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Purely Commentary
Repudiation of Chomsky's Harmful Leftism
Suffering with mankind from inflationary ills, op-
pressed by unending threats from neighbors seeking her
destruction, divided politically, Israel experiences contro-
versies that inspire ,debates and internal bickering.
This has rubbed off on the Diaspora, and there are
frequent accusations that Establishment as such, espe-
cially the organizations that support Israel in the United
States are not sufficiently critical of what is happening
in the Jewish state.
The controversies in Israel are understandable. The
accusations outside that embattled land and the attacks
which often involve rancor challenging the states very
existence are themselves subject to challenge.
All-too-often, leftist Jews, involving themselves in
debates over exaggerated issues or distortions related to
the Palestinians, embark upon campaigns of obstruction
that cause great distress. They are not many, but they are
vocal. They may be a handful, but they speak like an
army bent upon Israel's reduction that would surely lead
to destruction.
Prof. Noam Chomsky could well be judged a chief
offender. He is both a puzzle and a threat. He is an enigma.
He must have had an excellent Hebraic background. His
family is high ranking in Jewish scholarship. He himself
is very able. Why does he propagate ideas that are detri-
mental to Israel? Why has he given comfort to the
Israelis' enemies?
Dr. Chomsky does not relent. Even the murderous
PLO acts do not deter him. Vintage Books (a Pantheon
Books division) has just published an aggravating ap-
proach work, "Peace in the Middle East," and an added
slur on fairness to Israel is contained in the sub-title,
Reflections on Justice and Nationhood.
Fortunately, there are challengers. Perhaps the sharp-
est rebuke to the abnegations by Dr. Chomsky were ex-
pressed in a review of his paperback, in the New York
Times, by Dr. Michael Walzer of the Harvard University
faculty. Recalling Chomsky's 30-year advocacy of a bi-
national state in Palestine, Prof. Walzer indicates that
Chomsky has not changed in all those years.
The fallacies that were not learned in the 1930s and
1940s come to haunt historians to this day. Not to be
forgotten is the fact that Hashomer Hatzair, the radical
Zionist youth movement, favored it, that through the then
functioning Ihud movement bi-nationalism was advocated
by such personalities as Henrietta Szold, Judah Magnes,
Martin Buber, Moshe Smilansky and others. They stood
alone: there was not an Arab leader then, and there isn't
one now, to support that idea.
But Chomsky keeps advocating a fallacy in an era
when there is only one purpose among those in Israel's
enemy ranks: to destroy- Israel.
Now, with a $2 billion fund to gather arms not only
for the Arab armies but for the murderous PLO forces
as well, how can the Chomsky group continue their tactics?
In his review of the Chomsky pamphlet, which, as he
indicates, is a mere reiteration of what he had been saying
for years in his damaging speeches, Prof. Walzer exposes
the Chomsky views, declaring
What is crucial to
dorses Chaim Weiz-
Chomsky is the rejection
mann's
opinion
that
of the present state of
Arab - Jewish relations
Israel. Israel is to be re-
should be worked out on
placed by a federation of
the basis "of comPrete
"partially
autonomous
parity without regard to
communities," but exact-
the numerical strength
ly what this replacement
of either people." But
would involve for the Is-
that is an evasive sen-
raeli people is uncertain.
tence, since parity is an
More amazingly, there is
abstract notion and nu-
no discussion of how de-
merical strength the con-
cisions might be made
crete issue.
on such vital questions
Who would live in
as security, police, im-
Chomsky's
bi - national
migration.
state? He writes that the
The last of these is the
Israeli "law of return,"
issue on which all earlier
which makes Israel the
attempts at bi-national-
homeland of any Jew
ism foundered. For at
who arrives on its
any point in the history
shores, is probably "the
of Jewish settlement in
fundamental stumbling
old Palestine, the Jews
block" to a bi-national
already there could have
arrangement.
made do without polit-
Will there be a "law of
ical independence had
return" for Palestinian
they been willing to give
refugees? He does not
up the hope of further
say. Will Russian Jews
immigration. But even
'still find refuge in the
those Jewish bi-national-
par ti a Ily autonomous
ists of the 1930's and
Jewish communities? Or
40's, w h o se memory
is it the "correct posi- •
Chomsky invokes, were
Lion" with regard to their
committed to the "in-
oppression that Russia
gathering of the exiles."
must be turned into a
I do not think that Chom-
bi-national state? There
sky is similarly commit-
is not a word,
ted, despite all that has
For myself, I do not
happened since. He en-
believe that Israel can
2—Friday, Nov. 8, 1974
'
The Trepidation of the Optimists and the Philosophy
of Survivalism_ . . . Israel's Would-Be Destroyers
Never Learn That There is an Undying Spirit in Jewry
By Philip
Slomovitz
A Forging of Weapons to Destroy Israel With Sick World as Witness
■■■
So tragic is the encirclement of Israel by the
Arabs and the condoning of terrorism by nations
who consider themselves in civilized society, that
optimism gets a severe jolt in the consideration
of Israel's position.
The Arabs with their billions are gathering
forces with the intention of destroying the Jewish
state.
The United Nations has become totally devoid
of human decency in dealing with Israel.
Even during the attempt to oust South Africa
from the world organization, Israel was dragged
in as one other nation in danger of expulsion.
It can all be judged as cause for gloom.
Therefore the Jew — plurally considered the
entire People Israel—needs to reopen the book of
history and to ponder on what has been and is
a lesson in continuity.
It's an old story: the bigoted masses have
always tried to destroy the Jewish people. The
struggle for survival has never been an easy one.
From Amalek to Haman to Pobedonostzev to
Torquemada to Hitler—down the line!—the cards
were stacked against the Eternal Jew. Catholicism
branded him the Wandering Jew. The aim has-
always been to isolate the Jew into a status of
constant wandering, and the aim has been to create
for him an unending status of homelessness. An
old Yiddish response, bitterly spoken but realistic
nevertheless, has been: Es vet aikh gornit helfen!
It'll do you no good!
be a homeland unless it
is a state. It can control
its immigration policy
only if it retains its in-
dependence. A parallel
assertion could be made
in the case of security:
It can defend its people
only if it retains its in-
dependence. And in both
cases, the argument also
applies to any future
Palestinian or Jordanian-
Palestinian state. The
simple truth is that polit-
ical sovereignty is a
vital form of protection.
and no nation willingly
does without it. It seems
particularly callous to
ask the Jews to do with-
out it, but the reluctance
will be as great among
the Arabs.
For this reason, peace,
if it ever comes, will
necessarily be a settle-
ment between nation-
states, founded on mu-
tual. recognition. It will
also be a settlement to
which the principles of
class struggle and social-
ist internationalism will
be largely irrelevant.
That is not to say that
socialists cannot work
for peace. But they can
do so only if they make
their own peace with
the human needs embod-
ied in contemporary na-
tionalism. This Chomsky
bravely refuses to do: he
has been an internation-
alist .for 30 years, come
hell and high water.
But if Chomsky is a
consistent international-
ist, he nevertheless has
a special interest in the
Jews. It is upon the con-
version of the Jews that
his millennium waits-. He
is, I should add, unequiv-
ocal in his condemnation
of the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization pro-
gram for a "democratic
secular state," but the
main thrust of his book
is and must be against
Zionism. For Israel -is
the only state whose in-
dependence would have
to be surrendered or
radically compromised
to make way for the new
socialist commonwealth.
It's a great pity that these refutations of the damaging
distortions by an academic must be recorded. Anti-Zionists,
anti-Semites, Arab terrorists and others in Israel's enemy
ranks are given comfort in such views. The Chomsky
views are fodder for the fires of hell intended for Israel.
To be silent when they are spoken and written, even by
the few, is to be criminally indifferent to the sufferers
from hate. Perhaps the PLO tactics and the United Nations
outrage in welcoming terrorists as diplomats will open his
eyes to his errors. Perhaps he has already said hatosi on
Yom Kippur. The Jewish people he maligns • are yet to
hear his "I have sinned."
The Animus of a Retiring Senator
What causes a person who has held a most influential
post in the American government for many years to spout
animosities at a people struggling to protect democratic
ways of life while battling for life itself? How does a great
state in the American Union which has elected him to the
U.S. Senate for six terms react to his animus? Could it be
added resentment resulting from his defeat for a seventh
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS term that caused him to continue to fan the flames of
It has been a way of saying that the will to
live can not be crushed in the Jew.
And the destiny amidst wandering has never-
theless remained a status that gave the Jew the
rank of Eternity.
Why, then, do the haters persist in their labors
to destroy the Eternal Jew? Because they never
learn. They haven't learned the lesson of a will
that is described in the Bible as stubbornness, that
of an am Kshei oref, a hardheaded, stubborn folk
that says lo omut, I won't die.
To summarize the philosophy: it may all
sound like unrealistic optimism in a time that
creates pessimism. Yet, judged by historic exatii
ence, the Jew can afford to retain a sense of
to look with pity on a sick mankind that gives
comfort to terrorists, to feel sorry for Arabs who
have millions for gold Cadillacs, absorption of -the
world's major industries with their massive wealth
and many planes aimed at Israel's existence, but
not a coin for their own oppressed masses.
Others have massed troops against Jewry: the
historic lesson is that a nation that seeks Israel's
destruction suffers that fate itself.
It's not a laughing matter, but a re-reading
Of history admonished Jewry: do not despair; you
have survived the enemy before, you will outlive
him again. The lesson is for Jewry neither to aban-
don optimism, nor to forget how to _laugh. The
enemies have earned derision, the endangered
people a sense of comfort in indestructibility.
hatred against a valiant group of fighters for survival?
Perhaps it is part of the human tragedy of an era
marked by many shortcomings that Senator J. W. Ful-
bright of Arkansas should persist in adding fuel to fires
that could cause total conflagration in an embattled area,
instead of assisting humanely towards a peace that would
em-brace - Israel and her neighbors alike, the Arkansan
appears bent upon a policy of venom towards Israel. How
else are his views to be interpreted, since they keep on
demanding only submission- to the extremist demands that
would so evidently mean Israel's destruction. Now there
is need for hope that the newsletter he proposes to publish
will not be another hate sheet.
Youth's New Artificial Kidney
Wins Science Prize at Rehovot
REHOVOT — An artificial
kidney that can be easily
operated in the patient's own
home was among the win-
ning entries in this year's sci-
ence fair for Israeli high
school youth, held recently
on the campus of the Weiz-
mann Institute of Science.
The fair was sponsored
by the youth activities sec-
tion of the institute's sci-
ence teaching department, in
cooperation with the Israel
Discount Bank. All projects
submitted were the work of
the youngsters themselves,
based on their own research
and initiative. Prizes of IL
1,000 (about $250) each were
awarded to the students.
The other winning projects
were a 'mechanical mother'
— an apparatus for success-
fully nursing new-born lab-
oratory animals; an optical
wireless communications de-
vice that prevents the 'tap-
ping' of conversations; and
an extensive research paper
based on 11/2 years of ex-
periments with skin grafts.
The institute also reported
that the Edmond de Roth-
schild School on the Biophy-
sics of Glycoproteins — spon-
sored by the Weizmann Insti-
tute of Science and the In-
stitut de Biologie Physico
Chimique (France) — was
held recently on the Rehovot
campus.
The symposium brought to-
gether researchers working
in many aspects of glyco-
protein chemistry. In addi-
tion to a full scientific pro-
gram, which included the
presentation-of more than 50
papers, the participants also
attended a reception given
by the President of Israel,
Prof. Ephraim Katzir, him-
self a biophysicist and form-
er head of the institute's
biophysics department, who
served on the organizing
corn m ittee.
It also was reported that
two Weizmann Institute pro-
fessors working on the sup-
pression of experiment-' 1-
ler gic encephalo
s
(EAE) — a disease r ti -
ling multiple sclerosis which
can be induced in labor2tory
animals — have been ,r_ 'J-
ed a $75,000, 18-month - ant
from the U.S. National Mul-
tiple Sclerosis Society. This
is the second grant the --so-
ciety has given to Prof.
Michael Sela, head of the
chemical immunology de-
partment and to Prof. Ruth
Arnon of the same depart-
ment.
Prof. Sela and his associ-
ates have found that a syn-
thetic polypeptide, which
they call Copolymer 1, is
apparently capable of sup-
pressing EAE in guinea pigs,
rabbits, and rhesus monkeys,
but will not cause EAE in
these species.