Noam Chomsky: “The first point was that they don’t like my opinions about Israeli policies, which is true of every other country but has never stopped me coming and giving lectures before. The second, most crucial point was that they didn’t like the fact that I was visiting the West Bank but then not going on to speak in Israel. The issue was going to Birzeit, just as I would any other university, without specific Israeli approval. I would say that is very unusual, perhaps unique, outside totalitarian states.”
May 2010
I have never heard of a democratic state denying entry to thinkers… who neither call for violence or break local or international law. So what on earth is happening to Israel? … If anything, barring Chomsky gives ammunition to those who say that Israel is infringing on academic freedom in the Palestinian Authority, and that a boycott against its universities is therefore justified.
Palestinian activists: [W]hy shouldn’t the PA change the addresses of thousands of people, instead of having its officials turn them away while explaining obediently that “the Israelis don’t agree to it”? In this way, the PA will exercise its authority in accordance with Oslo. This would be a form of integrated civil disobedience: the leadership and the public together reject the occupiers’ dictates.
On May 15, Palestinians across the world mourn al-Nakba, the destruction of historic Palestine and the massive displacement of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Al-Nakba was not a singular event; displacement continues to this day affecting thousands of Palestinians throughout the Middle East. There are approximately seven million Palestinian refugees and 450,000 internally displaced persons, representing 70% of the entire Palestinian population worldwide (9.8 million).
Amira Hass: Chomsky told Haaretz that he supports a two-state solution, but not the solution proposed by Jerusalem, “pieces of land that will be called a state.” He said that Israel’s behavior today reminds him of that of South Africa in the 1960s, when it realized that it was already considered a pariah, but thought that it would resolve the problem with better public relations.
IOA Editor: See also Al-Jazeera: Chomsky ban – “An end to freedom”?
Noam Chomsky… has been barred from entering the West Bank… across the Allenby Bridge from Jordan on Sunday. The linguistics professor, who frequently speaks out against Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories, had been scheduled to give a lecture at Birzeit University in the West Bank. (Video interview with Noam Chomsky)
Noam Chomsky: “The government did not like the kinds of things I say and they did not like that I was only talking at Bir Zeit and not at an Israeli university too,” he said… I asked them if they could find any government in the world that likes the things I say.”
Mustafa Barghouti, one of the leaders of the struggle against Israel, was slated to accompany Chomsky on his tour of the West Bank and separation fence. He said that “Israel’s decision testifies to its racist nature. Even a person like Chomsky couldn’t avoid it. We are proud of Chomsky’s role in supporting the Palestinians and the struggle against the injustice of the occupation.”
IOA Editor: Neither Barghouthi nor Chomsky is a leader of “the struggle against Israel.” Rather, they both take part in the struggle against Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Each of them has clearly and specifically supported a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of a two-states solution, Israel and Palestine, existing side by side, without Israel controlling and dominating the Palestinians. It is this last point which Israeli commentators like to twist as being “against Israel.”
In reality, the Israeli authorities denied Chomsky the right of entry into the West Bank — he did not seek entry into Israel — a territory Israel controls by military force, for nearly 43 years, against the wishes of its Palestinian inhabitants and in violation of numerous international laws, conventions, and UN resolutions. It is interesting that the Israeli media (both Ynet and Haaretz) misrepresent this story by referring to it as a denial of entry to “Israel.”
Amira Hass: Left-wing American linguist Professor Noam Chomsky was denied entry into Israel on Sunday, for reasons that were not immediately clear. Chomsky, who was scheduled to deliver a lecture at Bir Zeit University near Jerusalem, told the Right to Enter activist group by telephone that inspectors had stamped the words “denied entry” onto his passport when he tried to cross from Jordan over Allenby Bridge.
IOA Editor:
The original language of this story referred to “entry into Israel;” it was subsequently revised to read “entry into Israel and West Bank.” In reality, the Israeli authorities denied Chomsky the right of entry into the West Bank — he did not seek entry into Israel — a territory Israel controls by military force, for nearly 43 years, against the wishes of its Palestinian inhabitants and in violation of numerous international laws, conventions, and UN resolutions. It is interesting that the Israeli media (both Haaretz and Ynet) misrepresent this story by referring to it as a denial of entry to “Israel.”
It would be possible to identify with these intolerant reactions were it not for the fact that Israel itself is one of the world’s prolific boycotters. Not only does it boycott, it preaches to others, at times even forces others, to follow in tow. Israel has imposed a cultural, academic, political, economic and military boycott on the territories. At the same time, almost no one here utters a dissenting word questioning the legitimacy of these boycotts. Yet the thought of boycotting the boycotter? Now that’s inconceivable.
The president of the Interdisciplinary Center, Uriel Reichman, described the human rights watchdog B’Tselem as a “fifth column” and said that inviting its representatives to speak at the college was “disgraceful,” students who spoke to the president told Haaretz. Reichman denies ever making the statements.
For the past 43 years, Israel has been occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands conquered in 1967. Since then, and especially in the past 20 years, a campaign of ethnic cleansing has been vigorously underway, one which at times borders on genocide… Israel is methodically replacing the Palestinian population of Palestine with a Jewish population. This is not new. Looking back in time, one sees a pattern and direct connection between this and the 1948 period called the Nakba.
When life is reduced to this brand of “we want to live” you have to fabricate it, as it does not have the wherewithal to regenerate itself. There can be no life under occupation without a fight against occupation. In the absence of independence and national sovereignty, sorrow and joy and life itself can only exist within the context of a project for national independence. When this is abandoned or unravels, all you get is a contrived folk festival passed off as authenticity and the love for life.
At the end of the day, after Goldstone is finally exorcised as a witch and Israel’s human rights NGOs shut down, what then? Won’t accountability still be a cornerstone of the rule of law? Putting the diversions aside for a moment… are we not still left with alarming suspicions, partial information, and a very real need for a credible, independent investigation into Cast Lead?
On the 12th of May 2010, an Israeli Magistrates Court extended the political detentions of Palestinian civil society activists Dr. Omar Said and Ameer Makhoul by 4 and 5 days, respectively. The extensions were issued in closed door hearings in which Said and Makhoul were not permitted to meet their legal representatives. (Video)
A well-known American Jewish attorney who worked to deport former Nazis from the US is urging American officials to bar former judge Richard Goldstone from entering the country over his rulings during South Africa’s apartheid regime.
IOA Editor: Revenge… He was allowed to attend his grandson’s Bar-Mitzva, but we’ll block his entry to the US.
“The phenomenon of Holocaust denial in the Arab world is wrong, misleading and causes damage to the Palestinian cause.” In his new book, Lebanese-French academic Gilbert Achcar grapples for the first time with the Arab attitudes towards the Holocaust.
Toxic and carcinogenic metals, able to produce genetic mutations, have been found in the tissues of people wounded in Gaza during Israeli military operations of 2006 and 2009. The research has been carried out on wounds provoked by weapons that did not leave fragments in the bodies of the victims, a peculiarity that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors in Gaza. This shows that experimental weapons, whose effects are still to be assessed, were used.
The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday ruled that two Israeli Arab men arrested last week over allegations of spying and ties to Hezbollah will remain jailed until early next week… and ruled that Makhoul will not be able to see a lawyer until next Friday at the earliest. Dozens of activists gathered earlier Wednesday outside the Petah Tikva court to protest the arrest of the two Israeli Arabs over allegations of spying and ties to Hezbollah.
Israel’s sabotage of the peace talks, its rapid colonisation of the occupied Palestinian territories and its deadly incursions into Lebanon and Gaza worsened the deterioration of its image. In an attempt to halt this decline, the Israeli authorities, and their unconditional supporters in the West, continue to invoke the memory of the Holocaust in the hope that it will legitimise their actions. They have also attempted to implicate the Palestinians and the Arabs in the Nazi genocide.
A professor at Bethlehem University told me they refer to the [Bethlehem] checkpoint as “Lambs to the Slaughter,” and as I made my way through the metal chute towards the narrow turnstile, I did feel like a variety of livestock. In addition, the disembodied, garbled soldiers’ voices barking through loudspeakers gave the whole thing the aura of a dystopian science fiction novel.
Human rights organizations are persecuted – simple as that – exactly in the name of the refusal to know. “It is forbidden to know” means that it is forbidden for our consciousness to move freely among the facts, the scenes, the voices, the options. All these were supposed to comprise the awareness of the Israeli who lives five minutes from these unimaginable things – 43 years of military dictatorship over another people.
The Shin Bet security service is trying to recruit Palestinian medical students as a condition for granting them entry permits to Jerusalem, according to two medical students at Al-Quds University pursuing internships in Palestinian university hospitals in the city.
“We are demonstrating over the collective slander. An Arab doesn’t commit a crime alone, but rather in the name of the Arab nation. This is plainly an attempt to isolate and exclude the Arab population from any circle of legitimacy.”
In the past two weeks the Israeli internal intelligence agency, the Shabak / Shin Bet, arrested two prominent Israeli activists in the middle of the night. The men are well known leaders of Palestinian organizations inside Israel… arrested under secret evidence and a gag order was issued to the Israeli press regarding their arrests.
The original Hebrew version of the gag order issued by the Israeli court in the matter of the arrest and investigation of Ameer Makhoul, and a translation.
On Sunday, 23 May 2010, Ta’ayush activist Ezra Nawi will be jailed for a month for his protest against house demolitions in the Palestinian village of Um al-Chir (see video of action). As openly stated by his judge, the sentence is meant to deter him and others from such actions of protest. On the same day, Ta’ayush will hold a protest in support of Nawi in Jerusalem.
Dershowitz accused anarchist Jewish linguist Noam Chomsky of creating a hostile atmosphere among many groups in the United States and in its academic campuses. They are creating a narrative which always presents Israel as a Nazi occupier, he said, while shutting their eyes to facts contradicting those same claims, like the ties between Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during World War II.
IOA Editor: At no time did Noam Chomsky refer to Israel as a “Nazi occupier.” As the record amply shows, “Israeli occupier” is sufficiently cruel. Linking the Jerusalem Mufti to Hitler does not logically contradict any characterization of the Israeli occupation. On the Mufti-Hitler issue, see Gilbert Achcar: Israel’s Propaganda War – Blame the Grand Mufti.
Dershowitz’ desperately warped arguments are interesting: “legal terror,” for example. As a prominent lawyer, one would expect him to appreciate that “terrorism” is generally understood to mean “violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal… and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)” (Wikipedia). This definition is sufficiently broad to cover both the bombing of Gaza residential neighborhoods and the blowing up of Tel Aviv buses. On the other hand, legal challenges, unpleasant as they might be to the receiving party, are designed to be countered and resolved, in a civilized manner, in a court of law – something which an army of Israeli lawyers, and international supporters like Dershowitz, are working hard to block.
On “Delegitimization:” Conveniently, Israel’s ‘supporters’ equate criticism of Israeli actions — mostly, directly connected to the Occupation, and the Occupation itself — with denial of its right to exist. This is an old Hasbara trick: You criticize us, you’re really saying Israel has no right to exist. Left out of the discussion is “The right to exist as what?” As an occupying state? An Apartheid state? The term “delegitimization” is actually turned on its head: It is the Israelis who are attempting to delegitimize their critics by calling them “delegitimizers,” trying to blur the distinctions between “delegitimizers” and anti-Semites, consistent with old Israeli propaganda practices: If you criticize us, you’re either an anti-Semite — and Dershowitz’ reference to Nazism is designed to do just that — or you’re a sick, “self-hating” Jew. Chomsky, Finkelstein, and this writer, born to Jewish mothers, must be the latter.
For more on the important question of legitimacy of the state, and how it applies to Israel and other nation-states, see Noam Chomsky, Gilbert Achcar: On the Legitimacy of the State. More on “Delegitimization“
The commotion over the PA’s economic campaign against the settlements indicates, more than anything else, how the colonialist mindset has been branded into Israeli consciousness. The protests over the threatened loss of the hewers of wood and drawers of water shows how hard it is to shake off the master-servant attitudes that have taken root over the last 43 years.
The military censor on Monday lifted a gag order on news that two Israeli Arab political activists were arrested last week on charges of spying and contact with a foreign agent from Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Omar Sayid, a member of the Balad movement, and Amir Makhoul, director general of the charity Ittijah (Union of Arab Community-Based Associations) were detained by the Shin Bet security service and police anti-terror squads.
IOA Editor: “The Only Democracy in the Middle East” has a convenient way of dealing with non-violent opposition: Putting it away.
[W]ork has recently begun for the construction of 14 housing units in an old Israel Police station in East Jerusalem, where plans are in the works for the largest Jewish neighborhood in that part of the city… When the two neighborhoods are completed and linked, a Jewish settlement of more than 1,000 people will be situated in the heart of Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood comprising 14,000 Palestinians.
War and Peace Index survey shows 48% of Israelis believe US president managing relations with Israel poorly or very poorly, but clear majority defines ties between the two countries as very good or good; UK seen as less friendly than in the past
Who says Jewish humor has disappeared from Israel? Who says that even the state’s shadowiest organizations don’t enjoy occasional moments of levity, in between carrying out assassinations and foiling conspiracies? Israel’s ongoing fascistization, isolation, nationalism and militarism don’t make for much comic relief.
Seven years after the American activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, evidence has emerged which appears to implicate Israel’s Gaza commander at the time, in an attempt to obstruct the official investigation into her death.
