Zionist attack on New York Times article on Chomsky

Zionist attack on New York Times article on Chomsky

I'LL COMMENT THIS ARTICLE IN CAPITAL LETTES

May 18, 2010

NYT Correspondent Turns Into Cheerleader For Rabid Anti-Israel Propagandists

Leo Rennert

In a May 18 dispatch by Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner,
the New York Times reports on a "fierce debate" in Israel
over a decision to bar Noam Chomsky from entering the West
Bank to speak at a Palestinian university ("Israel Bars Noam
Chomsky From West Bank, Setting Off a Debate on Free Speech"
page A4")

I have no problem with the Times reporting that Chomsky was
turned back when he sought admission to the West Bank from
Jordan at the Allenby Bridge, nor about the pros and cons in
Israel about whether or not he should have been allowed to
gain entry.

Where I do have a big problem with the Times is in the
lengths to which Bronner goes to hide from readers Chomsky's
long record of delegitimizing the Jewish state, defaming the
memory of the Holocaust, and likening Israel to the horrors
of Nazi Germany.

CHOMSKY NEVER DELEGITIMISED ISRAEL - HE JUST TOLD ITS CRIMES.
THE MIND OF LEO RENNERT MAY HAVE RECOGNIZED THE MORAL IMPERATIVE
THAT ISRAEL IS ILLEGAL. BUT CHOMSKY NEVER DID.

DEFAMING THE MEMORY OF THE HOLOCAUST == SAME STORY;

READ THIS http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com/2010/05/israel-holocaust-and-anti-semitism.html

MR RENNERT SEEMS TO CONFER AN ELITE RIGHT TO HOLOCAUST VICTIMS

MR RENNERT'S MIND COMPARED ISRAEL TO THE NAZIs. CHOMSKY NEVER DID,

In his lead, Bronner describes Chomsky as a "linguist, an
icon of the American left." In the next paragraph, Chomsky
is further described as an "81-year-old professor emeritus at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

YES?

The third paragraph provides a few more details: "Chomsky is
Jewish and spent time living on a kibbutz in Israel in the
1950s -- an outspoken critic of both American and Israeli
policy" (Bronner doesn't say what "policy.").

EXACTLY! BRONNER SHOULD HAVE LISTED THE VETO RECORD AND THE MASSIVE
OBSTRUCTION OF PEACE EFFORTS BY US AND ISRAEL. CHOMSKY GIVES THE
FACTS, JUST READ CHOMSKY, AND CHECK THE FACTS, LEO!

Also, Chomsky
"has objected to Israel's foundation as a Jewish state, but
he has supported a two -state solution and has not condemned
Israel's existence in the terms of the country's sharpest
critics" (Bronner doesn't elaborate about the invectives of
these "sharpest" critics or explain why Chomsky's attacks on
Israel are somehow more benign.)

YES? SO?

What Bronner fails to tell Times readers is that Chomsky
consistently has attacked Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish
state

HE HASN'T. MAYBE THATS WHY, LEO!

and has accused Israel of "consciously manipulating"
the Holocaust to "oppress" Arabs.

THAT IS NOT IN DOUBT. HE AGREES THAT THIS IS A SACRILEDGE.

SEE:
http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com/2010/05/israel-holocaust-and-anti-semitism.html

In Chomsky's view,
Palestinians are the real "indigenous" population, while
Israelis are latter-day "immigrants from Europe and other
parts of the Middle East" -- recent vintage "settlers." No
big secret then about whose claims trump the other's.

YES. FACT.

In the 1970s, Chomsky actively propagandized about replacing
Israel with a "binational state."

HE SAID IT COULD BE AN OPTION, IF ISREAL AGREED.

In the 1980s, he called Israel a "terrorist state with points
of similarity to Nazi Germany."

REFERENCE PLEASE!

THE WORLDS BIGGEST SEARCH ENGINE CANNOT LOCATE IT:
http://google.com/search?q="terrorist+state+with+points+of+similarity+to+Nazi+Germany

AH .. I FOUND IT. OF COURSE IT IS MISQUOTED.

IN

FATEFUL TRIANGLE: THE UNITED STATES, ISRAEL, AND THE PALESTINIANS

BY NOAM CHOMSKY

THERE IS A FOOTNOTE IN THIS BOOK:

THE WARSAW GHETTO AND SIMILAR IMAGES WERE REPEATEDLY INVOKED
IN ISRAEL DURING THE WAR. CRITICS OBJECTED BITTERLY THAT THE
ANALOGY IS INACCURATE AS IT IS, IN MANY RESPECTS. ISRAEL
EVIDENTLY CANNOT BE COMPARED TO NAZI GERMANY; ITS ARMIES ARE
FURTHERMORE, IN A SENSE MERCENARY ARMIES, SINCE THEY ARE
SUPPLIED AND FINANCED BY A FOREIGN POWER THAT FUNDS THEIR
MILITARY OPERATIONS GENEROUSLY. THERE ARE ALSO POINTS OF
SIMILARITY, TO WHICH THOSE WHO INVOKE THE ANALOGIES WANT TO
DRAW ATTENTION.

While he grudgingly has come around to a two-state solution,
Chomsky simply has been unable to digest the notion that Jews
have sovereign and political rights to a Jewish state in the
Holy Land that date back 3,000 years -- that they, in fact,
have far greater "indigenous" claims than anyone else.

I SEE! HOW ABOUT THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS?

Chomsky also has come to the defense of Holocaust deniers,
writing that there are "no anti-Semitic implications in
denial of the existence of gas chambers" or in the claim that
the "Holocaust is being exploited viciously by apologists for
Israeli repression and violence."

YES. THIS MUST BE HARD TO UNDERSTAND TO A FANATICALLY CLOSED MIND.
LEO, TRY TO DIFFERENTIATE.

Reading Bronner's profile of Chomsky, Times readers would
never guess the full depth and fierce animus of Chomsky"s
hostile sentiments about Israel. Just the opposite.

THE NEW YORK TIMES IS CENSORING CHOMSKY!! IT IS A WONDER
THEY MENTION HIM AT ALL.

In Bronner's perfumed version, Chomsky comes across as a
perfectly fine academic Jew, who just happens to be a critic
of Israel and the U.S. With regard to the latter, Times
readers would have no inkling from Bronner's writing that in
Chomsky's view ,"anti-Arab racism is rampant in the U.S."
America the Big Satan, Israel the Little Satan.

LEO, PLEASE STAY WITH FACTS. CHOMSKY DOES.

While presenting a falsely benign image of Chomsky, Bronner
does a similar sanitizing job in behalf of Richard Falk and
Norman Finkelstein, two other anti-Israel propagandists who
have spewed vicious slanders about the Jewish state, and who
also have been barred from entry by Israel.

NAME ONE SLANDER OF EITHER. CHOMSKY AND FINKELSTEIN ARE VERY
CAREFUL. I WOULD BE SURPRISED TO FIND A VICIOUS SLANDER.

Falk, according to Bronner, is an "American who is a United
Nations investigator of human rights in the Palestinian
areas." Why was he kept out? The authorities merely said he
was "hostile to Israel."

That doesn't begin to do justice to Falk, who has accused
Israel of "slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust" -- a
country with "genocidal tendencies" that "criminalizes the
Nazi record of selective atrocity."

THANK YOU FOR POINTING OUT THIS GREAT ARTICLE BY A
DECENT AMERICAN JEW.
http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com/2010/05/slouching-toward-palestinian-holocaust.html

As far as Finkelstein is concerned, in Bronner's eyes, he's
merely a "scholar who is a critic of Israel and its
policies," barred from entering Israel after spending time in
Lebanon conversing with Hezbollah officials, who refused to
describe the nature of these talks."

No mention by Bronner that the Anti-Defamation League has
described Finkelstein as a Holocaust denier, or that he has
described Elie Wiesel as a "resident clown of the Holocaust
circus." No mention either that this "scholar" was denied
tenure by De Paul University because he lacked sufficient
academic credentials and output, since he was too busy
spreading vicious slanders about Israel, embracing Hezbollah,
and defending Holocaust deniers.

The New Republic wrote that "he's poison, a disgusting
self-hating Jew, something you find under a rock."

Again, I have no problem with defending the right of these
reprehensible individuals to air their views, but I do have a
problem -- and so should the New York Times -- with Bronner
acting as their cheerleader and hiding their real resumes.

========================

HEADLINE:

Israel: Chomsky ban 'big mistake'

Aljazeera.net

The Israeli government has said it made a "big mistake'' by
barring Noam Chomsky, an American academic and political
activist, from entering the occupied West Bank earlier this
week.

The interior ministry said on Tuesday that a low-level border
clerk had wrongfully denied him entry, and that he was now
free to enter.

"He should have been allowed in, it was a big mistake,"
Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told the
Associated Press news agency.

"The clerk for some reason thought there was an issue of
letting him in so denied him access. If he wants to come to
the border he will be allowed in."

Chomsky was barred by Israeli immigration officials as he
attempted to cross the Allenby Bridge from Jordan on Sunday.

The Jewish-American linguistics professor, who frequently
speaks out against Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian
territories, had been scheduled to give a lecture at Bir Zeit
University in the West Bank.

And despite Haddad's statement, Chomsky said there was no
"official" guarantee he would be allowed in and so decided to
give the lecture by video link from Amman, Jordan's capital,
on Tuesday.

About 100 students attended the video link lecture at Bir
Zeit University near the city of Ramallah.

Chomsky said he was told during his interrogation at the
border that "Israel does not like what you say".

The academic said preventing him from entering the West Bank
was "tantamount to boycotting Bir Zeit University".

Chomsky, who opposes a general boycott of Israel, told
Israel's Haarestz newspaper that Israel's behaviour reminded
him of South Africa in the 1960s, which thought it could
counter its international pariah status through better public
relations.

=============

Chomsky To Deliver Bir Zeit Lecture On Al Jazeera

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

By Richard Silverstein
Well, maybe this will teach the petty bureaucrats at the
Israeli Interior Ministry a lesson. After lecturing him for
four hours on the errors of his ways in criticizing Israel
and telling him what he could or should do to be allowed
admittance, they sent Prof. Noam Chomsky packing back to
Amman. Later, Israeli PR flacks attempted to backtrack by
lying and claiming it was all a clerical error by a desk
jockey the Allenby Bridge.

Still later, they offered to allow him back into the West
Bank (which isn.t Israel last I checked, even by Israel.s
standards, so why should they even be determining who enters
Palestinian territory?). When Chomsky inquired about whether
this was a bona fide official guarantee of entry he
discovered it wasn.t. Israel is just playing games.

But Chomsky, not to be played the fool, has delightfully
one-upped them all. He.s going to deliver his Bir Zeit
lecture via video conference from Amman and it will be
telecast live on Al Jazeera. That way it will reach an
audience thousands of times larger than the original lecture
would have. Since Al Jazeera is available in Israel, perhaps
even Israeli citizens will be able to watch him take apart
the hypocrisy and brustishness of Israeli policy and
Occupation.

This is the problem with Israeli policy and with all
authoritarian regimes (which the Occupation certainly is).
It thinks of the short term benefit, not the long term. It
thinks of tactics instead of strategies. It puts a finger in
the dyke but does nothing to preserve the ecosystem itself.

On a related note, Haaretz columnist Brad Burston has written
a typically eloquent, soul-searching cri de coeur about the
ugly rise of fascism inside Israel. Lest my right-wing
readers jump on Burston as a typically left-wing commentator,
this is simply untrue. Burston made aliyah decades ago and
joined Kibbutz Gezer, where I myself visited when I studied
in Israel. He has impeccable credentials as a liberal
Zionist. So for him to be writing so openly using such
strong language should tell us that the canary is singing in
the coal mine that is Israeli "democracy." Israel is a
nation under threat. Even perhaps a nation beginning to
implode under our very eyes from the heap of
self-contradictions under which it labors.

I was delighted to read that Elvis Costello, a performer I
admire greatly, has cancelled his Israel performances on his
upcoming tour. He wrote a remarkably sensitive, balanced
account of his decision which acknowledges that the decision
is morally conflicted but had to be made nevertheless:

It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately
arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two
performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the
1st of July. One lives in hope that music is more than mere
noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or
lament.

Then there are occasions when merely having your name
added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political
act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and
it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of
the innocent.

...If these subjects are actually too grave and complex
to be addressed in a concert, then it is also quite
impossible to simply look the other way.

...I am not taking this decision lightly or so I may
stand beneath any banner, nor is it one in which I imagine
myself to possess any unique or eternal truth.

It is a matter of instinct and conscience.

...Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to
the static and so an end to it.

I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform
in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a
better time when I would not be writing this.

With the hope for peace and understanding. Elvis Costello

Haaretz notes that Santana and Gil Scott Heron have also
joined in the protest by cancelling their own performances.
I hope other performers will read Costello.s nuanced, humble
and carefully articulated statement in full. It gives them
much to ponder. I too want to make clear that I do not
support such a decision as a means of harming Israelis,
especially those who share a critique of Occupation. This is
a political act, not one of petty vindictiveness. Of course,
many Israelis will mistakenly take it as the latter. This is
not an act that ultimately seeks harm to Israel or God
forbid, it.s destruction. It is a moral statement that tells
Israel that the rest of the world will no longer sit idly by.
That if Israel wishes to continue down this road, a price
will be paid in isolation. And that when Israel ends
Occupation, then that price will be redeemed and Israel.s
status will be restored.

Richard Silverstein is an author, journalist and blogger,
with articles appearing in Haaretz, the Jewish Forward, Los
Angeles Times, the Guardian.s Comment Is Free, Al Jazeera
English, and Alternet. His work has also been in the Seattle
Times, American Conservative Magazine, Beliefnet and Tikkun
Magazine, where he is on the advisory board. Check out
Silverstein's blog at Tikun Olam, one of the earliest liberal
Jewish blogs, which he has maintained since February, 2003.

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