Talk:Faurisson affair

Old discussion

I noticed a bit late that the source for details on his conviction is the holocaust denier Arthur Butz. I just hope that not everything they write is falsified, otherwise you can all stone me. pir 21:10, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My impression is that this article is one-sided, presenting Faurisson, Thion, Chomsky et al. as the innocent victims of an angry French establishment hostile to free speech. I think that the view should be more nuanced. David.Monniaux 10:34, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think that it would be much better if you start the Serge Thion article and add this information there. I don't know French, but google translation of this article seems to suggest that it's a personal quarrel of some sort, that started after the year 2000 - while the events in the article started in 1979 - so it's rather confusing the way you added it. With regard to Chomsky, it's true that he didn't read Faurisson before signing the petition, as he kept repeating to anyone who would listen, but he didn't condone Faurisson's work either. See for example this, where, unlike in France, the charge isn't that he condones Faurisson's work, but that he is agnostic about it. And BTW, I don't think you could have put your "angry French establishment hostile to free speech" phrase more accurately:) Anyway, since it doesn't seem to be contested that Thion is a libertarian socialist, I'll try to edit the article by minimizing Thion's description to only mention that. Sams 12:53, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thion was a researcher at CNRS, a public establishment of scientific research. In 2000 he was fired (an exceptional measure) after numerous complaints that he was using his taxpayer-funded academic position to promote negationist views. David.Monniaux 13:39, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What does 'negationist' mean? This word appears on google, but not in any online dictionary... weird... Sams 14:14, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

probably someone who negates things, denies. Foant

A negationist is, in that context, somebody who denies the Jewish Holocaust. David.Monniaux 17:05, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

David, thank you for the negationism link - do you also have a source that says that Thion denies the Holocaust, or a direct source with what Thion wrote? And about what you added about Chomsky: he didn't read Faurisson before signing the petition, and was given to read Faurisson's work because of the controversy that aroused after signing the petition. In the letter that he wrote back (that was used as the introduction for Faurisson's book), he said that the central issue in his opinion is that Faurisson should be allowed free expression even if he is a neo-Nazi, and he added on the non-central question that he doesn't wish to imply that Faurisson is indeed a neo-Nazi, and that from what he was given to read Faurisson appears to be a "relatively apolitical liberal of some sort". This letter only caused greater controversy in France. Note that all of this, including the Vidal-Naquet article, happened in 1981. What you added about 'Chomsky contradicting himself with regard to having read Faurisson' seems to be based on what Chomsky wrote in 1985 (e.g. in The Nation article), not 1981 - it's a pedantic argument I think, by 1985 Chomsky interchangeably used the terms 'haven't read Faurisson' and 'looked at some of Faurisson's work as a result of the controversy in order to determine if he's a Nazi', which he considers to be more or less the same it seems... I think it would be better if you add a more substantive argument instead, such as whether there is evidence that calling Faurisson "apolitical liberal" is inaccurate, especially based on what he wrote until 1980, but also evidence from his post-1980 writing would be interesting... I haven't seen real evidence for that yet... Perhaps you're more familiar with this issue? And again I think it would be good if you start a Thion article, since you know French... Sams 21:58, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In a French context, "apolitical liberal" is meaningless. In a French context, a "liberal" is somebody who advocates free-market economics. I don't think it is the case for Faurisson! David.Monniaux 23:31, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC) In some interviews Faurisson qualified himself of apolitical or "in the Centre" that means neither right, nor left.Bulimiko (talk) 16:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmmm Chomsky wrote "liberal" in a letter in English, not French, and Vidal-Naquet in his article didn't like the "apolitical liberal" term either... and in the U.S. even some of the so-called-left-wing still goes crazy over this in the year 2004 [1], but I didn't see any evidence to suggest that Faurisson isn't an apolitical liberal... what you said confused me even further... did you claim that because Faurisson doesn't advocate free-market economics, he isn't a liberal? And what would a conservative mean in France with regard to economics? (Again, Chomsky correctly regards this entire issue as irrelevant, because defending the free expression rights of a Nazi is even more important in his opinion, and because it's better to let Nazis and Holocaust deniers speak out so that everyone can see that they're crazy, instead of mystifying them - he just added that it didn't seem to him that Faurisson is a Nazi in order to avoid the implication, and then let it go... but both his French and American critics seem incapable to understand simple English). Sams 00:17, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"I didn't see any evidence to suggest that Faurisson isn't an apolitical liberal..."

See Nadine Fresco's June 1980 article "The Denial of the Dead." [2]

I agree that Faurisson's being an anti-Semite and being linked to neo-Nazi groups isn't relevant to the freedom of speech issue. It does make Chomsky's defense of Faurisson as an "apolitical liberal" open to criticism, though. Russil Wvong 20:16, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Huh? Who is Nadine Fresco?

No idea. Doesn't seem that she receives peer reviews, or that anything she says can be verified elsewhere. But according to Chomsky: "Vidal-Naquet, Faurisson's harshest and most knowledgeable critic, could come up with no evidence suggesting that he was an anti-Semite or had any political views at all" (also, Chomsky's own impression is that: "If anything, he's anti-Nazi"). If Chomsky is wrong, and Vidal-Naquet did come up with evidence someplace else, I'd be very interested to see it. Tcsh 22:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I quoted Vidal-Naquet's more concise remarks on Chomsky and his summary of the case for why Faurisson is an antisemite. If anyone feels that these are an inadequate representation of Vidal-Naquet's arguments (these may, for example, obscure what deserves critical scrutiny in Vidal-Naquet's arguments), please feel free to offer further edits. It's all there to be found in the online texts from The Assassins of Memory. Buffyg 23:53, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Boring... It's the same article from 1981. From your edits history it seems that you're interested in French stuff, so maybe try to find other material? What you quoted is just circular arguments and thoughts that went through Vidal-Naquet's head, with zero evidence. As discussed elsewhere, the only thing that it shows is that Vidal-Naquet has difficulties with the English language. So it would be rather silly that you added it, and said "feel free to offer further edits", if indeed Vidal-Naquet didn't offer evidence anywhere (like Chomsky said). Tcsh 23:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if I've failed to entertain, but there's nothing like a reasonable account of Vidal-Naquet's views to be found here. I do "French stuff," but that's also led me to do a reasonable amount of "Holocaust stuff". This entry still comes off as a complete white-wash of Chomsky for representing the argument as though Chomsky's terms were the only available and were in any case sufficient. Let's review the evidence already presented in a passage from Vidal-Naquet's previous essay, "A Paper Eichmann" [3]

Vidal-Naquet's objection is that it was already well-documented by the time that Chomsky provided his preface that Faurisson's work is not historical research: it is negationism whose interpretative protocol is antisemitic, requiring falsification of the barest facts of history to conform to its axioms. The conversion of the partisan order into legitimate military doctrine is not a historical "finding", and Vidal-Naquet is right immediately to point out that its intimate connection with the Einsatzgruppen is passed over in inexcusable silence (as is the complicity of the Wehrmacht in earlier actions against the Polish intelligensia, Catholic Church, and other sources of leadership, although it is not clear to me how long it was before the myth of an unsullied Wehrmacht was thoroughly debunked; I will have to do further research for that). Chomsky later argues: "even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite. That suffices to establish the point at issue." This is surely not only irrelevant but obscurantist—the hypothetical point may not be contended, but surely any competent reading of Faurisson's work indicates that this characterisation does not obtain. Buffyg 10:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm I don't think that pasting all that here is fair-use, and anyway the link is enough. That excerpt is a discussion of (falsified) historical accounts. The relevant question is not whether Himmler falsified the reality (it's obvious that he did), or whether Faurisson was using falsified evidence (also obvious, i.e. no gas chambers, etc.), or whether Vidal-Naquet falsified stuff in his accounts (also well documented, see e.g. [4]), or whether your summary falsified stuff (also obvious, e.g. "provided his preface"). The relevant question is if it demonstrates whether or not Faurisson is a apolitical-liberal/anti-Semite/neo-Nazi. Faurisson's factual arguments seem to be based on bullshit, but what about his principles? There're tons of people who believe in all sorts of weird stuff, so that alone tells us very little. Do you have any evidence that he agrees with anything that the Nazis did, i.e. not just him saying that this or that happened, but also that it's a good thing that it happened? So far it seems to me that the opposite is true. Also, Vidal-Naquet objected to the word "findings" not because the findings were false (like you said), but because he thought that it means that it's supposed to be new evidence. And to be clear, by using the term "relevant question" above, I meant it in regard to the narrow discussion here. It's obviously not the relevant question as far as Chomsky is concerned, as he made it clear that he couldn't care less about what Faurisson has to say, and that defending free speech of neo-Nazis is more important than defending free speech of liberals. I noticed that Chomsky also refuses to read stuff with regard to other controversies, a recent example is the "Little Eichmanns" essay, where he said: "I've never read this article [on 9/11] and have no interest in doing so - in fact, would not do so as a matter of principle in the present context". Tcsh 17:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

As to the "provided his preface", this is not a settled matter of falsification. I am well aware that Vidal-Naquet accusses Chomsky of "mendacity" in claiming that the preface was not written for Faurisson (he claims, "My colleague and friend Professor Arno Mayer of Princeton spoke with Chomsky about his preface a few weeks before its publication.").

Vidal-Naquet objects to the term "findings" not because of what Faurisson announces as his result but because the entire protocol of their production has nothing to do with historical inquiry: they are wholly predicated on antisemitism (which is what I understand to be the sense of the passage I cited, which I introduced to refute the claim that Vidal-Naquet produced no evidence to establish Faurisson's antisemitism). [5] These are his principles. (This is why I find Chomsky to be deliberately obscurantist in presenting the example he does of someone who denies the Holocaust for lack of awareness of modern history: certainly this is possible, and it is certainly not the case at hand. This is the point at which one asks whether Chomsky is so dedicated to civil liberties that he would defend the freedom of revisionist or neo-Nazis: does he not also unscrupously defend not only Faurisson's freedom but his person and ideological commiments, and does this apology speak more eloquently than anything else to the extent to which Chomsky fails as the heir to the Enlightenment he dresses himself up to be, brandishing Voltaire against every critic, some of whom will not be burned by that flame?) To understand Faurisson one has to switch levels from arguing about facts to understanding how Faurisson produces them if one wishes to make him intelligible. Vidal-Naquet says as much:

But how to respond since discussion is impossible? By proceeding as one might with a sophist, that is, with a man who seems like a speaker of truths, and whose arguments must be dismantled piece by piece in order to demonstrate their fallaciousness. And by also attempting to elevate the debate, by showing that the revisionist fraud is not the only one to adorn contemporary culture, and that not merely the how but also the why of its lie needs to be understood." [6]

In a very fundamental sense, this mode of negationism is in profound agreement with the Holocaust: when the Holocause was done, it was then to be undone—its fulfillment was its erasure and that of all memory of the dead, who were never to have existed, never to have been exterminated. One does not have to endorse the Holocaust so overtly to demonstrate one's ideological consistency with it or commitment: I should imagine this to be the sense of the title: "A Paper Eichmann". Buffyg 18:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

In the 1981 article, Vidal-Naquet acknowledges his confusion regarding the word "findings", and then proceeds to lie blatantly and say that he didn't use this word in the published version. Regarding the preface, the Faurisson cronies who organized the petition were interviewed in the 1992 movie on Chomsky, and they too said that Chomsky gave them this letter and told them that they can do anything they want with it. If there's someone who claims that Chomsky was aware of the book prior to publication, let him come forward. You replied at length to my question about evidence above, but you didn't actually contribute any information. You just quote from the articles that are already linked here, denounce Chomsky for failing to see that your circular arguments show that Faurisson is evil, and ignore what I said. So again, there're lots of people who believe in all sorts of "facts" in many areas, and I'm aware that Faurisson is one of them. If you wish, you can infer from it that Faurission thinks that the Holocaust was a good thing, and that he wants to kill more Jews. However, I'm still waiting for evidence. From what I read about Faurission praising the Jews who fought against the Nazis in the Warshaw Ghetto uprising, he seems to me like just some weirdo, not like a Nazi. Do you have any further evidence? Anything with substance about his political beliefs? Or even more factual accounts, e.g. do you know how many Jews the Nazis killed according to Faurission? Tcsh 21:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Your comment on the dispute about findings isn't entirely accurate, and your reference to a blatant "lie" is a provocation I doubt you can support. The point I was trying to make is that Chomsky, not having a particularly strong command of the facts behind the petition he signed in support of Faurisson, ultimately goes beyond defending Faurisson's civil rights and defends his work as history and not an antisemitic commitment. Let us, however, set aside Chomsky and consider the issue we have sidetracked: Faurisson, Nazism, and antisemitism. Consider Lyotard's observations from The Differend:

It remains that if Faurisson is "in bad faith," Vidal-Naquet cannot convince him that the phrase There were gas-chambers is true. The historian bitterly notes that, in an analogous fashion, "there are still anti-Dreyfusards"... Consensus may be missing even in a case... whose reality has been established as much as will permit. Thus bad will, or bad faith, or a blind belief... can prevent truth from manifesting itself and justice from being done — No. What you are calling bad will, etc., is the name you give to the fact that the opponent does not have a stake in establishing reality, that he does not accept the rules for forming and validating cognitives, that his goal is not to convince. The historian need not strive to convince Faurisson if Faurisson is "playing" another genre of discourse, one in which conviction, or, the obtainment of consensus over a defined reality, is not at stake. Should the historian persist along this path, he will end up in the position of victim. (pp. 18-19)

Rather than specify or analyse this "bad faith," you call Faurisson a "weirdo". At a minimum, that's a terribly naive position to take. You have a more than adequate body of facts to come to an understanding of why and how Faurisson produces such a dissonant interpretation. I have cited at length evidence others have used to arrive at the conclusion that Faurisson is a negationist antisemite. Bored by this, you continue to insist that you need further evidence. You ask at one point: "Do you have any evidence that he agrees with anything that the Nazis did, i.e. not just him saying that this or that happened, but also that it's a good thing that it happened?" This question is misconceived to the point of stupidity.

Apologies come in many forms. Faurisson doesn't say "you killed five or six million Jews, good work, boys"—he claims that there was no Holocaust and that the killings of Jews that did happen (certainly not in the gas chambers that did not exist in his view) were militarily justifiable because world Jewry had declared war on Germany. Body counts are not the missing factual evidence; this is no longer a matter of competing bodies of evidence submitted under the same rules of review. The evidence you seek is the form of Faurisson's denial, which is why I drew to your attention the long passage from Vidal-Naquet that you still have not understood adequately. When one justifies the claim that the Jews were partisans by distorting evidence, one obscures what the partisan order unleashed (the Final Solution) and how it began organised mass murder, which was subsequently transformed into the death camps of Aktion Reinhardt and Auschwitz. One can be clever about it and say that these Jewish partisans were heroes, but that's again lipstick on a pig because one has already cast an atrocity as the sort of military action in which one could find war heroes as opposed to a series of atrocity systematically carried out against a people, including women and children (we have heard how Faurisson justifies the inclusion of the latter among the enemy). In short: once one has established a basic moral equivalency between the two sides and recast their conflict as a war, one can give plaudits to heroes on both and referring to both sides as having heroes is a clever way to appear even-handed. All of these arguments are, however, an elaboration of antisemitism and not an historical account of Nazi Germany. I have already elaborated the sense in which this ideological account can be taken as consistent with that of the Final Solution.

When you insist on further evidence, it is because you are looking at the lipstick and failing to notice that it is on the lips of swine. I see no reason to continue this discussion. Buffyg 11:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Easy to support the fact that Vidal-Naquet lied blatantly. All you need to do is get the Esprit issue with the published version, and see if the word "findings" is there, if you're interested. The quantities of text that you added to this talk page really weren't needed, I was aware of all of these arguments before asking for evidence about Faurisson being anything other than an apolitical/anti-Nazi/weirdo. Please let me know if you come up with substantive evidence on his political beliefs, other than your abilities to decipher what truly motivates Faurisson by reading his claims about falsified historical facts, even though he didn't reveal his true motivation in his writings and claims to be apolitical. Tcsh 19:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

By the same argument, the text you added to this page before I attempted to respond is unnecessary because the evidence I've recalled has allowed a considerable number of people to understand what you do not, and, whatever your "awareness" of it, you have provided no argument against these interpretations or otherwise elaborated an alternative account. Other than to take this as a sure sign of bad faith enacted as negationism at second-hand (i.e. your claim that Faurisson is "anti-Nazi"), I see no reason to comment further on why you have not specified the basis for your objections or, following Lyotard, to continue this lengthy aside to the point of becoming its victim. Buffyg 19:57, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

"given to read Faurisson" Where did this claim come from? Chomsky says that in formulating his position on the Faurisson case he relied "mainly on charges conveyed to me by his harshest critics". The claim that Chomsky has read anything that was written by Faurisson himself seems bogus to me, but since it's propagated only in this discussion page, and not in the article, nevermind. Tcsh 22:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

image misleading

Having an image of Faurisson after he was assaulted in 1989 is misleading, as the article text mentions that he was "beaten" previously. A casual glance at the image without noticing the dates would make the reader believe that this image relates to the 1979 affair. DanKeshet 07:31, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Is the date right? Was he really assaulted in 1989 or in 1979? Chamaeleon 14:23, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

He was assaulted both times, but the photos accompanying the article are from the 1989 assault. As such, I agree with DanKeshet that they are misleading and should be removed. Isarig 18:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If he was assaulted as badly the first time, then they are not misleading. If the second assault was worse, then they are slightly misleading and so it should be made clear in the text that there was a second assault and this photo relates to it. Chamaeleon 11:24, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No matter how badly he was assaulted, it's misleading to show the picture. I have been doing library searches for newspaper articles related to the original assault, in order to clear up the "he said, she said" stuff, but so far, most of what I found is from years afterward. DanKeshet 18:32, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

The article previously stated that Faurisson was beaten up in 1979, but didn't give any source or details. Nadine Fresco describes it as "lightly molested." I did a search and found an unpublished letter from November 1979 by Faurisson to the New Statesman [7] saying that he had been "assaulted."

In contrast, there's plenty of references to Faurisson being very brutally beaten in 1989: "broken jaw and ribs and severe head injuries" [8].

I agree with DanKeshet and Isarig that the image from the 1989 beating isn't relevant to the events discussed in the article, which took place from 1978 to 1981. Russil Wvong 08:03, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Chamaeleon, I see you've added the image from the 1989 beating again, with clarified text. How about moving it to the end of the article, to make the sequence of events clearer? Russil Wvong 17:27, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Too much emphasis on Chomsky's response

Almost every section of this article is devoted to Chomsky's defense of himself and Faurisson, much of it being quotes by Chomsky himself. Shouldn't the "subsequent accusations by various pro-Israeli academics and groups" also be given their fair space as well? (On that note, it seems that the non-sequitor branding of the critics as "pro-Israeli" isn't relevant, isn't necessarily true, and doesn't belong here. I've removed the phrase.) Gni 19:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC) (actually someone else beat me to the punch. thx to whoever fixed it!)

Pro-Israeli academics - please don't give them too much space. It would be too embarrassing to see them get chewed up and spit out. How did supporting free speech, thought and publication become anti-Semitic.

Intro

The comments that some of Chomsky's critics objected to were "is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read -- largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him -- I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. " This is not a general comment applicable to anyone, but rather a specific one defending Faurisson from the chareg of being an anti-semite. You are obviously aware that Vidal-Naquet is one of the critics who has argued this. It is misleading to present Chomsky's critics in the intro as either some conspiratorial group that wanted to smear him by claiming a personal association with F, or to pretend that their criticism was an attack on "free speech" Isarig 21:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Still, "comments on F's work" is too strong, because what he said there is that he sees no hints that what others claim regarding F's work is true, without offering new comments of his own on F's work. I'll change "comments on F's work" to "defense of F's work", which is also too strong, but it's generic so it would fit for whatever critics claimed. Tcsh

Noontide Press

What happened to the information on Noontide Press, and Chomsky allowing them exclusive rights to publish "The Fatefull Triangle"? Torturous Devastating Cudgel 00:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The introductory sentence "In addition to fines and restrictions imposed by the French government as a result of his published questioning of generally accepted assertions about the Holocaust which have not been fully substantiated, he was later beaten to near-death by apparent Jewish Terrorists" is somewhat misleading in the language used, particularly in the use of the word 'assertion' (which implies a fact taken for granted, or never examined, and then used in support of other arguments - the holocaust has been thoroughly examined many times over) and in the slight ambiguity of the phrase "questioning of generally accepted assertions about the Holocaust which have not been fully substantiated" - on closer examination its not clear if the 'assertions' about the holocause were never substantiated (which is clearly false, see above)or Faurissons questioning of them. I propose rewording to the following, using information drawn from the page on Faurisson on wiki: "In 2006 he was charged and later convicted and given a three-month probationary sentence and fined €7,500 on the grounds that he denied the holocaust in an interview given to Iranian television, under the Gaysott Act, which prohibits holocaust denial in France. He has also been repeatedly attacked as a result of his published views." if no one has any objections i will make this change in teh next few days. Jixie 22:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I am certain that it is only accidental that you desire to leave out the "nearly beaten to death' and " Jewish terrorists" out. We must be careful not to leave the best part on the cutting room floor.159.105.80.141 16:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Precision and sources

I think this article lacks precision and proper sourcing. As an example, I had to remove a sentence in the introduction that claimed Faurisson was fined 21000 francs in 2006 — in 2006, France used the Euro as currency and no longer the French franc. Press reports from the time talk about 7500€, which is about 49000 FRF. It is possible that whoever wrote this mixed several different prosecutions.

It would probably be a good idea to compile a list of all the prosecutions, trials and sentences of Robert Faurisson, with proper sources - preferrably press reports from the time, not later commentary. David.Monniaux (talk) 07:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

David Monniaux is correct, and there are too many instances like this -- "Chomsky granted permission for the essay to be used for any purpose. Serge Thion then used it as a preface when publishing a book by Faurisson, without Chomsky's knowledge." -- where factual assertions are made without any source. --Tbanderson (talk) 21:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree.BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Partial correspondence

Subsequently, Chomsky argued that there was a difference between the acceptance of historical facts (in this case, the existence of gas chambers, denied by Faurisson) and the attitude towards certain people (hatred of the Jews, anti-Semitism, perhaps also held by Faurisson):

"I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson's work."

Chomsky has said the above quotation has been stripped of context. On his website he calls it "a distortion".^[9] I am placing it here for discussion. Should it be restored, with NC's additional remarks attached? Wikispan (talk) 16:28, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be added, but as a new section, since those events took place years after the Faurisson affair itself. Maybe a new section called "Further development"?--Evenfiel (talk) 22:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

He's a linquist and this is pretty darn clear and simple - it would be interesting to know if in his greater "context" he tried to wiggle out of it. It sounds to me that bringing up "context" may make his statement unparseable or whatever big word he likes. I noticed that the article on Chomsky has no mention of this episode. 159.105.81.48 (talk) 19:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I should have gone directly to the source ( Chomsky's website - letters 1989) instead of doing wiki first. His reply to one gentleman gores everyone's ox. Among the notable trivia, he badmouths Wiesel on an issue I had never heard about ( Chomsky says the reason I ( or hardly anyone else)never heard was a conscious attempt to hide the story. It appears that the Israeli's deny the Armenian genocide ( or at least theyu did in the 1980s and 1990s ) for political reasons ( want to be friends with the Turks it seems). I applaud the Israelis for denying the Aremeian genocide - very weak historical facts went into that one too, but I admit I knew nothing about the intellectual crowd I was agreeing with .159.105.81.48 (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

References

William Rubinstein

My edits where removed by an editor. I thought I would discuss here.

1: This is important because a lot of the current controversy is based on the correspondence between William Rubinstein.

2: In his reply which is available on his site Chomsky does not say he is misquoted by William Rubinstein. Rather he asserts that not all holocaust denial is necessarily anti-sematic. Removing that part from the article is definitely wrong.

3: I agree that the original article is only available as a poor quality scan. On a disreputable site. However it does not say anything that Chomsky does not say in 1989-1991. Chomsky does not agree that all holocaust denial is necessarily anti-sematic.

Letters to William Rubinstein 1981

In an October 1981 article William Rubinstein quotes a previously unpublished article from the New Statesman dated 2 November 1979 by Gitta Sereny about Faurisson. Rubinstein included some quotes from his correspondence with Chomsky.

Faurisson:

Noam Chomsky … is aware of the research work I do on what (I) call the ‘gas chambers and genocide hoax’. He informed me that Gitta Sereny had mentioned my name in an article in your journal. He told me I had been referred to in an extraordinarily unfair way.

Chomsky:

This [i.e. his previous reply] you find puzzling and unsatisfactory. As I noted to you in my letter, it would indeed be ‘puzzling and unsatisfactory’ to someone with a deeply totalitarian mentality. To such people, it may seem incomprehensible, even immoral, to believe that those who disagree with one’s convictions should have the right of free inquiry and expression. This is a standard view among Nazis and Stalinists, for example. On grounds of simple logic, your letter reveals that you share in these attitudes.

Rubinstein:

Stalinist and Nazi that I am, more was to follow.

Chomsky:

You ask whether I believe that Faurisson’s claims are valid or not. Which claims? You give exactly one example, namely Faurisson’s claim that the Holocaust was a “historic lie” (Here quoting you not him). Perhaps Faurisson holds this view, but it is interesting to see your basic for attributing it to him. Your source is the Le Monde article you sent me, where Faurisson happens to say nothing of the kind… Rather, what he calls a ‘historic lie’ is the claim that there were ‘wholesale massacres in gas chambers’, or that there were gas chambers at all. Someone might well believe that there were no gas chambers but there was a Holocaust obviously.

Rubinstein:

Needless to say, this is not the issue at all. No one, so far as I know questions Faurisson's right to believe that the Holocaust was a hoax, or that the world is shaped like a pancake. The issue is whether Chomsky should write an introduction to a book claiming that my dead relatives in Warsaw are not only alive, but are milking the German government of millions by fraud.

“Wrong again. This is a direct quotation from Faurisson –WDR”

…Wrong again –WDR

Chomsky:

"I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson's work, and find your argument to the contrary ‘puzzling and unsatisfactory’ to put it in mildest terms.

Rubinstein:

“Chomsky’s letters to me are each 1500 words long, and became increasingly malevolent, truculent, and hostile. One final illustrative quote is perhaps in order. When I put it to him that there were no gas chambers but there was a holocaust, “was absurd”, I received the following reply:

Chomsky:

Again that reveals your complete incapacity to follow the most elementary logical reasoning – quite on a par, and a natural concomitant, of your gross falsification of documentary evidence, which I pointed out to you in my first letter … evidently taking falsification to be as much your privilege as gratuitous insult [!]. A person might well believe that there was a holocaust – that, say, the Nazis followed a policy of salve labor under conditions so awful that millions of people died and were shoveled into crematoria – and yet believe that there were no gas chamber. If you cannot comprehend this, I suggest that you begin your education again at the kindergarten level.

Rubinstein claimed to have sent Chomsky information about Faurissons’ right wing political ties, months before Chomsky wrote his introduction. He believes that Chomsky shares many of Faurisson’s views, except from a left wing perspective.

References

Chomsky's response 1989-1991

In his response from his site Chomsky address his letters to Rubinstein:

1.Is it true that you stated that you saw "no anti-semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the holocaust"? Did you mean this in a purely formal sense? In any other way, it seems strange to me that you wouldn't at least suspect the motives of someone who does seriously attempt to deny that event.

Now your first question. The "statement" to which you refer is a distortion of something that I wrote in a personal letter 11 years ago, when I was asked whether the fact that a person denies the existence of gas chambers does not prove that he is an anti-Semite. I wrote back what every sane person knows: no, of course it does not. A person might believe that Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews in some other way without being an anti-Semite. Since the point is trivial and disputed by no one, I do not know why we are discussing it.

In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that point too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite. That suffices to establish the point at issue .

Chomsky does not say he is misquoted by William Rubinstein. Rather he does not agree with Question 1. He again asserts that not all holocaust denial is necessarily anti-sematic. Removing that part from the article is definitely wrong.

Jonney2000 (talk) 00:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

References