Book: Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
Quotes of Book: Understanding Power: The
Another thing they talk about a lot is water-and that's a very crucial thing, which is not discussed very much in the United States but it's probably the main reason why Israel is never going to give up the West Bank. See, this is a very arid region, so water is more important than oil, and there are very limited water resources in Israel. In fact, a lot of the wars in the Middle East have been about water-for instance, the wars involving Israel and Syria have usually been about the headwaters of the Jordan, which come from Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. And as a matter of fact, one of the main reasons why Israel is holding on to the so-called "Security Zone" it seized in southern Lebanon {in the 1982 invasion} is that that area includes a mountain, Mount Hermon, which is a big part of the watershed that brings water to the region. book-quote...the qualifications that I have to speak on world affairs are exactly the same ones has, and has, or anybody in the Political Science Department, professional historians-none, none that you don't have. The only difference is, I don't pretend to have qualifications, nor do I pretend that qualifications are needed. I mean, if somebody were to ask me to give a talk on quantum physics, I'd refuse-because I don't understand enough. But world affairs are trivial: there's nothing in the social sciences or history or whatever that is beyond the intellectual capacities of an ordinary fifteen-year-old. You have to do a little work, you have to do some reading, you have to be able to think but there's nothing deep-if there are any theories around that require some special kind of training to understand, then they've been kept a carefully guarded secret. book-quotequalificationsworld-affairs