Informed Speculation

A few days ago I highlighted the latest vicious batch of falsified tripe from Noam Chomsky, this time ostensibly about the Iraq Survey Group, but in reality, more about Chomsky’s dual obsessions, the imperialist, fascist exemplars of pure evil, Israel and the United States. 

One more more learned than I, Oliver Kamm, also looks at the piece to much greater profit, and is sharp enough to catch this typical Chomskyism:

…Chomsky regards it as an “absurd demand” to require that Palestinian interlocutors recognise Israel’s right to exist. He cites by analogy “Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert, who received a rousing ovation in Congress when he declared that Israel’s historic right to the land from Jordan to the sea is beyond question”.

Here is what Olmert said to Congress in May of last year, as transcribed in the Washington Post. It is the passage Chomsky is referring to:

For thousands of years, we Jews have been nourished and sustained by a yearning for our historic land. I, like many others, was raised with a deep conviction that the day would never come when we would have to relinquish parts of the land of our forefathers. I believed and to this day still believe in our people’s eternal and historic right to this entire land. (APPLAUSE)

And here is the passage from Olmert’s speech that follows immediately:

But I also believe that dreams alone will not quiet the guns that have fired unceasingly for nearly 100 years. Dreams alone will not enable us to preserve a secure democratic Jewish state. Jews all around the world read in this week’s Torah portion, “And you will dwell in your land safely, and I will give you peace in the land, and there shall be no cause for fear, neither shall the sword cross through the promised land.”

Painfully, we, the people of Israel, have learned to change our perspective.

We have to compromise in the name of peace, to give up parts of our promised land in which every hill and every valley is saturated with Jewish history and in which our heroes are buried.

We have to relinquish part of our dream to leave room for the dream of others so that all of us can enjoy a better future.

(APPLAUSE)

It makes a difference. Chomsky has taken a passage out of context in order to fabricate his conclusion. In context, Olmert is clearly stating that Israel’s historic claims are superseded by the need for compromise so that the dreams of others may be realised. He does so, moreover, after a passage in which he states:

[T]he Palestinians will forever be our neighbors. They are an inseparable part of this land, as are we. Israel has not desired to rule over them, nor to oppress them. They, too, have a right for freedom and national aspirations.

I mention this because it is the context in which Olmert’s listeners applauded his belief in Israel’s historic national claims. Olmert had already stated that the Palestinians have a right to freedom and legitimate national claims of their own. His later assertion of his own tradition was a counterpart, or balance. That balancing of national claims, and not any supposed assertion (made up out of whole cloth by Chomsky) of territorial aggrandisement, was the reason Olmert’s Congressional audience applauded that statement.

I frequently receive emails from inquirers who assert how much they admire and have been influenced by Professor Chomsky’s political writings. I usually reply that Chomsky can be highly convincing in the absence of background material or exposure to reputable historical sources and scholarship. The appearance of a logical argument constructed from a range of sources, and with copious footnotes, gives an impression of mastery of the relevant material. But an impression is all it is. Once you look below the surface, and consider Chomsky’s work alongside the writings of historians and other specialists in the fields he writes about, you gain a different impression.

Whatever your view, or mine, of the historical rights and wrongs in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it should be possible at least to give an accurate account of the historical positions of the parties within that dispute, and of successive US administrations. But Chomsky’s account of only a week or so ago is transparently a series of fabrications. It exemplifies his status as a writer on politics and international history. Not everything Chomsky says is wrong, but the manner in which he weaves his historical account involves the suppression of relevant material, the excision of context, and sometimes invention to force a prespecified conclusion. In short, nothing Chomsky says in his political writings can be taken on trust. Whether by design or incompetence, his handling of source material is a standing affront to the notion of disinterested inquiry.

That’s so beautifully said that it almost makes me weep…