Talk:Chomsky and anti-semitism

In a later debate with philosophy professor Robert Nozick, Chomsky denied that he ever authorized the essay in Faurisson's book, and claimed that he had never had any interest in anti-semitic Holocaust revisionism. Nozick then claimed to recall an earlier conversation with Chomsky on this topic well before Chomsky gave accolades to Faurisson's book; in response Chomsky insulted and berated him, and then physically shoved him in front of witnesses.

After moderately extensive Google-searching, I could find no discussion of this debate. If anybody knows more about this particular debate and where this summary of it came from, could you please cite the source?

It is from a very recent article by Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, which has been reprinted in full on a number of Usenet newsgroups. [[RK]]

Aah, Dershowitz's famous Tech article: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N25/col25dersh.25c.html I see this was also the source of the summary of Faurisson's work. Next time, please cite your source; it helps your fellow authors and readers. Dershowitz and Chomsky have a long history. I think it would be the appropriate topic of another section. Here's another link: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/chomsky/5/2.html

I've been following this debate for some time, and actually found it quite amusing. I make no claim whatsoever to knowing much about Chomsky's credentials as either a linguist or political thinker, however, the way this debate has been going, I doubt whether that is especially relevant, so I may as well get my feet wet too. It seems to me that there are two major reasons for claiming Chomsky is anti-Semitic: his outspoken opposition to the State of Israel, and his supposed support for Holocaust deniers.

No, Chomsky is considered an anti-Semite by many people because he has spent his life hurling hatred at Zionists and helping neo-Nazis justify the legitimacy of Holocaust denial.

Which is essentially what I said, only in more diplomatic terms. There are, however, some differences. For instance, I understand Chomsky attacking contemporary political "Zionism" as an ideology, not Zionists as people. I also see the principle of freedom of speech overriding the essential abhorrence I feel toward Holocaust denial. I commented on that below.

Similarly, there seem to be two major reasons for claiming Chomsky is not anti-Semitic: his defense of his position vis à vis the rights of Holocaust deniers to free speech, and the fact that he is himself a Jew and identifies as such.

Helping neo-Nazi authors spread hatespeech makes him not an anti-Semite? I think you made a typo, or left out a phrase. [[RK]]

Either you did not read what I wrote further on or you chose to ignore it. The principle is not "helping neo-Nazi authors" but supporting freedom of speech.

Interestingly enough, his status as a linguist, an academic, and a scholar is entirely irrelevant to the debate, though it is sometimes introduced in couched terms to the larger discussion about Israeli and American policies, etc. It is not uncommon to hear something to the effect that "Noted scholar Noam Chomsky says so and so about so and so," when that particular topic has absolutely nothing to do with his professional field of inquiry. I may or may not agree with Chomsky's stance on the Khmer Rouge, but the fact that he is a professor at MIT is about as relevant to the argument as saying that "Charlton Heston supports the NRA and he is a famous actor." Yes, Chomsky has a political agenda, and that is undeniably his right, but it is his political agenda, rather than his academic background, that underlies his statements. I question how many people who freely flaunt Chomsky's name in their arguments would agree with the totality of the anarcho-syndicalist worldview from which it stems (or could even define anarcho-syndicalism, for that matter).

I agree. One thing has nothing to do with the other. I don't understand why others confuse these two issues. [[RK]]

You have got to be kidding. Chomsky is a political scientist first and foremost. Does the fact that he's an academic and scholar matter? You bet your ass it does! When people say "Chomsky, a linguist at MIT", they're just giving evidence that he is a scholar. It would be a different matter if Chomsky didn't use scholarship in his politics, but he does. And anyone who tries to deny, undermine or devalue that fact either knows nothing about his work as a political scientist (as the first author freely acknowledges) or hates Chomsky (as RK does). -- ark

Actually, ark, Chomsky earned his reputation as a linguist, and it is there that he made his major contributions to academics. Once his reputation was established, he won attention for his political activism. As for his using scholarship in his political writings, that is only to be expected, isn't it? Otherwise it would be populist rhetoric, plain and simple. No one condemns Chomsky of that.

I stand corrected. But 'political activism', 'political work' and 'political agenda' are seen as non-scholarly. Also, you refer to Chomsky's 'academic background' like it doesn't contain political science. After decades of doing political science, I don't see how you can exclude it from his academic background. -- ark

So, is Noam Chomsky anti-Semitic? Let's look at the claims. It could not be because of his outspoken criticism of the State of Israel because there are many Jews (including many who identify as Zionist), who share his criticism. In Israel itself, a leading intellectual such as the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz coined the term Judeo-Nazis to describe what he thought were Israeli excesses in the West Bank.

I agree. But no one is claiming that it is anti-Semitic to criticise the State of Israel. See the entry on Anti-Semitism for more information on this point. [[RK]]

Then what is your point regarding his opposition to Zionism? The tone of his invective? If so, I wonder if you have ever heard a political debate within Israel.

Now you're kidding. That entry gives the impression that the American Jewish Congress, and the American Jewish community in general, can't be anti-semitic. When it's pretty clear they are. After all, isn't it anti-Semitism to advocate policies for Israel which lead it to be at war with all of its neighbours and are directly responsible for innumerable casualties throughout Israeli society?

Practically the entire American Jewish community are supporters of (and in a sense, are) Judeo-Nazis. This is of course due to the indoctrination of American Jewish children. Things like "the Palestinians aren't a people", "the West Bank was empty before Jews settled there" and many other things. The essential symmetry between Arab hatred of Jews and Jewish hatred of Arabs is never mentioned, making it a very unbalanced entry. -- ark

Sorry, ark, but these statements are worrying. You seem to be making blanket statements about Jews in America, who do not as a group advocate policies or make any of the claims you say they do. In fact, your statement about the symmetry of "Arab hatred of Jews and Jewish hatred of Arabs" is racist on two counts: against Jews and against Arabs. Are there individuals, even powerful individuals, among both groups that hate? Certainly. Do the groups as groups hate each other? I don't believe that. Furthermore, if I were to make a statement that "Practically the entire American Arab community are supporters of (and in a sense, are) Arab-Nazis" I would be considered racist. Why do you think replacing Arab with Jew makes the statement legitimate?

Communities are not random collections of disconnected people. There are such things as institutions and institutional views. People can work against these views without negating their existence. That's what Chomsky does when he works against American propaganda, ideology and myth-making (what I would bluntly call quasi-psychotic delusions).

If you want to say that the American Arab community believes something, or that practically the entire American Arab community believes something, I would expect some measure of evidence and argument. I would not call you a racist, though I understand that less sophisticated people would. Accurate generalizations are useful even when they're unflattering and condemned as "racist". That many people seem incapable, or unwilling, to distinguish between a generalization and a prejudice is politics, and not scholarship.

One easy way to test for prejudice is the popularity of the generalization. If it is extremely popular then it's likely prejudice. For example, I know at least one person who has an unflattering generalization of blacks (especially Africans) who 1) disavows all of the standard generalizations of blacks and 2) has come to his conclusion based on a long history of personal interaction. On that basis alone, I would not consider them prejudiced nor racist (though it would depend on your definition of racism). And I came by that conclusion long before reading a book on historical psychology which accidentally gave theoretical underpinings for his view (ie, that it could be a product of child abuse, which is known to be brutal among black families). Is this racism? Well, it's certainly not of 'The Bell Curve' variety.

If you don't like generalizations, I recommend against any social psychology. -- ark

As a result, Leibowitz became a darling of the Left, though many of his "supporters" failed to realize where his ideology originated. In fact, Leibovitz was an Orthodox Jew and a scholar of Maimonides, who based his political perspective on a much wider worldview of Jewish law (halacha) in the modern world. He could often be abrasive and was known for his sharp tongue (sounds familiar?), and he was even condemned for treason by far-right circles, but never for being anti-Semitic. As far as defending Holocaust-deniers, this is no proof of anti-Semitism either. Chomsky himself explains that if someone did not know the history of twentieth century Europe and denied that the Holocaust happened because he did not believe that people could possibly be so inhumane, he would not be anti-Semitic, i.e., Holocaust-denial is not anti-Semitic per se.

But that is not why he considered anti-Semitic. You are rebutting arguments that no one is making. If that was all Chomsky ever did, no one would be mad. I certainly don't have a problem with that. Its the other things Chomsky did that caused many Jews to consider him an anti-Semite: For instance, Chomsky wrote that neo-Nazi Holocaust denial is not anti-Semitic. That is nonsense. Holocaust denial is one of the most insidious anti-Semitic techniques that Jew-haters in Europe and the Arab world today use to attack the Jewish people. [[[user:RK|RK]]]

See what I wrote for the context in which he wrote this. In practically the same breath he admitted that most (I would even say all) Holocaust deniers are motivated by anti-Semitism.

Yeah, yeah. That old refrain again. And you fail to perceive the other guy's point. Chomsky is an academic prone to using words very exactly. In this case, he probably used words in a way only an ivory tower academic would have. This doesn't make him anti-Semitic. An additional argument is that if Chomsky actually lived in Israel, no one would dare call him anti-Semitic yet nothing would have changed. -- ark

Furthermore, Chomsky is certainly in the unfortunate position of being latched onto by various historical revisionists (virtually all of whom are also anti-Semitic), who misquote him, misunderstand his position, and would certainly be opposed to him if they knew the full extent of his ideology.

That is incorrect. Most do not misquote him; they often quote him accurately and fairly. [[RK]]

No it is not. They quote him accurately, but not within the context he says what he does. No neo-Nazi group supports anarcho-syndicalism.

You must spend a lot of time reading what neo-nazis say. Why is that? -- ark

Let's not get into personal attacks.

The fact that he defends their right to free speech makes him no more anti-Semitic than the Jewish lawyers from the ACLU, who defended the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie in the late 1970s. "I may hate what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Sigh...that is a separate issue.

It obviously isn't you dishonest SOB. You seem to think it's pretty important at the beginning of the page. -- ark

Ark, I would echo what you said, if only it didn't involve a personal attack. To me that removes the integrity of the argument.

Finally, can a Jew be anti-Semitic? Certainly. Back to Skokie, Frank Collins, the Nazi leader, was the son of two former Jewish inmates of Dachau. The question is, what makes someone anti-Semitic? It is not being opposed to Israeli policy, nor is it being pro-freedom of speech for people whose views are particularly abhorrent to Jews. Chomsky goes so far as to ask whether questioning the historicity of the Holocaust (something he does not do) would make someone anti-Semitic. Simply raising this question, however, does not qualify him as anti-Semitic either.

Finally, Chomsky may not be a pleasant man and his views may be far out of the mainstream. He is a linguist best known to the general public for his views on America, the Vietnam War, and Israel. He is often misquoted, including by many who claim to side with him, largely because his views are so unconventional and complex that they pick up sound bytes without hearing their context. Sorry, RK, but as an active Jew and Zionist, I have far more problems with the Christian right than with Chomsky. I do not see the benefit of this article and discussion to Wikipedia and vote that they be deleted. Danny

You don't see the use of an entry, so you want it deleted? Wikipedia doesn't work that way. There are many articles I personally find superfluous or useless, but I am not attempting to delete them. And your views on the Christian right-wing may or may not be valid, but they would fit in better under a separate topic. [[RK]]

The statements should not be connected. I was simply giving a hint of my own views regarding anti-Semitism. As for the article, it seems about as relevant to understanding Chomsky as a linguist or a political thinker (for both of which he is an important figure) as the ethnic origins of Copernicus are to understanding his role as a scientist.

I think the entry should remain if only to clear Chomsky's name. There are too many people who think Chomsky is anti-semitic based on rumours and nonsense. Perhaps this will help them. Perhaps they are idiots. Who can say? -- ark

I don t see how your unabashed advocacy of Chomsky differs very much from the attacks made against him. If it does stay, it should reflect the issues, no a lot of booing, yaying, and invective. Danny

Which I confine to the Talk pages. I would have been happy to eschew the invective, at least initially, but I take condemnations of dishonesty and immorality personally. -- ark

Chomsky's handling of his book intro reminds me of Groucho Marx saying, "Quote me as saying I was misquoted." Except that Groucho was nutty as a fruitcake, while Chomsky's just a nut case. Ed Poor, Friday, May 24, 2002

Dan, it seems there is some grounds for the charges of anti-semitism. Nonetheless, let's be sure to adhere to NPOV in reporting those charges. Not "this evidence proves X" but rather, "A cites B as evidence of X". I'll look at the article again tomorrow. Thanks for you help. (You, too, 24...) Ed Poor, Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Prejudice doesn't mean having an unflattering image of some group. It can't, because some people with very flattering images of Jews are noted anti-Semites. For example, there is a politician in Austria obsessed with getting approval from Jewish figures. Why? Because he believes that Jews rule the world and that he needs their approval in order to get ahead. This is clearly a very flattering picture of Jews but it's just as clearly inaccurate and prejudiced.

This happens to be a collection of some of the most vapid anti-Smeitic doggerel I have seen in a long time. Normally, I would just ignore it, but I suppose a refutation is in order. In general, you are giving half-truths, making insinuations, jumping to erroneous conclusions, and twisting facts without providing a basis for them. Let's take this one thing at a time. Yes, that politician is anti-Smeitic. The very statement that Jews rule the world was the hypothesis of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, unquestionably an anti-Semitic work. It assumes that Jews are responsible for all the ills of the world and for the world to be free, we must free ourselves of the Jews, or alternately, to survive, suck up to them. That is hardly a "flattering picture."

Oh bother! If I controlled the entire world, would most people think that was a flattering picture of me? Yes. So taken in isolation, the idea that one person, or group, controls the world is flattering. There is nothing anti-semitic in this and you're being as willfully stupid as RK. -- ark

Moreover, merely saying that Jews control banking is not prejudice and thus anti-Semititic. It may have a high correlation with anti-Semitism but it isn't necessarily anti-Semitic. After all, Jewish people do seem to control a lot of banks. And this is not a simple accident of history.

More silliness, i.e., Jews control the economy so that inflation, unemployment, etc., can all be blamed on the Jews. If you really believe that, back it up, rather than making insipid comments like "seem to control a lot of banks." Give figures. Do not insinuate. Do you want to explain what you mean that this is "not a simple accident of history"? Is it part of the Medieval tradition that Jews are usurers?

Yes and no. Why do you think the tradition exists in the first place? Because Christians thought money and wealth were sinful and evil while Jews did not. Why was that so? There you get into historical psychology. (And by the way, going from "Jewish people control a lot of banks" to "Jews control the economy" is not a step I've ever taken, or would ever take, since it's the Federal Reserve Board that controls the economy. Again, you're being just as obtuse as RK at his best.) -- ark

What else do Jewish people control? Movie-making. Jewish movie-makers invented the American Dream in the first place!

In your worldview, that seems to reject the American dream, this statement is particularly dangerous. In other words, Jews are responsible for all the ills that are America. Yes, Jewish immigrants were heavily involved in the film industry. The American dream preceded the film industry though, and it preceded massive Jewish migration, so the statement that they invented that dream is similarly false.

Interesting. Not that I care either way. Yes, I'm hostile to the American Dream, but I don't care who invented it. -- ark

And what else? Pornography. That also is not an accident of history (though the reasons why are indubitably too complex for a stupid, racist right-winger to apprehend).

Drop the rhetoric. Give a basis for that statement. Too complex for a stupid, racist, right-winger, but it is obvious to an intelligent person (which we all think we are) why Jews control pornography. Well, it isn't obvious to me. Why is that? Are we breaking into another Medieval myth: the Jew as sexual deviant?

To think that, you'd have to think that pornography and male sexuality is dirty and sinful. Do you? I know that most Americans do; the USA is an incredibly sexually repressed country after all.

What you see as a sexual deviant, a well-adjusted and not repressed person would see as a sexual pioneer. Either way you slice it, it means that the pornographers will have contempt for most Americans (who are backwards and primitive) while most Americans will hold fear and hatred for the pornographers (who are "deviants" deliberately challenging sexual mores). -- ark

It might be interesting to note that many (most? all?) of the Jews in these positions of power were and are non-Jewish Jews. But they are Jews nonetheless and as already noted, that's not an accident.

This is taken straight out of a Nazi Propaganda film, "Der Erwige Jud" [sp.?] or "The Eternal Jew." Non-Jewish Jews still Jews? Jews use masks to hide their true intent, posing as non-Jews? What exactly are you trying to say here?

Oh bother. I'm saying that non-Jewish Jews (especially first-generation) have certain traditions behind them which affect their thinking and behaviour. Even if they've decided to leave the Jewish community or stop identifying themselves as Jews, I doubt that they were whipped and beaten as much as neighbouring Christians were. Coming from a relatively healthy family environment isn't something you can undo, or would want to undo! -- ark

A detailed analysis of Jewish people in pre-war German society, and their attitudes towards that society (remarkably similar to many American Jews' attitudes towards the USA today btw), is quite illuminating as to the exact causes of the Holocaust. Some people might even learn why Jews were chosen as victims.

Cute: an unstated cause/justification of the Holocaust as a response to Jewish behavior in Germany (and a feasible excuse for similar actions today in America btw). Oddly enough, more German Jews survived the Holocaust than, say, Polish, Ukrainian, or Russian Jews. Nor does it account for a tradition of anti-Semitism in conservative Western European society. Nor does it account for earlier attacks on Jews throughout German history. Nor does it account for German genocide against Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.

Cause yes, moral justification no. Let me put it bluntly, are you the sort of idiot who thinks that any attempt to understand the holocaust means whitewashing the Nazis? -- ark

And why they were chosen only after all handicapped children were eliminated first (nobody seems to mourn them, do they?). And you know, it had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

Huh? Explain that. By the way, you might want to read Mein Kampf, where Hitler discussed the "Jewish Problem" and talked of a Judenrein Europe, long before he lashed out against the disabled. If that wasnt't anti-Semitism, I am rather curious as to what your definition of anti-Semitism is?

Hitler was anti-Semitic from his youth but he wasn't the one responsible for the killings; the German people were. Or are you claiming that Hitler personally went around and strangled millions of people to death?

The idea that because a superior says something, people will naturally and inevitably obey is a common one. But it is utterly risible. It's bullshit. When a leader says something which his "subjects" don't want to hear, he gets deposed or lynched. So Hitler's personal anti-Semitism explains nothing of the Holocaust. A genuine explanation has to deal with why ordinary Germans were perfectly willing and eager to spill blood. Does German anti-Semitism explain anything? No, it does not. Pre-war Germany was less anti-Semitic than its neighbours, and that was the reason Jews fled to Germany in the first place. There are similarly devastating criticisms against all the standard explanations for WWII and the holocaust. A genuine explanation of events has to be a psychological one. But considering how you reacted to the suggestion that there even exists such an explanation, I'm not willing to waste my time providing it. Besides, this is already so off-topic.

By the way, I didn't say "the disabled", I said "disabled children". And I should have put 'disabled' in quotes to indicate that most of them weren't disabled in the first place. You don't seem to be aware that anything of the kind even happened. :) -- ark

Yes indeed, scholarship often forces one to believe and say things which one or the other side of the great political divide will dismiss as prejudiced. If you're lucky, you even get to make enemies of both sides! -- ark

Too obtuse a statement for me to either understand or comment on. Scholarship = unpopular views? You might want to look into some scholarship before making that assertion. Meanwhile, you have hardly presented your position in a scholarly manner. Danny

No, I haven't. But then, I never intended to. (I wouldn't say that scholarship equals unpopular views. I would say that scholarship implies unpopular views.) -- ark

Danny, with all due respect you are being too kind. Up until now I have been inclined to give ark the benefit of the doubt concerning Chomsky and anti-semitism, at least insofar as his/her points added some complexity to the discussion of Chomsky (and despite the fact that some of these points were expressed in bombastic or not quite logical ways). I also try to distinguish between anti-semites and people who unintentionally or naively say or do things that might be anti-semitic, and who can and want to be educated. But the above contribution by ark is anti-semetic crap, pure and simple. I thank you for responding point by point to his/her remarks, for the sake of other readers of Wikipedia. But I see no point in responding to ark personally -- it is clear both from the content and tone of the remarks that s/he cannot and does not want to be educated. SR

I agree, but lets take ark's main point (that the dismissal of Chomsky as an arch anti-semite is overly simplistic) on its merits (which are many) rather than dismiss because of ark's other (massively less meritorious) opinions -- GWO

Please take this flame fest to e-mail or MetaWiki. I'd prefer this /Talk page be used only for discussion on how to improve the current article. Ed Poor, Thursday, May 30, 2002

I am tired of the anti-Semitic hatespeech by "ARK". This hatemonger is even saying that the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are not anti-Semitic! What concerns me more, however, is that otherwise intelligent people on this forum read his attacks Jews for a week, before giving up and admitting that he is an anti-Semite. Guys, he has been dripping foul language, swears and proi-Nazi hatespeech since day one. You are all so involved the details of Chomsky's psycho-linguistics and left-wing politics that you couldn't see the forest for the trees. In the future, try to be more aware of your surroundings: If someone posts anti-Semitic material and attacks all Jews, then they are an anti-Semite. And considering that anyone on the Internet has access to this forum, this shouldn't come as a surprise. RK

There are plenty of people who think that Noam Chomsky is not an anti-Semite, who themselves are certainly not anti-Semitic. There is room in this conversation for them, and they can make a valuble contribution to this forum. Let's invite some into this! We don't need to spend a week deferring to Jew-baiting out of a misguided sense of fairness. RK

If the blood libel and the Protocals thing are true, then they are neither libelous nor anti-semetic. Similarly, if the branding of my beloved Unification Church as a brainwashing cult run for the personal benefit of its leader Sun Myung Moon is true, then the people who say so are not bigots.

The issue is: do Jews drink Christian blood and rule the world? or not? Just as for my church the issue is: do we Moonies brainwash people to enrich Moon? As a Jew and a Unificationist, I say the answer is no: Jews and Unificationists are innocents of the above charges.

The problem with anti-semitism or any other form of bigotry is that prejudiced people by definition are people who "pre-judge". They make up their minds before checking the facts, and then take action: verbal or otherwise. Indeed, they skip the fact-checking step altogether.

How does this relate to Chomsky? At issue is whether Chomsky (or the other scholars he defends) have demonstrated any concern for the facts. If so, they are legitimate scholars. If not, they are IMHO bigots.

However, I am violating my own suggestion by prolonging this. I'll move it to Meta or to Ed Poor:talk if anyone wants. Ed Poor, Thursday, May 30, 2002