I found this remarkable Chomsky quote on Diary of an anti-Chomskyite (via Amritas)
The Hebrew press is much more open than the English language press, and there’s a very obvious reason: Hebrew is a secret language, you only read it if you’re inside the tribe. Like most cultures it’s a tribal culture. I don’t want to exaggerate, but the English translations on the internet are very revealing and very interesting.
I had to look at the original. What secrets are we telling in our secret language – that only Chomsky can understand? (The idea that we may be saying different things merely because we have different concerns seems to never have occurred to him. Ditto for the idea that the Israeli press is large, diverse and free, and many different things are said, only some of which reaches his eyes.) This is what I found:
Remember Israel is virtually a US military base, an offshoot of the US military system. The same reporter quoted a General as saying: ‘Israel is no longer a state with an army, it’s now an army with a state.’ If you’re talking about the Israeli government you’re talking about the military. The top political figures are almost always ex-Generals, chiefs of staff and so on. It’s not a small army, according to the IDF and analysts their air, naval, armour forces are larger and more advanced than those of any NATO power outside of the US, and as an offshoot it certainly is. So we have an army with a State, the army’s basically a branch of the Pentagon.
It reminds me of the Grimm’s fairytale, Clever Elsie:
“Elsie, why weepest thou?” asked the maid. “Ah,” she answered, “have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the pick-axe will perhaps fall on his head, and kill him.” Then said the maid, “What a clever Elsie we have!”
This is the kind of reasoning that appeals to conspiracy thinkers everywhere. Chomsky would like to think that Israel is ruled by its army. It’s an absurd conclusion to anyone who knows the country – I think that Sharon is the only ex-General in the government at the moment, for one thing. For another thing, he was elected. The US also elected generals in the aftermath of war – but then, Chomsky thinks that the US is also an “army with a State,” ruled by the Pentagon.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at June 24, 2004 11:33 AM