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TEL AVIV U'S CHOMSKY DISCIPLES IN LINGUISTICS LEAVE US SPEECHLESS

by Lee Kaplan

When historians look back at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they will no doubt observe the importance that words played for Israel's enemies in the dispute. Blowing up a bus full of people becomes "legitimate resistance," and a security fence to keep out suicide bombers and terrorists suddenly becomes an "apartheid wall"; "occupation" takes on multiple meanings — does it mean the West Bank and Gaza or all of Israel? In fact, it means both depending on its usefulness at the time the phrase is spoken by irredentist Arabs. Words such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" increasingly refer to a subjugated Palestinian Arab population that in reality seems to only grow exponentially. To the outside world, a plethora of deceptive words, be they in English or translated to other languages, suggest Israel is persecuting the Arabs who are bent on the Jewish state's annihilation by distorting that Israel, a Jewish haven from European Nazism, has in effect become the nation of the new Nazis and that the Arabs are the new Jews. Such is the power of words used to manipulate ideas and disguise facts in any language.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. But the harm to Israel's image is still there and can be dramatically inflated when Jewish linguists contribute to this misperception for political reasons that are just as damaging as those presented by the Arabs themselves. One cabal of such linguists exists in the Linguistics Department at Tel Aviv University.

In education, the purpose of language is to enlighten rather than obfuscate, but education became a business in the 20th century where careers could be enhanced by political activism within academe. Bookings for lectures, lucrative publishing or just plain job advancement can hinge on one's politics more than ever before. For Israel's universities it is no different. Given the importance of linguistics — we can see how words can kill given the sloganeering by terrorist groups dismissing each attack on Israelis, or when Israel's self-defense is described as "war crimes," "apartheid" or "crimes against humanity" — it becomes even clearer the need for Israel's universities to help defend the nation from such obfuscation. But the business of education has become tainted by Arab oil money that helps fuel radical leftists who seek Israel's destruction as the "Zionist entity" and the end of a democratic America for a dictatorship of the proletariat as parts of their platform.

ONE LINGUIST WHO HAS HAD A PROFOUND EFFECT ON THE MISUSE OF LANGUAGE to curse Israel and America is the major radical leftist star in the linguistics field by the name of Noam Chomsky,[1] a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Manfred Gerstenfeld,[2] considered an expert on anti-Semitism and Jewish culture and the effects of post-Zionism, has observed that Chomsky is a "paradigm of cultural anti-Semitism." Chomsky, who belonged as a youth to an anti-Zionist youth movement against a Jewish state called Akuva, has made a fortune denigrating both Israel and its ally, the United States, repeatedly, branding those countries as imperialists, warmongers and guilty of crimes against humanity.

Despite his damning of America and Israel, one has only to see that those totalitarian governments and leaders that Chomsky embraces are the real practitioners of genocide such as Pol Pot, who Chomsky once praised, or the murderers in Hizballah and Hamas who Chomsky has met and spoken out in support of publicly against Israel in the Media. Chomsky even degenerated into writing the forward to a book denying the Holocaust recently.

Chomsky's influence grew during the Vietnam War when his linguistic theories, now pretty much discredited, ascribed to an idea of combining ideas of revolution with anarchist dogma. There no longer was any right or wrong such as is found in grammar; linguistics had no rules any more but was based on the mind of the speaker. This attitude of no right or wrong plays an important part in how linguists can rationalize the misuse of language to support Arab anti-Semitism against Israel. Chomsky disciples, in order to be true to their dogma, would have to develop more and more sophisticated types of explanations that explained the contradictions found in natural speech; grammar became less important than what the speaker intended to say. In true anarchistic fashion, the rules no longer need apply. The perceived hierarchy of society that existed before, including those rules of grammar, were no longer important, because with hierarchy destroyed, the mantra goes, all people will be equal. However, Chomsky himself enjoys a lucrative career as a rich anarchist who drives a Mercedes, has tenure at MIT and lives like a capitalist with profitable book and speaking tours.

Meanwhile, the Linguistics department at Tel Aviv U. is like any other academic department at any other university; it's a small pond with some big frogs. And when those frogs follow the same dogma of Chomsky's sense of anarchism, it affects everything else in that department.

However oddly, Chomsky's students among his acolytes accorded to him this same hierarchy and status he eschews as their guru of the use of language as part of the political ideas of the day. Since right or wrong no longer applies, some of the most bizarre ideas emerged from, let us call them the Chomskyites, including blind acceptance of totalitarian murderers from Pol Pot to the Hizballah, even support for anti-Semitism and all manner of accusations against Israel and Jews, even Holocaust denial. Chomsky, given his domination in the field of linguistics during the Vietnam War, developed an international following, that continues today even in the Linguistics department at Tel Aviv University.

BECAUSE CHOMSKY AS A LINGUIST HAS ACOLYTES FROM ISRAEL who studied under him or from his closest followers promulgated his theories to be learned and carried forth, his political campaigns of vilification of the West in support of totalitarian regimes and interests also reached Israeli universities. Of these followers, many have ended up as mini-Chomskys at the University of Tel Aviv where they repeat their mentor's inanities against the right of Israel to exist or defend itself.

Although she is recently deceased, Professor Tanya Reinhart[3] was one of Chomsky's best known disciples, who traveled in anti-Israel circles within Israel itself as a faculty member in Linguistics at Tel Aviv U and as a visiting faculty member abroad where she promoted the goals of Israel's enemies. Chomsky was in charge of Reinhart's PhD thesis[4] and she was also an acolyte of the late Edward Said,[5] the Palestinian demi-god (born in Egypt like Arafat) among anti-Israel pro-PLO activists abroad.

If you ever wanted an example of the use of linguistics to convey an untrue impression of a country like Israel, the quote below is pure Tanya Reinhart:

"My biggest hope and plea is — save the Palestinians!...what Israel is doing now exceeds the crimes of the South Africa's white regime. It has started to take the form of systematic ethnic cleansing, which South Africa never attempted. After 35 years of occupation, it is completely clear that the only two choices the Israeli political system has generated for the Palestinians are apartheid or ethnic cleansing (transfer)."

So in the above paragraph we have Israel, the only pluralistic country in the Middle East, reduced to the level of the truly apartheid state of South Africa in the 1980's, a common propaganda tactic of anti-Israel forces in academia and Arab irredentists who want to appeal to the social conscious of the West through obfuscation. Thus Reinhart throws in the overused word "apartheid" and phrase "ethnic cleansing" that actually originated in the propaganda war between the Muslims and the Christian Serbs in Bosnia. The use of that language inspired NATO bombing runs against Serbian forces[6] that never committed atrocities they were accused of doing. Such a threat from NATO still exists today, only now for Israel. If you wonder why Israel is so cautious about retaking Gaza to clear out the terrorist government there that is firing on its southern border towns, consider what happened to the Serbs.[7]

The good news is Tanya Reinhart no longer teaches at Tel Aviv U since she passed away over a year ago. The bad news is her effect is still felt there, and her legacy lives on particularly among the linguistics faculty who comprise a large number of anti-Israel activists on the Tel Aviv campus. The question remains why she was allowed to be on board and represent the TAU linguistics department and faculty as a world-traveled anti-Semite for so many years.

Professors Mira Ariel and Rachel Giora are two more of such linguists on the TAU linguistics faculty list, both of whom organized a conference memorializing[8] Tanya Reinhart with the help of Professor Yeshayahu Shen, another faculty linguist. Both Ariel and Giora signed a petition urging their students and other Israeli youth to refuse service in the IDF citing as the reason that "such service too often involves carrying out orders that have no place in a democratic society founded on the sanctity of human life." The strangeness of it all was Tanya Reinhart actually campaigned to have her fellow TAU linguists boycotted worldwide as Israelis and that included Ariel and Giora!

UTTERING CHOMKYISMS CAN KEEP ONE IN FAVOR no doubt in TAU's linguistics department, yet Chomsky has been guilty of telling inveterate lies against the West and in particular Israel, most which center around false accusations of genocide such as Reinhart alluded to in her statement above. For example, Paul Bogdanor has compiled over 200 lies told by Chomsky[9] that get accepted among the academic elite which could be said to maintain an elitist attitude toward the non-academic world (that includes most Israelis). Thus students wishing to enter that world as carbon copies of their professors, or merely to get along, tend to follow in the footsteps of professors such as Tanya Reinhart, which could explain the memorial given for her.

The fact that the IDF protects the Children of Israel from Arab terrorists, and in fact also protects the Palestinian Arabs in the Territories who are subject to harm from terrorist murderers and thugs, are hardly services that have no place in a democratic society concerned about human life. But such rhetoric voiced to impressionable college students at Tel Aviv University does take its toll: Enlistments are being discouraged more and more by radical groups that are not always truthful[10] about Israel's security needs.

The Linguistics department at Tel Aviv U. is like any other academic department at any other university; it's a small pond with some big frogs. So who are some of these "anti-Israel" or "anti-Zionist" academics in TAU's linguistic department? Here are some of the more active ones and what they've been saying or doing:

As mentioned, Rachel Giora who organized the Reinhart memorial with colleagues from the Linguisics department was one of those Israeli academics that Tanya Reinhart encouraged academic institutions abroad to boycott. Giora's behavior is so bizarre that she initiated recommending Tali Fahima[11] for the Nobel Peace Prize. Fahima is the Israeli woman who helped her Palestinian boyfriend smuggle weapons to kill Israelis. Giora has further stated, "I support every form of open criticism against the current policies of the Israeli government in the occupied territories, whether it is an economic boycott or other forms of resistance. A lack of such stances allows Israelis to assume that the world is not against them. But the world, or large parts of it, are against them. And rightly so." The words "other forms of resistance" stated above denote terrorism even to someone without a degree in linguistics.

Mira Ariel played a part in organizing a petition blaming a denial of academic freedom at colleges in the Palestinian Authority on Israel despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority had responsibility for such things and had already chosen a constitution based on Shariah Law. Bir Zeit University is an educational institution where the student government represents various terrorist groups such a Hamas and Fatah. Yet Mira Ariel accused Israel for the dictatorial lack of academic freedom under Palestinian Authority control despite the fact these groups work to murder Israelis. Israel's responsibility extends to security needs against terrorism that the Arabs refuse to show any cooperation to enforce. Only today, news reports of Fatah and Hamas affiliated students doing battle on campus give testament to the real reason for any lack of academic freedom on the BirZeit campus:[12] Palestinian inclination to terrorism and violence against opposing views, not because of Israel. Ariel has also called for the release of Tali Fahima despite Fahima's assistance in an attempt to murder fellow Israelis.

Professor Outi Bat-el called upon her students to break Israeli law and refuse to serve in the IDF. She further called for international intervention against Israel for allegedly wanting to destroy the Palestinian state. Perhaps she'd like NATO to do to Israel what was done to Serbia in setting up the new Muslim slave trade state in the region, like Kosovo.

Professor Julia Horvath is presently Chair of the Linguistics Department at TAU. She uses the same rhetoric as the other linguists in her department in describing Israel by misusing the word "apartheid," and advocating for the Arab right of return[13] that would demographically destroy the Jewish state and set up another Arab Muslim dictatorship. As a linguist she didn't mind signing a petition[14] that stated, "Since its foundation Israel has lived by its sword. An incessant succession of 'retaliations', military operations and wars has become the life-support drug of Israel's Jews." and claims that "Ten years after the Oslo Accords, we are living in a benighted colonial reality — in the heart of darkness. Thirty-seven years after Israel conquered the last of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip." In other words (and the words of this linguist Horvath) Israel's self-defense is merely a ruse for Jews to persecute Palestinian Arabs. The petition even suggests there was a Palestinian nation partially seized by Israel in 1948 in its wording, a strange and fabricated revisionist history to be accepted by an "educated" noted linguist! Horvath and co-professor emeritus Alexander Grosu, another TAU linguist are still acolytes[15] of Noam Chomsky in their academic work.

Professor Paul Wexler has called for his students to not serve in the IDF. Nirit Kadmon accuses Israel of being responsible for a denial of academic freedom at Palestinian universities too (After all, isn't everything Israel's fault?).

Others among the leftists in TAU's linguistics department who express a unity against Israel are Galit Adam, Charles Kisseberth, Lior Laks, Fred Landman, Aya Meltzer, Tal Siloni and Lyle Lustigman. Most have only signed onto petitions condemning Israel for practicing self-defense against the Arabs, or for rubberstamping whatever claims the Arabs make against Israel and its existence. All of these academics have either encouraged Israeli youth to not serve in the Army or accused Israel of violating academic freedom in Palestinian universities governed by totalitarian terrorist groups over which Israel has little control.

ONE THING IS FOR CERTAIN. MOST OF THE TEAM AT TAU LINGUISTICS, are adherents to at least the anarchist politics of Noam Chomsky, if not his theories on the usage of the spoken word, where anarchy reigns supreme and that translates into a consistent anti-Israel attitude, even if not official one, from that academic department.

8. http://www.isracampus.org.il/third level pages/Editorial -
Shaul Sadka - Reinhart.htm

11. http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:v2vOcVSvy90J:
www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2950+Rachel+Giora+%2B+ TALi+Fahima&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

13. http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:dJdYSPoDG90J:oznik.com/
words/040712.html+JUlia+Horvath+%2B+Palestine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

14. http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:dJdYSPoDG90J:oznik.com/
words/040712.html+Julia+Horvath+%2B+PAlestine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Lee Kaplan is an investigative journalist who writes on foreign policy, Israel, Iraq, the Middle East, homeland security and the war on terror. Visit his blos: http://kaplanwatch.blogspot.com/, http://www.stoptheism.com/ and http://www.dafka.org/

This was published by Isra Campus
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/
Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Noam%20Chomsky%20-%20speechless.htm