Editing Faurisson affair (section)

==Preface to ''Mémoire en défense''==
Chomsky subsequently wrote an essay entitled ''Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression'', in which he attacked his critics for failing to respect the principle of freedom of speech. Chomsky wrote:
<blockquote>Let me add a final remark about Faurisson's alleged "anti-Semitism". Note first that even if Faurisson were to be a rabid anti-Semite and fanatic pro-Nazi -- such charges have been presented to me in private correspondence that it would be improper to cite in detail here -- this would have no bearing whatsoever on the legitimacy of the defense of his civil rights. On the contrary, it would make it all the more imperative to defend them since, once again, it has been a truism for years, indeed centuries, that it is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended; it is easy enough to defend free expression for those who require no such defense. Putting this central issue aside, is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read -- largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him -- I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|title=Some Elementary Comments on The Rights of Freedom of Expression|url=http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19801011.htm|publisher=The Noam Chomsky Website|access-date=9 June 2010|archive-date=6 October 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071006101318/http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19801011.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref></blockquote>

Chomsky granted permission for the essay to be used for any purpose. [[Serge Thion]] and [[Pierre Guillaume]] used it in 1980 as a preface when publishing a book by Faurisson, without Chomsky's knowledge.<ref name="manconsent">Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick. ''Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media''. Zeitgeist Films, 1992.</ref> Later Chomsky requested that the essay not be used in this manner, since he believed the French intellectual community was so incapable of understanding freedom of speech that it would only confuse them further, but his request came too late for the book to be changed.<ref name="manconsent" /> Chomsky subsequently said that asking for the preface to be removed is his one regret in the matter.<ref name="manconsent" />

Chomsky's essay sparked an even greater controversy. Critics such as [[Pierre Vidal-Naquet]] attacked him for defending Faurisson personally against charges of anti-Semitism and upholding his work as historical inquiry:
<blockquote>The simple truth, Noam Chomsky, is that you were unable to abide by the ethical maxim you had imposed. You had the right to say: my worst enemy has the right to be free, on condition that he not ask for my death or that of my brothers. You did not have the right to say: my worst enemy is a comrade, or a "relatively apolitical sort of liberal". You did not have the right to take a falsifier of history and to recast him in the colors of truth.<ref name="VidalB" /></blockquote>

Vidal-Naquet offered the following argument to substantiate his characterization of Faurisson as an anti-semite:
<blockquote>I shall simply say: Faurisson's personal anti-Semitism, in fact, interests me rather little. It exists and I can testify to it, but it is nothing compared with the anti-Semitism of his texts. Is it anti-Semitic to write with consummate calm that in requiring Jews to wear the yellow star starting at the age of six "Hitler was perhaps less concerned with the Jewish question than with ensuring the safety of German soldiers"? Certainly not, within Faurisson's logic, since in the final analysis there is no practical anti-Semitism possible. But within Chomsky's logic? Is the invention of an imaginary declaration of war against Hitler, in the name of the international Jewish community, by an imaginary president of the World Jewish Congress, a case of anti-Semitism or of deliberate falsification?<ref name="VidalB" /></blockquote>

[[John Goldsmith (linguist)|John Goldsmith]] writes that "Unsympathetic critics used it as an opportunity to brand Chomsky with anti-Semitic labels, but even critics potentially sympathetic to Chomsky's political views felt his remarks showed lack of judgment."<ref>{{cite web|last=Goldsmith|first=John|title=Review of Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, by Robert Barsky|url=http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/goldsmith/barsky.htm|publisher=The University of Chicago|access-date=9 June 2010|archive-date=5 January 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080105071102/http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/goldsmith/barsky.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Other critics held that Faurisson's statements were the archetype of anti-Semitism, and that the logical conclusion of Chomsky's statement would be that Nazism was not anti-Semitic. The main argument for this is that Holocaust deniers are not interested in truth, but "motivated by racism, extremism, and virulent anti-Semitism".<ref>{{cite web|last=E. Lipstadt|first=Deborah|title=Deniers, Relativists and Pseudo-Scholarship|url=http://www.adl.org/braun/dim_14_1_deniers.asp|publisher=Anti-Defamation League's Braun Holocaust Institute|access-date=2004-06-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041218202410/http://www.adl.org/braun/dim_14_1_deniers.asp|archive-date=2004-12-18|url-status=dead}}</ref>