In the comments to my post reconstructing a quotation, distorted by an ellipsis, attributed to Ariel Sharon, a reader wrote,"Next up, Prof. Bernstein explains the quote attributed to Moshe Dayan, 'we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave.'" Sure, why not. This quote comes up pretty often, and is a particular favorite of Noam Chomsky. It's generally attributed to Dayan as saying that this is what he said Israel should tell "the Palestinians" or "the Palestinians in the occupied territories."
The problem is that the original English source for this quote is Noam Chomsky, in his 1992 book Deterring Democracy. Not surprisingly, Chomsky provides no meaningful context; all he writes is "Dayan's advice was that Israel should tell the Palestinian refugees [note that even in Chomsky's original, Dayan is referring to "refugees" assumedly living in refugee camps, not Palestinians in general, something that Chomsky has conveniently forgotten over time] in the territories 'that we have no solution, that you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave — and we will see where this process leads... [beware the ellipsis!] In five years we may have 200,000 less people — and that is a matter of enormous importance.'"
Chomsky's source is Yossi Beilin, Mehiro shel Ihud 42-43 (Revivim, 1985), a Hebrew book written by Israeli dove Beilin. If we have any Volokh Conspiracy readers who are fluent in Hebrew and have access to the book, let me know in more detail what specifically Dayan was referring to, what is missing via the ellipsis, and if, for that matter, Chomsky is indeed quoting accurately (which with Chomsky cannot be taken for granted), please write in.
UPDATE: In a debate with Alan Dershowitz, the cheeky Chomsky states: "Dayan was in charge of the occupation. He advised them that we must tell the Palestinians, that we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes, may leave. That's the solution that is now being implemented. Don't take my word for it. Go check the sources I cited, very easy, all English." Well, all English so long as you allow Chomsky to cite himself citing the Hebrew original!
Not really parallel to Chomsky's Dayan quote (unless there's more to the story), but interesting enough to mention.
I believe the determinative moment in the debate came when, answering a question from an Israeli who had been at Camp David as an advisor to Ehud Barak, Chomsky referred to Pundak’s Camp David maps as authority for his answer. The Israeli seemed to surprise Chomsky by pointing out that Pundak had not in fact been at Camp David. Chomsky hemmed and hawed a bit, finally doing what he could to rescue his credibility by insisting that Pundak had nonetheless certainly been an advisor in the background (“background” presumably meaning Israel or someplace else that just doesn’t happen to be where the disputed events actually took place, Camp David).
Some time later, I listened to the debate again from the Democracy Now site you linked. I was taken aback to discover that the Israeli’s question and the ensuing exchange had been edited out of the Democracy Now broadcast. Which means it’s also absent from their website transcript. So neither listening to nor reading about this debate on the Democracy Now site will offer any hint of what I think was its crucial moment.
I'm not saying it was overtly deceptive to delete such a key portion of the debate. Amy Goodman never said she was broadcasting the entire thing, and fitting a one and a half hour event into a one-hour radio program does necessitate some cutting. Also, to be fair, they do link to the Kennedy School's video stream of the entire program. Finally, let’s face it -- it’s Pacifica. Nobody really expects them to be objective.
Still -- call me naive -- I was surprised. This was the only moment in the debate when either Dershowitz or Chomsky seemed the least bit thrown. Removing it wasn’t just point shaving; it was arguably fixing the winner. All else being equal, I'd think that such a rare moment of tension, being of interest to an audience, would be singled out for inclusion, not removal. So I have to believe the Democracy Now editors cut the segment precisely because they saw it as I did, i.e., the Israeli's revelation and Chomsky's reaction to it seriously impeached Chomsky's credibility.
Apropos of your earlier post about ellipses, I suppose the take away message here is that electronic media has its own versions of ellipses, equally capable of changing or distorting meaning unbeknownst to a credulous (Hello!) audience.
Chomsky is very literate in Hebrew. His parents taught Hebrew, too, and were Zionists, first of the Ahad Ha'am variety, and then supportive of Ben-Gurion. Noam never wavered from his support of Ha'am.
Beilin did repeat that comment from Dayan somewhere, but damned if I can find it on the web. Maybe someone else can do better than me in finding it. Still, it's a gotcha at most, isn't it? Kind of like Paul Robeson saying he wouldn't fight for the US against Russia based upon the President and Congress not supporting anti-lynching legislation at the time. Should Dayan be judged on that one comment? Hardly.
One of the first things you learn from the aforementioned debate is that in the 1950's Dershowitz was a camper while Chomsky was a counselor at a Hebrew language, Zionist summer camp.
Thus, for a hardened general to take a firm view without genocide in consolidating a conquest against odds is not all that surprising. Old timers would have either slaughtered or been slaughtered.
I find it interesting that the conversation has moved from Chomsky is doing something shady to Chomsky does not know Hebrew to well, it doesn't matter anyway. Shorter Bernstein: Chomsky criticized Isreal, Chomsky must be a morally bankrupt person who makes up his own quotes. Nice.
Shorter SF: Jews are bad.