Chomsky was one of hundreds of academics to recently sign an open letter to the university in support of Miller.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Prof. Noam Chomsky, American linguist and political activist, defended his support of Prof. David Miller, the British sociologist who has been accused of “inciting hatred against Jewish students” at the University of Bristol, London’s The Jewish Chronicle reported Monday.

“I have strongly defended the right of genuine war criminals like [former secretary of state] Henry Kissinger, [former White House adviser] Walt Rostow, and others to spew forth their hateful and murderous propaganda in universities,” said Chomsky.

“This is a much milder case, and I think the same principles should apply,” he said.

Chomsky was one of hundreds of academics to recently sign an open letter to the university in support of Miller.

“At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has reinvigorated public consciousness about the structural factors entrenching racism, attempts to stifle discourse on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are particularly regressive and inconsistent with the values the University of Bristol espouses,” said the letter.

“As public intellectuals and academics, we feel duty-bound to express our solidarity with Professor Miller and to oppose such efforts to crush academic freedom,” the letter said.

Over 100 members of British parliament disagreed and sent their own letter to the university.

“Hundreds of academics have, in our opinion, disgraced your profession, shaming themselves by signing a factually inaccurate letter, supporting a man who has undermined the safety and security of Jewish students under the pretense of free speech,” the letter said.

The members of parliament accused Miller of promoting an “anti-Semitic conspiracy fantasy” and “inciting hatred against Jewish students.”

In a videoconference last month, Miller said he wanted to “end of Zionism as a functioning ideology” and said that Jewish students were “being used as political pawns by a violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.”

In regard to Miller’s quotes, Chomsky told The Jewish Chronicle, “I don’t like what is reported, most of which seems to be in reaction to condemnations of him.”

Chomsky himself is no stranger to anti-Israel rhetoric.

In a November 2018 interview with i24 News, Chomsky spoke of “Judeo-Nazis” and said that Gaza was a “concentration camp.”

“The Palestinians are in a very grim situation now. The Trump administration is the most extreme in its support of Israeli expansion and repression. It’s the first administration to have accepted Israel’s takeover of Jerusalem,” Chomsky said.

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According to the world’s “top public intellectual,” Israeli intervention in US elections, “vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done.” 

By: Alan M. Dershowitz, The Gatestone Institute

Noam Chomsky has gone off the deep end once again. This time he claims that in “most of the world” the issue of Russian interference in US elections is “almost a joke.” The real villain, according to him, is, of course, Israel — as it almost always is with Chomsky. According to the world’s “top public intellectual,” Israeli intervention in US elections, “vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done.”

His proof of this absurd and false charge is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in front of Congress “with overwhelming applause.”

Only on Planet Chomsky would it be worse for the Prime Minister of an American ally openly to accept an invitation from the Speaker of the House to address Congress about an issue of mutual concern, than for Russian agents surreptitiously to try to manipulate voters by false social media campaigns, hacking emails and other illegal actions.

Chomsky simply fails to understand how democracy is supposed to work. Transparency and public accountability are the cornerstones of democracy. Netanyahu’s very public opposition to Obama’s Iran Deal — a deal opposed by most members of Congress and most Americans — was just as consistent with democracy as Winston Churchill’s public demands for the United States to help Great Britain fight the Nazis.

American presidents, as well as Israeli prime ministers, seek to influence the policies and electoral choices made by their allies. That, too, is part of democracy. The United States has pressured Israel to stop building settlements, Israel has pressured the United States to be more aggressive in preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. This, too, is part of democracy.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is an American organization that lobbies on behalf of American support for Israel. Lobbying is as American as apple pie.

What is un-American, and what is undemocratic, is for secret agents working surreptitiously on behalf of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to commit numerous crimes, for which several of its agents have been indicted, in an effort to influence American elections without transparency or public accountability.

Chomsky is smart enough to understand this, but his willful blindness toward anything involving Israel leads him to make the kind of false comparative statement that no intellectual should ever make. Again, only on Planet Chomsky would Russia’s continuous efforts improperly to intervene in American elections would be characterized as “almost a joke.” Only on Planet Chomsky would Israel’s open, transparent and democratic efforts to have America support its security be deemed worse than Russia’s crimes. But such blindness is to be expected from Chomsky when it comes to anything regarding Israel, Jews, or anti-Semitism.

Remember this is the same man who defended the so-called “research” of the notorious Holocaust-denier, Robert Faurisson. Not only did Chomsky defend Faurisson’s phony research, but he denied that Faurisson — who is a notorious Jew-hater — had said anything that qualifies as anti-Semitic. Here is what Chomsky wrote:

“I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work…”

Chomsky, who is a prominent linguist, knows nothing of the meaning of language in context. Holocaust denial is quintessentially anti-Semitic because it falsely accuses the Jews of fabricating stories of the murder of six million Jews.

Experts understand that there are different kinds of intelligence. Chomsky may be intelligent when it comes to linguistics, but his statements regarding Israel, Russia, and the Holocaust are simply counter-factual. There is no other word for his bizarre views, if he actually believes them. If he does not, then there is another word that aptly describes his statements: bigotry.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of “The Case Against Impeaching Trump,” Skyhorse publishing, 2018.

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