J'accuse

[Englander]

It's a dispute that involves just about every emotive issue you can
think of - Israel, Palestine, human rights, freedom of speech.
Gary Younge dissects the academic battle that has gripped America


Wednesday August 10, 2005
The Guardian

In his landmark book, Democracy in America, the 19th-century French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville commented on the fever pitch to which American polemics can often ascend. In a chapter entitled Why American Writers and Speakers Are Often Bombastic, he wrote: "I have often noticed that the Americans whose language when talking business is clear and dry ... easily turn bombastic when they attempt a poetic style ... Writers for their part almost always pander to this propensity ... they inflate their imaginations and swell them out beyond bounds, so that they achieve gigantism, missing real grandeur."

When it comes to a duel between DePaul university political science professor Norman Finkelstein and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz over Finkelstein's upcoming book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, gigantic bombast feels like an understatement. It is a row that has spilled on to the pages of most of the nation's prominent newspapers and gone all the way to the desk of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Like the two professors in Irvine Welsh's The Acid House who abandon their high-minded theoretical clashes for a drunken brawl in a car park, Finkelstein and Dershowitz hover between principle and raw verbal pugilism in which the personal and the political are almost indistinguishable.

Finkelstein says Dershowitz is a "total liar", adding that "If a true word were to leap out of his mouth he would explode." Dershowitz eschews direct personal attacks only to ascribe his jibes to others. "Many people have thought he was unstable ... he is like a child ... he makes up facts."

But beneath the vitriol lie many vital issues: namely Israel, Palestine, human rights in the Middle East, anti-semitism, academic freedom and intellectual honesty. Not to mention the scope for discussing these subjects in the United States, Israel's greatest ally, where the parameters for debate are relatively narrow compared with the rest of the western world. "The atmosphere for publishing critical stuff on Israel here is very intimidating," says Colin Robinson, who as publisher of the New Press initially intended to publish Finkelstein's book.

More at;
Guardian Unlimited

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Dershowitz is loathed by the left?

That's what I would have thought too, what with his advocacy of torture, but I've lost count of the times that Dershowitz has been lauded as a great man by some DUers...

The author of the article got it spot on about the scope for discussion of the I/P conflict being pretty narrow in the US as opposed to the rest of the western world...

Violet...

[entanglement]

23. Dershowitz is a disgusting racist scoundrel

How DARE he call himself a liberal? He advocates torture, collective punishment and genocide. He is as warped as any of the extremist Islamist mullahs. The people who consider him liberal are either seriously deluded or utterly hypocritical

[Coastie for Truth]

36. Who elected anyone Pope, Rebbe Gadolah and Ayatollah of Progressivism

When did Nancy Pelsoi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean name any one chair of the Progressive Credentials Committee?

Is this some kind of a Senator Joseph R. McCarthy - Director J. Edgar Hoover political test "You have to agree with 'ME, MYSELF, AND I' as to what 'ME, MYSELF, AND I decree is a core Progressive Belief in order to be a Progressive?"

Is this the game of sitting on ones hands in 1968 Nixon-Humphrey election because Humphrey wasn't anti-war enough early enough (and giving us Nixon and a longer war and Watergate).

Is this the game of "It won't make no difference - Tweedledum and Tweedledee" in the Bush-Gore election of 1968 -- didn't make no difference - Iraq war and the dismembering of the New Deal -- "Didn't make no difference - Tweedledum and Tweedledee"

Who elected some appenders here Chairman of the DNC? Who elected them Prefects of some Congregation for the Doctrine of Democratic Faith, and who elected them Inquisitors-General of the Democratic Party. By what Divine Right do they exercise the power of defining who is a Progressive (in their own Image)?

Too difficult - much easier to create a GOP style Litmus Test.

IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME ON ANY ISSUE THAT I DEFINE AS MY PERSONAL LITMUS TEST - YOU ARE NOT A PROGRESSIVE - WELL MY CORE LITMUS TEST ISSUE IS ACTUAL, FACTUAL INNOCENCE OF ACCUSED PEOPLE -- AND I HEREBY EXCOMMUNICATE ANYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME

[Coastie for Truth]

32. My copy of Dershowitz's "The Case for Peace" just arrived.

I'll get Finkelstein's at the Library.

[Colorado Blue]

2. Oh please. Maybe that is because, in the US, Jews are not

seen as second class citizens and thus far haven't been fitted out for yellow stars and ovens.

I think any discussion of Israel and/or the Jewish community as a whole must be seen in the light of virulent antisemitism that has claimed the lives of millions of Jews over a period of more than 2,000 years. Nothing less than the utter obliteration of our people, our culture, our history and our religion have been attempted again and again and again and now little Israel is the focus of more hatred than I even begin to comprehend let alone fathom.

The Holocaust didn't end the endemic bigotry in Europe nor have "modern times" ended the perception of Jews in the Middle East as less than human. Indeed historical and religious revisionism is rampant with denial even of historical Judaism becoming respectable - Abraham being touted as a MUSLIM although Islam wasn't developed until several centuries after the life of that other Jewish prophet, Jesus. Thus the very legitimacy of historical and religious Judaism, let alone the Holocaust and modern Israel, is under assault in that neck of the woods. That these are ALSO under assault by the so-called progressives is utterly beyond me.

Furthermore I would suggest a little respect for America. I am weary of the endless carping from people whose bacon has been saved on numerous occasions with our blood and money. A short discussion with my dad, veteran of more than 30 sorties in a B-24 over Germany, might shed a little light on the sacrifice that kept Britain free to criticize her former colony. He can't hear anymore from those torturous and frightening hours in the ass end of a freezing, unpressurized flying coffin. They used to make jokes about the flak - you'd never see or hear the burst that got you and sent your bird spiraling out of the sky. And once the big planes were out of range of their fighter cover they were naked to assault by the German interceptors. It was HELL and America willingly committed herself to the battle for the same liberal values now being mocked - by LIBERALS who seem to feel that the defense of those values is - guess what - right wing - whereas the deeds of terrorists receive apologetic explanations.

And - need I mention the context in which ANY discussion of Jews by Europeans must be regarded? And please - no hairsplitting about Israel not being related to Jews. I've actually been advised on this forum that associating Israel with Jews is a right-wing construct.

Give me a break already.

[Englander]

4. Care to comment on the main subject of the article? n/t

[Colorado Blue]

14. Why on earth the author of the piece chose to quote that

snobbish bit of snitty French criticism - which dates to the century before last - I don't know, unless it is to frame the entire article in an aura of assumed cultural superiority. I find that unacceptable as it slants the entire article against both scholars and demolishes the seriousness of the piece in the first paragraph, and beyond that falls back upon the European's usual and tiresome reaction when discussing Americans: describe them as barbarians who lack Europe's superior sense of subtlety and form. That may appeal to certain very young and/or insecure people but I find it boring.

What is the author's intent by framing his article this way? To make a snotty critique of American political style or to discuss some serious issues? To make both scholars look stupid? To alienate Americans in the first few sentences or make Europeans feel superior? Why?

In any case, when it comes to the debate between Dershowitz and Finkelstein I can't improve upon Geek Tragedy's succinct comment. I will add that I find Finkelsteins' thesis disgusting. The Holocaust was a fact of history whose effects will linger forever and to suggest that it is an industry and not a nightmare that haunts us and will ALWAYS haunt us, is appalling to me. If I didn't have an antisemitic sister I wouldn't believe a Jewish person could actually come up with the crap.

I believe also, as Coastie says, that Dershowitz is arguing as a lawyer would, presenting ideas about extremely difficult problems that don't confront most of the world (yet) but have bedeviled Israelis for decades and which have cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars and retarded the growth and flowering of the entire region. The recent bombings in London resulted almost immediately in the shooting, five times in the head, of an innocent man. Subsequently the police agencies of the world supported such shootings, endorsing the idea that shooting a suspected suicide bomber in the head is a reasonable response to a presumed threat. A program that aired a few months ago, a BBC production I believe, examines the use of torture by MI-5 during a terrorist attack in London in which dirty nukes were employed. Condemning Dershowitz for trying to find solutions to terrorism when every security agency in the world is struggling with the same issue is really not cool. Nor is it realistic to expect people NOT to discuss these problems and one of the great things about America is that we can do so openly.

That fact should not be censured but applauded.

[Englander]

15. Maybe because it's the bicentenary of Torqueville's birth.

Possibly because his comments & book are still relevant*
& topical.Or because the quote is fitting,& relevant to the
row between AD & NF.

Dershowitz's proposals are horrific,illegal,& I'm amazed that
anyone should take them seriously.He's advocating the use of
torture that 'causes maximum pain',& collective punishment,&
that is most definitely 'really not cool'.

The programme you're thinking of was 'Dirty War',I think.It was,
primarily,fiction,& I don't remember the scenes showing MI5
torturing suspects. As to what goes on in reality,I don't know,
quite possibly "Stress & Duress" techniques,or worse, are used
behind the scenes,but when such resources as the CIA gulfstream jets
are available to render suspects to prisons in Egypt,or Syria**,
or to Guantanamo Bay***,there's no need for Her Maj's secret police
to get their hands dirty,as it were.

___________________

*

Discovering America

Leader
Saturday July 30, 2005
The Guardian

It is not often that the views of 19th-century thinkers are discussed in daily newspapers preoccupied with current events, but Alexis de Tocqueville, born 200 years ago yesterday, is worthy of the honour - and relevant to anyone worried about the state of our world. The French lawyer went to the US in 1831 to study penal reform, but the nine months he spent travelling from New York to New Orleans produced the classic Democracy in America, still regarded by some as the finest book ever written on either of the two subjects of his title.

De Tocqueville is remembered best for his conclusion that American goodness meant American greatness, central to the doctrine of American "exceptionalism" - an idea that jars with those, and not only in his native land, who dislike the democracy-exporting hyperpuissance that has emerged since the collapse of communism and 9/11. But he also had much to say about democracy - "the slow and quiet action of society upon itself"- and its interplay with equality, whose sharp decline he would surely regret in the George Bush era. He wisely condemned "violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects".

Like other great writers, De Tocqueville's work has often been selectively plundered. Liberals like his emphasis on the dangers of mediocrity and materialism; conservatives prefer his warnings about big government and admiration for the American habit of freely uniting in voluntary associations - today's civil society - to act as a check on the executive and on the "tyranny of the majority".

De Tocqueville got some things wrong. His prediction of a titanic struggle between America and Russia did not survive the cold war. He did not see that slavery would lead to the American civil war. China's rise eluded him. Yet he understood how societies change, the strength of the human spirit and the fragility of what free people create. "All who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it," he wrote. That's another great thought well worth remembering.

Guardian Unlimited

___________________________________

**

The New Yorker

OUTSOURCING TORTURE
The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
by JANE MAYER
Issue of 2005-02-14
Posted 2005-02-07


On January 27th, President Bush, in an interview with the Times, assured the world that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.” Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was born in Syria, was surprised to learn of Bush’s statement. Two and a half years ago, American officials, suspecting Arar of being a terrorist, apprehended him in New York and sent him back to Syria, where he endured months of brutal interrogation, including torture. When Arar described his experience in a phone interview recently, he invoked an Arabic expression. The pain was so unbearable, he said, that “you forget the milk that you have been fed from the breast of your mother.”

Arar, a thirty-four-year-old graduate of McGill University whose family emigrated to Canada when he was a teen-ager, was arrested on September 26, 2002, at John F. Kennedy Airport. He was changing planes; he had been on vacation with his family in Tunisia, and was returning to Canada. Arar was detained because his name had been placed on the United States Watch List of terrorist suspects. He was held for the next thirteen days, as American officials questioned him about possible links to another suspected terrorist. Arar said that he barely knew the suspect, although he had worked with the man’s brother. Arar, who was not formally charged, was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet. The plane flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan.

During the flight, Arar said, he heard the pilots and crew identify themselves in radio communications as members of “the Special Removal Unit.” The Americans, he learned, planned to take him next to Syria. Having been told by his parents about the barbaric practices of the police in Syria, Arar begged crew members not to send him there, arguing that he would surely be tortured. His captors did not respond to his request; instead, they invited him to watch a spy thriller that was aired on board.

Ten hours after landing in Jordan, Arar said, he was driven to Syria, where interrogators, after a day of threats, “just began beating on me.” They whipped his hands repeatedly with two-inch-thick electrical cables, and kept him in a windowless underground cell that he likened to a grave. “Not even animals could withstand it,” he said. Although he initially tried to assert his innocence, he eventually confessed to anything his tormentors wanted him to say. “You just give up,” he said. “You become like an animal.”

A year later, in October, 2003, Arar was released without charges, after the Canadian government took up his cause. Imad Moustapha, the Syrian Ambassador in Washington, announced that his country had found no links between Arar and terrorism. Arar, it turned out, had been sent to Syria on orders from the U.S. government, under a secretive program known as “extraordinary rendition.” This program had been devised as a means of extraditing terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation and prosecution. Critics contend that the unstated purpose of such renditions is to subject the suspects to aggressive methods of persuasion that are illegal in America—including torture.

More at;
The New Yorker

_____________________________________

***

Broad Use of Harsh Tactics Is Described at Cuba Base
By Neil A. Lewis
The New York Times

Sunday 17 October 2004

Washington - Many detainees at Guantánamo Bay were regularly subjected to harsh and coercive treatment, several people who worked in the prison said in recent interviews, despite longstanding assertions by military officials that such treatment had not occurred except in some isolated cases.

The people, military guards, intelligence agents and others, described in interviews with The New York Times a range of procedures that included treatment they said was highly abusive occurring over a long period of time, as well as rewards for prisoners who cooperated with interrogators.

One regular procedure that was described by people who worked at Camp Delta, the main prison facility at the naval base in Cuba, was making uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair while shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and screamingly loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air-conditioning was turned up to maximum levels, said one military official who witnessed the procedure. The official said that was intended to make the detainees uncomfortable, as they were accustomed to high temperatures both in their native countries and their cells.

Such sessions could last up to 14 hours with breaks, said the official, who described the treatment after being contacted by The Times.

More at;
truthout

[Colorado Blue]

18. Of course "Dirty Bomb" was fiction. But it was based on the

not so distant possibility that WMDs will be used in a terror attack in a major Western city - in this case dirty bombs in the center of London.

Watching the movie, in the context of the plot presented, I found my absolute rejection of torture shaken. Empathising with the victims of terror and/or the security forces tasked with preventing or minimizing the damage will also lead, if one is honest about the difficulties confronted, to areas of moral ambiguity.

What was going on looked like torture to me. Maybe you've never experienced a painful, damaging and systematic beating combined with psychological terror but I have and I would say that amounts to torture. You can call it stress if you want to.

Moreover I don't think it matters whether MI-5 of FBI or Interpol delivers the pain or ships the victim to Syria - the hands are bloody nevertheless. In murder trials INTENT is a factor when considering both the crime charged and the sentence delivered.

Difficult moral and ethical questions center around the problem of what to do when a fatal attack is imminent and a suspect is caught, who has vital knowledge. I submit, given the possibility of saving lives and the infrastructure upon which thousands or millions of people depend, the moral lines become exceedingly blurred. After repeated attacks in which thousands have died, over a period of decades, in which the damage has been incalculable, similar challenges are faced. I am quite sure that "behind the scenes" treatment of Irish terrorists would have revealed some unsavory moments - these problems are hardly limited to Israel or to the current "War on Terror".

These issues are confronting security forces all over the world and not just in an American or Israeli context. Indeed far worse practices than those you describe are endemic all over the world and for far less lofty purpose. The use of torture to keep a regime in power or to extract information during war or to keep women under control or for personal pleasure or gain or even to "save souls" - these are and have been common throughout history and across cultures and in almost all cases we can say the perpetrators are just dead wrong.

However, rational consideration of the stakes involved in dealing with terrorism - lives and wholeness, economic and political stability, infrastructure and environment - must put these serious questions OUT of the easy black and white moral arena and into the agonizing reaches of Solomonic legal and ethical consideration.

From where I sit torture is ALMOST worse than death. The trauma continues throughout the years and the damage to the soul remains long after the body is healed. I'm appalled that 21st century people would even consider such a solution. I'm also appalled that terrorists would blow up innocent people on buses and subways and restaurants and mosques, or standing in line for jobs or going to work or school.

I think any discussion of the SOLUTIONS for dealing with terror must first deal with the deadly serious nature of terror itself and the possibility of more attacks on the World Trade Center scale. The probability is that something akin to the scenario in "Dirty Bomb" will occur eventually, with the cost in lives and wealth and physical and economic destruction soaring far beyond anything we've yet seen. If such an attack can be prevented or its ultimate damage lessened, what then becomes of the ethical hairsplitting between "torture" and "stress"?

If repeated attacks like the London bombings become normal, as in Israel, normal people start reaching for abnormal solutions. It is easy and tempting to say, they're just dead wrong and immoral in their actions. But that doesn't stop the damage and it doesn't save lives.

Finally I think de Tocqueville's comments, as the author of the article employed them, were completely out of place in a discussion of such ominous dimensions. In that context they were insulting and frivolous and the author should have taken another approach instead of alienating the American reader in the first paragraph and attempting to reduce the serious debate between two scholars to a circus performance. Given the dire significance of the Holocaust and the agonies of Israel and the Arab people, not to mention the heartful and passionate beliefs of the two men involved, such snide commentary is not only out of place but suggests that their mutual angst, which I find both rational and appropriate, is mere bombast.

[Englander]

20. "Stress & Duress" = torture.

It's the euphemism used for the techniques that were
mentioned in the NYT/truthout article,it's a phrase that's
similar to "Collateral Damage",or other military phrases,
that mask the reality of what actually occurs,when those
techniques are used. The techniques used qualify as torture,
I think,& I thought I'd made that clear by quoting from,&
providing a link to, an article that describes "Stress & Duress"
methods as 'harsh and coercive','highly abusive',& that they
'clearly constituted torture'.

SD methods were developed by the British Army in Ulster in
the early '70s. They're now illegal,after the Government of
Eire took a case against the Government of the United Kingdom
to the European Court of Human Rights*.


___________________________

*

This is the Court decision from 1978,also included is the context
of the times,the background of Northern Ireland,& the crisis,&
the relevant events of the early '70s.Very informative,very long.


'IRELAND v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

18 January 1978'

http://www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1978/1.html

[Andromeda]

21. Here's my comment:

:thumbsdown:

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Gimme a friggin break

Not to mention the scope for discussing these subjects in the United States, Israel's greatest ally, where the parameters for debate are relatively narrow compared with the rest of the western world. "The atmosphere for publishing critical stuff on Israel here is very intimidating," says Colin Robinson, who as publisher of the New Press initially intended to publish Finkelstein's book.

That atmosphere for publishing critical stuff in the US that can mis-interpreted as anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-Puerto Rican, anti-Native American, anti-Woman, homophobic, etc. is only intimidating because we have had our age of the Ku Klux Klan and Father Coughlin, and No-Nothings, and White Citizens Councils, and David Duke.

And in a civil society - a society molded by Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, and Roger Williams, and Thomas Paine, and Martin Luther King, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt, a nation of minorities thrown out of everyplace else - somethings are just "off limits" to maintain a civil society.

BTW - I am watching the heretofore broad parameters for debate narrow in Europe.

[Englander]

5. lol.

This case proves that "the atmosphere for publishing
critical stuff on Israel here is very intimidating,"
as the publisher of the New Press said.

That's the publisher of the New Press who *intially intended
to publish Finkelstein's book*. QED.

Care to comment on the main subject of the article?
Y'know,the dispute between Finkelstein & Dershowitz?

[geek tragedy]

6. Finkelstein is a world-class asshole and third-class scholar.

Dershowitz is a world-class asshole and first-class scholar.

[Caleb]

9. Ditto

:thumbsup:

[Violet_Crumble]

16. Any reason why you think Finkelstein is a third-class scholar?

Well, apart from the fact that you don't agree with him?

Violet...

[geek tragedy]

17. He got bounced from NYU because his work wasn't up to snuff.

He has a very specific target audience to which he panders. He's more of a propagandist than a scholar.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. Really??

So can you point me in the direction of a statement from NYU saying he wasn't 'up to snuff' and that he didn't have an excellent teaching record? He's an assistant professor at De Paul University now, isn't he?

Here's what Norman Finkelstein himself had to say about NYU:

You stated in a BBC interview that your radical politics have exacted 'a substantial personal cost' to yourself. Have you found yourself alienated from mainstream Jewish life?

I wouldn't say that alienation has been the price because I have managed to find a crowd of people who share my values in my life, which has been quite satisfying to me. I'd say that without wanting to pose a martyr, that I've paid a professional price for my views. Most recently I taught at Hunter College, New York University, and every semester I was the highest rated professor in my department on student evaluations, I had also published in the last five years, four books and I would say that in every reckoning I had proven myself to be worthy as a professor. Nonetheless, I was always the lowest paid by far, I had the heaviest teaching load, and this past May after 10 years faithful service at slave wages, I was let go and forced--at the ripe old age of 49--to relocate to Chicago to find temporary work.

Do you believe these people were involved in your dismissal from New York University?

I think it works much more subtly in our system. Sometimes phone calls are made, no doubt about it, but I think things work through a crystallising of a consensus--in the sense of 'this guy is more trouble than he is worth, and so it is time to let him go'. I think this is what happened at Hunter College, that yes I had an excellent teaching record, yes I had an excellent publication record, but it's also true that 'a lot of people are complaining about him and we do get all these phone calls and there are faculty members who are very uncomfortable with him because he is just not professional' and so on and so forth. Finally, a consensus crystallises that it is time to let him go.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=46

btw, just because you don't like his work doesn't turn him into a propagandist rather than a scholar....


Violet...

[barb162]

24. Too bad there's no way to corroborate the statements he makes

about being the lowest paid, having the heaviest teaching load, etc

[Violet_Crumble]

25. So I guess we should just go for the earlier uncorroborated smear-job...

sheez...

[barb162]

26. So I guess we should just go with any uncorroborated smear?

:eyes:

[Violet_Crumble]

34. The only one being touted here is the one you've embraced...

If there's any others floating around, point them out...

[geek tragedy]

29. What smear job? He's been fired from two different NYC universities.

The man's undistinguished record of failure speaks for itself.

[geek tragedy]

28. Of course he's going to say that.

Nobody is ever denied tenure at a university because they didn't deserve it, if you believe their version of events.

Poor ol' Stormin Norman keeps on getting unfairly treated at institution after institution. It's not his fault, he's the victim, yada yada yada.

[Violet_Crumble]

30. So have you actually got any evidence to support yr claims?

I'm not quite understanding why I should believe some anonymous poster on an internet discussion board who just keeps insisting that he's right without offering a shred of evidence, over the man himself. It's abundantly clear that you detest Norman Finkelstein, and to be honest, I'd have started to take you seriously if you'd offered up some evidence to support yr claim that he's a third rate scholar, which is why I asked you a few days ago to do that...

btw, I'm sure there are some who are denied tenure because of shoddy work, but since when did that become all of them, or is it just the ones you have a fervent dislike of? Politics don't play a part in who stays and who goes at unis in the US?? Wow, I find that really hard to believe...

Bottom line is you've done nothing to lead me to believe yr version of events, while Finkelstein's is plausible. Oh, and check his CV when you get a chance. One (or two) institutions do not make it a recurring thing and he's been working at De Paul University for a fair while now...

Violet...

[geek tragedy]

33. Okay, more evidence:

http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.01.18/news4.html

<snip>
Mainstream book critics have not been kind to Mr. Finkelstein. Writing in The New York Times Book Review in August 2000, Brown University professor Omer Bartov dismissed Mr. Finkelstein's views in "The Holocaust Industry" as "a series of vague, undocumented and contradictory assertions."

In the January 2001 issue of Commentary magazine, its senior editor, Gabriel Schoenfeld, accused Mr. Finkelstein of having "crackpot ideas."

Mr. Sherrill declined to comment on the quality of Mr. Finkelstein's scholarship. Through Hunter's spokeswoman, Maria Terrone, Mr. Sherrill said that he had not read his books.

"His opinion of scholarship doesn't matter since adjuncts are evaluated primarily on their teaching," Ms. Terrone said. "The issue of scholarship... only applies for full-time faculty who are on tenure track. It doesn't apply to his situation."
<snip>

Let's see, his book is denounced as "crackpot" and has absolutely zero oomph in the scholarship department--his scholarly achievements after 10+ years as a professor are so insignificant that they don't even merit discussion, and he can't even rise above the level of an adjunct professor at CUNY.


He was such a prize that NYU fired him and CUNY wasn't interested in him even as a lowly adjunct professor.

Finkelstein simply is not taken seriously as a scholar. I don't know how one goes about proving a negative, but his record of failure and ridicule will have to do.

Let's check out a review of his basic 'scholarship.':

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/books/reviews/09/06/salon.review.holocaust/

<snip>
But Finkelstein's swings are so wild and his tone so vitriolic as to raise doubts about his agenda, and even about that which may lie deeper in his heart.

On the issue of reparations, he barely acknowledges the wrongs committed by the Swiss and German institutions -- the burying of Jewish bank accounts, the use of slave labor -- that gave rise to the recent reparations drive. The fear that the reparations will not wind up in the hands of those who need and deserve them most is a legitimate concern. But the idea that survivors have been routinely swindled by Jewish institutions is a gross distortion. The chief reason why survivors have so far seen nothing of the $1.25 billion Swiss settlement, reached in 1998, is that U.S. courts have yet to rule on a method of distribution. On other reparations and compensation settlements, the Claims Conference, a particular bete noire of Finkelstein, says that it distributed approximately $220 million to individual survivors in 1999 alone.

Other Finkelstein generalizations are as absurd as they are sweeping, and do a great disservice to the serious and enlightening scholarship that has been produced by Holocaust writers over the past 40 years. Thus Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners," which explains the extermination of the Jews as an outgrowth of purely German anti-Semitism, Finkelstein asserts, is "standard Holocaust dogma," when in fact it has been furiously disputed by other Holocaust historians. "Fragments," the wholly fictitious account of a child survivor by Binjamin Wilkormirski, Finkelstein adds, is "the archetypal Holocaust memoir," ignoring major contributions from survivors such as Primo Levi ("The Drowned and the Saved") and German Jewish observers like Victor Klemperer ("I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years"), both published when the so-called Holocaust industry was supposedly in full flourish.

Predictable swipes
An ideologue of the left, Finkelstein takes predictable swipes at the "criminal policies of the Israeli state," backed, naturally, by an imperialist U.S. foreign policy. Never mind that U.S. administrations and Jewish interest groups in fact have often been at odds, especially during the Bush administration, Finkelstein insists on seeing "elites" everywhere, notably those of the Jewish persuasion, "marching in lockstep with American power." These elites, the hidden hand of "organized American Jewry" behind the Holocaust industry, have one goal: not the teaching of history but the furthering of "Jewish aggrandizement."

Finkelstein employs such sentiments and language, so associated with standard anti-Semitism, quite freely. Not only might historical anti-Semitism be "grounded in a real conflict of interests" (a classic formulation of Stalinesque leftism), but the Jews, in Finkelstein's view, are often to blame for it. The pursuit of reparations, in another of Finkelstein's wild and baseless charges, "has become the main fomenter of anti-Semitism in Europe." His assertions become ever more rancid: Israelis and American Jews are nowadays the great oppressors -- "lording it over those least able to defend themselves" -- the former over Palestinians, the latter over American blacks. Holocaust denial is also the fault of the Jews. "Given the nonsense churned out daily by the Holocaust Industry," Finkelstein writes, "the wonder is that there are so few skeptics."

Finkelstein is quick to remind us of his credentials as a child of survivors. Nevertheless his distrust of and distaste for his co-religionists are rather apparent. In a telephone interview with a British publication recently he said: "I'm not exaggerating when I say that one out of three Jews you stop in the street in New York will claim to be a survivor." Particularly irksome are those "arriviste and shtetl-chauvinist Jews of Eastern European descent like New York City mayor Edward Koch and (former) New York Times Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal," whom Finkelstein holds largely responsible for the Holocaust industry and all its foul works.

In the end, Finkelstein acknowledges the "staggering dimensions of Hitler's Final Solution," seeking merely to restore the phenomenon "as a rational subject of inquiry." But what we have here, ultimately, is a rather rancid settling of personal and ideological scores. How that furthers rational inquiry is hard to see. And if truly, as he states at the very end, he wishes for nothing more than for the vanquished to "finally, rest in peace," he might ask himself how his own rage and dogma will help them achieve that.<snip>

"Norman Finkelstein" is Yiddish for "David Irving."

[Violet_Crumble]

35. What do you mean 'more evidence'?

You hadn't offered anything at all, apart from a strange idea that anyone who isn't tenured at a university and loses their job does so only because their work is shoddy. And digging up some attacks on him doesn't make for evidence that he lost his job because of shoddy work. All it means is you found kindred spirits who enjoy slagging him off and who don't bother presenting any evidence of their claims either. And the second one with its attack on him as being a Holocaust denier is abjectly pathetic. Does that moron have any idea of what David Irving peddles? Have they bothered reading 'A Nation On Trial?' It appears not for them to have done that lame insult at the end of the thing you posted. You dismissed Finkelstein's own words on being dismissed from NYU as being that of a liar, yet you opt to believe the words of some twits who say what you want to hear. What makes them honest and Finkelstein not honest?

I'm a bit surprised by yr hostility towards Finkelstein, geektragedy. What posts of yrs I've read about the I/P conflict itself come across to me as quite reasonable, yet on something so peripheral to the conflict, yr coming across very differently. I can understand when people might disagree with what he's written, or think the slapfest between him and Dershowitz is childish and silly (I think that way), but I don't understand feverish and blind-to-all-reason hatred of him that emanates from a small number of folk...

Violet...

[geek tragedy]

37. The fact of Finkelstein's career is that he's been a professor and

has been publishing work for 15 years, and he has yet to rise above the level of assistant or adjunct professor anywhere.

His publication record is sparse, consisting mainly of polemic books. He himself acknowledges that " I don't publish in mainstream journals, and have never been asked to publish in them."

Having worked on an academic journal, I can tell you that mainstream journals have higher standards for scholarliness than do fringe journals with a political agenda.

The only reason folks have heard about Finkelstein is because of the notoreity of The Holocaust Industry.

As I said, Finkelstein is a polemicist, not a scholar. And, I don't know of anyone outside of Gilad Atzmon who hates his Jewish heritage as much as Finkelstein.

He produces such lovely quotes as: ""Not only does the '6 Million' figure become more untenable but the numbers of the Holocaust industry are rapidly approaching those of Holocaust deniers." "

Hmmmmmm.


Regarding Finkelstein and David Irving:

He described Irving as a "good historian" who has made "an indispensable contribution to our knowledge of World War II."

http://globalfire.tv/nj/04en/persecution/holoracket.htm

Do you know who said that "Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving?" It was Ingrid Rimland, wife of Ernst Zundel. Safe to say, when the Neo-Nazis roll out the red carpet for you, you're in bizarro-land:

http://www.ety.com/HRP/jewishstudies/finkelsteinDW.htm

Finkelstein does what conventional Jew-haters do: he takes a kernel of truth--that there is some crass and cynical exploitation of the Holocaust--and turns it into a polemic against Jews, Jews, and more Jews.

[Coastie for Truth]

31. Current issue of Tikkun

where this issue is one of many discussed in an exchange of LTTE's between Finkelstein and Dershowitz.

[Coastie for Truth]

7. To some observers of the American body politic

To some observers of the American body politic there is one absolute, iron clad, sine qua non "litmus test" of being a progressive.

A very particular stand on I/P

And the I/P issue trumps every other issue-

Gay rights
Choice
Stem cell research.
The First Amendment

No establishment of religion
Free exercise of religion
Freedom of press
Freedom of speech
Freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances

Capital punishment

Review of "actual innocence" claims

Equal opportunity

GLBT
Gender based
Racial minorities
Religious minorities
Handicapped
Age based

Procedural due process
Substantive due process

Sorry, I/P does not trump the above issues. To think it does is a left wing mirror image of neoconism - and a gross and ugly perversion of progressivism.

I/P is not a "Litmus Test" issue.

To anybody who asserts that a particular standard is a sine qua non. sole, one and only "Litmus Test Issue" -- "Quo Warranto" - by what right do you have to define progressivism.

Who elected Finkelstein or The Guardian the Dean, Pope, Rebbe Gadolah, Ayatollah of Progressivism to define people into or out of Progressivism.

Dershowitz has had an outstanding record on the Civil Liberties - Civil Rights issues.

[Englander]

8. Oh aye? Here's some examples of his "outstanding record".

"The Jerusalem Post

New response to Palestinian terrorism

Alan M. Dershowitz

March, 11 2002

>snip

In light of the willingness of suicide bombers to die in the process of killing Israelis, the traditional methods of deterrence and retaliation seem insufficient. To succeed, Israel must turn the Palestinian leadership and people against the use of terrorism and the terrorists themselves. One way to do this is to make terrorists directly bear the responsibility for losses inflicted on the Palestinian cause as a direct result of their terrorism.

Here is my proposal. Israel should announce an immediate unilateral cessation in retaliation against terrorist attacks. This moratorium would be in effect for a short period, say four or five days, to give the Palestinian leadership an opportunity to respond to the new policy. It would also make it clear to the world that Israel is taking an important step in ending what has become a cycle of violence.

Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.

The response will be automatic. The order will have been given in advance of the terrorist attacks and there will be no discretion. The point is to make the automatic destruction of the village the fault of the Palestinian terrorists who had advance warnings of the specific consequences of their action. The soldiers would simply be acting as the means for carrying out a previously announced policy of retaliation against a designated target."

______________________________

Top Lawyer Urges Death For Families Of Bombers
Lewin: 'A Policy Born of Necessity'
By AMI EDEN
FORWARD STAFF

JUNE 7, 2002

A prominent Washington attorney and Jewish communal leader is calling for the execution of family members of suicide bombers.

Nathan Lewin, an oft-mentioned candidate for a federal judgeship and legal advisor to several Orthodox organizations, told the Forward that such a policy would provide a much-needed deterrent against suicide attacks. Under the proposal, which Lewin unveiled in the current issue of the opinion journal Sh'ma, family members would be spared if they immediately condemned the bombing and refused financial compensation for the loss of their relative.

>snip

Several leading Jewish figures, including Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, argued that the plan represented a legitimate if flawed attempt to strike a balance between preventing terrorism and preserving democratic norms. But the proposal was strongly condemned by the head of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, and the executive vice chairwoman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Hannah Rosenthal."

http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.06.07/news1.html

_________________________


"San Francisco Chronicle

Want to torture? Get a warrant

Alan M. Dershowitz

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

>snip

In my new book, "Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age," I offer a controversial proposal designed to stimulate debate about this difficult issue. Under my proposal, no torture would be permitted without a "torture warrant" being issued by a judge.

An application for a torture warrant would have to be based on the absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it.

The suspect would be given immunity from prosecution based on information elicited by the torture. The warrant would limit the torture to nonlethal means, such as sterile needles, being inserted beneath the nails to cause excruciating pain without endangering life.

It may sound absurd for a distinguished judge to be issuing a warrant to do something so awful. "

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/22/ED5329.DTL

______________________


The evidence speaks for itself - what kind of
"civil rights" activist advocates the murder of
innocents,collective punishment,& 'legal torture'?

[Coastie for Truth]

10. Stimulating Discussion or advocating?

In my new book, "Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age," I offer a controversial proposal designed to stimulate debate about this difficult issue. Under my proposal, no torture would be permitted without a "torture warrant" being issued by a judge.

An application for a torture warrant would have to be based on the absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it.

The suspect would be given immunity from prosecution based on information elicited by the torture. The warrant would limit the torture to nonlethal means, such as sterile needles, being inserted beneath the nails to cause excruciating pain without endangering life.

It may sound absurd for a distinguished judge to be issuing a warrant to do something so awful. "

Discussion item - not a proposal

Several leading Jewish figures, including Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, argued that the plan represented a legitimate if flawed attempt to strike a balance between preventing terrorism and preserving democratic norms.

"Legitimate if flawed" - starting point for discussuin.

In light of the willingness of suicide bombers to die in the process of killing Israelis, the traditional methods of deterrence and retaliation seem insufficient. To succeed, Israel must turn the Palestinian leadership and people against the use of terrorism and the terrorists themselves. One way to do this is to make terrorists directly bear the responsibility for losses inflicted on the Palestinian cause as a direct result of their terrorism.

Here is my proposal. Israel should announce an immediate unilateral cessation in retaliation against terrorist attacks. This moratorium would be in effect for a short period, say four or five days, to give the Palestinian leadership an opportunity to respond to the new policy. It would also make it clear to the world that Israel is taking an important step in ending what has become a cycle of violence.

Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.

The response will be automatic. The order will have been given in advance of the terrorist attacks and there will be no discretion. The point is to make the automatic destruction of the village the fault of the Palestinian terrorists who had advance warnings of the specific consequences of their action. The soldiers would simply be acting as the means for carrying out a previously announced policy of retaliation against a designated target."

Silly, counter productive, and presented as a point to start for discussion -- but probably permitted under International Law.

All you have done has been to present ad homimen arguments to hypothetical discussion points posed as starting points for discussion - which is typical of the Socratic method. In his class room Dershowitz uses the Socratic method. (Typical of most law school classrooms across the US and Canada).

[Englander]

12. No,they're proposals - AD says they are proposals.

That is,when he forgets to say that he's only
offering these suggestions to stimulate the debate,
& not advocating they become law, or suggesting that
such horrific practices are legitimate,whilst also
saying that such horrific practices should be used,
& are legitimate.

I'm curious - which doctrine of *International Law*
would probably permit the use of collective punishment,
the destruction of an entire village,by the armed forces
of an occupying power?

[Coastie for Truth]

11. I guess you disagree with these too--

1. attacking Bush's military tribunals.

2. Dershowitz, "Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000"

3. Dershowitz, "The Genesis of Justice : 10 Stories of Biblical Injustice That Led to the 10 Commandments and Modern Morality and Law"

4. Dershowitz, "Letters to a Young Lawyer"

5. Dershowitz, "America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation--From the Salem Witches to the Guantanamo Detainees"

6. Dershowitz, "The Case for Peace : How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved"

7. Dershowitz, "Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origin of Rights"

8. Dershowitz, "The Best Defense"

I think that 1 (, 4 (Dershowitz, "Letters to a Young Lawyer") and 6 (Dershowitz, "The Case for Peace : How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved") are especially relevant to your original append - and to your response.

[Englander]

13. I've not read them,so yer guess would,probably,be incorrect.

A good benchmark for future reference,to help anyone
in guessing whether I'd disagree with any books/proposals
&tc, is to ask whether the author is advocating the use of
illegal/repugnant practices. If they are,I'm most probably
against it.

Concerning the phrase that AD uses,in the first cited example,
here it is again,it must be one of his favourite phrases;


"Hate-America Lies For Kids

By Alan M. Dershowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 21, 2005

This cynical defense of the brainwashing of children has been attributed variously to Stalin, Lenin and several religions and cults. Robert Shetterly, the author of a new book for young adolescents, apparently believes that propaganda is just as effective with impressionable boys and girls in their early teens. His seductive picture book entitled Americans who Tell the Truth, published by Dutton Children’s Books, would have brought a smile to the face of Uncle Joe Stalin.

In the guise of a “heartfelt book” that “grew out of soul-searching after 9/11,” Shetterly, has written a deceptive homage to radicals of the hard left. He glorifies such “great Americans” as Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman and Ralph Nader. The irony, of course, is that some of these hard-left radicals have provided justifications for precisely the kind of violence that occurred on 9/11.

>snip

The same can be said of Amy Goodman, who ­at least in my experience ­is among the most dishonest, biased and ideologically blinded radio talk show hosts. She doesn’t tell the truth, unless it happens to comport with the radical left line. Her political correctness is to correctness as military music is to music.

What do most of these “truth tellers” (especially the contemporaries among them) have in common? They hate the United States and its allies and blame the ills of the world on them. They support tyrannical left-wing regimes. They are selective in their condemnations. And they abuse the truth to serve their hard-left ideologies.

In an effort to feign balance, Shetterly includes a handful of dead centrists or moderates such as Dwight Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr., but that makes the book even more insidious, because it suggests objectivity and masks a radical bias. There is no Elie Weisel, William Buckley or Thomas Friedman on Shetterly’s list because they do not tow his particular radical line."


:eyes:
___________________________


More 'hard-left ideology' & 'America-hating' here;

http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/

And here;

http://www.democracynow.org/

But be careful now,Dershie says they'll brainwash the kids!!

[barb162]

27. I read his book " Reasonable Doubts"

and yes, he knows his civil liberties and applies them

[bemildred]

19. Why are academic disputes so bitter?

Because the stakes are so small.

Here we have vast mounds of opinion on both sides masquerading as fact.

I must say Dersh's trashing of the UC press seems a bit reflexive. I buy their books all the time. The fact that this book annoys him seems insufficient to characterize the entire enterprise, and the reflexive name-calling doesn't speak well for him.

The Fink strays far into invective too, which leads me to discount both of these fellows. I would guess they are both far more interested in their little flame war than any semblance of dispassionate truth.