[lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it

SA s11131978 at gmail.com
Wed Sep 28 18:34:01 PDT 2011


On 9/28/2011 9:05 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:


>> It really seems like you're just saying Chomsky is a racist and
>> anti-Palestinian because he disagrees with you about specific aspects of BDS
>> tactics or about the one-state vs. two-state question.
>>
> Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would say that anyone supporting a
> racially-exclusive state on ethnically-cleansed Palestinian land is both of
> those things. If Palestinian refugees are welcome in the second of your two
> states, that's a horse of a different color.
>

Well, there you go. That's what all this is about.

This is from the Finkelstein interview Dennis C. posted. He hit on a point that needs to be made.


> Q: And how would you respond to the argument that things like cultural
> boycotts — ‘global’ BDS, in your terminology — do function to make
> Israelis ‘feel the cost’ of occupation?
>
> NF: That’s true, and I’m not dogmatic: I’m long past the days when I
> had a party line I had to prove. I think that’s true, and I think
> those are successes, and I’m glad when people say they’ll boycott. But
> frankly, I don’t really trust a lot of the people involved. I don’t
> think they’re honest. They use these very vague formulations, such
> that you don’t exactly know what they’re against. I like Uri Avnery on
> some days and dislike him on others, but here I think he’s right: you
> never get a clear sense with these people about what exactly they’re
> opposed to.
>
> Q: I guess they’d respond that they’re trying to build as broad a
> movement as possible, and so as far as they can, they try to avoid
> specifying their preferences for a final settlement so that people who
> disagree about that can still unite to achieve more immediate goals.
>
> NF: Yes, but it also turns a lot of people away because they want
> clear answers before they’re willing to join in. You know, they say
> they oppose “Zionists” — “Zionism” is the epithet du jour — but what
> does that mean? You’re against Richard Goldstone? You’re against Noam
> Chomsky? I don’t know what it means. Richard Goldstone is the enemy? I
> don’t see that.

It reminds me a lot of the worst tactics of the old CP. You'd think you were signing a petition to support the Spanish Republic and later you'd find out it was actually some denunciation of Trotskyist wreckers. Just come out and say what you mean: Edward Said and Mustafa Barghouti and Hanan Ashrawi are all racist anti-Palestinians because of their support for a two state settlement.

Yes, hopefully the two states would be less "ethnically exclusivist" than, let's say, Syria - whose constitution declares that "The Syrian Arab region is a part of the Arab homeland. The people in the Syrian Arab region are a part of the Arab nation."

SA



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