On Palestine

by Noam Chomsky

The second reason is that we will never succeed in changing political views about the Palestinian issue if we don’t explain to people how knowledge was manipulated. It is very important because you need to understand how certain phrases are being used like peace process, how certain ideas are being broadcasted like the only democracy in the Middle East, like Palestinian primitivism, and so on. You need to understand how these languages are means of manipulating the knowledge that is there so as to form a certain point of view and prevent another point of view for coming into the space. It’s a twofold issue. You need to understand the history of the place but also the way the narratives have been constructed and how they are being manipulated and used.