Interview with Noam Chomsky in his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010 (This interview has never been publicly seen until now – November 2025)
In an interview recorded in 2010 (but never publicly presented until now), Professor Chomsky, famed as he is, was extremely generous in affording me time for an interview. I had a long list of questions for him, but was caught off guard when I discovered he could – understandably – only give me about a half an hour. I rummaged through my questions and edited them down, fast. (NOTE: The controversial book — deconstructed by Norman Finkelstein — early referenced is FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, by Joan Peters).
Subjects discussed include Norman Finkelstein, including Chomsky’s respect for his work, Finkelstein’s courage at DePaul University leading to destruction of his career (“exposing the American intellectual class”) as a university professor, Finkelstein’s meticulous criticism of the popular Joan Peters pro-Israel book and the campaign to silence Finkelstein by pro-Israel ideologue Alan Dershowitz. This subject segued to how the Holocaust has become exploited as a political tool by the state of Israel and how, more generally, Gypsy/Roma decimation under the Nazis is not given much attention because the Jewish “Holocaust” – by those who run (as Finkelstein calls it, the “Holocaust Industry”) — is widely considered to be “unique.”
Commentary further includes Chomsky’s perspective that Israel Shahak (a Holocaust survivor, later resident of Israel, and activist for human rights, including Palestinian) and Finkelstein had/have been vilified by intellectual elites in both America and Israel. Chomsky also discusses how both the Holocaust and the accusation of antisemitism are used as tools to silence free speech dissent, how mainstream Jewish/Zionist interest in the Holocaust – and increased accusations of antisemitism — took on special meaning and attention beginning with Israel’s 1967 war, and how mainstream American Jewry didn’t actually want Holocaust survivors to come to America (!) until that time.
Other topics explored by Chomsky include the accusation of “Jewish self-hatred”, sometimes – in Jewish mainstream circles — the Jewish parallel to being a non-Jewish antisemite. Discussion also includes free speech issues around the loose subject of “Holocaust denial,” especially with laws regarding this subject in Europe.
Further discussion includes Jewish American activism in the Civil Rights movement and how it began to falter (and why), the Haredim (religious ultra-Orthodox Jews) who are largely anti-Zionist, The Anti-Discrimination League (ADL) and its abandonment of dedicated civil rights issues to become a shill for Israel, and Chomsky’s critique of Mearsheimer and Walt’s book THE ISRAEL LOBBY.
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