Chomsky’s writings share pride of place in Radio Islam’s voluminous online library with such anti-Semitic classics as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion Hitler’s Mein Kampf Henry Ford’s The International Jew and the works of Chomsky’s protégés Robert Faurisson Serge Thion and Israel Shahak.
While Chomsky usually avoids making overtly anti-Jewish statements in his own writings preferring to legitimate others who do so sometimes he lets down his guard. In a column in the leftist magazine The Lies of Our Times published in 1990 Chomsky wrote the Jews do not merit a ‘second homeland’ because they already have New York with a huge Jewish population Jewish-run media a Jewish mayor and domination of cultural and economic life.
And in a more recent published interview entitled Anti-Semitism Zionism and the Palestinians Chomsky says By now Jews in the U.S. are the most privileged and influential part of the population…. Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem fortunately. It’s raised but it’s raised because privileged people want to make sure they have total control not just 98 percent control. That’s why anti-Semitism is becoming an issue. Not because of the threat of anti-Semitism; they want to make sure there’s no critical look at the policies the U.S. (and they themselves) support in the Middle East…. We should bear it in mind when there’s talk in the U.S. about anti-Semitism.
Claims that Jews are the most privileged and influential part of the population and that they seek total control are of course at the center of most anti-Semitic discourse over the past one hundred and fifty years including most famously the notorious Protocols.
However vehemently Chomsky denies his anti-Semitism whatever pains he takes to conceal it behind the veil of anti-Zionism we have to look the facts in the face. He constantly denounces a Jewish entity that represents millions of Jews and on which the lives of millions of Jews – perhaps ultimately all Jews – are dependent as evil and vicious. He’s had many opportunities to denounce anti-Semitism and anti-Semites but has consistently failed to do so. And he has given assistance and comfort to anti-Semites both covertly and not so covertly.
Chomsky’s numerous admirers may regard him as a courageous voice for justice progress morality and truth. But surely anti-Semitism when called by any other name smells just as foul.
