January 13, 2005

• TOPIC: THE CASE FOR ISRAEL

  
  

  This was originally just going to be a response in the last post, which has received some good comments, but it’s long, so I’ll put it here:

  
  

  I’ve begun to have some interesting discussions w/ my roommate.  He just finished reading “The Case For Isreal,” by Alan Dershowitz.  Like myself, we’re both Jewish, and grew up thinking Israel = good, Arabs = bad.  For the most part, I still hold that position. (the same way I held the position US = good only a few months ago).  When I think of Israel, I think:

  
  

  a) after WWII, the Jews needed a home, otherwise we’d all be dead

  
  

  b) once Israel became a state in ’48, they were continuously attacked by Arabs.  Any land they won in defensive wars is their land, and in fact, there is no other country in the world that we’d expect to give back land won in a defensive war

  
  

  c) the Arabs have continuously turned down peace, and are only interested in destroying all Jews

  
  

  d) Israel, like America, gives its citizens so many freedoms and rights that could never be dreamed of in any Arab country.  Israel’s military actions are moral compared to Arab terrorists who go after innocent people.  Israel’s military actions are in self-defense, while Arab terrorists seek to exterminate all of Jewish Israel

  
  

  those are the basic ideas in my head…Dershowitz goes through a list of 32 frequent criticism of Israel, and obviously has a defense for every one.  It was interesting that I had just read Chomsky’s “What Uncle Sam Really Wants,” and had no idea that the book my friend was reading addresses Chomsky on page one as “far left,” and throughout the book as a supporter of anti-semitism.  We agreed to swap books, and I think we’ve both fallen into the trap of becoming partisans, (my friend wanted to burn my Chomsky book before opening a page after reading what an anti-Semite he was), and I’m already more of a skeptic of Dershowitz than I have been of Zinn or Chomsky (although years ago I read some Dershowitz w/ an open mind about civil liberties or something).  Anyways…what I immediately did was read Dershowitz’ criticisms of Chomsky, specifically what my friend had read to me about Chomsky’s support for Robert Faurisson, a Holocaust denier.  After hearing 2-pages, I was left thinking, “oh my god, how could Chomsky do such a thing.”  Dershowitz mentioned how Chomsky not only supported Faurisson’s free speech, but provided a forward for Faurisson’s book, thereby “joining with the author, and defending the substance of Faurisson’s work.”

  
  

  After reviewing the Chomsky-Faurisson case in further detail, it became quickly evident how Dershowitz, a clever lawyer, was able to sell to the jury (the unknowing and impressionable reader), that Chomsky was anti-Semetic, or at least had a few screws loose, and was “disqualified from ever being taken seriously on matters pertaining to Jews.”

  
  

  First of all, Chomsky has written without equivocation that the Holocaust was one of the sickest crimes committed against humanity.  To try to allude, as Dershowitz does, that Chomsky either believes the arguments of Holocaust deniers, or that he defends the “substance” of their work, is a flat out lie, or at least, false in logic.  The truth is, Chomsky is one of the staunchest defenders of civil liberties and the freedom of speech.  Chomsky’s support for Faurisson went no further than his support for his freedom to say something, even something as wrong and offensive as denying the Holocaust.  If we begin to ban speech, even the most wrong and controversial, we run a slippery slope with the possible banning of things that are right and controversial (for example, some Mississippi libraries are trying to ban Jon Stewart’s book, “America.”)

  
  

  With that being said, Chomsky wrote a letter on behalf of Faurisson, and said he could use it for any purpose.  When Faurisson used it as a forward to his book discrediting the Holocaust, people falsely concluded that Chomsky was giving his stamp of approval to the legitimacy of the content, not simply the legitimacy of the right to free speech.  Upon realizing this, Chomsky called for his letter to be taken out of the book, but realized it was too late, and in fact regreted that he asked for this.  He had done nothing wrong, it was merely a case of his words being taken out of context, something that Dershowitz does in his book as well.

  
  

  Later in the same chapter, Dershowitz shows how radical imams who preach hatred of Jews often cite historians like Faurisson.  Here, Dershowitz commits a double-fallacy.  First, he’s already made a false link between Chomsky and a Holocaust denier, and he attempts to extend it to a radical-imam who wants to destroy the Jews.  Second, he ignores the fact that Chomsky has a very strict definition of “anti-Semitism” (he is a linguistics scholar after all).  If you say you hate Israel, you’re an anti-Zionist, if you say you hate Jews, you’re an anti-Semite.  With that definition he holds that Faurisson is an anti-Zionist, because he denounces “Zionist lies,” however, this does not make him an anti-Semite.  In Dershowitz’ attempt to draw a link between Chomsky and Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, who preaches hatred of Jews and blames Jews for the Holocaust, Dershowitz writes, ”Chomsky would not regard him as anti-Semitic”  Not only is that unsupported, but it’s not true.  Chomsky WOULD consider him to be anti-Semitic. 

  
  

  Dershowitz does a very good job of misstating Chomsky’s views, in order to show that people, even someone as well-respected as Chomsky, who are critical of the state of Isreal, are also anti-Semitic. 

  
  

  The real issue, is the question of, “is it anti-Semetic to single out Isreal” as Chomsky did when calling for colleges such as Harvard to devest their endowment money from Israel.  Of all the countries to single out, why would someone single out Israel, unless they were anti-Semetic?  “The intellectual godfather of this campaign is none other than Noam Chomsky, who has called for the abolition of the state of Israel and teh substitution of a ‘secular binational state.’

  
  

  Well…first of all, I don’t know all of Chomsky’s views, but I doubt they’re based on “ignorance, bigotry, and cynicism,” as Dershowitz suggests.  The question is, what would possess Chomsky, a Jew himself, and so many others who believe in truth, freedom, and equality, to single out Israel over other countries for divestment?

  
  

  As I reverse the picture, I begin to ask myself this question: Why does the US give so much support to Israel, over other countries for investment?  I’m not sure if schools give disproportionate amount of funds to Israel, but I’m certain we give more military aid to Israel than any other nation.  My recent discoveries of US history show me that when the US gives aid, it tends to be to aid our corporations to get rich, while ensuring that the democracy we support is a democracy that is willing to oppress its own people. 

  
  

  However, Israel is clearly a double-edged sword, because it is viewed as the homeland of the Jews.  Yes…it was 5 years ago now that I just returned from a 10-day “birthright Isreal trip,” an all expense paid trip paid for by two very rich and gernerous millionaires, who wanted to help Jewish people, mostly college students, who had never been on an organized trip to Israel, to get back in touch with their culture. 

  
  

  So…unlike US actions in Central and South America to overthrow certain democracies and support others, which was supported purely by corporate greed (see post below), support for Israel comes from Jews as well, and for the primary and legitimate reason of wanting a safe Jewish homeland after nearly being exterminated in WWII (and the anti-Semitism that has existed for centuries before that). 

  
  

  However, my new rule is to look for the Trojan Horse from politicians.  Seeing that it’s the Republican party and radical-rights that support Israel, I think they’ve created a smoke screen to support a legitimate cause with Jewish backing, to cover-up for the corporate cause, of strategic economic and political positioning in the oil-rich Middle East.

  • 11:39 am
  • 9 Comments