http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/dershowitz.htm

In my post above I said, “Chomsky *OPPOSES* Right-of-Return for Palestinian refugees & exiles”.

Let me make a slight self-correction so that if anyone brings this up to Chomsky he won’t weasel around this (like Bush weasels with & around words during his presidential press conferences) and say, “That’s not true.”

Chomsky OPPOSES GENERAL, UNLIMITED Right-of-Return for Palestinian refugees & exiles, especially to the state of Israel itself (while, of course, he supports unlimited, so-called, “right-of-return” for Jews from anywhere, anytime) — to a state that keeps stealing, expanding, annexing and officially subsuming Palestinian land since the immoral Zionist Jewish partition (with imperialist British patronage) of Palestine in the first place.

Chomsky is, however, willing to accept TOKEN/LIMITED Right-of-Return for CERTAIN Palestinian refugees & exiles.

Now, Chomsky *might* possibly claim that he would accept unlimited ‘Right-of-Return’ to “a Palestinian state”. But, obviously Israel’s concept of “a Palestinian state” would be so small (and steadily shrinking), so squiggly and convoluted, so trifurcated (at least), and thus economically (and perhaps politically, if not even geographically) unviable/unstable — and, of course, on generally the worst land remaining — that the return of millions of Palestinians would be unsustainable as a practical matter — to “a Palestinain state” that itself would be a TOKEN rump state.

And what of Palestinian exiles who have family (let alone relatives) inside Israel? Would Chomsky allow them general, rather than perhaps only the most limited (if that), Right-of-Return? I doubt it (to put it lightly).

Furthermore, what of the Palestinians living inside Israel itself? Would Chomsky then tell them, ‘Now you can move (or be directly forced out) to your, so-called, “Palestinian state”, or continue to live as (actually) *worse than* 2nd class citizens under Zionist ideological [Jewish-supremacist] domination inside Israel’?

Why all this? BECAUSE CHOMSKY — THE SELF-DESCRIBED “ANARCHIST” — WANTS AND SPECIOUSLY WORKS TO PROTECT ISRAEL AS *”A JEWISH STATE”*.

[Israel's idea of "a Palestinian state" readily and politically reminds me of Native Peoples' American reservations (when the apartheid bantustan is not paralleled): where usually the Native Peoples generally only "owned" the dust under their shoes (unless, I guess, gold was discovered in it) -- for they did not control the mineral resources under their feet, they did not control the airspace over their heads, and they did not control the borders around "their land", and the U.S. could go in whenever the U.S. wanted.]

Joseph Anderson

Berkeley, CA

Finkelstein , like Galileo, takes no prisoners when it comes to calling it as best as he can. This means that he is doing the best science – science practiced as only science can – no lying, no cheating, no distorting anything. The exact opposite of lawyering and peeyar.

Calling out pretentious academic frauds and charlatans is a mandatory part of the process of doing any semblance of genuine science – whether it is political science or history or anthropology in the “real world.”
Finkelstein & Galileo, are 400 years apart, but essentially identical in their relentless exposure of the rampant nonsensical doubletalk in their respective academies.

Galileo was primarily persecuted by his enraged fellow academics more than the Holy Roman Church.

Finkelstein’s open contempt for the corruption of language by all too many of his comfortable colleagues is “pure gold.” It tells us what a no nonsense man Professor Finkelstein is, and why we respect him so much.

Such pretentious crap by authorities with doctorates in doubletalk and law degrees in obfuscation is “worse-than-wrong.” It is designed to keep us from the truth of who and what is giving us continual brain damage while delivering a good butt fucking.

Thank you, Hue (Sept 11, 2007 @3:33am). I’m a busy activist like most others, when I’m not at my day job. So, I don’t have enough time to write articles — time that, honestly, I should nonetheless take. Perhaps your encouragement will cause me to find just such time in the near future re Chomsky.

Chomsky also commonly lies about the history and basis of Israel’s wars with its neighbors related to the Palestinian conflict — because CHOMSKY ACTUALLY WORKS AS A LEFTIST GURU, AS A FUNCTIONAL ZIONIST 5TH COLUMNIST, TO *PROTECT* ISRAEL AS, IDEOLOGICALLY “A JEWISH STATE”. (And, in this, of course, Chomsky *opposes* Right-of-Return for Palestinian refugees & exiles — but not for Zionist Jews anywhere in the world for ever and ever, even those who have *never* been oppressed a single day in their lives and who have never even seen, let alone ever set foot in, historic Palestine! He’s really quite a sophisticated, but sly and nasty figure, on the Israel-Palestinian conflict — as is, particularly so, someone like USF professor Stephen Zunes.) Mideast political analysts Kathleen & Bill Christison have directly or indirectly exposed such lies in their articles. Neither Palestinian leaders out here in the Bay Area, nor anti-Zionist Jews, morally follow Chomsky anymore.

Just one source of my information can be heard on the archived San Francisco radio program, “Your Call Radio” on KALW-fm. Below is one source of primary documentation regarding Chomsky’s remarks — from his own lips, no less. It is an archive of a San Francisco radio program that he was on (on a live remote from the Northeast coast, presumably Boston/Cambridge, Mass.) almost a year ago to the month:

http://yourcallradio.org/archive/archive.html

_9.26.06 Noam Chomsky on his book, “Failed States”_ .

(Chomsky doesn’t seem to make any physical trips out here to the Bay Area anymore because he *knows* there would be people like me in the audience. Although if he did, I’m sure it would be a forum as tightly controlled as a White House press conference with George Bush — except that all the questions would have to be submitted on *tiny* index cards and then they would be, of course, sifted through for questions too intellectually or morally challenging censored — even though Chomsky could just lie as usual with no opportunity for the questioner to follow up.)

Here’s an excerpt, in [ ]’s, from a letter that I sent to the host and executive producer (also General Manager) of the program:

[ September 29, 2006

Dear Rose Aguilar & Matt Martin (KALW-fm, San Francisco):

I just wanted to follow up just for your own information (if helpful), regarding the KALW "Your Call Radio" program interview with Noam Chomsky on Tuesday, September 26, 2006, and my call to your show at 31:48 after the hour.

Since I was at a distinct inherent disadvantage regarding Chomsky's ability to, frankly, just lie in response to my question about his opposition statements to a sanctions, boycott or divestment campaign against Israel for its continued brutal oppression against the Palestinian people, I wanted to follow up here if you don't mind.

I want to regretfully say that Chomsky lied when he said that he never said that he opposed a divestment movement against Israel because (quote), "the majority of the population opposes it" (meaning, of course Israeli Jews). I said in my question beforehand that human rights activists don't first ask the *oppressors* if they would accept sanctions and accede to the *oppressors'* inevitable objection. Anyway, in addition to his speeches, Chomsiky said this in a May 10, 2004, published interview with Harvard Professor Christopher J. Lee in "Safundi", a South African scholarly journal, an interview republished in Z Magaine in May, 2004. This was also documented and covered in detail in Jeffrey Blankfort's article, "Damage Control: Noam Chomsky and the Israel-Palestine Conflict".

Chomsky also said that a sanctions movement would be "a gift to the utlra-right-wing" in Israel and the U.S., and would hurt the victims. But the *victims* -- the Palestinians -- *are* calling for an international sanctions/boycotts/divestment campaign against Israel. So, Chomsky is opposing what the victims themselves are asking for to help eliminate their oppression. In addition, Chomsky's colleague and sometimes co-author, Ed Herman, whom Chomsky alluded to in your interview, OPPOSES Chomsky's views on sanctions (and on Chomsky's dismissal of the Israel lobby) and finds Chomsky's views on these issues logically and morally inexplicable. [The same was true for Edward Said.] Actually, it’s Chomsky’s, as America’s leading leftist guru, opposition to sanctions and his dismissal of the Israel lobby that is “a gift to the ultra-right-wing” in Israel and the U.S. government.

Finally, I regret to say that Chomsky also lied about the history of the, then, American anti-apartheid divestment movement against South Africa, when he said that some great public consensus had been built up and established *before* the American divestment campaign was begun.

The anti-Apartheid sanctions/boycott/divestment campaign against South Africa was not begun ONLY *AFTER* some huge American public consensus had been established: it started out *very small*; it often started out in places (actually most of the country then) where most people didn’t know all that much, if anything, about South African apartheid and its racial system of laws and restrictions; and the campaigns, along with the mock shanty towns on many campuses (often in small campustowns/cities), were used as an educational and consciousness-raising tool to *BUILD UP* public awareness and support for economic divestment. And we activists certainly weren’t able to change U.S. government policy first (Reagan was a *friend* of apartheid South Africa). In one sentence: The anti-Apartheid divestment movement against South Africa was *itself* a basis of the groundwork to build up and establish an international political anti-Apartheid movement in support of the oppressed black South Africans.

The big establishment politicians that Chomsky claimed were all lining up to get arrested in protests (like in front of the White House) mostly happened toward the *end* of the divestment movement (when it was, of course, politically much safer in their perceived situation), *not* at the beginning. ]

Finally, a copy of that great litte poem, “Gnome Chomsky”, can be found at:

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/133840/index.php, which nicely encapsulates Noam Chomsky on Israel and ‘the Chomsky experience’ at any of his appearances.

Joseph Anderson

Berkeley, CA

I’m all for sacred cows being served with wine and music, but wish you would clean it up and include footnotes and offer it for publishing on DV…I think many have stopped reading the letters resulting from this topic and your letter is an important one that should confound nicely, the benighted Zionists–as well as the educated rats who blindly follow Noam’s tune.

John Halle: “Finkelstein joins the great figures in the history of ideas-Spinoza, Voltaire, Russell, Chomsky- in having aroused the hatred of the privileged and powerful.”

Chomsky couldn’t have aroused too much hatred: he is a fully tenured, senior white professor in the United State’s most prestigious predominantly science & engineering university — and a multimillionaire to boot: I’d say that CHOMSKY IS QUITE PRIVILEGED! He readily gets his many books published without any attempts to silence him, stop him or the publisher, and he has been on C-SPAN or on PBS, like the very establishment Charlie Rose Show, numerous times. But, of course, like MOST leftists he doesn’t regularly get on mainstream corporate American TV.

I always thought that Chomsky is a good introduction to the politics of U.S./Western imperialism for late-teens and 20-somethings (or maybe Middle Americans of any age) — in *some* respects Chomsky was an introduction to me when I was younger (especially his book “Manufacturing Consent” — but not even his original concept: not that African Americans didn’t know that the media systematically lies about anything really important to the ruling class). But I also thought that Chomsky was very overrated — especially as some sort of unquestioned Leftist God.

The relatively few people who DON’T think that Chomsky WALKS ON WATER know that he actually slyly and speciously serves to PROTECT Israel — especially as “A Jewish/Zionist state”. (See online, “Damage Control: Noam Chomsky and the Israel-Palestine Conflict”, by Jeffrey Blankfort.) But, the many organizers who know that Chomsky is morally amiss like this don’t say so because they are using ‘Chomsky, Inc.’ as a advertizing and fundraising device: post that Chomsky is going to be speaking at your event and you’re guaranteed a good gate (revenues) at the door; you sure won’t fall short for his honorarium and you’ll have PLENTY left over! Have all the questions put on tiny index cards and weed out the meaninfully critical ones — so your event won’t be “spoiled”. And everyone goes home glassy-eyed again!

All Israel’s horrors of over half a century (the 20th century’s longest human rights catastrophe) visited upon the Palestinian people are, by Chomsky, blamed ONLY on the WASPs, the goyim, in the American, or British, ruling class (in spite of the fact, that in both cases Zionists mightily pushed those governments to recognize and support Israel). Israel, according to Chomsky has NO independent actions or ambitions. Israel is the puppet, and the U.S. makes it dance. (So, I would ask Chomsky, is Israel “just following orders” — and where have we heard that immoral ‘defense’ before?) Furthermore, Chomsky has NEVER *renounced* Zionism — this ‘dog that didn’t bark’ coming from a self-described “Anarchist”.

Chomsky also absoluting denies the power of the Israel lobby — or said that proof of its power can’t be determined — and as I said in another DV post, ironically the very lobby which has destroyed the career of Norman Finkelstein at DePaul University — and as Edward Said also said, the lobby which is the greatest domestic enemy of human rights for the Palestinian people. Chomsky has been, like a master magician, a master of misdirection when it comes to Israel and the Palestinian people. He, like a Pied Piper for his glassy-eyed hero-worshipping accolytes, plays a lulling and beguiling tune, that leads them to a dead end on the issue of Palestinian human rights. Every anti-Zionist Jew who is SERIOUS about their anti-racism and thus Palestinian human rights knows this. (See, “The Left and the Israel Lobby”, by Joseph Anderson.)

When it comes to the privileges of, and brutality by, *his* ethnic group and his old ZIONIST friends, suddenly he waffles and prescribes only idle and vague busy work against apartheid in Israel: “write your Congressperson” (the one who gets at least many 1,000’s of dollars — or whose political party gets MILLIONS of dollars — from the Israel lobby each year, or the one, like Cynthia McKinney, who’s nobody opposition from nowhere would suddenly get a MILLION dollars from the Israel lobby and its constituents if your Congressperson disobeyed).

Furthermore, Chomsky seemingly *talks* a good (specious) game, but OPPOSES doing anything PRACTICAL to actually help the Palestinians and to at least put Israel’s ruthless behavior in check. Chomsky ‘talks the talk’, but he won’t walk the walk. CHOMSKY OPPOSES ANY BOYCOTTS, DIVESTMENT OR SANCTIONS AGAINST THE APARTHEID STATE OF ISRAEL. And he uses the same parallel arguments that white conservatives used to OPPOSE boycotts, divestments & sanctions against then apartheid South Africa: (a.) it would be a gift to [go figua!] the right-wing [before in apartheid South Africa, but today in Israel and to the Israel lobby]; (b.) it would be called anti-white racism (or in Israel’s case, “anti-Semitic”); (c.) the majority of “the people” — i.e., the oppressors! — oppose it [well, duh-uhhh...]; (d.) and, finally, it would hurt the very victims you’re trying to help [this, in spite of the fact that the victims themselves are/were calling for it!]. But, if Chomsky had this attitude during South African apartheid –as opposed to Israeli apartheid– he would have been seen as a morally hollow fake leftist and fallen into disfavor with American (hell, worldwide) progressives and leftists (and even liberals) long ago.

Now I don’t care WHO supposedly ‘walks on water’. As someone, myself being African American, who comes from an oppressed minority (unlike Jews today anywhere in the Western World) — someone who must be urgent and SERIOUS — when I see the “leftist” ‘water-walker’ (or ‘Pied Piper’) beguiling, misdirecting and leading the cause against racism to a dead end — and using their otherwise “leftist” (yeah, self-described “Anarchist”) COVER to do so — then I STOP FOLLOWING THEM.

(Btw, every leftist should look up the poem “Gnome Chomsky”, online. It really tells you everything you need to know about Chomsky and his protection of both Israel and Zionism in a very cute little poem.)

Joseph Anderson

Berkeley, CA

Derrida will be remembered as an obscurantist of the first order-one whose interest in superficial language games disguises what was an underlying objectively reactionary agenda. The right wing and state apologists like Dershowitz well understood this which explains why they never raised a peep as he moved from one distinguished appointment to another.

If the world manages to survive a generation from now, it will be the Finkelstein who will be seen as the prophets they are.

The last two paragraphs were pure gold. I had the greatest respect for Norman previously. I now see him as one of the shining glories-a rose in the rubbish heap which the academy has become.

My colleague would open one of Derrida’s works to a random page, pick a random sentence, write it down, and then (above or below it) write a variant in which positive and negative were interchanged, or a word or phrase was replaced with one of opposite meaning. He would then challenge the assembled Derrida partisans to guess which was the original and which was the variant. The point was that Derrida’s admirers are generally unable to distinguish his pronouncements from their opposites at better than chance level, suggesting that the content is a sophisticated form of white noise. On this view, as Wolfgang Pauli once said of someone else, Derrida is “not even wrong.”.

Let me know if you’re game.

I am, however, troubled that those who denied tenure were not experts in his field.

Gary

An adamantly anti-racist, thus anti-Zionist, Jewish-American, pro-Palestinian human rights activist and progressive journalist has publicly pointed out that in the United States you can soundly criticize ANY country or ANY foreign head of government or ANY politician; you can even criticize or even roundly make fun of the U.S. president on any commercial TV program, in any major newspaper, and on the very floor of Congress; but, you can NOT directly criticize –or when appropriate even morally condemn the actions of– the state of Israel or its prime minister or government officials –no matter who he/she is– if you are an American in an institutional status position –especially one with any public dimension– without your position of employment being seriously threatened or destroyed.

Isn’t that sheerly breathtaking in its ominousness?

For our country to collectively let any organization, political group or lobby in the U.S. have that kind of unquestioned, seemingly unchallengeable intellectual control and SILENCING POWER –the power of an Inquisition– should be seen as, at least ultimately, gravely dangerous, especially to our university system (in particular it’s very integrity) and ultimately to our country. But, in the meantime, it reveals how much the tenure system –like other fundamental insitutions in our country– have become so –now nationally overtly so– explicitly POLITICIZED and corrupted.

I am so encouraged to read your defense of Norman Finkelstein (”Finkelstein’s Legacy”) in Counterpunch. You have evidently inherited Finkelstein’s courage in the face of the War and Hatred lobby, the Right-Wing mass-murder machine, and all the other injustices we see increasingly in the Reagan-inspired U.S.A. What happened at DePaul is a perfect indicator of what ails academia in this country – Universities have become corporations, are being run like corporations (a microcosm of what has been going on in the U.S. itself, run by a bogus, fraudulent CEO and his vicious cohorts), and therefore are handmaidens to power-brokers and lobbyists (hoaxers and hucksters, indeed!).

Science and technology cannot help us if our mind-sets are confined to the dark ages- the events in this 21st Century eminently prove this point. The evil of imperialism, gluttony, and unprincipled, ignorant lives driven by profits and false notions of power are all around us- and it is the Norman Finkelsteins that offer a breath of fresh air to our world.

Thanks for presenting an honorable facet of the Jewish people in the face of all the lies and atrocities to someone from India, who, like so many others, wonders all the time how a people so admirably represented by the likes of an Einstein, a Menuhin and an Anne Frank- can become so ruthlessly insensitive to injustice and torment inflicted upon millions of human beings. I sincerely believe that The Lobby does not speak for the Jewish people, and one can only hope that voices like yours no longer remain the minority.

M. Chatterjee

Equally, Catholic morality has been satisfied inasmuch as Finkelstein has been paid substantial compensation (they were already giving him a year’s pay, so I suppose that had to up that significantly to get him to resign) and the professional criticisms of him have been withdrawn. I assume that Dershowitz wanted DePaul to destroy NF, but that would have gone against the Catholic principle of the right to life.

So all’s well that ends well! DePaul’s problem has gone away, Finkelstein has enough money to tide him over until he gets another job and Dershowitz has been exposed as the villain of the piece. Could it have ended better?

But, the examples I have seen of alleged plagiarism may, perhaps, be examples of mistakes. In fact, I have not seen any that involve plagiarism, once the details are examined.

And, given that others have examined the alleged plagiarism and not seen them as such – in one case I vaguely recall, the alleged plagiarism was more likely a proper citation -, I think the problem for Finkelstein is that he is polemic, not scholarly and personal, and not sufficiently colloquial.

Now, in the above article, the suggestion is made that use of Peters’ work might be improper. That, however, is nonsense. Most of what Peters writes is non-contraversial. Some is contraversial, with Finkelstein taking an extreme view that what appears in the book is not merely wrong – his opinion – but somehow worse than wrong.

It is the worse than wrong allegations that people find objectionable. Now, I have read Dershowitz’s book which Finkelstein finds not merely wrong but worse than wrong. It is, as with any work, possible that Dershowitz makes mistakes but the book is not worse than wrong. It is a rather well presented brief that seems fairly careful. Which is not to say that it is without errors.

Lastly, the fact that there is a confidentiality agreement informs not a bit else about what is in the agreement or why the agreement was made confidential. Perhaps, Finkelstein wanted it to be confidential because the document contains that actual reasons for his denial of tenure, reasons he prefers to be kept quiet. Or, perhaps there were issues about which none of us know a thing. Perhaps, the document includes an agreement for Finkelstein not to badmouth the university and/or vice verse, which neither party wanted to be known. Perhaps, the university keeps agreements of the type confidential as a matter of course. The point is: we have no idea why and neither does Mr. Abraham.

Holocaust industry theologians; Alan Dershowitz, Steven Katz, and even the irreproachable Eli Wiesel hoisted, pilloried, and humiliated by their own preposterous and infantile claims of chosen-ness.