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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
"The US for example, is a far bigger human rights violator than Israel. Should Dylan boycott the US too?"
Yes, this is one of the problems with campaigning in the U.S. for a cultural boycott of Israel. It's hypocritical and an awful organizing tool, precisely because it's so hypocritical. The focus in the US should be on crucial U.S. support for joint US/Israeli violations of international law and human rights violations. There is no good response to these issues by those who support such crimes, which is why they love to divert attention to the academic and cultural boycott, for which there are real issues. Yes, Palestinians and others call for such a boycott. It's still a horrible strategy in the U.S. , and it is a gift to the rightwing, as Chomsky has quite properly said.
As far as Dylan, some of these are the silliest comments since the stupid Maureen Dowd column about Dylan in China. Dylan will never again have a period like 1961-1968 (and yes, it includes the Basement Tapes and John Wesley Harding, both post-accident), but he has put out enough great stuff since then to easily justify being called one of the greatest singers and songwriters in the country's history. The reference to Kahane and Arlo Guthrie is correct. There is more on Dylan and the JDL in the Anthony Scaduto bio, which I don't have on hand, but if I remember right Dylan changed his tune on that.
Neighborhood Bully is a truly horrible song, but I am glad at least he has never performed it in concert, including his two previous trips to Israel.
I agree with Donald both about how the superb the post is and the 1%.
I particularly liked:
I think this is a very important point to keep in mind when quickly responding to people, when we can't refer to long essays. What's truly remarkable to me is that people like Walzer and others who consider themselves "supporters" of Israel are constantly giving arguments justifying war and terrorism against Israel, if one only takes their rationalizations and applies them to the other side. They are simply too blind to the victims of Israeli violence to realize this. For example, when people tell me about how Israel couldn't be expected to put up with the rockets and so they had a right to go in, I do refer to the Nov. 4 break of the ceasefire, but I think it's actually more effective to ask such a person if they know how many Lebanese civilians were killed by the Israeli cluster bombs (and for a long time Israel refused to hand over the strike data), compared to how many Israelis were killed by Hamas. By the arguments of those supported Cast Lead ("how could people be expected to put up with this?" etc.), the South Lebanese, or perhaps Hezbollah, have every right to drop bombs and generally terrorize the Israeli population. Of course no sane person would support that, but that is exactly the position, as I see, of Walzer and others, if one follows it logically. (and for that matter, when Israelis talk about "going to the source" of Hezbollah, that is Iran, then one could also speak about "going to the source" of the cluster bombs, which is the United States)
btw, re Walzer, it's worth looking up Chomsky's 1978 review of Just and Unjust Wars from Inquiry, which amazingly does not seem to be on the web anywhere (and has not appeared in any of the Chomsky collections that I know of).
I think it was Finkelstein who referred to a "cult" around BDS, with Chomsky citing Finkelstein. But if you're going to argue against a cult-like characterization, it's better to do it without saying that there is "no room for uncertainty" and "you are with us or against us". Otherwise it sounds like you're simply supporting Finkelstein's point.
Also, it is not what is "most convenient for the US and Israel". The whole point of serious supporters of a two-state solution is that it is opposed by Israel and the US, while supported by almost every other country. How that means supporting something which is "most convenient for the US and Israel" isn't clear to me, but there is no room for uncertainty or for questioning.
The "Chomsky crowd"? So juvenile.
You don't seem to understand that my objection is not that you falsely stated that Hammond was Jewish. It's that you seem to think it's part of argument you can make against someone, by saying that he or she is Jewish - hence your weird obsession with people acting for "tribal reasons".
You think that you attract criticism because people want to "play down the power of the lobby". I can't speak for other people, but for me, you're quite mistaken. I don't care about your disagreements with Chomsky and Stephen Zunes and Joseph Massad and As’ad Abu Khalil regarding the lobby. I really don't, because in 20 years you've never clarified in any serious way as to how your differences would impact on activist tactics.
When I asked you last time, you came up with:
Also, one might mention Tony Judt in this regard. He said many admirable things regarding Israel later in his life, but as far as I know had nothing much to say for many years before that. His discussion of the contradictions between being a Jewish state and a democratic state, while worth saying, were not new. If you look at his NYRB piece and the response to that, e.g. from Michael Walzer, it was a nearly exact repeat of the Chomsky/Walzer exchanges on the same topic in the mid-1970s.
I am not bothered by disagreements with Chomsky about the lobby, or criticisms of his position. The entire "debate" seems to me completely pointless and a waste of time unless it impacts in some way on activist strategies. So criticize away, say Chomsky doesn't take sufficient account of the lobby, whatever. I don't care.
That is something different though than arguing that Chomsky and others hold their positions not because they have examined the facts and come to a different analysis, but rather because they are acting in a "tribal" manner or have "one foot still in Zion".
And in particular the idea that Chomsky has spent a great deal of energy documenting Israeli crimes as part of an effort to lead people like Jeff away from the truth of the Israel lobby is, at best, highly irrational.
Adam, Jeff's claims about others acting from "tribal reasons" is a fairly common tactic of his. He's carried it out several times on Max's blog, in an increasingly pathetic fashion. Of course he can't disagree with Chomsky, in a rational way - instead Chomsky must have "one foot still in Zion". Or Jeff's incisive questioning of Jeremy Hammond:
link to dissidentvoice.org
-------------------
"Hammond, buddy boy, be like Chomsky, and tell us how about the Zionist household in which you grew up? Did you ever visit Israel or think about making aliyah.? You know how it is with names. Hammond could be Protestant, Quaker, Methodist, Catholic, or, in this case, I suspect Jewish"
---------------------
uh-huh.
And Adam, as far as "what reality obliges us to do", it is an interesting thing to note that for all of Jeff's writing about the Lobby, when it comes down to how it actually matters for activist tactics, he has remarkably little to say, other than vague generalities, and statements such as " there ARE too many Jews in the Senate."
link to mondoweiss.net
I had previously tried to get an actual response from Jeff regarding what activists should be doing, here:
link to chomskywatch.wordpress.com
And you can see how coherent his response is.
I would like to point out though again what I consider to be Jeff's single greatest moment, namely his analysis of why Chomsky has spent so much effort documenting Israeli crimes, if his intent is provide "damage control" for Israel. Surely it would have been easier to simply have not done such work to be begin with.
Jeff's comment:
“The answer is quite simple. His documenting “injustices
that had been heaped upon the Palestinians” at the hands of
Israel gave him the necessary credibility that enabled him to
gain the confidence of most of those who support the Palestinian cause, including mine at one point, and make them susceptible to his distortions of the history of US-Israel relations and to accepting his theory that the pro-Israel lobby is, as he once described it, “a paper tiger.”
The full context and links are at the link immediately above. I am curious as to whether there is anybody here on Mondoweiss, in particular Philip Weiss, who considers that to be a rational explanation for Chomsky's views and actions.
"...the Diaspora can safeguard the State of Israel from turning
in the direction of narrow nationalism. There is a strong
temptation for a small people that has regained power,
after having suffered for a long time from oppression and
persecution, to become over-aggressive and chauvinistic.
A strong international-minded Diaspora would serve as a
brake and would induce Israel to resist such temptation."
William Chomsky, Hebrew: The Eternal Language, p. 276
It is worth reading the piece on Judt by J.J. Goldberg in the new issue
of The Forward:
link to forward.com
Obviously another crypto-Zionist left gatekeeper.
re:
I liked this essay and the followup exchange very much, but the fact is that
Judt was very much of a "johnny come lately", as Finkelstein put it:
link to normanfinkelstein.com
How nice. The simple fact of the matter is that members of the "crazy left" such as Chomsky were making the same points (and I mean the exact same points) as Judt did in 2003 for many years before, something Judt might have bothered to mention. You mention Michael Walzer's reaction to Judt's piece. Did you ever read Walzer's reactions to Chomsky's "Peace in the Middle East?" from the mid-70s? The whole thing was a rerun.
I screwed up the blockquote. Let me try that rant again
oh please.
Technically true, but not particularly relevant for the complaint here.
Smithsonian took over the Folkways catalog after Moses Asch (son of Yiddish writer Sholem Asch) died, and a good use of government money, I should say, since they have continued Asch’s policy of never letting any Folkways recording go out of print. Smithsonian Folkways is a national treasure.
It’s not surprising that there are recording sympathetic to Israel and Labor Zionism, considering the general view of the left at that time, and the Jewish left. But like I said, everything Folkways ever recorded is always for sale. It’s reasonable to criticize Folkways for the overall imbalance, and lack of Palestinian recordings, but to link to a page listing “Judaica”, including such nefarious titles as “Jewish Children’s Songs and Games” by Ruth Rubin and Pete Seeger, is something different. What’s next? Maybe we should link to Pete Seeger’s website and ask him why The Weavers recorded Tzena Tzena Tzena but not Palestinian songs.
oh please.
Yep. I'm all in favor of nonviolence, and I think there's a lot to be said for it particularly in this situation, and so on, but I thought Kristoff's column was morally deranged. Here is this advocate for women's rights worldwide writing about how we should "imagine"
Well, it seems likely to me that Kristoff's reaction in other such cases, and that of any normal human being, would be to say, "who is beating these women? It needs to stop". Not about how great it would be to imagine such a scenario, and that the beatings might have to go on until a nonviolent campaign can somehow help stop the beatings.
The key reason why Kristoff is unable to react like a normal human being is of course that here we are the ones making possible the tear-gassing and beating, and worse.
It is not the responsibility of Palestinians to stop Israeli violence. It is the responsibility of those providing the weapons and other support for that violence, namely us. But this is Kristoff, and this is the Times. In 2003 he wrote some good columns about the situation of the Kurds in Turkey, but he was unable to bring himself to mention that it was us that funded and made possible the attacks against the Kurds. Same thing.
a prisoner of his own mind, maybe afraid to allow his thoughts to wander.
maybe he's thought about it, come to a conclusion, and is simply
saying what he thinks about it. Personally, I think what he says
makes a lot of sense. He has written a lot about the view that
JFK's death resulted in some sort of shift in US policy in Vietnam.
Other than that issue, why spend any time on this? I used to
waste a lot of time reading about the two Oswalds and all of this stuff,
until I realized that (a) it was irrelevant to anything that mattered, and
(b) why should I give a crap about who killed JFK? Nothing makes
his life more important than anybody else's.
Comments about the author aside, I thought it was a great piece. I don't agree with the hopes about liberal Zionism, but he nailed a lot of what's going on quite well.
video of interview with Chomsky about this
link to youtube.com
"In any case, there is nothing approaching the refutation of any statement of fact in Green’s screed and if he has any criticisms of my article on Prof. Chomsky, factual criticisms, that is, I would like to see them. "
I pointed out some factual errors in your article in a previous thread:
link to mondoweiss.net
Chomsky's position on such issues as divestment and ending arm sales to Israel is not the most important thing in the world, but might as well get it right. My favorite part of that exchange though was this part, when I asked:
and you responded:
Obviously anybody who can believe that as Chomsky's motivation for spending so much energy documenting Israeli crimes is not someone who is thinking very clearly.
yes, that's an excellent book. I read it at the time and it caused me to question much more the foundations of "liberal Zionism". Around the same time, there was also work by Jane Hunter on the topic of who Israel arms and how it connects to the U.S. empire.
btw, your point above responding to Danaa about East Timor was excellent. Her comments were grotesque.
Jeremy Ben-Ami has been getting particularly irritating lately with his self-congratulatory remarks about how "nuanced" J Street's positions are.
There is also the following from the current Forward.
link to forward.com
J Street’s national office distanced itself and its collegiate arm from Sherer’s article. J Street’s director of policy and strategy, Hadar Susskind, said in a statement that his group was “pleased that the Ambassador has accepted this invitation.
Well, Brian Walt and Brant Rosen certainly did support Goldstone. Look at the conversation that Jewish Fast for Gaza did with Goldstone.
This is a very interesting letter. There are some names on here I would have expected, but at least one I'm surprised by, and one I'm very surprised by. I haven't checked completely, but about 3/4 of these signers are on the J Street rabbinic cabinet, and it seems to me that they are using language that goes way beyond J Street. But what's missing here is a statement that the crimes they are referring to could not have been made possible without the U.S., and whether or not they support efforts to stop such military aid.
"...refuse the solidarity of real and potential friends when they fart in the wrong key"
I enjoyed that.
"Yes it is true that Israel receives a lot of aid from the US. But isn’t it also true that the US gives a lot of aid to Israel? Why not boycott the US to make it stop giving aid to Israel? Why are you as an American trying to harm Israel for something YOUR country is doing? If you want aid to Israel to stop, the place to fight for that is in the US and not by BDS. If you cannot convince your fellow Americans, why is that Israel’s fault? The US is the superpower, we are just a small country, picking on us is cowardly."
If I can jump in here, I don't follow this at all. I view the divestment bill as part of an effort to stop US funding for Israel to carry out collective punishment on civilians, and other aspects of military violence. I would agree that the main responsibility here is with the United States, which is why it is proper for U.S. citizens to be acting on this. This seems to me very analogous to other campaigns, for example work in the 1980s to stop US funding for the contras in Nicaragua or the death squads in El Salvador.
Good oped, thanks. It is almost comical, but mostly distressing, to read the reaction to the Berkeley bill by J Street, and others, like Witty above. Because it is written so well, and is limited in scope, they are unable to criticize it on what it contains, but rather on what it doesn't contain, or who is supporting it, etc.
It is worth noting that among the endorsers or the Berkeley bill are three members of J Street's "rabbinic cabinet" - Rabbis Brian Walt, Brant Rosen, and Lynn Gottlieb. I have been trying to ask J Street people what this implies for their characterization of the bill as "anti-Israel". On the one hand, J Street has really disgraced itself. On the other hand, this is just what Jeremy Ben-Ami wants, because then he can congratulate himself for his "nuance" and how poor J Street is between the middle of the extremes of the left and right, which probably helps when he's having conversations with Michael Oren. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I tried to be sympathetic to J Street before, despite my disagreements, but I think they've crossed a serious line, at least for me.
Donald, I have very little disagreement with you. However, I do think there is a difference between outside and inside the Green Line, both in terms of international law and the actual level of repression. Referring to the territories as apartheid is really understating the issue, for reasons many of us here agree on. But if Lustick objected to that, and wanted a question mark, I don't see it as a major point of principle to refuse to do that. Referring to all of Israel as apartheid I think opens the door for the same "opening" as you say (correctly) happens for the Warsaw ghetto comparison. There is unquestionably institutionalized discrimination, but it's different than what happens in the WestBank and Gaza. It's not clear to me what the precise nature of Lustick's objection was.
In order then:
Chaos: no, I don't protest when Mandela and Tutu use the term apartheid in reference to what Palestinians are living under. It is however not a precise analogy, so it actually would be wrong to literally "equate" it. Also, as I said above, apartheid is "not really sufficient to describe the situation". ie, in some ways what Israel is doing is worse. I was asking whether it would have been reasonable "...to not use such a set-in-stone analogy in the title of the teach-in?" That is, in this particular event, if it meant the difference between having Ian Lustick appear or not.
sherbrsi: Your comments are incoherent. I said "apartheid" is "not really sufficient". Read again your last paragraph and see if it makes any sense considering that. Consider that my view is that the West Bank is some ways worse than apartheid, and you characterize that as "Israeli Hasbara". Re your strange comment about a "popularity contest", I was thinking of what might be the best way to retain a speaker who would attract people to a teach-in, as well having something useful to say.
Shmuel: The situation inside and outside the Green Line is different, both in terms of international law and the actual facts. I think Norman Finkelstein is absolutely right in his emphasis on international law and the conflict, which is why there is this Israeli hysteria over "lawfare". So I don't think much is gained by putting it all together. That said, I don't entirely disagree with you, but I would take it further, since it is the United States that perpetrates it, funds it, and provides diplomatic cover for it. Also, saying that the situation inside and outside the Green Line is different in those terms does not deny of course discrimination and so on inside the Green Line.
Interesting. I wasn't able to make it to the teach-in, but I had been very very surprised to see Lustick listed as speaking at an event about "Israeli Apartheid". It seems reasonable to me that he pulled out. Obviously there was some miscommunication somewhere, where it sounds like he wasn't made aware of the event's title beforehand.
Your commentary refers to the West Bank as apartheid. But the title as it's listed refers to "Israeli apartheid". So that's a different thing. I'm not sure if that would have made a difference for Lustick or not.
I'm probably in a minority here, but I think this is a good example of why it would sometimes pay to be more cautious with terms like "apartheid", if the goal is to attract more people, build coalitions, etc. Lustick is really worth listening to, and I've rarely heard anybody more effective at countering the standard apologetics for Israeli actions. I can understand why people want to use the term "apartheid" to describe the West bank, although from my understanding it is not really sufficient to describe the situation, as Philip says. Using the term does have a certain emotional response that can jolt people. On the other hand, the situation is horrible enough for what it is, and such comparisons are always inexact anyway, so would it be have been so awful to not use such a set-in-stone analogy in the title of the teach-in?
Chomsky has not revised his position. His stance on this is entirely consistent with his past statements about divestment. Chomsky has been clear for many years on his support for campaigns to stop military aid used for Israeli crimes, despite whatever impression one might get from reading Blankfort. He does not support other aspects of BDS, such as an academic boycott.
kalithea - Finkelstein does not go around universities saying that Israel
needs to be cured "of this sickness called Zionism". For the last few years,
he has in fact been arguing consistently, and correctly in my opinion,
against this kind of rhetoric that accomplishes nothing. As he has been
saying over and over again, there is plenty of material for activists to
use from human rights organizations and international law, without
getting into the additional baggage of campaigning against "Zionism".
Pretty much, yes. It's not because "elites", however one may define that, use the term as a cover, but because people in the country don't have the same interests. I guess in principle it's possible to come up with counter-examples, such as it's a "national interest" that the U.S. not go fascist, or that the world is not blown up, but I would categorize those as in the interests of all humanity.
But yeah, I don't think I've ever heard anybody in a position of power or influence talk about "national interests" or particularly "American interests" without it being a cover for theft, exploitation, etc. Likewise, in general those who speak loudest about "national security" are those doing the most to undermine any sort of real security for the people of the country, those talking the loudest about their love of democracy are those who most despise it, etc.
But that was really just a passing remark. Of all the criticisms to be made of someone like the author of that article, "traitor" is just about the most wrong-headed criticism I can think of. I think something like "fanatical supporter of violence and terrorism" is a better description.
David Green,
Thanks for that link to your piece. On a quick read, I very much agree with your perspective.
As the "Seth" who sent this piece to Philip, let me say that it was not any of the "dual loyalty" stuff that bothered me about this. My own leftist perspective is that I couldn't care less about the notion of "loyalty" to a country. There are no "U.S. interests", hence nothing to be loyal or a traitor to in that sense. What are called "national interests" are always the interests of a minority of the population.
What bothered me about the piece is the complete blindness to the violence carried out by Israel. He refers to the "monsters" planting landmines in Israel, apparently unaware that his heroes in the Israeli military, at least some of them, are actually the ones who have littered South Lebanon with cluster bombs (courtesy of the U.S., of course). There is also the nice touch of referring to the "dark skin" of such monsters, apparently unlike the incredible cool Israelis "strutting around Jerusalem".
This is a really excellent piece, and should be widely read, and not just by those working on Israel/Palestine issues. Thanks for posting it.
1.
"If you read what they were voting against, Seth, you would have seen that it was for something more than a two-state solution. It called for the Palestinian right of return and for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders, both of which the US opposes. To claim that this vote was against the two-state solution while leaving out the rest is disingenuous but typical of Chomsky himself."
You're not quite getting the point here, which wasn't even about anything you said but about Abunimah's comment. Chomsky (and Finkelstein) both talk a lot about the "international consensus" as a framework for a solution, pointing out that the U.S. and Israel are the ones opposing it and blocking, and they point to these UN resolutions as representative of this international consensus. Since this is something that the U.S. and Israel explicitly oppose, I don't see how supporting the international consensus, as defined by these sorts of votes, can then be viewed as following what the U.S. and Israel want, whatever one may think about this international consensus. It's really a simple point, and at least for me, it stuck out when listening to Abunimah's otherwise well-reasoned and fair comments. Either because I'm not being clear or you're just not getting it for whatever reason, it seems pointless to continue this part of the discussion.
2. I don't think this is a reasonable response. I was wondering about your statement:
"Blankfort states that Chomsky “has been adamantly against a single state for the very same reason that the mainstream Zionist movement is against it,
because Jews would eventually become a minority and he’s written this.”
Of course he's been against a single state as described in your quote. He wrote a lot back then about civil rights and national rights in a binational state. But he's never written, as far as I know, about concern regarding that "Jews would eventually become a minority". It is that aspect of your claim that I found puzzling, and it's obvious that he has never written that, contrary to what you said. If you want to view it as being implicit in his argumentation, that's fine, but it's obviously different from saying that "he's written this".
3. "Can you read English, Seth? Divesting from firms supporting Israeli repression is qualitatively different from divesting from Israel itself and that Chomsky opposes. Full stop, as they say."
And here we go from what can possibly be described as miscommunication into something else. The point was never about whether Chomsky supports "divesting from Israel itself". Of course Chomsky opposes that, as he's said many times, and as I said last time you and I had an exchange. Your claim was that
"what’s interesting is that up till now he has never advocated in his talks anything that activists could actually do to stop Israeli occupation and change the situation such as ending arm sales to Israel”
which is simply false. You should be able to understand the difference between (A) calling for ending arms sales and divesting from firms supporting Israeli repression, and (B) "divesting from Israel itself". You said Chomsky does not support (A). He does support (A). If you want to argue that he hasn't done *enough* for (A), go ahead, but you claimed that he has "never advocated" (A). It's just a flat-out falsehood, and you really should give it a rest already.
4. You write:
The answer is quite simple. His documenting “injustices that had been heaped upon the Palestinians” at the hands of Israel gave him the necessary credibility that enabled him to gain the confidence of most of those who support the Palestinian cause, including mine at one point, and make them susceptible to his distortions of the history of US-Israel relations and to accepting his theory that the pro-Israel lobby is, as he once described it, “a paper tiger.”
Wow. So Chomsky has been spending a good chunk of his life documenting and publicizing Israeli repression in order to throw people like you off the track regarding the pro-Israel lobby. I guess this neatly eliminates the possibility that he has spent so much time documenting Israeli injustices because he is opposed to those injustices, but that he has a different analysis of the role (and even definition) of the lobby than you do. I agree that your answer is quite
simple, but it is also highly irrational. You should consider the
possibility that other people disagree with you on the lobby because, well,
they have looked at the evidence and come to a different conclusion.
Jeffrey, I've actually been reading your criticisms of Chomsky for a while,
ever since that first National Guardian piece back in 1991, I think it was (I saved it
and still have it somewhere), and I was hoping you might do a bit more in your response than quote from your Left Curve piece. But a brief response:
1. Thanks for the history, none of which bears on the point I made about Israel, the US, and what Chomsky refers to as "the international consensus" that he supports as the framework for a solution. He is referring to votes such as this, which Finkelstein also highlights:
link to normanfinkelstein.com
in which as usual the US and Israel stand virtually alone in opposing a two-state solution. My question was simply why support for such votes should be viewed as Chomsky following what the US and Israel want, if I was understanding Abunimah's criticism correctly.
2. The quote does not support the characterization you made of Chomsky's views. In addition, as you must be aware, Chomsky has written quite a bit on the difference between a "unitary democratic secular state" and a binational state. But nowhere have I seen him reference fears about Jews "would eventually become a minority" in a single state of some sort and that's why he's against it.
3. Do you even read the Chomsky quotes you put forward as your evidence? He is against "divestment from Israel", but "it makes good sense to press for not sending attack helicopters to Israel, for example...and then to stop sending military weapons that are being used for repression" . And this is evidence that
"he has never advocated in his talks anything that activists could actually do to stop Israeli occupation and change the situation such as ending arm sales to Israel”? Read it again. And your criticism is that he makes "no suggestion that his audience contact their Congressional representatives or senators regarding their support for aid to Israel." ? Take your analogy to the contras seriously. Find a Chomsky speech from the 80s about Central America that ends with a rousing call to his audience to contact Congress to cut off aid to the contras. You probably won't find that either.
Since I watched him sign the petition and speak out in support of the University of Pennsylvania to take action in divesting from firms supporting Israeli repression, together with his consistent statements on this topic, I find it very difficult to take your characterization of his views seriously.
There are plenty of things one can argue with Chomsky about, regarding both the substance of his views and the way he sometimes puts them across. I did listen this afternoon to the full interview, and the one good point I thought the interviewer had was his objection to Chomsky's use of terms such as "dishonest" and "hypocritical" regarding those with different views about BDS, particularly with regard to Naomi Klein and Ilan Pappe. But why you feel the need to put forward obviously false statements about Chomsky's views is beyond me.
According to you, Chomsky has done a valuable service with his "detailed descriptions of the injustices that had been heaped upon the Palestinians by the Israelis", but that he "is providing cover for the pro-Israel lobby" because he still has "one foot still in Zion". There is an obvious question here that you don't address. If he still has such a "determination to protect Israel", why would he have spent so much of his life documenting and publicizing the "injustices that had been heaped upon the Palestinians"? It seems to me it would have been much simpler to have simply not done that to begin with.
I haven't listened to the full Chomsky interview but I listened to the Abunimah and Blankfort reply. Three items stood out:
1. Abunimah said something about how by referring to the international consensus Chomsky is following what Israel and the U.S. want. I have a great deal of respect for Abunimah, and generally agree with him about most things, but this struck me as bizarre. Chomsky's point has always been that it is the U.S. and Israel who are the ones opposed to the international consensus and blocking it, and so the argument is exactly the opposite of what Abunimah is attributing to Chomsky. (btw, somewhat related, on Finkelstein's site somewhere there is a recording of a joint appearance he had with Abunimah a few years ago where this same issue came up, with Finkelstein and Abunimah disagreeing. )
2. Blankfort states that Chomsky "has been adamantly against a single state for the very same reason that the mainstream Zionist movement is against it,
because Jews would eventually become a minority and he's written this."
I've never seen Chomsky write or say anything like this. Is there a reference for this?
3. Blankfort states that "what's interesting is that up till now he has never advocated in his talks anything that activists could actually do to stop Israeli occupation and change the situation such as ending arm sales to Israel"
This is just flat-out false, as I pointed out about similar statements in the last Chomsky thread. He has been a proponent for years of ending arm sales to Israel, and of universities divesting from companies such as Caterpillar. e.g.,
link to thedp.com
Also, as far as labor unions and pension funds and where Chomsky has spoken about this, take a look at e.g. his comments in Perilous Power, with Gilbert Achbar.
VR, thanks for the ref to the Neve Gordon piece. I think he makes a good point.
Referring to Rabbi Brian Walt as "anti-Israel" , as Ungar did by implication, is truly idiotic beyond words. On the other hand, it also shows the silliness of going on about "Zionists", since I am quite sure that Rabbi Walt considers himself a Zionist, unless there has been a truly radical change in his views.
There are too many Jewish senators. What a brilliant organizing strategy.
v writes:
I mean take if you will with me a historical world tour of what the US has been involved in, for over a hundred years.
If I understand what you're saying, you're making a similar point to what Joseph Massad makes in his piece "Blaming the Lobby" :
link to weekly.ahram.org.eg
---------------------
While many of the studies of the pro-Israel lobby are sound and full of awe-inspiring well- documented details about the formidable power commanded by groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its allies, the problem with most of them is what remains unarticulated.
[...]
The arguments put forth by these studies would have been more convincing if the Israel lobby was forcing the United States government to pursue policies in the Middle East that are inconsistent with its global policies elsewhere. This, however, is far from what happens.
------------------------------------
I wonder if Massad is also one of "the movement's trained seals", in Blankfort's
charming phrase, providing "damage control" for AIPAC.
MRW,
You wrote:
Sorry, Seth, only this was meant to be in bold, and I DID double-check the tags: “ I was the most outspoken opponent of the petition calling for divestment, and in fact refused to sign until it was substantially changed”
---------
For some reason the "reply" choice isn't showing up under your message so I'm answering it down here. I have read Blankfort's piece, and am aware of the Chomsky quote that he and you cite. It is not in contradiction to his position in favor of the Penn divestment campaign, and it most certainly does not support Blankfort's bizarre statements about Chomsky opposing "every effort to bring Israel to its knees (or senses, if you prefer) economically such as stopping aid, and implementing boycotts, divestments and sanctions…”
You are looking at a few sentences about this, probably from an online chat or something like that. I suggest taking a look at pp. 195-199 of the book Perilous Power, where Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar discuss their opinions of BDS, and in particular Chomsky discuses the MIT petition. He opposed the general formulation "Divest from Israel", which he describes as "a blanket statement, which is meaningless. After a lot of discussion, they finally made it specific...it ended up being mostly sensible". He refers to
the petition saying that we "Call on MIT and Harvard to divest from... US companies
that sell arms to Israel, until these petitions are met." But he objected to the
inclusion of the words after that, adding "to divest from Israel".
I don't really see what the problem is here. He favors universities divesting from
companies that sell arms to Israel. He opposes a general call "to divest from Israel".
As far as I know, he has been very consistent. One can agree or disagree with him, but from this we're supposed to conclude, according to Blankfort, that Chomsky opposes "every" effort to impact on Israeli policy economically?
MRW, I'm not trying to address any nuance. Blankfort made a blanket statement
about Chomsky opposing "every effort". It is a false statement. I am referring
to a situation in which a divestment petition was introduced at Penn, Chomsky came and gave a talk at Penn, and at the end the petition was brought on stage and he signed it. His support for that seems to me consistent with his statements
about strategies for activism that he's made for a long time. What is not
consistent with those statements and actions are sweeping references to
Chomsky's "determination to keep Israel and Israelis from being punished or inconvenienced for the very monumental transgressions of decent human behavior that he himself has passionately documented over the years", to quote from Blankfort's article.
MRW, I reread it after reading this thread, and I had read it before.
Jeffrey Blankfort wrote:
"Far from dedicating his life to Palestinians for decades, he has rejected their demands for the right of return and had opposed every effort to bring Israel to its knees (or senses, if you prefer) economically such as stopping aid, and implementing boycotts, divestments and sanctions..."
"opposed every effort"? How strange, because back in 2002 I think it was, I watched Chomsky sign, in public, as an alum, the divestment petition at the University of Pennsylvania. It no longer seems to be on the web, but I think it was the same as this well-worded one from Columbia:
link to columbiadivest.org
It's a bit of a mystery to me as to why Chomsky's position on this is so hard to follow. He's against an academic boycott. He's against anything that "looks like just an attack on Israel society" (I'm quoting from p. 196 of Perilous Power.) He supports divestment from corporations involved in criminal acts in Israels - Caterpillar, etc.
It is very unlikely though that Chomsky would ever say that he supports
efforts to "bring Israel to its knees". Probably he would say something more
boring like he supports efforts to stop supplying the weapons used for Israeli
crimes.
John Conyers clarified his stance on 867:
PERSONAL EXPLANATION -- (House of Representatives - November[[ 03, 2009)
[Page: H12247]
Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, on November 3, 2009, I was unable to cast votes due to personal reasons. I was not present for rollcall votes 835 through 840. Had I been present, I would have cast a ``yea'' vote for final passage of H.R. 3949. I would have cast a ``yea'' vote for final passage of H. Res. 398. I would have cast a ``yea'' vote for final passage of H. Res. 866. I would have cast a ``nay'' vote for the final passage of H. Res. 867. I would have cast a ``yea'' vote for final passage of H.R. 3157. Also, I would have cast a ``yea'' vote for H. Res. 736.
Philip, thanks for writing this.
Do you have a more precise citation for the AJC publication? (which 1973 issue?)
I'd like to look up the full quote before using it. Thanks.
It is not a matter of being "concerned about the plight of poor Goldman Sachs".
It is being concerned about the characterization of them a "Jews first and
foremost", whose "foremost loyalty" is to "the pan-national ethnocentric Jewish
nation", along with "Jewish American Lefties" working in tandem against
the "gentiles". This is obvious anti-Semitism.
DavidF, sorry, but I don't see it as an "achievement" to be able to
discuss Jewish and Zionist issues with Moore. I'm not so much "scared off",
as just nauseated.
I haven't been reading this blog very long, but I've generally found it a good read.
But I was very taken aback, first by the Jack Ross (whoever he is) posting, and then by
some of the comments, such as the one right above by Chris Moore, going on about
how the "Jewish Goldman Sachs crooks" are "Jews first and foremost". If this sort of
trash is tolerated here, it's not a place for me to be reading or posting. That is not
anti-zionism in any sense - it's brain-dead anti-semitism and Chris Moore sounds like a Nazi.
I did not see any mention on the Hollywood 10 in the piece that Jack Ross was responding to, so it's not really clear why we went on about the Hollywood 10.
I only saw a generic mention of a "blacklist", although maybe I missed the more
specific reference. The Ross piece sounds like somebody eager to fight old sectarian battles that have exactly zero relevance to anything today. Perhaps I'm a
bit sensitive about this, since my parents met in the Henry Wallace campaign, but
I don't really see the point in trashing people for being "Zionists" in 1948. My
parents sang Hatikva and The Internationale at their wedding in 1949. Is it so
astonishing to think that left-wing NY Jews would have been sympathetic to
Israel then, for obvious reasons? But people change as they learn more, and years
later my mother was encouraging me to read Edward Said. Go figure.
It seems to me that there is an interesting connection between Zionism (however
one defines that term) and the CP, although it's not what Ross discusses. And that
is the styles of argumentation by CPers in support of the Soviet Union, and
"supporters of Israel". Chomsky and Finkelstein have both discussed this a lot,
and they're right. Also years ago Maxime Rodinson had an interesting piece
discussing his membership in the French CP, and that he left both the CP and its
way of thinking, although his "pro-Israel" critics did not. Just worshipping a
different Holy State, as Chomsky has put it.
Re Abrams, it's worth looking at the transcript of when Allan Nairn said
to him what needed to be said when they were both on Charlie Rose in 1995.
link to mail-archive.com
There's also a video of this on the Charlie Rose site, but the audio is almost
nonexistent.
btw, in my view Abrams is a repulsive supporter of mass murder and state-sponsored terrorism, but I am uncomfortable with people calling him a "traitor", as in some of the comments above. Traitor to who? He's been long-time spokesman for various branches of the empire. He's not a traitor at all.