consciousness of the catastrophe since 1975, testified that, When José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo of East Timor were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, Chomsky responded "That was great, a wonderful thing. I ran into José Ramos-Horta in São Paulo. I haven't seen his official speech yet, but certainly he was saying in public that the prize should have been given to Xanana Gusmão, who is the leader of the resistance to Indonesian aggression. He's in an Indonesian jail. But the recognition of the struggle is a very important thing, or will be an important thing if we can turn it into something." Views on Israel and Palestine Chomsky "grew up ... in the Jewish-Zionist cultural tradition" (Peck, p. 11). His father was one of the foremost scholars of the Hebrew language and taught at a religious school. Chomsky has also had a long fascination with and involvement in Zionist politics. As he described: He is highly critical of the policies of Israel towards the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors. His book The Fateful Triangle is considered one of the premier texts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict among those who oppose Israel's policies in regard to the Palestinians as well as American support for the state of Israel. He has also accused Israel of "guiding state terrorism" for selling weapons to apartheid South Africa and Latin American countries that he characterizes as U.S. puppet states, e.g. Guatemala in the 1980s, as well as U.S.-backed paramilitaries (or, according to Chomsky, terrorists) such as the Nicaraguan Contras. (What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Chapter 2.4) Chomsky characterizes Israel as a "mercenary state", "an Israeli Sparta", and a militarized dependency within a U.S. system of hegemony. He has also fiercely criticized sectors of the American Jewish community for their role in obtaining U.S. support, stating that "they should more properly be called 'supporters of the moral degeneration and ultimate destruction of Israel'" (Fateful Triangle, p. 4). He says of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL): In a 2004 interview with Jennifer Bleyer published The Ugly Planet, issue two and in Heeb magazine, Chomsky stated: In May 2013, Chomsky, along with other professors such as Malcolm Levitt, advised Stephen Hawking to boycott an Israeli conference. As a result of his views on the Middle East, Chomsky was banned from entering Israel in 2010. Views on the Iraq War Chomsky opposed the Iraq War for what he saw