Oh please. Allow the guy's ego a little room to stretch. Unlike me, he's not always right... Doug
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I think you guys are missing the `big' picture here. Don't forget it isn't just Chomsky. There are almost continuous stories of somebody or other trying to get in or out of the West Bank or Gaza. You have to either pull a shunt or be a name to get into the press. The Israelis met with several European diplomats today I think to try to get them to stop these aid boats from going to Gaza. There was the rock musician and his canceled concert.
IMHO, all of this helps to keep Israel and the US in the news in a well deserved bad light. It's part of the informal propaganda war against the formal propaganda war run by the US and Israel.
I suspect we are winning the propaganda wars by slow steady attrition or Israel and the US are losing---whichever way you want. That's part of the significance of the NYRB story posted yesterday about the failing US Jewish establishment. They may have the US political establishment by the short hairs, but they are losing their own base---which is vital to maintaining their own political justification.
There was another story about some short range US anti-missle system that Israel wanted and got. Then a report showed up from some former US military guy who work on the project and said it couldn't hit its targets.
Then there is Iran and all that mess...which brought up another story that Israel was the only country in the region with nuclear weapons.
All of these stories weave together to undermine the so-called Special Relationship with Israel. This kind attention turns around and undermines the legitimacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I hope the whole fur ball starts choking the neocon grip in the US.
Maybe the reason I've been thinking about this is because I watched Aljazeera this morning where there are a lot of stories from the region that don't appear in US media. I also scanned Juan Cole briefly and found the TomDispatch story.
CG