Yes, Wildo, I do work in DC - you?
By the way, I would like to say that the good Dr. Chomsky acquitted himself very well when faced with this cunning interviewer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOIM1_xOSro&mode=related&search=
Regardless, Dershowitz on Chomsky notwithstanding, Dershowitz on Israel is much more to the point than Chomsky on Israel, and I say this from the point of view of support for a two-state solution as well.
In your final sentence, your premise is that supporters of Israel have at their disposal the "antisemitism card," as I've heard it called here. Since it had not been previously brought up in this discussion, I would ask why bringing it up does not constitute playing the "antisemitism card card."
Was Vlaclav Hravel necessarily playing the "anti-Czech card" for supporting a Czech Republic? Is Vladimir Putin playing the "Russophobe" card, by being president of Russia rather than the old U.S.S.R.?
In short, why do we make this argument regarding Israel, but not other political entities which are defined in whole or in part by ethnicity?
Because we only call for the dismemberment of one ethnicity's nation-state, of all the ethnically defined nation-states in the world... Oh yes, of course kumbaya-singing multi-ethnic republics are the model! The US, of
course, is the perfect model for such a republic, warts and all!
All the ethnic states can be brought down to make way for multiethnic perfect societies, all mutual antagonism and histories of bloodshed aside! Of
course it can be done!
And just for a test case, let's use a... hmmmm... JEWISH state!
But on the slightly less inflammatory subject of US aid:
American direct aid to Israel is, in fact, disproportionate to Israel's size. The notion that Israel and the U.S. should talk about reducing it is not distasteful to me. Nor, surprisingly, is it distasteful to a group of Neocons (not my favs) who were meeting to discuss new directions for Israel. AIPAC reps were in attendance... Oddly enough, someone posted the procedings here, in an anti-Israel rant, claiming that the Israel Lobby had planned the invasion of Iraq, because that move was consistent with some Israelis' views at the time.
The same poster who led me to this, was trying to make the point about cutting US aid to Israel... he found himself tongue tied when he realized that this wasn't the "third rail" he imagined it to be, and that it was in discussion among Israel-backers as well.
The notion that all who disagree with an Israeli policy are anti-semites is absurd, and I don't know anyone who supports this notion. Dershowitz himself makes it quite clear that he does not.
The notion that disagreement with the founding of Israel is a sort of ex-post-facto anti-Semitism is also going too far; I do believe, however, that it is naive in the extreme.
But it is also going too far to jump to the conclusion that antisemitism is used primarily as a club, as Chomsky does. Dershowitz' point is that, when we judge Israel by the standards we use elsewhere, it is legit; but if we insist on different standards for Israel and Israel alone, one certainly has to ask
why. And sometimes the answers are blatantly anti-Semitic.
By the way, you can never
really be far enough Left: here's what became of the good Professor C when he had the timerity not to march in lockstep with Meirsheimer and Walt's recent controversial, and I would say laughable, essay on the the Zionist/AIPAC control of speech in America [sic]:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498893816&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
A transform
α indeed... (A transform
א?)
PFnV