Israel to World: "Suck It."

Serious answer, probably has to do with his meetings with Hezbollah.

“There were two basic points,” Professor Chomsky told the interviewer. “One was that the government of Israel does not like the kinds of things I say — which puts them into the category of I suppose every other government in the world. The second was that they seemed upset about the fact that I was just taking an invitation from Birzeit and I had no plans to go on to speak in Israeli universities, as I have done many times in the past, but not this time.”

This is kinda dishonest, and sounds a lot like Bush saying that they hate our freedom. There are lots of Jews living in Israel just as critical of Israel as Chomsky. He's giving himself way too much credit if he thinks the only problem is that the government "does not like the kinds of things I say," and has nothing to do with the people he fraternizes with. (Note: Not making any judgement about whether meeting with Hezbollah should or shouldn't exclude you from entering Israel, but clearly that has more to do with it than he gave a lecture someone didn't like.)

i'm not familiar with chomsky's relationship with hezbollah but yeah like you said it's obv not a legitimate reason to not allow him to speak

“This is a decision of principle between the democratic ideal — and we all want freedom of speech and movement — and the need to protect our existence,” said Otniel Schneller, of the centrist Kadima party, on Israel Radio. “Let’s say he came to lecture at Birzeit. What would he say? That Israel kills Arabs, that Israel is an apartheid state?”

wtf at mordy's whole post.

k3v asked why he's not being allowed into Israel. I'm speculating that the reason isn't some vague 'they didn't like what I said,' but probably had to do with the multiple times he's met with Hezbollah leadership. I guess that's kinda confusing tho. It's probably just because Chomsky is too righteous to be let into Israel.

like, since you obv. read the article in order to pull the quote, i don't know where to start. he's recounting what he was told, no one seems even to dispute it, (Netanyahu: "This was a mishap. A guy at the border overstepped his authority."), ppl have been discussing it in Israel as controversial, & some conservatives are a-okay with it.

He's disagreeing with Bibi afaict. Bibi says some dude overstepped his boundaries, Chomsky says he overheard dude talking to superiors. Also, they kept Finkelstein out for the same reason, so I find it hard to imagine that has nothing to do with it. Also! Lots of people says things controversial about Israel and are still allowed in. So I'm just speculating that Chomsky is leaving shit out. So he-said, she-said tho. Who knows what the real real reason was? Maybe some dude was just cranky that day.

Also interesting note that the conservative quoted as liking him being kept out is a member of Kadima. (Don't know the particular guy tho, he might be a particularly conservative Kadima.)

Btw zvookster, from Haaretz:

The official asked him whether he would speak on Israel and Chomsky said that because he would talk of U.S. policy he would also comment on Israel and its policies.

He was then told by the official: "You have spoken with [Hassan] Nasrallah."

"True," Chomsky told him. "When I was in Lebanon [prior to the war in 2006] I spoke with people from the entire political spectrum there, as in Israel I also spoke with people on the right."

Tada!

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/after-denied-entry-to-west-bank-chomsky-likens-israel-to-stalinist-regime-1.290736

mordy what do you think about that reason

Mordy: chomksy said “There were two basic points,” If you think there was one basic point, then you think chomsky was was lying, not "being kinda dishonest". you'd also be saying he was lying just out of nowhere. your post was nonsense.

Tbh, zvookster, I hadn't seen the Haaretz story when I wrote that. So it seemed kinda weird to me that he wasn't mentioning what seemed like an obvious reason. He obv mentioned it to Haaretz. I have no idea if NY Times just didn't bother mentioning it, or he didn't bother mentioning it to them.

k3v: I don't really care who he meets with. He's a respected enough linguist that I'm okay with him going wherever he wants. I happen to find a lot of his political analysis really superficial (tho he's consistent, at least. he's not pro boycotting Israeli universities because he feels that if you boycott Bar Ilan you should boycott American universities too), but my judgement on his political prowess should have nothing to do with where he goes. That said, I would expect Israel to not let him in for meeting with Hezbollah -- that just seems like the kind of thing that they do. If they end up letting him in, I'll be pretty impressed. It seems to me that if you meet with Hezbollah, you should expect some resistance from places like Israel. The whole wide-eyed "I can't believe it!" kinda blows my mind, but I guess I expected less of Israeli border than Chomsky did.

Like there are people who aren't allowed in El Al all the time because they don't answer the boarding questions sufficiently (on my last trip to Israel they asked people all kinds of questions -- did you have a bar mitzvah? name three jewish holidays, stuff like that). Plenty of people aren't allowed to visit for much, much less than meeting with Hezbollah.

the "i can't believe it" is imo not fake surprise, but just that he expects to have free speech in a place like israel, which supposedly supports speech, and he's trying to draw attention to that. obv the fact that it's somewhat expected for the country to deny him entry based on political views or who he's met with is problematic xp

i was pro Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia, so a fortiori i'm totally cool with Chomsky speaking in Israel. i trust audiences can figure out for themselves whether someone is full of shit

otm

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200809/r289233_1235533.jpg

iirc abbas kiarostami was de-wait for it-nied entry to the US, among other iranians, so getting high-horsey about this, like it's s0 obvious that chomsky should be allowed in, is some faux-naive guff.

Not making any judgement about whether meeting with Hezbollah should or shouldn't exclude you from entering Israel

Read carefully: was allowed into Israel, was not allowed into Ramallah.

I admit I'm not a heavy follower of this aspect of things, but surely Israel not admitting a Jewish person who is critical of policy is a bit weirder than US not letting Kiarostami in because of just being Iranian? Not that I agree with the US gov't on this BTW.

Like there are people who aren't allowed in El Al all the time because they don't answer the boarding questions sufficiently (on my last trip to Israel they asked people all kinds of questions -- did you have a bar mitzvah? name three jewish holidays, stuff like that). Plenty of people aren't allowed to visit for much, much less than meeting with Hezbollah.

― Mordy, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 04:39 (7 hours ago)

TBF, I thought the point of this was to see if your story is consistent rather than to see if you are Jewish. It's a security thing. They obviously let non-Jews come into the country.

What this has to do with Chomsky not being allowed into the West Bank - I'm just at a loss here. There's no security threat. And fuck the US for not letting in Kiarostami as well - what does that have to do with anything?

I mean if you want to talk about a faux-naive guff, how about acting like this is all about Hezbollah. So what, Israel is really just concerned that an 81-year-old world famous linguist is going to smuggle, I don't know, secret battle plans in his pants or something?

they're doing it out of spite/pique/whatever, not because he's a material threat, yes, and they shouldn't

kiarostami comes into it because when israel makes a dick move of this kind, it's used as proof that it isn't really a democracy/doesn't really have free speech, etc. -- part of the usual delegitimation thing other countries don't face

I think the US and to a lesser extent some of the Western European countries do face that shit on the regular from certain quarters.

it's used as proof that it isn't really a democracy/doesn't really have free speech, etc. -- part of the usual delegitimation thing other countries don't face

Other countries don't make such a song and dance about it and strut about looking smug about it

... LOL USA

On Tuesday Costello canceled two concerts in Israel this summer, due to what he calls the "grave and complex" sensitivities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Weren't there any grave and complex sensitivities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he scheduled the concerts?

Phew, close call for Israelis there

I think it's awesome that - no sarcasm - that people around ILX generally believe that individuals have an inherent right to go to whatever country they want, no matter what they've said or who they've met with, and I hope that going into the future more and more human being start to believe that. That said, it's definitely not the common thing in the world, and I'm not surprised to hear any country keep someone out.

Strawman argument. No one is saying that.

It definitely feels like people expect a country like Israel to let whoever wants to come in, come in. Surely Chomsky is less likely to be let in (because of the things he has said, the people he has met with) than some random shmuck without any political persuasions. And like I said, no sarcasm. I really think it's great, and I think it's great that Israeli media is having a big argument about it. But I have to imagine there are few countries in the world that would let the appropriate similar figure in. God, there are few countries that will let anyone in at all. If you have a US passport, there are countries you can't go to. If you have an Israeli passport, there are countries you can't go to. I know the US keeps people from coming in every day for far worse reasons than Israel kept Chomsky out. I don't think that makes it right, but I think it makes it par for the course.

this is kinda awesome imo: http://www.slate.com/id/2255903/

Weren't there any grave and complex sensitivities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he scheduled the concerts?

This is funny and I basically agree, but what I've heard -- and maybe Mordy knows more about this -- is that performances like this just became really politicized (especially given the many cancellations), to the point where performances are being held out (even by government) as evidence that So-and-So Supports Israel (or so-and-so who canceled is Against Israel), which kinda ups the ante and makes it more difficult to say "I'm just a musician, I only want to share my music."

But of course the reason I agree is that even if it's normally easier to say "I'm just playing music," it's still every bit as complex at the best of times.

I don't really know how these acts are contextualized within Israeli media, but it's hard to imagine that a band playing Israel is itself cause to say the band supports their policies. That seems really weird, especially considering how many Israeli bands exist and play in Israel that are outspokenly critical of Israel. Why is this American anti-establishment band pro Israel because they played there, but this Israeli anti-establishment band isn't necessarily so? But I do believe that someone canceling means something politically in the country.

I actually dig Chomsky's line about boycotting Israeli universities. He said that if we were going to boycott Israeli universities for their government's policies, we're going to have to boycott MIT too. It's a smart recognition that different institutions have different political positions and locations within the larger society. I feel the same way about putting on a rock show.

So you were/are totally okay with the artists who played in apartheid South Africa?

I don't really know how these acts are contextualized within Israeli media, but it's hard to imagine that a band playing Israel is itself cause to say the band supports their policies.

Mordy, I am basically just reporting what I'm told by an Israeli friend -- that right now, especially, it really is being contextualized as support, on a political level, even with acts not nearly significant enough that you'd think it'd matter. I understand what you're saying and I think it's what most artists would like to think -- that playing music for people is not a political act, and has nothing to do with supporting or not-supporting anything -- but from what I was told that's not super-possible right now.

And, yes, I'm sure that's something many artists might have wanted to believe about playing in Sun City, WHICH IS NOT AN ANALOGY ABOUT ISRAEL/PALESTINE, just a way of saying that no matter how much you want to transcend political realities -- "I'm just a musician, I'll share my music with anyone who wants to hear" -- there are certain limits to that, situations where there's no such thing.

Those are exactly the places you should be playing/reading if you have actual political inclinations.

^^ And BTW I wasn't even originally referring to big moral decisions by the artists -- I think there'd just be something pretty "complex" and "sensitive" about knowing that your actions are going to be used for political purposes whether you intend them that way or not. And I suspect a lot of artists might default to a hands-off don't-go position to avoid it. (Which is pretty wishful thinking, too; not-going is just as much of a significant act!)

bnw - I understand that POV, too, but then there's really a lot of burden (on someone like a musician) to speak or make political gestures to audiences that don't necessarily want that. That's a burden they should probably make an effort to lift, but still, like ... there are also good temptations and justifications for avoiding it!

"you played in Israel so you support Israeli policies" is not that far from "you live in Israel so you support Israeli policies". Best not to make decisions based on what the stupid and lazy and prejudiced may misinterpret.

It's just a shame that artists want to chicken out. How hard is it to say "peace and love, etc"?

What I'm suggesting here is that it might not just be the stupid/lazy, and that you and your actions might inevitably become a pawn or symbol in something much bigger than yourself, whether you think you're above that or not.

As for saying "peace and love," I dunno; I do think it gets more complicated than that. I'm guessing if we'd all been invited to play Sun City, surely none of us would have taken the decision lightly -- it would be hard to go entertain a space you knew most of the country was barred from entering and just say "peace and equality" between sets. Obviously that is an entirely different situation from this one, but then the question becomes: at what point did it become different, and how? Like when does it become not-an-issue?

chomsky's line on MIT is quite right. costello is happy to play in the US and UK despite their "illegal occupations". the british academics who want to boycott israel as are dodgy as fuck.

Gee, could it be that the US's occupation is significantly different from Israel's?

in the same way that israel is different from south africa, sure.

i dunno, evidently for costello it's ok for america to kill civilians in countries it's not even at war with (pakistan). israel is just different i guess.

yes, very different.

I think Elvis Costello would have been more than happy to play Sun City.

So you were/are totally okay with the artists who played in apartheid South Africa?

I was ten when apartheid officially ended so I didn't really have much of an opinion at the time. At the moment, I have no idea who did or didn't boycott playing the country (except for the obvious couple like Dylan + Van Zandt). I guess since I'm happy that apartheid ended, I'm happy at whatever contributed to it ending, tho off-the-cuff, without doing serious research, I'd imagine artists boycotting the country had very little to do with it ending. I'm guessing that internal resistance, plus external pushing, plus general cultural/social movements (and leadership) had to do with it ending. I'm sure every little bit helped, but I'm similarly skeptical when Republicans tell me that Reagan got rid of the Berlin Wall by telling them to tear it down. I sympathize with nabisco's position that as an artist you don't want to be used as a political tool, but I'm very cynical that these symbolic moments of artists resisting have any association with real political change. If you believe you're political enough to make a statement by not playing, why aren't you political enough to make a statement by playing? Is it that they somehow believe that their mundane business decisions, like what venues to play and not play, have more meaning and power in the world than the kinds of songs they play and the ways they play them? Cause that's a super depressing thought.

israel isn't south africa