Has Chomsky ever appeared on Charlie Rose? That's the perfect forum for someone like him. (Not that that would make him mainstream, LOL. I don't know anybody in my robot world--neighbors, family, coworkers, etc., who ever watches Rose. What a shame.)

A question for those who decry the "collective punishments" imposed by Israel: Has Israel any right at all to respond to attacks on it from within Gaza or the West Bank, and, if so, what response would be acceptable to you?

Israel's problem here is that for decades it has failed to draw clear distinctions between the act of police dealing with crime and the act of military dealing with enemies. When you don't make that distinction clear, you can't distinguish between war and peace, you can't distinguish between occupation and oppression, you can't distinguish between survival and law and order, you can't distinguish between terrorism and criminal activity. You begin to lose all of your moral perspective, your ability to distinguish a criminal and a sworn enemy, your belief in international and even national law, and your ability, in the end, to distinguish right from wrong, criminal detainees from prisoners of war, and torture from interrogation. Oh, wait, that last one is GWOT not Israel, umm, maybe...

Those who argue things outside of conventional boundaries basically can't go on [TV] because it takes them longer, by definition, to argue their premises (those who spout CW don't need to argue premises, since they're just assumed) --

Hmmm. One could make a case that both Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul dealt with this. Unsucessfully.

So far we've heard from only two of your bees. I do hope we don't have to hear from the whole billion, especially if they've nothing more sensible to offer.

When you narrow the evidence you're willing to consider, you can shape the basis of the argument into something that's more congenial to your prejudices, but such an argument won't convince anyone who sees with his own eyes.

A question for those who decry the "collective punishments" imposed by Israel: Has Israel any right at all to respond to attacks on it from within Gaza or the West Bank, and, if so, what response would be acceptable to you?

The problem with asking the question this way is that it excludes a rather significant factor -- that Israel has spent the last 35+ years brutally occupying land which doesn't belong do it.

Your question would be akin to asking: "Does the U.S. have any right at all to respond to attacks on it inside Iraq, and if so, what response would be acceptable to you?" One answer might be: it should probably leave that country and stop occupying it. If the attacks on Americans by Iraqis then continued inside the U.S. despite the fact that we were no longer occupying their land, that would obviously be a different calculus - then it would be an appropriate question to ask what response from the U.S. is warranted.

Actually, presuming we're talking about the same comment from Chomsky, which I posted here before, he wasn't really explaining why he refuses to go on television as much as why television doesn't want him on -- because what is required for TV is "concision" -- the ability to state ideas in 30-60 second soundbites, and so only people who spout conventional wisdom can do that.

Those who argue things outside of conventional boundaries basically can't go on because it takes them longer, by definition, to argue their premises (those who spout CW don't need to argue premises, since they're just assumed) --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cceC3DeFcY

Again, I'm curious about whether there were things he could have done/could do to overcome those barriers, and whether -- even if so -- he should have tried.

So lets just kill them. It wouldn't be mass murder because they started it. Isn't that how the logic works?

Urging children to hate is pretty reprehensible, but if your going to condemn it, you might as well condemn ALL INSTANCES of it.

Somehow I don't think that's quite what's happening.

The classic example of "chutzpah" is the man who kills his parents and then asks the court for lenience on the ground that he is an orphan. A modern example might be flinging rockets at the people who supply your electricity, then angrily demanding to know who turned out the lights.

A question for those who decry the "collective punishments" imposed by Israel: Has Israel any right at all to respond to attacks on it from within Gaza or the West Bank, and, if so, what response would be acceptable to you?

During Oslo, the Labor party doubled settlement population, and cantonized the West Bank using Israeli only access roads, non-autonomous regions and checkpoints. The injustices from Labor's stewardship of the so-called peace process led to the Intifada, and the first year or so of Israel's inhuman response to mostly unarmed demonstrations was managed by the Labor party. Likud, is certainly more reactionary in rhetoric, but there are few real political differences towards Palestine.

omooex

Omooex, I hate to jump on this, I really do agree with a lot of what you say, even if I jump on you, okay?

This is only technically true, no? Labor was in power during the Oslo negotiations, but the Housing minister was none other than Ariel Sharon, the settlements' prime architect and biggest promoter, and the guy that started the second intifada. That was due to power sharing to form a government, as I recall (you can correct me, but that's why I believe he was in the Labor government). So it's kind of a stretch to say that Labor was the driving force behind the settlement statistics you cite.

To the other commenter that made a point about the Palestinians never negotiating during the 1970's -- too much perspective is not a good thing always. This thing has been going on for a very long time now ("you're old enough to kill, but not for votin', and even the Jordan River's got bodies floatin' but you tell me..."), and all the parties involved have changed over time, it isn't correct to behave as if they haven't. The PLO switched from a consensus basis to a majority vote basis in the late 1980's or early 1990's (I remember Edward Said talking about this during the announcement of the Oslo Accords). So the dissent of a single radical could no longer table a proposal for negotiating with Israel. Previous to that it could, giving hardliners undue power to maintain a radical stance.

To carry the whole thing with a very general view of ticking off past events without the underlying causes paints a picture of hopelessness that stands in the way of real negotiations, in this case.