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47 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rubbish, 2 Feb 2004
Chomsky unabashedly writes about the facts of the US-Israeli-Palestinian relationship and undermines every prejudice that we as westerners use to justify our villification of the Palestinians - It is therefore our responsibility to label Chomsky with empty rhetoric as "anti-American", a supporter of Nazi theorists who deny the holocaust because Chomsky, a Jew himself, wrote a preface to a book by a mad French writer who denied the holocaust, ONLY after the French tried the theorist. Chomsky wrote the preface as a quickly penned defence of the democratic value 'freedom of speech' (which is not in support of the text - but in support of free speech) the same claim made by the majority of the West when Iran issued a Fatwa condemning Rushdie. OOOPs I accidentally revealed one aspect of western hypocrisy and I didn't even think of burning my bra, or trashing my local Macdonalds.All Chomsky asks is to look at the historical record, the historical facts, for example how many people were murdered, how much financial and military support US gave to repressive regimes, declassified documents, historical individuals central to the events etc - I would say facts, for example - page 182 in a footnote Chomsky quotes from David Ben Gurion's (surely a pretty important primary piece of evidence) independence war diary from January 1st 1948 explicitly condoning the military doctrine of attacking defenceless civilians. Chomsky tells us exactly where we ourselves can find all this information unlike the majority of generalised Israeli propaganda Chomsky gives us reams of notes / supporting evidence of his sources - obviously not hiding anything then. Ben Gurion states "What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place and casualties. If we know the family - [we must] strike mercilessly. women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is inefficient." The reaction of course is towards an occupied people fighting for their freedom and rights. - and yes a lot of Chomsky's work focuses on how the media failed to represent in the mainstream various atrocities that US and UK governments supported various totalitarian terrorist regimes like Suharto in Indonesia and the Contras in Nicaragua, Saddam in Iraq and Israel full stop etc etc the list is very long. Being aware of propaganda - which we are - is not the same as knowing exactly what that propaganda is. Chomsky demonstrates successfully what that propaganda is and the sytems whereby it works. Its application to Israel is one of the crowning achievments of US propaganda. If you hate morality, justice, truth, international law, human rights then please do not waste money on this book because it is rubbish. Chomsky disgustingly writes a factual, evidence based, thouroughly researched history in which the Palestinians are human beings in the US-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Therefore he must be a self-loathing Jew and anti-American because he opposes a US government policy where the massacare of tens of thousands of women and children is acceptable. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD.
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by Norman G. Finkelstein
by Ilan Pappe
by Noam Chomsky
