May is coming, and it’s not bringing flowers — its bringing the delusional yet dangerous Storming Norman Finkelstein to a college campus near you. As part of the national Muslim Student Speakers circuit for a while, he always crawls out from his rock in time for May.
Now you may remember that we chimed in during the debate on whether he should get ordained by DePaul and given a real full time job. I offered to teach Norman Hebrew, since he freely admitted that he does not speak Hebrew, nor Arabic. I mentioned that mastery of one or more Semitic languages that are an integral part of the regional conflict would help his chances of getting tenure. He never contacted me for the free lessons and was denied tenure.
We have published too many posts on this nutty professor. Yet, his staying power and his hypocrisy just shout out “blog me!”
Here are some of his upcoming performances:
Brown University— April 15
Boston College — April 16
Grinnell College — April 21 (Passover edition)
University of Southern Maine — April 29
University of Montreal and University of Ottawa — May 3
University of Toronto — May 4
University of Arizona — May 5
University of California, Irvine — May 7
The Evergreen State College, WA — May 8
New College of Florida — May 13
I counted nearly 30 colleges and universities on his published schedule in the US, UK, and Canada from January – May 2008. In other words, since being let go from DePaul he has catapulted to a rarefied status amongst Muslim Students. He is the token Jew, who along side Neturei Karta, say whatever they pay them to say. His performances condemning Israel are being heard by tens of thousands of impressionable young Americans who do not have the requisite knowledge to realize they are being duped. Finkelsteins lectures are often assigned for extra credit or even mandatory by multiple departments, meaning his “lectures” are always well attended.
Well, to be fair, he was already profiting from his own little “Holocaust Industry” even before he was denied tenure. I don’t think, however, that he’s being paid to say whatever they want him to say. He is saying what he wants to say. Of course, he’s a lot angrier now, but then again maybe not. Maybe it’s fun to have hatin’ groupies asking for autographs.
Norman Finkelstein is worse than a capo.
Last time he was in Toronto, he shook the hand of my number one anti-Israel activist and everyday martyr for students’ rights and invited him out to dinner. He cried because he couldn’t go.
He also told mutual friend of mine they couldn’t be friends because he is Jewish. Double standards…?
The same guy told me he had a tough time believing that South African Jews actually fought against apartheid. I wonder if Finklestein could do a little improv and speak about the role of Jews in South Africa.
P.S. Does Norm ever go to shul? It must drive him crazy hearing about Zion and Jerusalem all the time. Do you suppose he has any thoughts on perhaps revising Judaism too?
He was well received when he spoke at our campus. His detractors do not like it that he is armed with the facts whereas they can only attack him with smears.
No, Lance, we attack him for his hypocrisy, his mistakes and his inability to consider anything in this area without such a profound bias that it distorts a good amount of his conclusions and dissemination of those conclusions. Sorry.
themiddle Says:
April 14th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
No, Lance, we attack him for his hypocrisy, his mistakes and his inability to consider anything in this area without such a profound bias that it distorts a good amount of his conclusions and dissemination of those conclusions. Sorry.
——
So, is it safe to assume that you take Israel and Zionists to task when their hypocrisy merits it, or is it just that they never act in a hypocritical manner? Furthermore, if his bias distorts a “good amount of his conclusions”, do you feel those conclusions that are accurate and not a product of bias or distortion have been addressed sufficiently? What I have found is that detractors usually go straight to ad hominem in order to bypass those elements of his argument that are not so easily countered. Dr. Finkelstein’s position on the whole holds up quite well IMHO and many times assertions he has made about a particular situation have later turned out to be right on the money. One such instance that illustrates this nicely is what happened in regards to Israel Singer, Edgar Bronfman and the WJC.
[ http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=81 ]
These are exactly the type of Holocaust hucksters Dr. Finkelstein was referring to and is the very definition of a ‘Holcaust industry’. Somehow, it is ignored that Dr. Finkelstein was right about these individuals and this organization all along. Instead, there is the continuous line-up of those wishing to cast the first stone.
Sorry, his conclusions (with or without and any attendant bias) are clearly supported by the facts.
LanceThruster:
dude you don’t think a guy with a banner ad on his website entitled “In Defense of Hezbollah” has a bit of a credibility problem when he starts talking about the Holocaust?
the guy is a polemicist, plain and simple. no serious historian of either the Holocaust or the Arab-Israeli conflict rides for him. his value lies solely in his ability to shock.
I’ve had my own personal run-ins with him that I won’t recount here. suffice it to say I am suspicious of anyone who fancies himself some sort of dual Holocaust/Arab-Israeli conflict historian. and in the case of Finkelstein, those suspicions are wholly justified. if the website you posted looks like that of a serious academic then I would be amused to know where you went to school.
PS are you Norm Finkelstein by any chance?
thanks for the Finkelstein web address, though. I had forgotten about that site. LMAO right now as I look through the links.
A choice gem from Norm’s appearance on Lebanese (!) TV (and no I am not making this up):
“The basic facts are these. Number 1, most Jews before World War II were very, very poor. They lived in little villages in Eastern Europe. The villages were called shtetls. Most Jews were poor. Number 2, beginning in the early 1930s there was a worldwide depression, which means, even if you had money, you lost it during the depression. Number 3, if you had the money and you kept it, then you managed to escape during the Nazi holocaust…When you add those 3 facts up: #1, most Jews were poor, #2, there is a depression, and #3, the rich Jews escaped, which means logically there could not have been very much Jewish money in the Swiss banks. This was all made up by the Holocaust blackmailers.”
wow. BRILLIANT deductions.
one need only read the back cover of Tom Bower’s (or countless others’) books to dispense with this nonsense: http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Gold-Fifty-Year-Swiss-Nazi-Conspiracy/dp/0060175354
in fairness I suppose you’d have to wade through the whole first half of the first chapter to see Finkelstein’s entire body of “work” obliterated.
just pace yourself though; a few pages a day and before you know it you’ll have read a whole book!
rootlesscosmo Says:
April 15th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
LanceThruster:
dude you don’t think a guy with a banner ad on his website entitled “In Defense of Hezbollah†has a bit of a credibility problem when he starts talking about the Holocaust?
—————
No. It is a non sequitur to conflate his position on Hezbollah, right or wrong, with his position on the abuses of those capitalizing on the Holocaust.
And it is a fallacy to state that no serious historian views his work favorably. It has long been a claim of Zionists to say that anyone not falling in line with their official narrative is not a serious historian. In fact, just the opposite is true.
Lance, you’ve gotta be kidding. First you give us an article about the WJC problems that DOES NOT prove anything Finkelstein says unless you mean that a Jewish millionaire giving up millions of dollars to pursue justice is a “huckster” (and an argument could be made about whether Singer also acted improperly). Second, of course his positions on Israel matter with respect to his views about the Holocaust. He is a critic of anything in the mainstream of Judaism and supports only the enemies or opponents of Jewish mainstream life including Israel. That’s how he ends up defending the “poor” Swiss who illegally kept Jewish funds that weren’t theirs as if they’re the victims of some Jewish cabal.
Finally, there are plenty of historians who take the works of Avi Shlaim or Benny Morris seriously, and their work isn’t friendly to Israel or Zionism. They, however, are respected. Finkelstein isn’t.
I guess we should be flattered that Norm Finkelstein took time out of his busy lecture schedule to post here.
Why he chose to use the creepy alias “Lance Thruster” I’m not sure though….
Your claim that I am actually Dr. Finkelstein shows you are either clueless, a liar, or most-likely, seriously humor-impaired. Considering you have “rootless†in your nickname, I can understand why you might be intimidated by a “LanceThrusterâ€. I also imagine that any mention of “sword swallower†causes dark, shameful thoughts to bubble up from your psyche but my advice is for you to just accept who you are.
Further material to support my contention that you conveniently ignore the facts are these excerpts on Raul Hillberg (serious historian) who is supportive of Dr. Finkelstein’s assessment of the Swiss banks as well as having his own issues with “main current of Jewish thought.” You’ve ceased adding anything meaningful to the discussion so you’ll forgive me if I decline to continue with your foolishness.
[from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Hilberg ]
[begin excerpt]
Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the doyen of the postwar generation of Holocaust scholars, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazi Final Solution.
Hilberg was damning of Goldhagen’s scholarship, which he called poor (“his scholarly standard is at the level of 1946”) and he was even more critical of the lack of primary source or secondary literature competence at Harvard by those who oversaw the research for Goldhagen’s book (“This is the only reason why Goldhagen could obtain a PhD in political science at Harvard. There was nobody on the faculty who could have checked his work.”), a remark that has been echoed by Yehuda Bauer.
Conversely, he was supportive of Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust industry, which he endorsed “with specific regard” to Finkelstein’s work showing that the money claimed to be owed by Swiss banks to Holocaust survivors was greatly exaggerated.[28]
What is most contentious about Hilberg’s work, the controversial implications of which influenced the decision by Israeli authorities to deny him access to the Yad Vashem’s archives,[3] was his assessment that elements of Jewish society, such as the Judenräte (Jewish Councils), were complicit in the Genocide.[29][30] and that this was partly rooted in longer-standing attitudes of European Jews, rather than attempts at survival or exploitation.
In his own words:
“I had to examine the Jewish tradition of trusting God, princes, laws and contracts […] Ultimately I had to ponder the Jewish calculation that the persecutor would not destroy what he could economically exploit. It was precisely this Jewish strategy that dictated accommodation and precluded resistance.”[31]
The result of his approach, and the sharp criticism it aroused in certain quarters, was that, as he records in the same book:
“It has taken me some time to absorb what I should always have known, that in my whole approach to the study of the destruction of the Jews I was pitting myself against the main current of Jewish thought.”[3]
[end excerpt]
Didn’t Norman edit his own Wikipedia pages?
The statements by Raul Hilberg are easily verified regardless. That you chose not the address the substance of the information shows that you have no response. Wikipedia has many issues regarding credibility and agenda yet is still useful for basic information (much like an actual encyclopedia). Not everything the Z-team megaphone disseminates can totally ignore the facts (though not for a lack of trying).
OK so you defend Finkelstein by citing the fact that Hilberg (a serious Holocaust historian I admit) *once* made a positive remark about his work. Is that all you got? (“with specific regard†— the devil is in the details; Hilberg has rejected nearly the entire body of Finkelstein’s work).
and then you careen into a total non-sequitor about and the Judenrat…by quoting Hilberg. WTF? we’re talking about Finkelstein here remember? would you like to cite some more of Hilberg’s totally unrelated remarks? Goldhagen? you seem to have difficulty staying on message here, Lance.
(and dude if you had actually read Hilberg (I have!) you would know that despite his charges of Judenrat complicity with the Nazis, he nonetheless qualifies their involvement by pointing out the extreme duress they were under and the historically unique situation they faced. but hey, don’t take my word for it: how about you try actually reading Hilberg’s work rather than relying on Finkelstein’s self-serving distillation of it?)
and I LOVE your sly backhanded defense of Wikipedia. could it be that Wikipedia is in fact your main source of Holocaust “scholarship?” in which case I’m sure you’d love to think it’s a reputable source…dude READ A BOOK.
At the end of the day, you tried to defend the work of a 2nd rate polemicist using an isolated quote by another historian, and then by adding some TOTALLY unrelated remarks about Professor Hilberg and his political differences with the leadership at Yad Vashem.
in short, you lost homie. go home.
yours truly,
rootlesscosmo, captain of the Z-team
PS that you would make fun of my name is rich indeed. have you considered a career in the adult film industry? your name is perfect.
No Lance, I just didn’t take your comment seriously. It didn’t make much sense and suddenly we had Goldhagen in there as well as the Judenrat, all wrapped in the thin veneer of that well of personal bias and charlatanry, Wikipedia.
All points were relevant. The Swiss banks were discussed (and referenced by Hilberg, regardless of his views of other of Dr. Finkelstein’s positions), Hilberg IS a serious historian (negating the claim that no serious historian backs Dr. Finkelstein), and the comment was made about the being outside the mainstream of Judaism and this serious historian (Hilberg) talks about the flack he received when his conclusions upset “main current of Jewish thought”. You set yourself up to be shown wrong when you use qualifiers such as “no” serious historian, rather than “most” or “some” or “many”. Try not to make the same mistake next time.
As far as Wikipedia bias, I though Robert Lindsay did a pretty good job exposing it for what it is (good and bad) here:
http://robertlindsay.blogspot.com/2006/04/wikipedia-ziopedia-or-judeopedia.html
There are other sites with their own agendas, and many neo-con sites argue it is decidedly anti-Israel. I feel it is more a case of working the refs to claim an anti-Israel bias in order to keep the pressure on to be biased in the other direction. That is what entities such as the Megaphone project are about to swoop on any factual information that pro-Zionists find troubling. Can’t let the truth get out as it is so hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
you keep coming with this “we’re afraid of truth,” “Zionists silencing criticism,” “Can’t let the truth get out as it is so hard to put the genie back in the bottle,” blah blah blah.
dude no one on this website is afraid of the truth. you are in a room full of people (figuratively speaking) ready and willing to talk about this stuff. you are not some brave dissenter. serious people that seriously care about Israel argue about this stuff everyday. on this very website even. so you can stop with the phony bravery.
you stepped up trying to defend Finkelstein and all you could muster was (1) Hilberg’s beef with Yad Vashem and (2) one isolated quote where he suggests that the original Swiss claims figures were too high. none of these are deep dark secrets that the Zionists are keeping under wraps. we have engaged you in a forthright manner and you’ve failed to make a point here.
Look at yourself: you have been reduced at the end of this talkback thread to arguing the difference between “no historians” and “all historians but one.”
Basically a pathetic shell of what you obviously felt was some bold argument when you first stepped in here. you fail. sorry little dude.
Sorry but “No serious historians” means NO serious historians where all I have to do to negate your premise is to show that there is at least one to counter your false assertion. Plus, it was on the particular topic you were mocking Dr. Finkelstein for in the first place. Game, set, and match. You lose.
Whether or not the Judenrat was “complicit in the genocide” all depends on how you look at it. “Complicit” can be assumed to mean either that they went along with it willingly like collaborators who wanted the Jews to be killed, which certainly cannot possibly be true, or that they were compelled to cooperate, which is clearly what actually happened.
This was, really, the heart of the issue, and the problem that was faced by every Jew: do we try to make it through this as best we can as we have always done or do we fight back? Which approach gives us the best chance at survival? This is a legitimate question, and it is really only in hindsight, after the enormity and the unprecedented nature and scope of the genocide became clear that it was obvious that the approach the Judenrat had taken was mistaken.
But seriously: if you were unarmed and defenseless and surrounded by Nazis armed to the teeth who said “give us 100 Jews a day or we kill you all right here, right now”, WTF would you do?
I mean, you’ve seen “Sophie’s Choice”, right? Give me a fucking break.
As usual by design or lack of critical capacities, you misunderstand the Hilberg reference to the Judenrat. As ‘rootless’ pointed out, the conditions were such that it would be hard for any of us to know for sure what we would do in similar circumstances. That was Hilberg’s point as well yet even the mere examination of the particulars drew much ire from the mainstream. It appears that historical accuracy must bow to the feelings and official narrative of those profiting from the tragedy.
As far as the bogus claims of not fearing the truth, which applies in here as much as at some of the more egregious sites, I give you an earlier encounter of mine with Jewlicious. ‘themiddle’ was downright proud of his/her revisionism and unapologetically continued to change the text of my posts. For those claiming to be able to rebut any challengers, it is the ultimate in cowardice and hypocrisy.
[see: https://jewlicious.com/?p=2472 ]
ck, can you get me a Greek font in the comment form so I may spell out “paranoia” every now and then?
FWIW, I agree with Hilberg’s comments on the Judenrat. I just question whether “complicity” is the right word to describe what they did and why, since it makes it sound as though what they were doing was somehow voluntary.
However, if one thinks that “complicit” can be defined as “forced to cooperate by having a gun put to their head”, then I suppose once could concede the point.
Actually, Lance, that wasn’t me. That appears to have been our junk spam filter at work and I suspect the person who modified your name at one point is no longer here at Jewlicious.
However, I have removed and modified anti-Semitic comments by visitors. I allow the spewing of anti-Semitic crap for a short while so that people can see what a dickhead the person is, but then at my discretion I will remove or edit their comments. My reasoning is that Jewlicious won’t serve as a vehicle for anti-Jewish hate. If you’re that interested in voicing hate for Jews and your free expression is important to you, go to one of the other several million blogs on the Internet and post there.
So far in this conversation, you haven’t acted in any way that would be considered offensive and as you can see, you’ve had free rein to post whatever you’ve wanted.
There’s no rule out there that says I need to be nice to anti-Semites.
If the allegation is that complicity with genocide occurred– a crime, obviously, murder on a vast scale– then complicity surely requires a finding of state of mind. Murder is an intentional crime. So, absent a showing that Judenrat members intended to help the Nazis kill Jews– and no one would reach that conclusion–they can’t be accused of being complicit in the Final Solution, seems to me.
Would LanceThruster deem statements critical of the US made by an al-Qaeda hostage with a knife to his thoat, as amounting to the hostage’s free act and deed?
By the way, Lance, it’s a pleasure to watch Rootless clobber you. Please send our congratulations to Finkelstein that he got a serious scholar to accept one of his theses.
Yeah ‘themiddle’, I’ve seen already that anything that goes against the ‘official narrative’ is eventually deemed anti-Semitic or hate speech. I should be pleased that you haven’t to this point doctored my comments as has been done so shamefully here before, regardless of which gutless wonder did it. ‘rootless’ has already conceded that he/she was incorrect in declaring a consensus about what serious historians think of Dr. Finkelstein. I could offer more examples in addition to other Jewish/Israeli historians who view the Nakba in a more unbiased light. [ a particular favorite from Tom Negev here: Looting, Looting, and More Looting – http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story680.html ]
My work here is pretty much done as you all continue to backpedal on those assertions you made with such confidence (at least till those pesky facts got in the way!)
Shalom!
Oh, poor Lance, victim of Jewlicious. Nobody here gets edited for going against the “official line.” I actually recall the previous incident with you, which is why I suspect I know who changed your name to Goatthruster. It was well earned, as I recall. We have plenty of robust debates here, including with piggish anti-Semites. You must have done something special to warrant the treatment you received.
The rest of your rant has me baffled. You haven’t made any case regarding Finkelstein other than that one scholar agreed with him once. A moment ago you were talking about Judenrat and now you’re on to the Nakba (it’s Segev, btw, not Negev) and you even managed to get a link into one of your sites. It’s all a little jumbled in that head of yours, it seems. Don’t worry, we understand that you don’t know exactly what you’re angry about but you’re really angry at somebody. Reminds me a little of Norman Finkelstein. Of course, now he’s really angry, having lost his tenure fight. Too bad.
My mistake. You are correct; it is Segev (thoughtless typo on my part). I’m less concerned about your ‘rationale’ for doctoring posts than the fact that you (Jewlicious) do it at all. Aside from being immensely childish it violates ones of the basic protocols of internet discourse in that a person’s viewpoint should be established by what they actually have said or written and not by the sour grapes of someone who can’t actually come up with a credible response. It is the same attitude that goes for a dig at a net nickname and then cries about someone responding in kind and acting as if I drew first blood (scroll up if you remember differently).
The only thing anyone here has ‘earned’ is the reputation for retreat under fire. And your anti-Semitism accusation is just more confirmation of that canard being the last refuge of a scoundrel.
As usually is the case, you tend to declare “Victory!” when nothing of the sort has transpired, but if it makes you feel happy, suit yourself.
The dig against Dr. Finkelstein is yet more sour grapes but as the people I consider credible (Jews and Gentiles alike) feel, “Zionism ends where people of character begin.”
LanceThruster: do Indian cinema next! no, no — Basque cooking! man is this fun! here’s one: the production of fly ash as a byproduct of coal combustion! okay, GO!
Lance, you already said goodbye and now you’re back.
Don’t worry about me coming up with credible responses. If and when you come up with something worth a response, you’ll get it.
As for people of character, you’re the one defending Norman Finkelstein. If I laughed any harder, I’d choke to death.
Hmmm, would any serious scholar really think that agreeing with a person on one or few select issues equals to fully supporting the latter’s views? I’d likely agree with Stalin on that Kazakh shashlik and carrot salad are delicious, but I couldn’t be farther from a fascistoid Communist.
Am I addressing ‘themiddle’ that does unethical things but is no longer here or the one that does but is still here? Hard to tell with the constant waffling of what you do and do not do. Amazing how a spam filter somehow magically allows one to change identities at will. Much like your assertions that must be qualified (or ignored) at every step.
Thankfully, through the efforts of Dr. Finkelstein, and Walt and Mearsheimer, and Anthony Lowenstein, and Jonathan Cook, and Uri Avnery, and Mordechai Vanunu, and others…the crimes of our little buddy in the Middle East are coming to light and with any luck, they’ll be forced to commit their aggression on their own dime. It’s a numbers game and, Israel’s nuclear weaponry aside, the future does not bode well for someone who’s brutalized its neighbors so completely, for so long.
…and Tony Karon, and James Petras, and Philip Weiss, and…
Oh well, if treating Christian Lebanese people for free at Israeli hospitals is brutalizing, then yeah, that it’s indeed cruel. They shouldn’t have bothered and sent them away from the doorstep as Lebanese hospitals did. No shirt, no tie, no sharia, no service. Anybody minding Israel is welcome to return his mobile phone, Intel processors, large arrays of medical treatments and gamma-ray free environment (there’s a reason why even secular non-Jewish European journalists and politicians have called Israel a stabilizing factor in the Middle East) back to where they’ve come from, namely Israel. In the meantime, the gentlemen Finkelstein, Walt and Mearsheimer are welcome to bring literacy to many of the states they find so greatly oppressed. Funny thing, most of my Arabic students that have fled their homecountries thanks to religiously or ethnically biased crimes directed at them by their respective governments understand that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and do express the hope their countries of origin could be more like Israel, but what do those kids know? They’re only just from Syria, Algeria, Turkey, Morocco,…
Hey, Lance, where can I get my own copy of that Moqtada al-Sadr poster for my bedroom? Did it help you get laid?
Lance, old chump, it gives me endless pleasure to see how angry you are.
I also like the way you call Norman “Dr.” while you don’t bother to call either of the tenured Walt or Mearsheimer, “Dr.” A little insecure, perhaps? Why would you be insecure about Norman being called “Dr.”?
I was watching an interview with him and Ben Ami the other day and Norman kept asserting all this information in a way that was either worded to make an impact (in other words, he was knowingly misinterpreting facts) or indicating that he didn’t understand the information (in other words, he’s stupid) or that he did understand it but incorrectly understood the information’s implications (in other words, his bias prevents him from seeing this information objectively and clearly). Ben Ami, rightly, looked pretty bored most of the time.
I’m sure undiscriminating people like you, Lance, were eating it up however.
Tom Morrissey Says:
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Hey, Lance, where can I get my own copy of that Moqtada al-Sadr poster for my bedroom? Did it help you get laid?
—————
It wasn’t the poster but the ham and cheese snack platter and bacon-wrapped cocktail wienies that got her juices flowing. Your mom was quite appreciative. Have your dad contact me I’ll tell him all about those things she really likes when she gets her freak on.
(sigh)
Back to the actual discussion at hand; more from the serious historians.
RAUL HILBERG: Well, let me say at the outset, I would not, unasked, offer advice to the university in which he now serves. Having been in a university for thirty-five years myself and engaged in its politics, I know that outside interferences are most unwelcome. I will say, however, that I am impressed by the analytical abilities of Finkelstein. He is, when all is said and done, a highly trained political scientist who was given a PhD degree by a highly prestigious university. This should not be overlooked. Granted, this, by itself, may not establish him as a scholar.
However, leaving aside the question of style — and here, I agree that it’s not my style either — the substance of the matter is most important here, particularly because Finkelstein, when he published this book, was alone. It takes an enormous amount of academic courage to speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him. And so, I think that given this acuity of vision and analytical power, demonstrating that the Swiss banks did not owe the money, that even though survivors were beneficiaries of the funds that were distributed, they came, when all is said and done, from places that were not obligated to pay that money.
That takes a great amount of courage in and of itself. So I would say that his place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost.
AND
AVI SHLAIM: I am. I was born in Baghdad. I grew up in Israel. I served in IDF. And for the last forty years, I have lived in Britain, and I teach at Oxford. My academic discipline is international relations, and I am a specialist in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And I think that there is no — that we must be very careful to separate questions of anti-Semitism from critique of Israel. I am critical of Israel as a scholar, and anti-Semitism just doesn’t come into it. My view is that the blind supporters of Israel — and there are many of them in America, in particular — use the charge of anti-Semitism to try and silence legitimate criticism of Israeli practices. I regard this as moral blackmail. Israel has no immunity to criticism, moral immunity to criticism, because of the Holocaust. Israel is a sovereign nation-state, and it should be judged by the same standards as any other state. And Norman Finkelstein is a very serious critic and a very well-informed critic and hard-hitting critic of Israeli practices in the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians.
His last book, Beyond Chutzpah, is based on an amazing amount of research. He seems to have read everything. He has gone through the reports of Israeli groups, of human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Peace Now and B’Tselem, all of the reports of Amnesty International. And he deploys all this evidence from Israeli and other sources in order to sustain his critique of Israeli practices, Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians, Israeli house demolitions, the targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, the cutting down of trees, the building of the wall — the security barrier on the West Bank, which is illegal — the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and so on and so forth. I find his critique extremely detailed, well-documented and accurate.
[both excerpts taken from here:
http://www.willtotruth.com/2007/05/12/world-renowned-holocaust-israel-scholars-defend-depaul-professor-norman-finkelstein-as-he-fights-for-tenure/ ]
themiddle Says:
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
[snip]
I also like the way you call Norman “Dr.†while you don’t bother to call either of the tenured Walt or Mearsheimer, “Dr.†A little insecure, perhaps? Why would you be insecure about Norman being called “Dr.�
———
Mr. ‘themiddle’, it was not out of insecurity but my own ignorance. I knew Mssrs. Walt and Mearsheimer were professors but did not know they were entitled to the designation Dr.. I will make sure to include that wherever applicable in the future. It’s nice tio be able to continue this in the thread it originally belongs in as Jewlicious was not posting my rebuttals here for a time.
If I get a chance I’ll address froylein’s comments later as well as the posts in the OT threads that dealt with the submission of mine that finally went up. Suffice to say that the claims that there is only one serious historian who sees value in Dr. Finkelstein’s work is also not correct. It is also clear that Raul Hilberg’s support goes beyond the trivial and correctly identifies the difficulty in gaining acceptance for groundbreaking work such as Dr. Finkelstein’s.
grounbreaking? 🙂
You guys must be sooo excited to have Norman’s sockpuppet (Goatthruster) here! Wait til I tell everyone! But of course they’ll say, Norman Finkle..who? Then I’ll explain that he is the disgraced historical revisionist and terrorist aplogist that didn’t get tenured for good reason, and then we’ll go on talking about people who matter.
Well, Lance didn’t know that Walt and Mearsheimer were able to use the title Dr. even though they are professors at U of Chicago and Harvard, so it’s understandable if he thinks Finkelstein’s work is “groundbreaking.”
Hey Lance, please keep using the wrong key words in your comments so they end up in the spam filter. It’s a lot of fun watching you scream about conspiracies.
Maybe you’ll enlighten me as to the keywords which activate the spam filter. The fact that so many comments failed to even get the “awaiting moderation” message though the same post would make it up promptly in another thread. As I said, you’ve already established a track record indicating a complete lack of ethics so my suspicions are well founded.
As far as my usage of Prof/Dr., the style guide shows that prof. might be preferred but since Dr. Finkelstein is not teaching at an institution of higher learning at the moment, I felt Dr. would be the preferred from of address. It is clear that many of you are grasping at straws since your actual arguments are so void of substance.
Complete Edition of Style Guide – http://www.calstatela.edu/style/editfullguide.htm
Professor/doctor
Use of professor is preferred. Professor is an academic rank or title. A doctor (in academics) is one who has earned the highest academic degree (e.g., Ph.D.). [note] Not all professors have doctorates, nor are all holders of doctorates professors. See titles of people.
Lance, when you call me “unethical” or suggest I have a track record of a “complete lack of ethics” you’re talking out of your ass. Again.
I won’t enlighten you about filter words. I sometimes also get sent to the filter and sometimes even to the junk filter. If that upsets you, tough cookies.
I’m sorry if you’re too stupid to differentiate between the professors you would like to list as your sources. If you call Finkelstein Dr. or just Normy, nobody is going to be impressed.
By the way, you are welcome to continue posting here, but your current behavior like publishing the same 6 comments in different posts yesterday is starting to grate and it has become quite unpleasant. Cut it out already. Nobody owes you anything and this site isn’t your public library.
Another interesting piece regarding Dr. Finkelstein by another principled Jew (Philip Weiss). Your all welcome to bring your scary arguments there btw, although you might be a little out of your league as there you would be little fish in a BIG pond. Note that he has his own issues with Dr. Finkelstein but still recognizes the impact that he has.
Once ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den’, Finkelstein Comes Into the Mainstream on Israel/Palestine! – http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/04/norman-finkelst.html#more
More of Finkelstein’s argument:
When you have Israel’s most influential paper saying it’s apartheid, what do American Jews say to that? ‘Oh yeah, we support apartheid’? You can say that if you’re Pat Robertson or Dick Cheney. But it’s very hard if you’re an American Jew who claims to be a liberal to be making arguments like that. And I think you see the erosion in particular among college students because they study and they’re better informed, and they see that all of this stuff Israel is doing has now become morally indefensible. And so there’s some who are just embarrassed, and they have become, as it were, indifferent; and then there are those who have become completely hostile, in an active way. [Weiss emphasis]
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I attended two Finkelstein lectures (one at my own campus) and the opposition does indeed get worked up however cannot successfully rebut his arguments and instead resorts to ad hominems and non sequiturs.
Why is it that anti-Semites also make great paranoid ranters? It must come along with living in their mom’s basements and collecting Nazi paraphernalia.
Lance, I like how you divide the world into good and bad Jews.
Alex Says:
April 25th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Why is it that anti-Semites also make great paranoid ranters? It must come along with living in their mom’s basements and collecting Nazi paraphernalia.
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I wish I had either a mom or a basement. I have some war memorabilia including WWII but no Nazi stuff except for a widely circulated postcard of Adolf Hilter being greeted by young school girls in much the same way as mass-murderer Arial Sharon was treated like a conquering hero by much of the Israeli population.
I also have some Soviet stuff so according to your warped way of thinking, I must be some closet commie-lover because no one would collect historical artifacts except for those regimes they secretly admire. Is it hard for you to breathe with your head planted so far up your tailpipe?
themiddle Says:
April 25th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Lance, I like how you divide the world into good and bad Jews.
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Sorry Mr. themiddle, *you* divided the world into good and bad Jews. There are also ignorant or apathetic Jews. And don’t forget, Israel has a memorial to “Righteous Gentiles” so spare me your hypocrisy that to point out what I consider principled Jews means that all others are not by default. Anyone able to put universalist humanism into practice from whatever heritage or background is OK in my book.
One other thing to add regarding Alex’s statement about paranoid ranting, don’t forget who sees (a broad though valid generalization) almost every criticism of Israel as rampant anti-Semitism and the beginnings of the next Holocaust. If one is justified to be vigilant because others threaten to push Israel into the sea, what do you expect from the other side who have been characterized as “beasts on two legs” or hear that the tip of one Jewish fingernail is worth more than the lives of 1000 non-Jews? That’s some pretty barbaric accounting if you ask me.
Who are you trying to kid? You intended to suggest that people like Finkelstein and Weiss are principled and the rest of the Jews aren’t.
Here are some of your choice quotes:
“Zionism ends where people of character begin.â€
I’ve seen already that anything that goes against the ‘official narrative’ is eventually deemed anti-Semitic or hate speech
…swoop on any factual information that pro-Zionists find troubling. Can’t let the truth get out as it is so hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
It has long been a claim of Zionists to say that anyone not falling in line with their official narrative is not a serious historian. In fact, just the opposite is true.
Universal humanism, huh?
I have a response submitted themiddle but it has not made it past the spam filter because of those pesky and mysterious keywords it seems. I wrote the site like ck suggested. I’d be tempted to put it in another thread to see if it would make it there but will honor the requests not to post OT comments.
here’s a response to the quotes you posted without comment.
themiddle Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Who are you trying to kid? You intended to suggest that people like Finkelstein and Weiss are principled and the rest of the Jews aren’t.
Here are some of your choice quotes:
“Zionism ends where people of character begin.â€
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Zionism is special pleading for behavior that would be universally condemned in any other context. Rights and protections under the law are based almost entirely on racial/cultural lines.
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I’ve seen already that anything that goes against the ‘official narrative’ is eventually deemed anti-Semitic or hate speech
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A statement of fact (although it would have to be qualified with either “quite often” or “at certain sites” or “with certain people.” Again, this is first hand experience with people unable/unwilling to craft a coherent counterpoint but instead immediately go on an ad hominem attack.
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…swoop on any factual information that pro-Zionists find troubling. Can’t let the truth get out as it is so hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
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Again, have seen first hand evidence of this. Many of the sins of the MSM are sins of ommision.
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It has long been a claim of Zionists to say that anyone not falling in line with their official narrative is not a serious historian. In fact, just the opposite is true.
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Again, established by fact. The 6 million number (horrible regardless of final tally) remains unchanged though at individual sites it has been credibly downgraded (such as the death toll figure on the plaque at Auschwitz) but without any impact on the total 6 mil figure. Another example is the claims at Nuremburg that death camps were operated in Germany itself whereas now it’s generally accepted (as per “serious” historians”) that the death camps were outside of Germany.
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The UN officially ruled that Zionism is racism but through Israel’s pressuring of their global muscle (the US) the resolution was rescinded. Many politicians and political observers have commented on the Israel Lobby’s influence on US policy. In fact, it is discussed openly in Israeli media but it is a perilous thrid rail here for the most part. Example after example of the double standard in media coverage is available but to point to it gets one branded with the Zionist scarlet letter. I make no claim that Israelis/Jews are any different from any other segment of humanity, but they have through special pleading sought to armor themselves against any criticism, however legitimate, whatsoever.
Really? Rights and protections under the law? Wow. You might want to look that up on some unbiased websites or BOOKS. Then, why don’t you compare those rules to, for example, land sale laws under the PA (they like to kill the sellers if they sell to Jews) or general civic laws in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (not very open to outsiders, check out how Kuwait evicted 300,000 Palestinians after they lived there for a couple of decades). Let me know what you learn. When you’re done, why don’t you inform us whether non-Jews in Israel may vote just like Jewish citizens, receive governmental assistance such as the child subsidies just like Jewish citizens. Since you mention the law, why don’t you check out some Supreme Court rulings about the treatment of minorities in Israel and then read Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Compare these to the Hamas or PLO charters just for fun.
In other words, you admit you were wrong. Just as you will after checking your first statement against my reposte.
Ooooooooh, the Joooooooos own the media.
Now, you did mean the Jews own or control the media, right? After all, you were talking about how pro-Zionists can’t let the truth get out and then to confirm this statement you talked about the sins of omission being those of the MSM. I can’t glean anything else from this.
Well, actually, David Irving was considered a “serious historian” who chal