So what? Criticize the words, if you can, not the speaker
I did. Chomskyism is a despicable form of demagogery - fake history preached to the young and ignorant.
Which of these two parts do you disagree with? That the desire of Israel to have a purely Jewish state? Or that they implemented policies to achieve this desire?
Both of them. If Israel had wanted a racially pure state, they could have evicted ALL the Arabs, just as the Arab states evicted ALL the Jews. They didn't. Over 20% of Israeli citizens are not Jewish, and they are equal citizens under the law. It's true, the Israelis do want a Jewish state where they will not be a subject race to other people. They would also like to survive, something the Arabs have tried very hard to prevent (over 1% of the entire Jewish population of Palestine died in the 1948 war), but which, for some reason, you never criticize.
Arabs are no paragon of virtue, but one cannot justify his own wrong doings based on the wrongs of others
One can, if one is trying to be fair, put things in context. Condemning the Jews as the aggressors in 1948 without even mentioning that they were responding to an attack by 5 Arab armies with Nazi leadership whose open and avowed intention was genocide seems a bit one-sided, don't you think?
Terrorism has always been and will always remain the last resort of the weak. I am sure if the Pals had a modern army and nukes, they would not have resorted to terrorism. Do you disagree?
Yes, I disagree. Terrorism has never been the LAST resort of the Palestinians. It has always been their FIRST resort, because ambush and banditry have always been the traditional fighting methods of the Arabs, and most Palestinian Arabs have never put any value whatsoever on Jewish life. Which is not true in reverse.
Furthermore, it is not some rule of nature that just 'gifted' the Israelis with a modern army and didn't 'gift' the Palestinians. Both sides have had large donations from their peoples. But the Palestinians have always been too backward and badly led to develop their own ecnonomy or state. They had many chances to do so and muffed them. The Jews built their state and defended it. The Palestinians didn't even have a national identity until after 1967.
Chumsky's point has always been that we have little control over the actions of others, but we do have control (and responsiblity) for our own actions
True, we are responsible for our own actions BUT our actions do not occur in a vacuum. Shooting someone who is shooting at you is NOT the same as shooting a baby in a crib. This is the sort of distinction that Chumsky (nice spelling, was it a Freudian slip?) conveniently forgets to make when America's actions are being discussed. His point is to teach the ignorant to hate America and ignore the sins of everybody else. |
