Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause

Noam Chomsky:
You look through hundreds of years of history, the West has a virtual monopoly of violence, so, massive terror is the kind of thing *we* do to *them*, you know. They're not supposed to do it to us. September 11th was the first break. It was the first time in hundreds of years that any Western country has suffered on home soil the kind of the thing they do routinely everywhere else.

Noam Chomsky:
If you look through hundreds of years of history, the West has a virtual monopoly on violence. So, massive terror is the kind of thing we do to them, you know, they're not supposed to do it to us, uh, September 11th was the first break. It's the first time in hundreds of years that any Western country has suffered on home soil - the thing they do routinely everywhere else, you know? And in Israel it's sort of the same. Actually, it's pretty striking for me to see this. I had a, uh - after September 11, I had a ton of interviews - everywhere except the United States, of course - and often was national radio and tv. And often it turned, a couple of times it turned out to be Irish television and BBC back-to-back. And the difference in reaction was startling. you know. I mean, and you kind get things like, things that - I said this much on Irish TV, okay discussion over, everyone knows what I'm talking about. But if you try to say it on the BBC, you have to go on to them for like an hour, to explain to them what you mean. But the Irish see, as a chasm, and it just depends on who's been holding the whip for the last hundred years, and who's been under it for 100 years. And the same is true everywhere else in the world. But for the West, the idea that anybody should do to us a fraction of what we regularly do to them, is just outrageous, you know. And the same is true in Israel... it's a 35 year occupation, and up until very recently, they were immune from, literally immune from retaliation from the territories. And they weren't packed in very nicely there. uh it was brutal, humiliating, oppressive, robbing them of resources, kicking people out and so on. But there's no retaliation, okay. Last year though, there's some retaliation. so, you know, scandals. It's also considered a scandal in the West, you know what I mean, because we do it to them, it's okay, but if they do it to us, it's not okay.