Norman Finkelstein calls professor Alan Dershowitz's new book on Israel a "hoax"

The Electronic Intifada ^ | 25 September 2003 | Transcript, Democracy Now!

[JohnSmithee]

Posted for the pure entertainment value. Sorry for the length.

[goldstategop]

Norman Finkelstein is the world's first Jewish Adolf Hitler lover. Take it as you like it.

[Petronski]

The ice beneath Finkelstein is quite thin. Of course, below that ice burn the fires of hell, so pick your poison....

[Cicero]

Well, it might be funny if it didn't involve blowing up children.

[Loyal Buckeye]

I know nothing about Finklestein, but sure like having someone stick it to the big mouth Dershowitz.

[JohnSmithee]

"Well, it might be funny if it didn't involve blowing up children."

Yes, unfortunately this is a serious subject.

[Pharmboy]

Biography



Norman G. Finkelstein received his doctorate from the Department of Politics, Princeton University, for a thesis on the theory of Zionism. He is the author of four books: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Verso, 1995), The Rise and Fall of Palestine (University of Minnesota, 1996), with Ruth Bettina Birn, A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth (Henry Holt,1998) and The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2000). His writings have appeared in prestigous journals such as the London Review of Books, Index on Censorship, Journal of Palestine Studies, New Left Review, Middle East Report, Christian Science Monitor and Al Ahram Weekly. Currently he teaches political science at DePaul University in Chicago.

Norman Finkelstein was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1953. He is the son of Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Maidanek concentration camp, and Zacharias Finkelstein, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz concentration camp. He dedicated his first book to his parents in which he wrote: "May I never forgive or forget what was done to them." His brothers Richard and Henry Finkelstein would like all visitors to this web site to know that the surviving family fully supports Norman's efforts to maintain the integrity of the history of the Nazi holocaust. May we never forgive or forget what was done.

[Pharmboy]

He exposed the fraud that dershnowits is. Thanks for posting.

[wizardoz]

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Please don't read the whole paragraph.

Mm hmm.

[xJones]

Finklestein took Dershowitz apart. I wonder if Dershowitz will pay the bet.

[Steve Eisenberg]

He exposed the fraud that dershnowits is.

Dershowitz has been trending towards the right, whereas Finkelstein is a thorough-going leftist. This is not because of his oppostion to more and more holocaust reparations, which is, in one form or another, a common opinion among Jews, but rather because of just about everything else Finkelstein writes.

I haven't read Dershowitz's new book, but if it is true, as Finkilstein says, that it follows Joan Peters' way of thinking, few on FR will have much reason to object.

[dennisw]

Mas mucho thanks for posting. I once got an e-mail from Finklestein where he swore a few times and called me a nazi.

[thegreatbeast]

I don't have a dog in this fight but I definitely am tired of the ubiquitous Dershowitz. The enemy of my enemy....

[Steve Eisenberg]

Finklestein took Dershowitz apart.

Uh, the way I read it the interviewer took Finkelstein apart, confirming the figure of 2,000-3,000 Palestinian Arabs allegedly expelled by Jewish forces during the Israeli War of Independence because those Arabs lived in sensitive military areas (right near the runways of the main airport). By contrast, 200,000-300,000 Arabs left because they didn't want to live in a Jewish-majority state. Of course, there was a parallel movement of Jews from the Arab-majority areas into the Jewish-majority areas, and few of those Jews moved for any other reason than fear of massacres. This is the story which Finkelstein tried to take apart by quoting Benny Morris, another fellow who, like Finkelstein, is an anti-Zionist Jew.

Further confusing the debate is that fact that Morris, like Dershowitz, has been moving rightward and no longer endorses the 2,000-3,000 figure, much less Finkelstein's 200,000-300,000. How could this confused mess possibly be construed as one in which Deshowitz was taken apart?

[cookcounty]

" The Israeli Supreme Court had banned the kind of rough interrogation techniques that are now being employed by the United States in Guantanamo Bay"

I'm a big supporter of Israel, and I thought "The Case.." was pretty good, But he's pushing my hot buttons with his Gitmo ignorance + anti-US prejudice, this guy is urinating on his potential friends.

Doesn't he have an obligation to tell us in detail about this "rough treatment" he's talking about?

[YaYa123]

A famous former freeper, my dear friend Memphis Belle, showed me Finkelstein's beneath contempt, loathsome, personal attack on Christopher Hitchens, complete with full frontal nastiness...the kind of scathing, personal attack the left holds in reserve for one of their own who dares denounce groupthink on any subject.

But you're so right. Finkelstein going after Dershowitz IS entertainment...to the max! Even more entertaining is reading (with delight) how obvious it is when Dershowitz is caught like a deer in the headlights, how he bobs and weaves, interrupts, tries to block out by speaking over, evades, tries to change the subject.

For entertainment, read Finkelstein

For enlightenment, read http://users.rcn.com/peterk.enteract/

[Steve Eisenberg]

I don't have a dog in this fight but I definitely am tired of the ubiquitous Dershowitz. The enemy of my enemy....

Dershowitz doesn't see it this way. For example, he is Harvard faculty advisor for the Chabad Orthodox Jewish students group, and Chabad is solidly Republican. Look, if Dershowitz ever ran for office, I'd probably be all with everyone else here in called him a RINO. However, once you see someone making gestures in our way, and that person isn't trying to take us over Arnold-style, I think it is time for the big tent.

[Steve Eisenberg]

I'm a big supporter of Israel, and I thought "The Case.." was pretty good, But he's pushing my hot buttons with his Gitmo ignorance + anti-US prejudice, this guy is urinating on his potential friends.

Doesn't he have an obligation to tell us in detail about this "rough treatment" he's talking about

Agreed. Dershowitz is guessing, and probably guessing wrong.

[goodnesswins]

Yep...and Michael Medved thought his book was great.

[gusopol3]

I'm not watching much T.V. recently, but didn't Dersh sort of disappear from the airways after he, post 9/11, endorsed torture in interrogation of terror suspects?