Peace prize for Chomsky draws ire in Australia

JTA ^ | 6/3/11 | staff

[Nachum]

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) -- The awarding of a peace prize to the American Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky, a strident critic of Israel and of American foreign policy, is drawing criticism in Australia.

The citation for this year’s Sydney Peace Prize, announced Wednesday, says that Chomsky was chosen “for inspiring the convictions of millions about a common humanity and for unfailing moral courage.”

“The choice of Noam Chomsky continues a pattern of Sydney Peace Prize recipients who have demonstrated questionable credentials as legitimate peace-makers,” said Vic Alhadeff, chief executive of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. “It does nothing to enhance the standing of either the recipient or the prize itself.”

Michael Danby, a member of parliament from Australia’s governing Labor Party, criticized the choice by the Sydney Peace Foundation, which awards the prize and is based at the University of Sydney. He called the award “a bodgy prize from a bodgy institute.”

Chomsky, 82, sparked a furor recently with an essay on the killing of Osama bin Laden in which he wrote that George W. Bush’s crimes “vastly exceed” those of the al Qaeda leader.

“We might ask how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at his compound, assassinated him and dumped his body in the Atlantic,” he said.

Chomsky has said that he is “honored to receive this prestigious award.” He said he would fly to Australia in November to collect his $50,000 prize and deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize lecture at the University of Sydney.

[FormerACLUmember]

Who ARE the lunatics responsible for the “Sidney Peace Prize” being given to a mass murder supporting Chomsky?

[hinckley buzzard]

first cousins of the a-holes who gave terrorists the nobel peace prize.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This demonstrates that the people behind the Sydney Peace Prize are deeply and unapologetically racist, because Noam Chomsky has personally done more to keep black Americans down than any other person, alive or dead, including Jefferson Davis.

He and his followers did this by foisting “whole language” English instruction on them, which in as little as a decade reduced their language skills from almost on a par with those of white students to barely literate. By doing so, it ruined their entire education, and condemned generations of black Americans to poverty and despair.

[Chode]

yup, he killed Phonics and might as damn well replaced it with Ebonics...

[JimWayne]

The protests are silly. Leftists award prizes to fellow leftists. No big deal there unless one respects the leftists who instituted the prize in the first place.