Chomsky barred by Israeli government [Archive]

View Full Version : Chomsky barred by Israeli government

Valley Oak

05-16-2010, 07:22 PM

https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/israel-noam-chomsky-palestinian-west-bank

Noam Chomsky has been barred by Israelis from lecturing in the Palestinian West Bank. The US academic denies claim that misunderstanding by border officials was to blame for ban.

Ed Pilkington in New York, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 16 May 2010.

Noam Chomsky has been refused entry to Palestinian West Bank by Israel during lecture tour Rex Features. Noam Chomsky, whose withering critiques of political establishments have earned him the wrath of regimes of all persuasions around the world, was today forbidden by Israeli immigration officers from entering the Palestinian West Bank.

Chomsky said he was disappointed and surprised to have been turned back from the Allenby bridge across the Jordan river, which is understood to be the first time he has been refused entry by the Israelis. He had been due to give a series of lectures on domestic and foreign policy at Birzeit University and the Institute for Palestine Studies in Ramallah, in the West Bank.

He told Al-Jazeera television that the immigration official who interviewed him had made it clear that "the government of Israel doesn't like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world".

The academic, aged 82, had been with his daughter and two Jordanian friends. The friends were allowed through by the Israelis, but Chomsky and his daughter were denied entry.

Chomsky added that the Israeli authorities also seemed to take exception to the fact that he was only giving lectures in the Palestinian territory and would not be speaking in Israeli universities, "which I have done several times in the past".

Chomsky has been a keen critic of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and of successive US governments that he says have propped up the system in which Palestinians are denied equal rights.

Sabine Hadad, a spokeswoman for the Israeli interior ministry responsible for immigration decisions, said the department was trying to contact the military to clear up the matter, in order to allow Chomsky in. She told Reuters there had been a misunderstanding, as border officials had wrongly assumed he was planning to visit Israel as well.

But Chomsky said: "There was no misunderstanding. I was invited to give a series of lectures. It was straightforward, I do it all the time." He said that even if the Israelis did clear him for entry, he would now have insufficient time in his schedule to visit the West Bank.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Cheryl

05-16-2010, 07:36 PM

Chomsky is a media darling whose linguistic theories lack credence and whose criticism of Israel is unbalanced--a real Jew-hater's Jew. He must be loving all the free publicity.

Debunker

05-16-2010, 09:17 PM

Please name some critics of Israel you think are balanced.

As for his theories lacking credence, the academic and scientific community recognize Chomsky as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–92 period.
Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky)

He's also a harsh critic of repressive regimes all over the world, not just Israel.

Calling him a "Jew hater" is just plain despicable, I have seen no evidence whatsoever to support such an absurd slur.

Chomsky is a media darling whose linguistic theories lack credence and whose criticism of Israel is unbalanced--a real Jew-hater's Jew. He must be loving all the free publicity.

Cheryl

05-16-2010, 09:35 PM

Please see below....

>>Please name some critics of Israel you think are balanced.

True enough. My point was that I don't sympathize with him because Israel refused him entry somewhere.

>>As for his theories lacking credence, the academic and scientific community recognize Chomsky as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–92 period.
>>Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky)

Chomsky's a franchise that's made a lot of money for struggling university presses and for academic departments who follow his lead and publish similar linguistic theories. Just because he is well-liked and oft-cited in academe does not mean his writings are valid or supportable. As a side note, academe is subject to fashion and trends like anything else, and over time most popular theories get refuted (as his will, eventually).

One researcher, who I know personally, was asked by UCLA to bury linguistics research that refuted some of Chomsky's "findings" because, as his advisor said, "You'll ruin it for us"--referring to the viability of their publications and their academic credibility. Obviously, he is getting his dissertation elsewhere now. Asking a linguist to bury research is unethical, and he said it's happened to others as well.

>>He's also a harsh critic of repressive regimes all over the world, not just Israel.

I know--and that's fine. But the question here is balance. We can be balanced about Israel--we need to be--but Chomsky isn't.

Please name some critics of Israel you think are balanced.

As for his theories lacking credence, the academic and scientific community recognize Chomsky as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–92 period.
Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky)

He's also a harsh critic of repressive regimes all over the world, not just Israel.

Debunker

05-16-2010, 09:50 PM

You say we "need to be balanced" but you just called him a "Jew Hater", and you don't even begin to attempt to refute his criticisms of Israel.

If you're hoping to refute Chomsky, you'll have to temper your slander and support your position. So far, all we've seen is the intellectual equivalent of a pit bull foaming at the mouth.

Please see below....

>>Please name some critics of Israel you think are balanced.

True enough. My point was that I don't sympathize with him because Israel refused him entry somewhere.

>>As for his theories lacking credence, the academic and scientific community recognize Chomsky as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–92 period.
>>Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky)

Chomsky's a franchise that's made a lot of money for struggling university presses and for academic departments who follow his lead and publish similar linguistic theories. Just because he is well-liked and oft-cited in academe does not mean his writings are valid or supportable. As a side note, academe is subject to fashion and trends like anything else, and over time most popular theories get refuted (as his will, eventually).

One researcher, who I know personally, was asked by UCLA to bury linguistics research that refuted some of Chomsky's "findings" because, as his advisor said, "You'll ruin it for us"--referring to the viability of their publications and their academic credibility. Obviously, he is getting his dissertation elsewhere now. Asking a linguist to bury research is unethical, and he said it's happened to others as well.

>>He's also a harsh critic of repressive regimes all over the world, not just Israel.

I know--and that's fine. But the question here is balance. We can be balanced about Israel--we need to be--but Chomsky isn't.

Cheryl

05-16-2010, 11:31 PM

A typical quote from Hamas, this one from a website video, February 2006: "My message to the loathed Jews…We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children’s thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

Noam Chomsky, May 2006: "Hamas policies are more conducive to a peaceful settlement than those of the U.S. or Israel."

Enough said. If he's really clueless about that and similar Hamas quotes, then he's not qualified to speak on the subject. If he is aware of them and still says things like his quote above, then he's either out of his mind or, as I said before (and you misquoted twice), a Jew-hater's Jew--someone who, for whatever reason, curries the favor of anti-Semites. And pseudo-intellectual academic anti-Semitism is still anti-Semitism.

Regarding "temper your slander," take your own advice. The angry tone and insults are a weak attempt to get off the subject.

Look, if you don't like Israel, you don't like Israel, but don't get emotional when someone points out that Chomsky is incorrect. All you've done is say he's oft-cited and that some people who wrote a Wikipedia entry on him says he's great. Big deal.

Chomsky is popular in the US because he comes off as an accessible intellectual; his linguistic theories are generally rejected outside of the US, mainly because of his bias toward the English language and the irrationality of his theory of language acquisition, but he's popular here because he pretends to be a political expert and says what people want to hear (like the quote above). I doubt if most of his fans have read a single book of his, esp. the more academic linguistic works.

It's easier to blame Israel than to find accountability on both sides, especially when digging a little bit into the activities of groups like Hamas makes more of Israel's actions seem justified. Not all--but more. Chomsky does nothing to help matters when he misrepresents groups like Hamas.

You say we "need to be balanced" but you just called him a "Jew Hater", and you don't even begin to attempt to refute his criticisms of Israel.

If you're hoping to refute Chomsky, you'll have to temper your slander and support your position. So far, all we've seen is the intellectual equivalent of a pit bull foaming at the mouth.

Debunker

05-16-2010, 11:41 PM

Oh please, you're the one who called Chomsky a "real Jew-hater's Jew", and now quoting him out of context is just pathetic.

If he's a "Jew-haters Jew", it should be easy for you to LINK us to some statements supporting your slander.

If his criticisms of Israel are as unreasonable as you say, it should be easy to LINK us to them and let us decide for ourselves. Otherwise, you simply look like you can't tolerate any criticism of Israel at all.

A typical quote from Hamas, this one from a website video, February 2006: "My message to the loathed Jews…We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children’s thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

Noam Chomsky, May 2006: "Hamas policies are more conducive to a peaceful settlement than those of the U.S. or Israel."

Enough said. If he's really clueless about that and similar Hamas quotes, then he's not qualified to speak on the subject. If he is aware of them and still says things like his quote above, then he's either out of his mind or, as I said before (and you misquoted twice), a Jew-hater's Jew--someone who, for whatever reason, curries the favor of anti-Semites. And pseudo-intellectual academic anti-Semitism is still anti-Semitism.

Regarding "temper your slander," take your own advice. The angry tone and insults are a weak attempt to get off the subject.

Look, if you don't like Israel, you don't like Israel, but don't get emotional when someone points out that Chomsky is incorrect. All you've done is say he's oft-cited and that some people who wrote a Wikipedia entry on him says he's great. Big deal.

Chomsky is popular in the US because he comes off as an accessible intellectual; his linguistic theories are generally rejected outside of the US, mainly because of his bias toward the English language and the irrationality of his theory of language acquisition, but he's popular here because he pretends to be a political expert and says what people want to hear (like the quote above). I doubt if most of his fans have read a single book of his, esp. the more academic linguistic works.

It's easier to blame Israel than to find accountability on both sides, especially when digging a little bit into the activities of groups like Hamas makes more of Israel's actions seem justified. Not all--but more. Chomsky does nothing to help matters when he misrepresents groups like Hamas.

Debunker

05-16-2010, 11:56 PM

Noam Chomsky, May 2006: "Hamas policies are more conducive to a peaceful settlement than those of the U.S. or Israel."

Enough said...

No, it's not enough said, here's a little more context for the above statement;

Noam Chomsky: Personally I'm very much opposed to Hamas' policies in almost every respect. However, we should recognize that the policies of Hamas are more forthcoming and more conducive to a peaceful settlement than those of the United States or Israel. So to repeat: the policies, in my view, are unacceptable, but preferable to the policies of the United States and Israel.

So, for example, Hamas has called for a long-term indefinite truce on the international border. There is a long-standing international consensus that goes back over thirty years that there should be a two-state political settlement on the international border, the pre-June 1967 border, with minor and mutual modifications. That's the official phrase. Hamas is willing to accept that as a long-term truce. The United States and Israel are unwilling even to consider it.

The Hamas is being... The demand on Hamas by the United States and the European Union and Israel... The demand is first that they recognize the State of Israel. Actually, that they recognize its right to exist. Well, Israel and the U.S. certainly don't recognize the right of Palestine to exist, nor recognize any state of Palestine. In fact, they have been acting consistently to undermine any such possibility.

Cheryl

05-17-2010, 04:55 PM

seanpfister

05-28-2010, 03:48 AM

...Chomsky is popular in the US because he comes off as an accessible intellectual; his linguistic theories are generally rejected outside of the US, mainly because of his bias toward the English language and the irrationality of his theory of language acquisition
...

Hi Cheryl,

I'm curious about this: could you tell me a bit more about critiques of Chomsky's theory of language acquisition--just some names or links would be fine.

thanks

-s