Chomsky vs. Dershowitz

November 30th, 2005 at 20:04 Björn Hallberg

Noam Chomsky debated Alan Dershowitz at Harvard yesterday. Obviously, Dershowitz soon regressed to shouting and personal abuse. Some thoughts over at Metafilter. Even if one agrees with Dershowitz, no one can say that his style of debate is either eloquent nor decisive. Better luck in the jeering court room.

I’d still like to see Finkelstein debate Dershowitz, but obviously Dershowitz doesn’t dare do that as it would embarrass him and expose his blatant disinformation.

Video here.

Harvard Crimson - The debate at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, which touched on issues such as the contiguity of a future Palestinian state and Israel’s commitment to peace, was highly confrontational. Dershowitz accused Chomsky of living on a fictional “Planet Chomsky” and Chomsky claimed that Dershowitz had misrepresented his views on the Middle East.

In response to Dershowitz’s claim that his knowledge of the peace process—including the 2000 Camp David summit­—was based on what President Clinton had told him “directly and personally,” Chomsky said that his own arguments were based on written and accessible evidence.

“You can believe one of two things,” Chomsky said. “The extensive published diplomatic record…or what Mr. Dershowitz says he heard from somebody.”

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