Chomsky minimized the brutality of the post-1975 Communist Vietnamese government in the 1970s and 1980s. The following decade, Noam was a strong supporter of French Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson.
Even for the far-Left, these stances were too much to stomach, and Chomsky was close to being ghetto-ized into the nostalgia section of academic thought, a sort of Donovan of academia.
But with the election of George W. Bush in 2000, and the beginning of the War on Terror, irrational hatred of America became a popular past-time among the Left.
And Chomsky proved F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong: There can be a second act in American lives.
For Christmas, I received a book edited by David Horowitz and Peter Collier, The Anti-Chomsky Reader. His fellow writer Steven Plaut tipped me off about Paul Bogdanor's site. Chapter four of The Anti-Chomsky Reader contains Bogdanor's essay, Chomsky's War Against Israel.
Bogdanor has expanded that essay in a new book he co-edited with Edward Alexander, The Jewish Divide Over Israel : Accusers and Defenders.
Here is an excerpt:
From Chapter 6: The Devil State: Chomsky’s War Against Israel:
In Chomsky’s mental universe, there are few questions about Israel and the Middle East that cannot be resolved by equating Jews with Nazis. Does Israel have a right to pre-emptive self-defense? Such arguments recall "Hitler’s moves to blunt the Czech dagger pointed at the heart of Germany… Hitler’s conceptions have struck a responsive chord in current Zionist commentary." Does Israel face threats to its security? "Hitler and Goebbels… gave a similar justification for their resort to force." Does Israel conduct military operations against terrorists? "Gestapo operations in occupied Europe also 'were justified in the name of combating "terrorism"'…" Has Israel shown a commitment to the peace process? "Does it deserve to be described as a 'peace process'? Hitler’s campaign to conquer Europe was also dubbed a 'peace process.'" How much time and effort Chomsky would save if he simply programmed his computer to spew out "Hitler" and "Goebbels" and "Gestapo" and "Nazi" at every mention of the wicked Zionists!
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