Chomsky is not losing it. He is trapped in an ideological contradiction for which there is no solution. He believes in a Jewish state with his version of being Jewish. But there is the contradiction. His version no longer stands a chance, i.e Jewish by heritage, liberal to radical economics and social policy, tolerant, strong support for civil rights, freedom of speech, and worship, including the freedom not to worship or observe any religious practices, etc.
That vision of the future is probably disappeared. Chomsky still clings to it. He is right in a way, that should be the reality, but it isn't. Israel is probably doomed if it doesn't turn in that direction soon.
A state religion is a contradiction of the Enlightenment history to free the state of a state religion---which in turn was made the basis of first amendment civil rights and the right to citizenship. Everything that Chomsky stands for is embedded in that Enlightenment history. The irony is that history almost explicitly starts with Spinoza.
This is the (Spinoza) contradiction that Chomsky can not overcome, hence when he is really pushed, he tries to deflect the argument or make foolish arguments.
I watched the interview. It was a set-up. Chomsky was getting pissed as the list of demands dragged on. Chomsky should have kept his cool and said,``Look I don't support this boycott, period. It singles out Israel and fails to mention or address the much bigger players and culpits, namely the United States, Nato, and the European Union.''
He should have left off at that point. He didn't. He fell for the bait. My excuse for him is that he has been (probably) needled to death on the subject.
Mulling over Chomsky's situation, with the advantage of outsider hindsight, I thought of this. Ask what does Israel make that I shouldn't buy?
See? The BDS movement is somehow on the wrong track. This isn't a civilian boycott. It's a US military industrial boycott at least in the states.
IMHO the BDS movement should link up with other groups in academia to divest from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Bell, Alliant Techsystems, not to mention Bechtel, KBR, Haliburton, as well as several Chinese manufacturers whose names are much more obscure. The latter make rubber coated bullets, razor wire, and other lower tech items. A civilian can't buy most of these items anyway.
So make demands but give us a list of corporations to boycott. Looking around I see several stories on settler fruit, produce, and light manufactured items sent to Europe. Sure okay, but it still strikes me as petty. It looses sight of the bigger problem.
Many of the items used against the Palestinians are already proscribed under various UN accords like mines, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, beside the fact, gunships, and F-16s are not supposed to be used to wipe out civilians and all the other war crimes committed in the West Bank, Gaza, and on a much grander scale in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan now spread to Yemen, Somalia, god knows where else.
In other words when I tracked down part of the boycott and divestment demands, I ended up in the US military industrial complex, which does in fact bring in the big players Chomsky vaguely waved at.
Then too, publically funded higher education should not be investing in the US military industrial complex and the police state apparatus whether or not they sell to Israel.
Focusing on military contractors achieves the same result de facto, because Israel is among the biggest buyers of US military hardware. The other big buyers are Japan and South Korea who have not mowed down their population or anybody else lately and therefore do follow the military contract obligations.
I spent so long on this post, SA finally answered with:
> Noam Chomsky endorses Berkeley divestment
>
> BY YAMAN ? APRIL 13, 2010 ? POST A COMMENT
> Letter to the ASUC Senate in support of SB 118A, the divestment > bill
>
Doug asks, how do we boycott ourselves? The answer is to target US weapons manufacturers and contractors, just as Chomsky suggested above.
CG