Alterman on Chomsky

Brad DeLong delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Tue Jun 18 06:38:25 PDT 2002



>Hi,
>
>Most of the attacks on Chomsky over Faurrison misrepresent what happened,
>but so did the apologia in 'Manufacturing Consent.' Chomsky was tricked
>into writing a defense of Faurrison in a general sense and then it was used
>as the introduction for a book defending Faurrison. Chomsky caught it at the
>last minute, and forced the cover to not mention his work as an
>introduction, but the inside title page still does because it was already
>printed. I have the copy in French.
>
>However Chomsky and his allies continue to misrepresent who Faurrison was, a
>key figure in the Holocuats denial industry, not a relatively apolitical
>liberal. 'Manufacturing Consent' trvializes the entire incident.
>
>Furthermore, Chomsky knows his name is still used to suggest he questions
>the Holocaust (he does not), and he has refused to make a clear statement
>condemning how he was tricked by Holocuast deniers.
>
>This is a minor issue compared to his disreputable critics who misrepresent
>what happened in the Faurrison affair.
>
>I researched the Faurrison/Chomsky incident for an article, and found
>original letters in an archive of a former (deceased) staffer at the
>Holocaust denial Institute for Historical Review discussing how Faurrison
>could exploit the new book with the Chomsky introduction.
>
>Chomsky was scammed, and will not take responsibility for what happened and
>how his name is still abused. His argument is that since he did not initiate
>the scam, nor has he ever denied the Holocaust (all true) that he need not
>directly respond. My argument is that this represents a type of aloof
>academic arrogance that does not recognize the separate reality of how is
>name is misused.
>
>None of this should be used to suggest Chomsky's other work is not worthy of
>great respect.
>
>-Chip

Do you still have the IHR letters, or your notes on them? It sounds like they could provide illumination of the surrounding darkness.

Now when someone like me looks at the last paragraph of Chomsky's "Faurisson Preface":

"...is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read -- largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him -- I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort. In support of the charge of anti-Semitism, I have been informed that Faurisson is remembered by some schoolmates as having expressed anti-Semitic sentiments in the 1940s, and as having written a letter that some interpret as having anti-Semitic implications at the time of the Algerian war. I am a little surprised that serious people should put such charges forth -- even in private -- as a sufficient basis for castigating someone as a long-time and well-known anti-Semitic. I am aware of nothing in the public record to support such charges..."

And then looks at, say, Faurisson on Elie Wiesel:

'...ELIE WIESEL won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He is generally accepted as a witness to the Jewish "Holocaust," and, more specifically, as a witness to the legendary Nazi extermination gas chambers. The Paris daily Le Monde emphasized at the time that Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Prize because: "These last years have seen, in the name of so-called "historical revisionism," the elaboration of theses, especially in France, questioning the existence of the Nazi gas chambers and, perhaps beyond that, of the genocide of the Jews itself."

'But in what respect is Elie Wiesel a witness to the alleged gas chambers? By what right does he ask us to believe in that means of extermination? In an autobiographical book that supposedly describes his experiences at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, he nowhere mentions the gas chambers. He does indeed say that the Germans executed Jews, but ... by fire; by throwing them alive into flaming ditches, before the very eyes of the deportees! No less than that!

'Here Wiesel the false witness had some bad luck. Forced to choose from among several Allied war propaganda lies, he chose to defend the fire lie instead of the boiling water, gassing, or electrocution lies. In 1956, when he published his testimony in Yiddish, the fire lie was still alive in certain circles. This lie is the origin of the term Holocaust. Today there is no longer a single historian who believes that Jews were burned alive. The myths of the boiling water and of electrocution have also disappeared. Only the gas remains.

'The gassing lie was spread by the Americans. The lie that Jews were killed by boiling water or steam (specifically at Treblinka) was spread by the Poles. The electrocution lie was spread by the Soviets. The fire lie is of undetermined origin. It is in a sense as old as war propaganda or hate propaganda...'

When someone like me looks at things like this, the (false) charge that Noam Chomsky is a rabid anti-Semite flirting with Holocaust denial receives considerable support. Chomsky's claim that there is "nothing in the public record to support such charges" against Faurisson seems so completely, insanely, flagrantly, mendaciously false. I am then driven to ask why Chomsky would lie so. And I can think of only two reasons: (i) insanity; (ii) that Chomsky is, on some level, sympathetic to Faurisson's project of Holocaust denial, and wants to maximize Faurisson's credibility.

Can you give me an alternative interpretation of Chomsky's final paragraph--why in God's name he wrote it?

Brad DeLong



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