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Dear Professor Chomsky, A petition is circulating with your signature on it. It is in support of an east coast blogger named Rania Khalek. Khalek has previously fabricated a non-existent UN report to allege that besieged Aleppo was suffering because of US sanctions rather than Assad’s siege. There was no such report and The Intercept had to issue a retraction. She was fired from Alternet for plagiarism. She was forced to resign from the Electronic Intifada because she went to attend a PR conference in Damascus while Aleppo was under assault. Over a hundred Palestinian writers and activists have written an open letter disavowing her politics. But you have joined the pro-Assad Syria Solidarity Movement, publisher of the Iranian regime-backed conspiracy site MintPress, and journalists from Kremlin broadcaster RT to support this blogger. Does this reflect a change in your position on Syria? Secondly: Do you believe people are entitled to platforms? Don't organisers have the right to judge who is worthy? Thirdly: what is your position on misogyny? Rania Khalek has publicly defended a sectarian Hizbullah activist (Ali Kourani) for threatening multiple women online (he’ll hang them “by their clits” he says). She says he is a “good person”. Do you believe good persons threaten to hang their female critics “by their clits”? Lastly: You are no doubt aware that the UN has accused the Syrian regime of the “crime of extermination”. Do you believe condemning the Syrian regime’s crimes is a mere “political difference” as your petition suggests? Shouldn't the lives threatened by the regime be of greater concern to you than an Assadists right to slander them? I look forward to your reply. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
