Noam Chomsky vs. Franken: Behind the Odd Progressive Divide Between Senators, Intellectuals on Gaza

Salon ^ | WEDNESDAY, JUL 23, 2014 | DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

[nickcarraway]

Senate progressives join unanimous resolution backing Israel, but the reaction has been different elsewhere on left

Very recently, former U.S. national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had this to say about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal attack on and now invasion of Gaza: “He is isolating Israel. He’s endangering its longer-range future. And I think we ought to make it very clear that this is a course of action which we thoroughly disapprove and which we do not support and which may compel us and the rest of the international community to take some steps of legitimizing Palestinian aspirations perhaps in the U.N.”

While it is to be expected that not all of Washington would sign on to this, it is shocking to find the U.S. Senate voting unanimously for Senate Resolution 498, which gave U.S. support for the Israeli defense forces’ invasion and urges Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the unity governing arrangement with Hamas and condemn the attacks on Israel. The resolution calls on Hamas to immediately cease all rocket and other attacks against Israel.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., a co-sponsor of the resolution, was absolutely right when he said, “The United States Senate is in Israel’s camp.”

For many outside the U.S. Senate, the discovery that even progressive stalwarts such as Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Al Franken, D-Minn., voted for the resolution is more than disappointing. It does more than confirm U.S. Senate support for Israel. It pushes that statement beyond any rational or ethical or moral framework imaginable.

[arthurus]

And we know which side of antiSemitism Salon falls on, don’t we?

[Robert DeLong]

These haters on the left. Now that’s really the disgusting part of this article.

[Diogenesis]

[nathanbedford]

One might ask which character trait is less attractive in a politician, pandering to the Jewish vote by supporting this resolution when evidently many leftist senators held their noses to do so or deploring the resolution because one draws a moral conclusion about Israel's incursion into Gaza?

So long as we conduct foreign policy based not on America's identifiable national interests but on some free-floating notions of morality, we will continue to confound ourselves and probably continue to lose the war against militant Islam. In this context, I was going to ask, where is Pat Buchanan when you need him?

But then it occurred but that mentioning his name would only generate accusations of anti-Semitism and lead nowhere especially nowhere near an intelligent assessments of how America's national interests coincide with Israel's.

[nickcarraway]

Buchanan is around. He has an article today arguing the United States is a vassal stat to the Soviet Union.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Sorry, but I don’t know photo’s without labels - since I don’t watch TV anymore - Who’s the dupe being smoozed by the Muslim fanatic?

[Praxeologue]

Who’s the dupe being smoozed by the Muslim fanatic?

Noam Chomsky

[AZLiberty]

The notion that the invasion would bring peace and calm is delusional.

The present goal is not peace and calm, but the security of Israel.

Peace and calm would require driving the Palestinians and all their Muslim brethren into the sea.

[Jabba the Nutt]

The only reason Dem Senators show support for Israel is that that’s where the American People are, behind Israel.