Saturday, August 18, 2007

Is Noam Chomsky an anti-Semite?

'"Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel" (Arts pages, Aug. 16) is truly frightening. Apparently, no one is permitted to even question Israel or American policy toward it without engendering a virulent reaction. On this topic there is more free discussion in Israel than is tolerated in the United States. [wasn't I saying this the other day?]

I am a Jew who loves Israel, but who also believes that its policies are counterproductive to peace and its own long-term best interests. Does this make me an anti-Semite? We can't even discuss it? Does the Anti-Defamation League not see the irony iraof the book's thesis and its reaction to it?

When Jews suppress the debate, they don't win it; they just shunt it underground and out of earshot. And that is where true anti-Semitism lurks.'

-Lewis Seagull

Westfield, N.J., Aug. 17, 2007

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