TO: Irwin Suall
FROM: Mel Cooperman
DATE: May 19, 1975
SUBJECT: NOAM CHOMSKY
Chomsky spoke on Thursday, May 15 at the College at Old Westbury of SUNY at the invitation of two departments. The prime mover in the invitation was Prof. Paul Lauter, one of the most radical on the Old Westbury campus. He was presented as a "middle ground" between the PLO and Israeli points of view.
Chomsky is an Arab apologist, pure and simple, regardless of all his other verbiage. He seems to have retreated from his position of advocating a bi-national state to one of the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Among other apologetics, Chomsky offered the following:
Ma'alot - While ostensibly "not condoning" terrorism, he stated that Ma'alot followed by two days an Israeli strike at a Lebanese village which "contained no guerrillas or training capabilities." Further, he characterized the students at Ma'alot as "a paramilitary group."
The Golan Heights - Chomsky denied that the Syrians had bombarded Israeli settlements for 19 years. He claims that the bombardment which was begun in 1964 was provoked by Israel's attempts to block Lake Huleh and the Syrian water supply.
Munich - Again "provoked" by an Israeli raid on a Lebanese village ( of course, no Lebanese villages are ever used as training camps)
PLO - The "censored" American press "deliveratively" suppressed news that PLO has changed its demands for the destruction of Israel in 1969.
While he has a number of specific source references at his fingertips, he can be handled by any equally informed academic person. Nevertheless, it should be made clear to whoever inquires that he is an Arab apologist from beginning to end, apparently incapable of finding anything good about Israel, American Jews or anyone but Arab spokesmen and the Third World. He goes into great detail on the subject of Orthodox domination of aspects of Israeli law (into which he throws in the "racist" nature of the Jewish National Fund) and then throws away a line about Islamic domination in Arab states.
cc: Zev Furst
Jerome Bakst
Mort Ka**