You support my point: everythign Chomsky writes represents an effort to indicate that the US/west/Israel is at the root of all problems. What do you mean "there is no assumption of cause and effect," when you've just indicated that Chomsky's argument is, basically, that Israel sets the standard for wht is im/moral . Are you incapable of addressing starting assumptions and premises in a text? I have no real interest in engaging Chomsky's each and every argument because they all boil down pretty much to the same thing. He has a grand, totalizing view of the world. Judging from the number of other occasions on which he has been found to be leaving out much information, I am working from the hypothesis that he very likely did the same here.

Brilliant post. It is absolutely by this sort of tactic that Chomsky has kept his "brand" strong. His brand? The great dissenter. His targets? The absolutely easiest that exist: those least like to exact retribution. In this way, he manages to keep it afloat forever and cash in on it, to boot.

Chompsky’s brilliance in linguistics does not inoculate him from stupidity and short sightedness. Remember, he was a primary defender of Robert Fauisson the infamous holocust denier. It is beyond me why anyone would take the musings of this apologist for the Khmer Rouge seriously. Chompsky argued in “Distortions at Fourth Hand” that the media exaggerated the number of deaths (now though to number 1.7 million), in Cambodia as part of a broader propaganda campaign to increase support for U.S. military involvement in Indo-China. If he thinks for one moment that Hezbollah or Hamas will be satisfied with only an equivalent number of Jewish dead he is clearly deluded. Why waste the cyber ink on his drivel

Nasrallah announced on October 22 2002 - "if the Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." The New York Times qualifies this as "genocidal thinking" 1992 - "It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth." "The Jews are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment." "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel." When Israel ended its 18-year occupation of Lebanon in 2000, Nasrallah declared, "We have liberated the south. Next we'll liberate Jerusalem." Nasrallah statement in 1992, "It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth." In 2002, Sheik Nasrallah was quoted by the Lebanon Daily Star as encouraging Jews to move to Israel. "If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

Hamas started its existence with its jihadist attacks against both military and civil targets in Israel. Though Hamas is a Sunni organisation, but is a protegé of the IRI [iran]; it follows a strict charter which is not different from IRI’s official policy towards Israel. According to this charter the State of Israel must be wiped off the region and replaced with an Islamic republic. Futhermopre, Hamas will not accept any non-Islamic state in Palestine. Hamas opposes any peace process with Israel; it regards such a process a "betrayal of God's will". This is its fundamental difference with the PLO which in 1988 recognised Israel's sovereignty, Hezbollah was formed in 1982 by the IRI’s officials and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. It was to import the “Islamic” revolution of Iran in the region. The movement was logistically helped to fight Israeli occupation following the 1982 Lebanan war. Hizbollah's ideology is based on the Shiite Islam, specifically in the concept of "Willayat-e-Faqih" put forth by Shiite Islam in Iran. Though Hezbollah is considered by the West as a terrorist organisation, it is a recognised political party in Lebanon, where it has now two ministers in the government. However, the govenment rejects its slogans "God is the target, the Prophet is the model, the Koran the constitution, jihad is the path and death for the sake of God is the loftiest of the wishes”. The movement claims that its goal is not to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon. But the claim can be a tactic to divert Lebanese from the catastrophal results of such a regime in Iran, which happens to be its sponsor.

Doris, I do appreciate your attempt at irony, but you must be joking! The fractions in Lebanon were barely kept from killing each other, as they have been for dozens of years. There was a state-within-a-state set up, armed better than Lebanon's own sovereign army. The shifting demographics are highly unfavorable towards the Christians and undermine the precarious balance of the largely impotent government. Hardly a peachy-perfect little dreamland, "where people lived free and un-oppressed" I know that watching the vast majority of news reports you will get the idea that Israel is bombing indiscriminately, and turning the whole country into rubble. Cameras keep showing the same blocks over and over, creating an impression of extensive devastation. This, however, is far from reality. I have seen satellite images of Beirut, including the bombed area, before and after the bombing. The only part of Beirut that is affected is a shiite slum in the southern suburbs. So you can be rest assured, the Paris of ME will preserve its pretty facades. Same goes for the roads, bridges. and the rest of the infrastructure. When it was reported that Israelis destroyed the Beirut airport, what actually happened was that five or six bombs were dropped, creating small craters precisely on the intersections, and one exactly in the middle of runway. No damage done to the buildings or equipment. Just enough to make it unusable, but easily repaired. If you look at the bridges being targeted, you will see that only the spans have collapsed. All the support pylons are left intact. You can see these photos on www.stratfor.com, archive name "Role of Precision Bombing in Lebanon" Despite every effort to portray them as bloodthirsty monsters, the IDF is really making an amazing effort to keep damages to civilians and infrastructure to a minimum. You seem to insinuate that this conflict was somehow, if not initiated by, then, at least, meant to serve the interest of Israel in eliminating Lebanon as an upstart competitor. I hope you will pause and reflect on the absurdity of this idea. If, having paused for reflection, you have not yet realized the absurdity of this idea, let me help. While a tourism industry is very important, Israel has an extremely diversified economy. Its core competence is in high- and bio-technologies. Regional instability is, by far, Israel's main economic hindrance. Just think, what better neighbor for Israel than a stable, prosperous, democratic, peaceful state, like Lebanon can be. Now think even harder. Ask yourself: why would Israel undermine its entire economy just to gain a very temporary advantage over Lebanon in the tourism sector? And a very temporary advantage, indeed: it has been demonstrated again and again that even in cases of nearly total destruction, the tourism industry is the first to recover, usually within a year. Look at Croatia after the war, or Thailand after the tsunami. From what I have seen, there has been no damage whatsoever to the resorts or historic areas. Damage to the airport, roads and bridges can be repaired in a matter of weeks, if not days. Ok, now I want to change the tone and get personal. As a Russian Jew, who lost many family members in the WW2, and who has family members living under the rockets in Afula and Haifa, I find it extremely offensive to have you, an Austrian, use an analogy between the actions of IDF in Lebanon, and Wehrmacht in Russia. Your tone and accusations are callous and cynical. IDF is not conducting a total war, there is no extermination and genocide, concentration camps, carpet bombings, starvation, TWENTY MILLION DEAD. There is no nazi ideology to justify it all. Something people in your country should be the last to forget.

Intellectuals of Chomsky kind thrive on "original" unconventional thinking, on theoretical "discoveries", often supporting or giving credence to movements which would be happy to drive Chomsky & co. out of existence (along with most of us). However, Prof. Chomsky is not in fear, under the protection of the country he hates most. What a pitty of uprooted intellect, such waste!

...and know about Mr. Chomsky.

freedom of speech - a chimp could probably not....

I am an MIT alum and would occasional pass Noam in the halls. I think this guy just likes attention -- if only everybody in the world would listen to him (he's just so smart) everything would be OK. On the other hand, methinks this guy is an "academic doucebag" not worth the airtime he so seeks.

I find it very interesting that people who are safe from Missile attacks think objective logical thinking is the solution. I listen to these so called intectuals and think about Hilter and World War II. It is no wonder 14 million Jews were killed. And it is no wonder you are in the mess you are in. It is because you listen to intectuals rather than those that want to kill you. All humans are not reasonable peace loving. It you haven't gotten it by now. Get ready to mark to the beat of the next Missile attack. It no wonder there are Wars. Foolish intectuals cause the problems but those who listen are worse.

never was there such a smart idiot, the last word is Hebrew and the linguist ought to chew on its meaning for a while. red to the core nothing he writes is to be believed

Very illuminating indeed to read the jewish and israeli hate-speech living up to the same standards as their islamic nutwing counterparts. Apparently they find it normal that the lebanese civilians are fair game. I advise reading about the collaboration between jews and the british during the smackdown of the palestinian revolt in 1936-39 to understand that palestinians had hoped for a declaration of independence of palestine, analogous to some other former british colonies, before they were being subjugated to israeli rule.

Today is international Hiroshima memorial day To memorize that another holocaust day goes unnoticed for perpetrator USA. We should think on that day how to avoid such a repetition - and not how we could kill each other more efficient and with full right as we have a higher ground of moral. Every sides moral higher ground for killing is based not higher then on the level of Theresienstadt, Oil Pot, Hiroshima, Nagasaki & My Lay. Killer - they are all the same - with different slogans, flags and hymns - but stull same.

Is that why they rejected a division of the land in 1937 while the Jews agreed? Face it, very few Palestinians considered themselves "Palestinians" back then. It's not a bad thing, it's just not historically accurate for you to claim otherwise. Oh, and the only reason they have been "subjugated to Israeli rule" is the Arab nations refusal to recognize Israel and mad desire to destroy the state. Every time they launch a war, Israel gains land and they lose land. Of course, then they complain about it and call it theft or have people like you call it subjugation. In Gaza there was no subjugation in the past year and the Palestinians launched over 1000 rockets at Israel.

Speaking of "truthful" media, have a look at the photo link below. http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060805/ids_photos_ts/r3101797657.jpg# Incidentally, the photo was taken by the same photographer who covered the Qana bombing for the Reuters.

Have a look at this site: http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S5&P1=165 Then I dare you to come back and repeat what you wrote.

The interviewee states, "Hamas has also indicated its willingness to negotiate a two-state settlement, as is surely well-known in Israel." Sure, Israel should negotiate with Hamas for a "settlement" for a two-state solution. Their CHARTER CALLS FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL. They're not asking for a certain amount of land for guaranteed peace. THEY WANT TO DESTROY ISRAEL. How anyone can, in good faith, argue that Israel should be negotating Hamas is incomprehensible to me.

To 76. The palestinians were offered 44% of the territory while they comprised 79% of the then population. The jews were given the majority of land because of their handiwork for the british. Typical british 'divide and rule' politics of yesteryear. To 78. Quoting muslim nutwings as the mainstream opinion is not a response. I might as well quote orthodox jewish sites who consider the creation of the state of Israel abhorrent. That's not going to further the discussion. Rather follow http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/ and snap out of it, man. I repeat my previous statement: the IDF considers the lebanese civilians fair game (they bombed a christian lebanese village the other day, no?), just as hezbollah considers the innocent citizens of israel fair game. The unwillingness to see the moderates' demands and anguish on both sides is what causes this endless "we do this 'cause you did that" cycle. Both sides signed the 1993 oslo agreements, and they should stick to it, incl. the Israeli government, which implies not nibbling away at the western bank frontier with setllements.

I believe you 100%. I teach in a university. People like him are everywhere. They're just not all as good at grinding out their theory widgets.

Gaza border and west bank border are only cease fire lines not something unchangeable or set something that seems to be forgoten. In war when one side loses it pays something again forgoten. Peace is cheaper and happier but takes two sides also forgoten to give land for a promise is stupid especially when it is so obvious that the promise is as weak as its radical link and religion as a political tool is the most evil. the world is a beautiful place too bad that humans pollut it-- abuse it-- destroy it-- but nature will change its balance till it is unfavorable to human existance which at the way things are headed will not be too long especially if Iran gets the bomb and wants its members to reach heaven fast

You misspelled "Gerbil."

I remember as a young mathematician working in language logic writing to Chomsky with a list of counter examples to some of his cherished hypotheses. What he believed was wrong. Provably wrong. He couldn't handle it. Once he makes a statement, however erroneous, he has to stick to it because it is the word of God -- or something like that. He is more interested in BEING the truth than in FINDING the truth.

Let's not forget that Chomsky met with Hizbollah leaders a few month ago and endorsed their program of struggle against Israel. The man is a shameless TRAITOR!

1. Chomsky doesn't deny the Holocaust. (He have however supported a Holocaust deniers right to speak. Freedom of speech - you might have heard of it.) 2. Chomsky never supported the Khmer Rouge. (He have however attracted attention to US atrocities in Cambodia (the US bombings killing several hundred thousand civilians according to several sources, US support to the Khmer Rouge after they had been ousted by the Vietnamese, etc.) Chomsky is in fact an intelligent and hard-working intellectual who knows what he's talking about, and what he's talking about is injustice. Thus it is very hard for one that does not agree with Chomsky to "outwit" him. It is much more simple to a) riducle him and b) ignore him. See comments above for examples of this tactic.

There have been extensive and intensive exposures done of factual errors and especially omissions in Chomsky's work. Many people have "outwitted" him, if by that you mean that they have made such successful exposures) but many others are committed to his ideological positions. You can easily research them. They are far too many to spend a day researching them here. But go do some research and see waht you find.

Yeah, wow, Alan Dershowitz says that Noam Chomsky wants Israel destroyed, so it must be true. What an informative source. Nevermind that Chomsky was the academic who COINED THE TERM "International Consensus" -- i.e. referring to the two-state solution -- and constantly and exhaustively argues in favor of it. You are a blowhard, just like the professional liars you employed here.

Yeah, so what is inaccurate about anything you've quoted?