I read the original article  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/03/336612.html?c=on#c145143 .
I heard Chomsky criticised it but haven't read his criticism until you linked to it, it is hardly stern criticism, at least by his standards.
There is a lot to criticise in the report as well as praise, and Chomsky has earned his opinion as he has written about this extensively and taken it to a wider audience in the US previously, although the report probably will shock many US citizens. Basically W&M argue that US foriegn policy should be guided solely by US national interests. I think the US national interst would in oil wars in the middle-east even if the Israel lobby, Israel itself and the whole Jewish race didn't exist. Even without Israel, it remains in US interests to control the region because of the primacy of oil as an expoitable natural resource. I think the Iraq war is an out and out oil war, regardless of the effect of other issues, and I think the proof of that is the privatisations there and the long term bases being built.

I don't approve of any national government, especially one that can be so openly purchsed by the rich. I don't approve of the Israel lobby or any other but I think Chomsky is right that blaming US middle-east policy on Israel is simply scapegoating Israel for US crimes. Bush should hang for Falluja, Sharon should hang for Shatilla. Blame Israel for Palestine and the US and UK for Iraq. Maybe the Israelis approved of the Iraq slaughter but you are forgetting WE actually did it. Wagging apart, if a dog bites you you don't blame the tail, you muzzle the jaws.

Chomsky says 'It was, as noted, published in the London Review of Books, which is far more open to discussion on these issues than US journals -- a matter of relevance (to which I'll return) to the alleged influence of what M-W call "the Lobby."'

The London Review of Books have since admitted that they capitalised 'Lobby' and not Walt and Mearsheimer and that this gave a false impression that W-M considered it an actual lobby rather than a virtual lobby. ie a series of individuals lobbying for their own agendas that coincide on Israel rather than an official lobby which has only one opinion on one issue. I don't think Chosmky would've used the word Lobby so disparagingly if he had known that, although he is a disparaging old bugger.

I think Chomsky should be criticised whenever we can, as he is too smart for our own good, but I don't think you got him this time. Reading the Walt and Meirsheimer report they did come across to me as right-wing Republicans who for solidly patriotic and nationalistic reasons opposed the undue Israeli influence on their government. They certainly don't seem too progressive to a european anarchist. They'd be arguing for invading here if we had oil.

I also read the Jeff Blankfort links but the links you have chosen doesn't do his arguments any favours. For instance, Blankfort says "In particular, Chomsky ignores or misinterprets the efforts made by every US president, beginning with Richard Nixon, to curb Israel's expansionism, to halt its settlement building and to obtain its withdrawal from the Occupied Territories."
Well, variations on other US over-riding of Israeli interests form big part of Chomsky's criticism of Walts & Meirsheimer, so that's a bit ironic, but why should anyone take supposed 'efforts' by US presidents to reign in Israeli settlements when they are simultaneously paying for them with overseas aid ? It implies the US presidents are either idiots or that most US society are Israeli agents. I can just imagine the conversation, "Hey, we gave you $6 billion last year and for the last decades, and we told you not to build settlements with it but you did anyway each year. You lie and lie to us and it hurts our feelings. Now here is another $6 billion dollars in aid, please don't spend it on any more settlements".

When the US seriously wants to reign in Israel, it can and does.

just wondering if we would be tolerated

Blames everything on U.S. corporations but shields the Zionist Money Masters. He is an useless piece of shit.

See, there are lots of people here who would love to take Chomsky to bits, he is a smart guy and therefore a smart-arse and we all hate that. And some people around here do dissect him, some just from posting 'middle-class wanker', which is fair criticism to me although not quite intellectual. He works for MIT and ponitificates widely, we owe it to ourselves to bring him down a peg or two, but you aren't managing so far.

Chomsky blames US corporations more than the Israel lobby for the worlds ills ? So do I, without kow-towing to Chomsky I think that fact is obvious and easily proven. US corpoarations are responsiblke for more of the worlds ills than any other narrowly defined group.

To pretend he is shielding Israel from criticism, that is so ridiculous an assertion to be considered 'deflection'. Chomsky, for all his faults, is a worthy anarchist intellectual - just like me he might not be be too humble or pleasant or always correct, and unlike me he probably has a big pension coming to him, but also unlike both me and you he has spent most of his life exposing and publicising the gap between US policy between Palestine and Israel in the US. If you blamed the US corporations more and Israel less then you would be closer to the truth. That isn't the same as saying Israel is blameless, far from it. If you hate Sharon you shouldn't attack Chomsky first.

Is it me or are we getting a "nice" seam of ZOG loons on IMC UK all of a sudden?

That Chomsky doesn't sart writing about ZOG is imho totally consistent with his (according to some "anti-semtetic") position and futhermore proof that amazingly for the man's age he hasn't descended into senilty.

Perhaps a start would be to get all Jewsih (sounding and looking... and anbody you don' like) "fanaciers" to wear yellow arm bands. Purely, in the interests of openess. Then after that we could exclude them from commerce and seize their assest (in the name of erm "socialism").

Good greif! Is the David Icke forum offline???

"Likewise the BBC documentary (2002) claims that the Liberty incident provoked the launch of nuclear-armed planes targeted against Cairo from a US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. They were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the Liberty had not sunk with all hands, and that Israel was responsible" -wikipedia

I do think this is an iconic incident for those americans who claim US citizens are innocent, just are manipulated by Israelis. An american spy ship was sunk by the Israeli air force during a war. This is often held up by left-wing US citizens as a great treacherous crime by Israel against the US, Israeli pilots targetting innocent US servicemen. And that is true to a degree. However I find the initial US response to this incident more telling. They assumed their attackers were Egyptian and so they launched nuclear bombers to incinerate Cairo. To incinerate the pyramids and the sphinx and countless millions of innocents simply to right a perceived wrong. One US ship sinks, one arab city burns. A few hundred US sailors are killed, a few million arabs deserve to die. Even if the egyptian government had ordered the attack on the Liberty, that doesn't justify a Nagasaki.

So Israel attacking a foriegn spy-boat is a war-crime, one that took the brunt of the BBC documentary criticism, but the US launching a nuclear strike against an innocent arab city is an understandable error ? That is the true nature of USuk media bias. I don't think US citizens are the root of all evil. All empires act in this ruthless, arbitary way, the 'British' Empire certainly did. I do know the US empire was the first to prove it's weaponary could eliminate the rest of humanity, without apologies, and I do know they are stupid enough not to care where they bomb. Imagine Northern Ireland was an independent state ran by Paisley, but with an aparthied policy and two hundred nukes - that is Israel. Now picture George Bush as Caesar of the worlds greatest war machine, George W first president oif the planet. Now ignore George W Bush and insert his dad or Clinton or Reagan or Carter. Or Ford or Johnson...

There is one super-power left in the world, and even it was a real democracy it would not be admirable for simply pursuing it's own ends. It suits some people to blame Israel for every ill - and Israel should be criticised and perhaps even abandoned - but the root of these problems are closer to home. No Israeli ever launched a nuclear stike against Cairo. There are no Israelis occupying Iraq.

Secondary issue perhaps, but don't you find it weird that in the UK we can blame the Israelis for the Suez Crisis while we were prosecuting their leaders as hostile terrorists just a few years before ? War in that region suits neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis, it suits us - our corporate leaders that is. I bet Blair and Bush / similar successors supposed religion dries up when the oil from the mid-east oil dries up.

Over 90% of Jews today are descendants of the Khazars - Turkic-Mongols of Central Asia - who never set foot in Palestine.

Anti-Semite? Blow it out your ass, Khazar.

 http://www.rense.com/general70/rites.htm

Those 10% real semites consist mostly of the decendents of people either living in Palestine at the time of its military conquest by organised zionist paramilitary/terrorist gangs from eastern europe, or those living in other middle eastern countries before mossad agents dove them out with campaigns of murder and intimidation.

Oh, and those semites still at large in the world, include Palestinians, whose ancestors were the original semite inhabitants of the area.

But those are just the facts ... don't let them inform your decision making process ... just see who you 'feel' are the greater victims and let propaganda take the strain.

[ps. I am one of the 10%, so fuck you zionist khazars]

>Since when are Jews, Semites?
>Over 90% of Jews today are descendants of the Khazars - Turkic-Mongols of Central Asia - who never set foot in Palestine.

So what ? Turks are semites too. The term semitic refers to the descendants of Shem, which includes all Jews and Arabs and many other peoples. It is as unscientific as Noahs ark. The term 'anti-semitic' was invented by Wilhelm Marr in his book "The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism" and so has been taken to equate to 'anti-Judaic'. I think it is ridiculous for Jews to use proto-nazi terminology, but if the term is to be used it should be recognised that it also applies to arabs, persians, turks and syrians.
Interestingly enough, to confuse things further the term Palestinian was used by the nazis to refer to the Jewish race.

The notion of "racial purity" is a fallacy to begin with. On a macro level there are only a tiny amount of physical characterists that differ between perceived races... and a distinct continuum between them.

Ironicy, the cultures that have been most in favour of ideas of distinct racial groups and of racial purity/superiority have been themselves far less pure than the groups they have held up as "primitives". The groups that by the those rules of biological purity that tended to come out on top were remote tribes in places like the Amazon. It's a shame Hitler didn't live long enough to read the research.

This is why science and especially social science and the humanities tends toward the concept of 'ethnicity'. Ethnicity suggest that group identity is in the strictest sense supernatural and therefore totally psychological.

So there you go. We're all pretty much a bunch of mongrels descended from omnivorous apes made of space dust in Africa.

How many people even know where their great-grandparents came from?

While searching for some valid criticism of Chomsky I found out that 'Nim Chimpsky' isn't the slanderous term I'd always assumed. He was a chimp that was taught sign language and named in honour of Chomsky even though Chomsky disapproved. Chomsky thought you could learn nothing useful about human grammar and linguistics from animals.

Wikipedia lists many of Nim's sayings including:
* Banana Nim banana Nim
* Banana eat me Nim
* Banana me Nim me
* Banana me eat banana
* Drink Nim drink Nim
* Drink eat drink eat
* Drink eat me Nim
* Eat Nim eat Nim
* Eat drink eat drink
* Eat grape eat Nim
* Eat me Nim drink
* Grape eat Nim eat
* Grape eat me Nim
* Me Nim eat me
* Me eat drink more
* Me eat me eat
* Me gum me gum
* Nim eat Nim eat
* Play me Nim play
* Tickle me Nim play

It might not tell us much about grammar but it does indicate the primary concerns of chimpanzees. Someone must have taught Nim the word 'burger' for he died of a heart attack at the unusually young age of 26.

So what ? Turks are semites too.

WTF? So when are the Turks going to carve out Israel Shithole II in some already-occupied territory? Occupied even before the Turks became Turks. The whole point is that the Khazar-Russian-Jews should not be in Palestine. Period.

But you already know this, doncha Danny-boy.

they are dead. We could have had a Hitchens vs Galloway style debate.

>WTF?

It means 'what the fuck?', an expression of incredulity, nothing more. I don't mean to depress you but that is probably going to be your last thought since you resort to it so quickly. My last thought is likely to be 'Shit! I still haven't come up with a good last thought'

>So when are the Turks going to carve out Israel Shithole II in some already-occupied territory?

See, that isn't even a proper sentence so I find it hard to know how to respond. I challenge you tommorow to remember what you were trying to say last night and to restate it so I can understand too, so it is idiot proof. Or if there is anyone else who can interpret for us, perhaps I have a different dictionary.

>Occupied even before the Turks became Turks.

Well, the ancient land of Israel was occupied by jews before the lyddians became Turks no doubt , displacing some other people violently no doubt. Shit happened, in most corners of the world we got over it. Turkey is a 20th century construct, more like modern Israel, like Palestine will be. Myself, I favour the 'no-state solution' but pragmatically I recognise the Palestians may need to go through the stage of electing representatives to pretend to rule over them, while the Israelis cling to their state furhers like children to their abusive mothers apron.

>The whole point is that the Khazar-Russian-Jews should not be in Palestine. Period.

Are you arguing against mass immigraion to Israel from Eastern Europe ? Me, I think jews from Eastern Europe or any where else should be allowed to travel freely wherever, just forbidden to shoot the locals once they get there. I hope you realise I am not idealistic. I imagine if we survive long enough, even Israel and Palestine can be embarassed into giving up their borders once the rest of our nations have shown then the way, when the only political map left in the world shows Israel, Palestine and the rest of the world.


>But you already know this, doncha Danny-boy.

I think I have already proven my lack of comprehension of whatever point you were trying to make. If you even understand half of what I am trying to convey to you, then have a coffee and tell me tommorow. If you think I should be ashamed at how little I have done to help Palestinians suffering from Israeli oppression, that is true too - but I bet it is also true for you and I am aiming to make up through deed rather than word, the way I learned.

>Genghis Khan

You know how many mongol lads are called Jengis, a scary percentage. And they drink. And they shoot arrows backwards on horses. And they are dying en masse. I must admit you have chosen a scary name, but I've chosen a fearless name.

"So when are the Turks going to carve out Israel Shithole II in some already-occupied territory? "

I presume it could be readthus:

Please admit you are less clever than me because you have cited Turkey and Turkey aren't intending to occupy enmasse someone else's territory.

I'll bite my lip on the 'K' word and cross to this to Danny who should be the one kicking this ball.

I agree with Ghengis and the BNP: we should all piss off back to where we came from. Since I don't see Holland and the United States welcoming me back with open arms (maybe loaded firearms and a boot up my arse back across te border) and the same is probably true for most others, I suggest we all convene enmasse in Africa.

There probably won't be enough room, so I think we should also start a programme of re-instating a primordial swamp full of lovely bacteria and single-celled organisms. Eventually, we can have the entire world's population "liquidised" but I bagsy being the guy working the blender.

Borders exist to protect the wealth of the elite. To delineate taxation obligations. To stop us all wadering around and organising as we please. They are not naturally occuring geological features despite someimes coinciding with them.

Ethnicity has been heavily shaped by this process, but isn't interchangeable as a definition. Ethnicities can be based on any number of concpts of kinship/affinity/community.

I find Jewish identity fascinating, notleast because I'm impressed at how it survived against all the odds, but how wide and varied the beliefs of Jews can be.

Jewish ethnicity in a strange way points to a that things don't have to be as they are. Communiities can challenge common perceptions and endure in the most unlikely settings.

Is Israel a bad thing? I'll bet most Israelis wish that there wasn't a war either and probably like most people conduct themselves in a decent manner. I object to Israel as a state- aside from the fact object the to the concept of statehood as we know it- because it is a violent landgrab that causes considerable human suffering on both sides of the "battlefield". The suffering in keeping with the traditions of moderrn warfare are larely innocent civillians.

Objection to states based on some bullshit books and maps that were written/draughted 2 millenia ago strikes me as a rather untenable position for argument. The process that ebabled Israel to exist was fundamentally flawed and we are seeing the aftermath of that now. Now, is all we have. What do you do with the millions of people who now live in Israel: "Sorry, there's been a big mistake, I'm going ask you all to leave in an orderly manner. No, sorry, I don't know where you should go. Goodbye!"

Ever since I was a child I could never get my head round the concept of someone owning a piece of land. It wasn't helped much later when I discovered that in effect they just borrowing it from the State.

"So when are the Turks going to carve out Israel Shithole II in some already-occupied territory? "

I'd love to refute Ghengis point but I still don't understand it. Is it anti-Israeli, anti-Turkish, anti-Palestinian or anti-Mongolian or all of the above ? I suppose it could be an attempt to get me to condemn Turkey's 'occupation' and persecution of Kurdistan. Or to point out when RAF piltos landed at Turkish air-strips while 'policing' the USuk imposed 'no-fly zone' in Iraq, Turkish planes would then take off to bomb Iraqi Kurds. None of the regional players are too pleased that the US has effectively given the Kurds a homeland rich in hydrocarbons. With northern Iraq now Kurdish, that leaves the Scots as the only people on earth who have got relatively poorer after discovering oil.

"Objection to states based on some bullshit books and maps that were written/draughted 2 millenia ago strikes me as a rather untenable position for argument."

The term Semite comes from Shem, Noah's son. All the Abrahamic religions name-check Noah. Islam, Christianity and Judaism all speak of him as God's favourite flood survivor. Trouble is, the flood myth is far older than that, the world's oldest surviving story covers exactly the same ground, if you forgive the pun. The Epic of Gilgamesh was already was already carved into tablets long before Noah was dreamed up by some ancient L.Ron Hubbard tripping on desert plants. I mean, how embarrassing, you invent three variations of the same religion to fight to the death over a mythical story, and then you find out that story is plagarised. The old testament is the original 'dodgy-dossier'. If we are to base mid-east realpolitik on ancient texts then we should go to the source - long live the Sumerian Liberation Army !
 http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab1.htm

if my life were a movie
i would light a cigarette
and the smoke would curl around my face
everything i do would be interesting
i'd play the good guy
in every scene
but i always feel i have to
take a stand
and there's always someone on hand
to hate me for standing there
i always feel i have to open my mouth
and every time i do
i offend someone
somewhere

but what
what if no one's watching
what if when we're dead, we are just dead
what if there's no time to lose
what if there's things we gotta do
things that need to be said

you know i can't apologize
for everything i know
i mean you don't have to agree with me
but once you get me going
you better just let me go
we have to be able to criticize
what we love
say what we have to say
'cause if you're not trying to make something better
then as far as i can tell
you are just in the way

i mean what
what if no one's watching
what if when we're dead
we are just dead
what if it's just us down here
what if god is just an idea
someone put in your head

To say that the US government is all the blame for the oppression of the Palestinians (or Israel's various pretextual invasions of its neighbors, including the mostly 17,000-20,000 civilians Israel killed in Lebanon, not to mention Sabra & Shatila and Qana, or the massacred of 1,000's of captured and disarmed Egyptian soldiers held prisoner in Israel's pretextual invasion of Egypt in the '67 war), and not really blame Israel and not at all the Israel lobby (as Chomsky says), or to say that US corporations are all to blame (as one "leftist" poster above does), is like saying that Western capitalism/industrialists (which/who originally supported Hitler) and Western imperialism was really to blame and not Hitler or the Nazi party for anything that they did from 1932 - 1945.

Chomsky says that sanctions against Israel or blaming the Israel lobby is "letting the US government off the hook". Well, isn't _only_ blaming the US government letting Israel and the Israel lobby off the hook too?

Chomsky opposes _ANY_ divestment from, and boycotts and sanctions against Zionist apartheid Israel. Would Chomsky have _dared_ to have taken such a position regarding the international divestment, boycott and sanctions movement against, then, apartheid South Africa?

The problem is that Chomsky _supports_ Israel's otherwise fait accompli in taking over at _least_ 80% of Palestine - and leaving the indigenous/native Palestinian people with some bantustan version, called "the Palestinian state", of whatever is left.

"
To say that the US government is all the blame for the oppression of the Palestinians (or Israel's various pretextual invasions of its neighbors, including the mostly 17,000-20,000 civilians Israel killed in Lebanon, not to mention Sabra & Shatila and Qana, or the massacred of 1,000's of captured and disarmed Egyptian soldiers held prisoner in Israel's pretextual invasion of Egypt in the '67 war), and not really blame Israel and not at all the Israel lobby (as Chomsky says), or to say that US corporations are all to blame (as one "leftist" poster above does), is like saying that Western capitalism/industrialists (which/who originally supported Hitler) and Western imperialism was really to blame and not Hitler or the Nazi party for anything that they did from 1932 - 1945.#
"

That is a long sentence - did you start off meaning to end up where you wandered ? Punctuation isn't a fascist construct you know. Let me cut that down to it's it's core simply for comprehension.

"To say that the US government is all the blame for the oppression of the Palestinians and not really blame Israel and not at all the Israel lobby, or to say that US corporations are all to blame is like saying that Western capitalism/industrialists and Western imperialism was really to blame the Nazi party for anything that they did from 1932 - 1945"

That is indeed an arguable case. Henry Ford was a Fascist. IBM supplied the equipment to document the genocide. Prescott Bush made a killing in Nazi Germany. And you are seeking to ridicule this case - while simultanelously ridiculing 'the worlds favourite intellectual' - forgive me, you've lost me again. Did you have a point that I've missed in that novella of a sentence ?

"Chomsky says that sanctions against Israel or blaming the Israel lobby is "letting the US government off the hook". Well, isn't _only_ blaming the US government letting Israel and the Israel lobby off the hook too?"

While the US subsidises the Israeli state to the amout of billions of dollars per year then a boycott seems a gesture action at best.

"homsky opposes _ANY_ divestment from, and boycotts and sanctions against Zionist apartheid Israel. Would Chomsky have _dared_ to have taken such a position regarding the international divestment, boycott and sanctions movement against, then, apartheid South Africa?"

Because, stupid, the apartheid South African governments weren't subsidised by the US state, they were funded by big business such as international oil companies and royalist British banks.

"The problem is that Chomsky _supports_ Israel's otherwise fait accompli in taking over at _least_ 80% of Palestine - and leaving the indigenous/native Palestinian people with some bantustan version, called "the Palestinian state", of whatever is left."

The problem is that is a an obvious and silly lie.