Noam Chomsky Spews Lies About Palestinian Statehood on Democracy Now!

This video's a week old, but quite timely considering President Obama's speech at the United Nations today and postponement of the vote on Palestinian statehood. And just listen to Chomsky around 4:00 minutes:

The U.S. has blocked ceasefire efforts at the time of Israeli attacks. In fact, Obama himself—you can take a look at his—I don’t know if he still has it, but in his website prior to the election, there was a section on the Middle East. And it’s worth looking at. It gives you an indication of what’s been happening since. It’s full of, you know, adoration of Israel. You expect that. Practically not a word about the Palestinians, a few phrases saying maybe they should have some rights. But that was right in the middle of the latest Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, a brutal, murderous invasion, without any credible pretext — you can go into that—actually, the fifth such invasion. And Obama took pride, in his webpage, in having co-sponsored a Senate resolution, right in the middle of the invasion, insisting that nothing be done to impede Israel’s attack in Lebanon and that the U.S. should censure and maybe sanction anyone who tried to interfere with it—Iran and Syria.

That's just one long astonishing stream of lies. It's not just this part about Israel's alleged "brutal, murderous invasion" of Lebanon in 2006, but notice how Chomsky piles on 4 more lies, with this part about "the fifth such invasion" by Israel, etc. So, counting back, we have Gaza in 2009, Lebanon in 2006, Lebanon in 1982, Yom Kippur in 1973, and the Six Day War of 1967. There are a few other conflicts, but these are probably the ones Chomsky's referencing. And in each case, Israel acted in self-defense, or as preemption in the case of 1967. That is, the "credible pretext" has been either border incursions into Israel, rocket attacks, terrorism against Israel civilians, or full-scale massed army warfare waged by "murderous" Arab regimes against the Jewish state. Here's Wikipedia, for example, on the origins of the 2006 Lebanon war:

The conflict began when militants from the group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. The ambush left three soldiers dead. Two additional soldiers, believed to have been killed outright or mortally wounded, were taken by Hezbollah to Lebanon. Five more were killed in a failed rescue attempt. Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon that damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport ,[35] an air and naval blockade, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions....

At around 9 AM local time on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched diversionary rocket attacks toward Israeli military positions near the coast and near the border village of Zar'it[60] as well as on the Israeli town of Shlomi and other villages. Five civilians were injured. Six Israeli military positions were fired on, and the surveillance cameras knocked out. At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent infiltrated the border into Israel through a "dead zone" in the border fence, hiding in an overgrown wadi. They attacked a patrol of two Israeli armoured Humvees patrolling the border near Zar'it, using pre-positioned explosives and anti-tank missiles, killing three soldiers, injuring two, and capturing two soldiers (Master Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and First Sergeant Eldad Regev). In response to the Hezbollah feint attacks, the IDF conducted a routine check of its positions and patrols, and found that contact with two jeeps was lost. A rescue force was immediately dispatched to the area, and confirmed that two soldiers were missing after 20 minutes. A Merkava Mk III tank, an Armored personnel carrier, and a helicopter were immediately dispatched into Lebanon. The tank hit a large land mine, killing its crew of four. Another soldier was killed and two lightly injured by mortar fire as they attempted to recover the bodies.

Hezbollah named the attack "Operation Truthful Promise" after leader Hassan Nasrallah's public pledges over the prior year and a half to seize Israeli soldiers and swap them for four Lebanese held by Israel...

What's interesting about the Wikipedia entry is not only how devastating it is to Noam Chomsky's argument, but also that Wikipedia's widely perceived as hopelessly left-wing on top of that. See, "How the Left Conquered Wikipedia, Part 1."

I've seen Chomsky in person. It was a creepy experience, basically attending a function surrounded by hippies, progressives, and terrorists. And Chomsky just spewed lies the whole time. And here he is on Democracy Now!, and of course, cited as the high holy authority on the Middle East by activists on the communist left. And it's all a bunch of lies.

Anyway, William Jacobson has more on that, "The Palestinian bubble bursts again."