Professor Noam Chomsky is an outstanding, anti-racist Jewish American linguistics scholar at the prestigious, 73-Nobel-Laureate Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, Massachusetts, USA (for detailed biography see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky ; for links to many of Professor Chomsky’s writings also see his website : http://www.chomsky.info/ ).
Professor Noam Chomsky and other outstanding writers: “The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.
That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources - most particularly that of water - by the Israeli Defence (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.
Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?
Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.
This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognised for what it is and resisted.
(Signed) Tariq Ali, Russell Banks, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Eduardo Galeano, Charles Glass, Naomi Klein, W.J.T. Mitchell, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy. Jose Saramago, Giiuliana Sgrena, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn.” [1].
Professor Noam Chomsky re Apartheid Israel and Apartheid South Africa, 2008 : “There are similarities and differences. Within Israel itself, there is serious discrimination, but it's very far from South African Apartheid. Within the occupied territories, it's a different story. In 1997, I gave the keynote address at Ben-Gurion University in a conference on the anniversary of the 1967 war. I read a paragraph from a standard history of South Africa. No comment was necessary. Looking more closely, the situation in the OT differs in many ways from Apartheid. In some respects, South African Apartheid was more vicious than Israeli practices, and in some respects the opposite is true. To mention one example, White South Africa depended on Black labor. The large majority of the population could not be expelled. At one time Israel relied on cheap and easily exploited Palestinian labor, but they have long ago been replaced by the miserable of the earth from Asia, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear. And it is no secret that the policies that have taken shape accord well with the recommendations of Moshe Dayan right after the 1967 war: Palestinians will "continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave."” [2].
Professor Noam Chomsky re Gaza Concentration Camp, “huge prison”, 15 July 2006: “If there's a conflict going on, aside physical war, not in a military conflict going on, abduction -- if soldiers are captured, they are to be treated humanely. But it is not a crime at the level of capture of civilians and bringing them across the border into your own country. That's a serious crime. And that's the one that's not reported. And, in fact, remember that -- I mean, I don't have to tell you that there are constant attacks going on in Gaza, which is basically a prison, huge prison, under constant attack all the time: economic strangulation, military attack, assassinations, and so on. In comparison with that, abduction of a soldier, whatever one thinks about it, doesn't rank high in the scale of atrocities.” [3].
Professor Noam Chomsky to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a New Hampshire student group promoting divestment in Israel: “I would like to express my strong support for the work of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), specifically their calls for divestment from US corporations that are directly involved in Israel’s criminal activities in the occupied territories. I would also like to commend the important educational and organizational efforts that laid the basis for the call. The SJP statement … is fully defensible in moral and legal terms. The organizers deserve congratulations and support for having once again led Hampshire College to spearhead opposition to major crimes, as it did 30 years ago in its opposition to South African apartheid, opening a path that others could follow.” [4].
[1]. Letter from Noam Chomsky with Tariq Ali, Russell Banks, John Berger, Richard Falk, Eduardo Galeano, Charles Glass, Naomi Klein, W.J.T. Mitchell, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, Jose Saramago, Giiuliana Sgrena, Gore Vidal, and Howard Zinn re Palestine, Peninsular Peace and Justice Centre, Palo Alto, Califoirnai, USA, 19 July 2006: http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php?story=20060726115326120&query=zinn .
[2]. Interviews with Professors Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé, OpEd News, 25 September 2008: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Noam-Chomsky-Ilan-Pappe-In-by-Duffer2205-080925-957.html .
[3]. Professor Noam Chomsky interviewed by Amy Goodman, Conn Hallinan, “Israel/Palestine”, ZNet, 15 July 2006: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/3566 .
[4]. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a New Hampshire student group promoting divestment in Israel, “Endorsements“, 2009: http://www.hsjp.org/endorsements/ .
Noam Chomsky (famed anti-racist Jewish American writer and linguistics professor at 85-Nobel-Laureate MIT): “In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid. To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by "apartheid" you mean South African-style apartheid. What’s happening in the Occupied Territories is much worse” (David Wilson, “From Albert Einstein to Noam Chomsky: famous Jews who have opposed Israel”, Stop the War Coalition, 12 August 2014: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/1307-from-albert-einstein-to-noam-chomsky-famous-jews-who-have-opposed-israel ).
Noam Chomsky: “There is good reason to believe that he [Uri Avnery] is right. Israel is deliberately turning itself into one of the most hated countries in the world, and is also losing the allegiance of the population of the West, including younger American Jews, who are unlikely to tolerate its persistent shocking crimes for long. Decades ago, I wrote that those who call themselves “supporters of Israel” are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction. Regrettably, that judgment looks more and more plausible. Meanwhile we are quietly observing a rare event in history, what the late Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called “politicide,” the murder of a nation — at our hands” (“Jewish Intellectuals Who Have Opposed Zionism and/or Israeli Racism, Injustices, Occupation, Apartheid and/or Ethnic Cleansing”, Hypertext: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Jewish%20Intellectuals%20Who%20Opposed%20Zionism%20Israel%20Racism%20Injustices%20Apartheid%20Ethnic%20Cleansing.htm ).