developing a cutting edge surveillance system on Palestinians? ... You know there are 600 checkpoints in the West Bank. You've got millions of Palestinians that you can use as guinea pigs: literally in a laboratory. No wonder Israel is leading in airport security, and runs airports all over the United States.

But there's no point in developing these systems if you're not marketing them, if you're not selling them, if you're not making a name for yourself. So, in fact, all these 500 companies in Israel that sell this stuff, all have web sites. And they're all blaring their product. So it's not hidden. On the contrary, like I'm saying, if you put it within a certain context, this is actually seen as a positive contribution to the world. If you look at the world, from, you know, the way the media that you mentioned, present it, it's good that Israel is helping us defend ourselves against terrorists.

But putting it in a critical way within the world system, we show that, in fact, security is not a neutral term. There really isn't security. The security is really defined by the interests of the ruling classes. ... Writing the book, I'm aware of the fact that that's language that kind of sounds old fashioned. But it really isn't. It really is ... even more today, it's truer than it was before.

The ruling classes are much more organized, they have much more fire power, are much more coordinated with each other, and so on. And actually, with scarcer and scarcer resources, they have a much more focused agenda, in terms of extraction and control. So actually, the term "ruling class" should be more in use today. ... The ruling classes have their interests and they package it under the word "security" because who doesn't want to be secure? And what I'm saying in the book, and that's why the subtitle talks about global pacification, is I'm saying, "We're actually being pacified."

In other words, we're being repressed to a point where we can't resist. So you wanna be secure? Fine. Do you want to be pacified? And once you start using words like "pacification," that raises questions that the word security doesn't raise. Who's pacifying me? How are they pacifying me? Why are they pacifying me? And so my book, I hope, it gives you sort of a window into the way the large world system works. I call it Globalized Palestine. In a sense, Israel over Palestine is a microcosm of the Global North over everybody else. And so I think it is a very useful book for beginning to understand global realities that we live in.

DB: You know, it's interesting, if you read back some of the literature of the capitalists of the early 50's, the visionaries among them understood about the problems that would be faced in terms of the shrinking resources. And they talked extensively about the kinds of, sort of, defense and weapon systems, and the way in which our way of life would have to be protected. This is just part of that curve.

JH: That's right. And to her credit, the only one that really is using the word capitalism, that word up front in her analysis, is Naomi Klein. With The Shock Doctrine and now her new book on climate change and capitalism [This Changes Everything]. But it's like that joke: One fish asks another fish, "How's the water?" and the other fish says, "What water?" You know, you are living in this system. And it is so encompassing, and it affects everything that we do. Who our enemies are. How we dress. What our values are. How we talk. What language ... everything. What we eat. And it's an unsustainable system. But it's a system that we've kind of internalized. We don't even think about it anymore.

And so that's, I think, the value of critical analysis, and bringing back that language, including language like pacification, is that really shows us that we're in fact living in a very political water. And not just some normal, everyday reality that is inevitable.

DB: And how would you describe the security relationship, the security sharing relationship, between the United States and Israel?

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Dennis J Bernstein is the host and executive producer of Flashpoints, a daily news magazine broadcast on Pacifica Radio. He is an award-winning investigative reporter, essayist and poet. His articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Nation, and (more...)
 

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