The Chomsky/Blankfort Polemic
Réseau Voltaire
February 20, 2006

Jeffrey Blankfort is a US journalist and producer of radio programs on KPOO in San Francisco and KZYX in Mendocino, in Northern California, and was formerly at KPFT/Pacifica in Houston, until they purged the political programming to better lull their listeners to sleep with music. Engaged in the political fight in favor of the Palestinians and for the creation of one binational state in Palestine since the 70s, he has become one of the favorite targets of US Zionists while also attracting the animosity of a part of the US left grouped around Noam Chomsky, who reproaches Blankfort for his "lobby obsession". He was editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. Also, he was a founding member of the November 29 Coalition on Palestine.

Silvia Cattori : Washington and Tel-Aviv are intensifying their threats against Iran. In your opinion, does Israel have a precise national interest in weakening, or destroying, numerous Arab neighbors and to what degree does it succeed in orienting US policy towards new aggression in the Middle East?

Jeffrey Blankfort : My position is, and I have written an article about it, that the war in Iraq was not a war for oil, but was a war conceived by the neo-cons and the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States to benefit Israel, and to elevate Israel to a very important position in the Middle East, as a part of a plan to achieve overall US global control. This is what was called for in the document of the "Project for a New American Century” or PNAC. And even though a number of prominent people, politicians as well as military people, have said that this was a war for Israel, the anti-war movement will not consider that at all.

And right at this moment, the only segment of the American society that is pushing the US administration to confront Iran, happens to be the Jewish establishment or the lobby, whose main focus for months – groups like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, but also other Jewish organizations-- has been to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The left and the anti-war movement are so focused on blaming everything on US imperialism on one hand, and avoiding the provoking of what they fear will be "anti-Semitism" on the other, that they have gone further from putting any blame on Israel than have elements of the mainstream. And so, having paid no price for pushing the US into the war in Iraq – and not only this war, but the first Gulf war – they are preparing to do the same with Iran. There is no lobby like it.

S.C. - In other words, the US has become a satellite of Israel and acts in function with Israel's interests? Is this thesis not the opposite of that of Chomsky and of the left in general, for whom it is the US that uses Israel? That there is a convergence of interests between the US and Israel, and that Israel is simply the US's cop on the ground in exchange for services rendered by the US in the Middle East?

Jeffrey Blankfort : Yes, Chomsky tends to simplify US politics, blaming everything on the elites and whoever is in the White House while avoiding the role of Congress. Today, eleven members of the Senate are Jewish, that is 11 % of the 100 members while only 2 % of the American population is Jewish. He and his supporters, either directly or indirectly, raise the spectre of anti-Semitism, of provoking anti-Semitism, and what happens is that people keep their mouth shut. Now, Chomsky, who was a Zionist when he was younger--he lived in Israel, he has friends in Israel, was considering moving to Israel-- admitted in 1974 that this might influence his perspective – and he wanted his readers to know that. He wrote this in 1974 and yet few people who read Chomsky today know that. They do not know that he was Zionist, that he considered living in Israel.

In fact, for years he did not speak about Israel while he was speaking out about the US in Central America and Vietnam. It was a mutual friend of ours, Dr. Israel Shahak, who convinced Chomsky that he should speak up against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. It is interesting that the most important book that Chomsky wrote about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, The Fateful Triangle, begins actually with a defence of Israel, a defence in the sense that while acknowledging all the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, he blames the US for allowing it to happen. Now, this defence, I would say, could be used by Pinochet in Chile or any dictator the US has supported around the world, to take the primary responsibility from them and place it on the US. And I don’t buy this. And most people who understand the situation, don’t buy it either when they come to look at it. A number of friends of mine, who are friends of Chomsky, have come to agree with me. The problem is, I would say, as fellow academics, that they don't feel comfortable criticizing Chomsky, particularly since he is often attacked by the right wing.

He has defended many people who have been under attack and has thus gained their loyalty. He also has been a mentor to a number of academics, and ironically, Chomsky has been the doorway for so many people to become involved in politics. They read Chomsky, and they become excited about political work. And it is only later, if they are fortunate, that they discover that Chomsky not only opens the door, he closes it as well!

S.C. - Which would mean that Chomsky gives less importance to the pro-Israeli lobby than it has? Has Chomsky upheld unjust options for the Palestinians in order to preserve Israel, for which he has an emotional attachment? Is this a unique case or has Chomsky defended the indefensible?

Jeffrey Blankfort : For the most part. On most other subjects, he is more open. On this particular one, he won’t even debate the issue. In 1991 we had an exchange that was published in a left newspaper in New York, the National Guardian, and a friend there wanted to set up a debate between Chomsky and myself on the issue of the Israel lobby at the Socialist Scholars Conference. Chomsky refused, writing "that it would not be useful." After his refusal, I asked a professor in California, Joel Beinin, whom I know, and who takes Chomsky’s position, if he would debate me. His response was identical: "it would not be useful !"

S.C. – On Iran, which today is caught in a vise, is Chomsky, in your opinion, also minimizing the role of the lobby acting in favor of Israel in the United States ?

Jeffrey Blankfort : Regarding Iran, Chomsky and the others seem to be ignoring the campaign that the lobby is waging to get us into another war, one that will be far more catastrophic than the disaster that has taken place in Iraq. There is a coalition of the 12 leading Jewish women's organizations, representing a million Jewish women, calling itself "One Voice for Israel," that formed in 2002 in response to the bad publicity Israel received over the destruction of Jenin. Each year, in what it calls "Take-5," it gets it gets it members to call the White House at the same time and then on another day, to do the same to Congress. Each time they have done it, they have tied up the Capitol switchboard. It is one of the ways in which they show their power.

This coming February 22nd, they will be phoning President Bush to express their opinion on what he should do about Iran, and its development of nuclear energy or weapons. This a kind of operation that goes on all the time, but it is not even an issue or even known about by the anti-war movement, or by the left, and Professor Chomsky has written to me and others that he is not interested in the issue.

When two years ago, the same person who invited him to have a debate with me in 1991, asked Chomsky again if he would do it, he refused, dismissing my "preoccupation" with the lobby. He also writes that he refuses to read the article that I wrote about him. This is hardly the response of an intellectual. I find it interesting that he is willing to debate Alan Dershowitz, because that is fairly easy, but he won't debate someone on the left or at least on this issue. And that is where the debate should take place.

S.C. – Do you think that other countries have their equivalent of AIPAC?

Jeffrey Blankfort : AIPAC is very unusual because while it is a registered lobby for Israel, it does not have to register as a foreign lobby. And that gives it a unique situation in the country. In every hearing in the Congress that involves Middle East issues, you have staff members of AIPAC sitting in these committee hearings. No other lobbies, foreign lobbies, have this privilege. And they also write the legislation that Congress passes regarding the Middle East. For example, the recent Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which was passed a couple of years ago and which lead to what we see in Lebanon and Syria today was written by AIPAC which later bragged about it. It is not a secret. The only people that pretend they don't know it is the Left. It's on AIPAC's website, it is in their publications. AIPAC also provides interns - young, bright Jewish college students to work in the offices of members of Congress. They go to a member of Congress and say: "We have this young person who is interested in working on Capitol Hill, they will come one year and they will work in your office." No member of Congress is about to refuse a volunteer.

Also AIPAC has a special foundation that provides free trips for members of Congress to Israel. Last year over a hundred members of Congress went to Israel, on a free trip, paid for by this foundation. Now there is a big debate about such trips in Congress paid for by various lobbies, but I do not believe that anything is going to happen there that would negatively affect AIPAC. Congress will make an exception when it comes to Israel. What is interesting is we have a country to the South of us called Mexico. Mexico is far more important to the United States, to our economy, and also there are many more people of Mexican-American extraction than Jews.

There are thousands of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who work here and are responsible for growing and picking the farm produce in the United States. And yet we don’t have Congressional delegations going to Mexico, we don’t have Congress talking about the importance of Mexico. If they go to Mexico, they go for a vacation, and yet here the focus is on Israel simply because of two things: money and intimidation. The Democratic Party has for years relied on wealthy Jewish donors for the majority of its contributions. AIPAC itself does not give money. AIPAC coordinates where the money should go, so if you are a wealthy Jewish donor and you want to do something to help Israel’s cause, AIPAC will let you know where to give it. Also, around the country, there are now about three dozen political action committees or PACs that exist only to give money to candidates who support Israel. None of them are identified by a name that has anything to do with Israel; so here in California we have something called the Northern Californians for Good Government”. You have in St.Louis, Missouri, the St. Louisans for Good Government. The biggest one is called the National PAC, NPAC. Then you have the Hudson Valley Political Action committee, Desert Caucus, et cetera.