Where antisemitism is the adoring crowd of the village idiot - by David Collier

...The antisemitism isn’t in his train of thought, it is in those that take the absurd and reward him, fund him and applaud him. Antisemitism is the adoring crowd of the village idiot. So yes, the appearance of two of the anti-Zionist clowns in a single conference at the University of Westminster that spent so much time dealing with Zionism, Israel and Jews is an antisemitic act. It is about time everyone started realising this is the case.

David Collier..
The Great Divide..
08 August '16..

University of Westminster campus in Harrow, West London. 8th August 2016. Norman Finklestein is discussing the ‘Holocaust Industry’. This discussion, and the book authored by Finkelstein with the same title, is based on the premise that Zionism ‘milks’ the genocide experienced by the Jewish people.

I have history with this university. In May, I was at the Marylebone campus, where I had the ‘pleasure’ of hearing Haim Bresheeth declare that:

“everything in Israel currently has to go. Zionism has to go.….the JNF, the Jewish agency, every single authority, every single institution, is Zionist..”

I’ve seen Illan Pappe pushing his unique brand of ‘historical fiction’ there too. But it isn’t surprising. This particular university has form. In 2012 they welcomed Hizb-ut-Tahrir Member, Jamal Harwood, who at an event on campus refused to condemn a particular statement he was linked with:

“O Muslim Armies! Teach the Jews a lesson after which they will need no further lessons. March forth to fight them, eradicate their entity and purify the earth of their filth”.

Haitham al-Haddad was invited to speak there too, raising protests from the LGBT community. An independent report on inclusion at the campus, found the Islamic Society at Westminster was ‘dominated by hard-line, ultra-conservative believers’. The same report found that officials do nothing for fear of accusations of Islamophobia. Jihadi John was radicalised there.

Zionism is the world’s only movement of self-determination that is not given freedom to speak inside the British campus. I personally have spoken to Israelis *currently studying* at the university, who hide their identity from their fellow students. Similarly, I have spoken to British Jews there who are scared to admit to their Jewishness. For Jews, the University of Westminster campus is a place where their identity is best left outside.

So it is no surprise then, that antisemitic rhetoric always feels at home there.

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Finkelstein, The Jerk

...The young girl continued to weep all through the lively professor’s three-minute aria of brutal and remorseless self-justification. When the number expired, he briefly left the podium and smiled innocently to the camera (Finkelstein: “I’ve never been in a crowd like this. They’re nuts!”)–proud of his handiwork, no doubt, and of having throttled a timid young girl into tears and silence. Served her right, I guess. What a jerk.

Robert Werdine..
Times of Israel..
21 October '13




(Not a typical post but this is truly a case of 'if the shoe fits..." and its hard to find someone more deserving. Y.)

Norman Finkelstein is a jerk. But don’t take my word for it. Just ask blogger Lydia McGrew:

“As it happens, I have a friend who is on staff at DePaul [University] who tells me that the word on the staff side is that you were lucky if you never had to deal with Norm, because he’s a jerk. I put a lot of weight on this, by the way. In my opinion, staff at a large university pretty much keep the place running, sometimes nearly single-handed, and they probably deserve to get paid a lot more than they do get paid. If the staff think a faculty member is a jerk, odds are high that he is a jerk.”

And he is. Finkelstein, who has called Elie Weisel a “clown in the Holocaust circus,” and has asked, “If all these people survived the Holocaust, who actually died?,” is most notable for his traveling freak show of books, articles, appearances and interviews in which he hysterically denounces the Jews’ alleged use of the Holocaust to extort money, sympathy, and political advantage, and for which he proclaims that his Jewish heritage and Holocaust survivor parents give him a kind of sovereign immunity from charges of bias or antisemitism. Said Finkelstein: “I think it’s pretty audacious when people try to play the holocaust card with me.”

Finkelstein has also praised the Hezbollah terrorist group, most notably following the 2006 war with Israel:

“I truly honor [Hezbollah] for having inflicted an exceptional and deserving defeat on their foreign occupiers. It’s another wonderful chapter in the long and painful struggle for human emancipation and even liberty and certainly one that every human being can take inspiration from.”

Plosker - BBC Or Norman Finkelstein: Who is More Despicable?

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting/Backspin..
09 May '12..





Just the introductory statement for the BBC’s Hardtalk program reveals the agenda behind its interview with anti-Israel Professor Norman Finkelstein:

American presidents have long been criticised for being too in thrall to the Jewish lobby. That American Jews influence US foreign policy and that explains America’s unwavering support for Israel.

In a subtle change of language, the actual phrase used by the BBC interviewer on the program was “The American Jews influence US foreign policy” and not “that,” turning it into a statement of fact rather than conjecture. Could the BBC have changed that one word after realizing the implications?

Also, note the use of the term “Jewish lobby.” Not the “Israel lobby” as has been used, most notably by Walt and Mearsheimer in their discredited thesis. What does the BBC base its statement on? Such criticism of American presidents has come from a particular anti-Israel strain and is certainly not a universally accepted mantra.

Baratz - BDS Secrets

Ran Baratz..
jewishideasdaily.com..
24 February '12..

Ubiquitous anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein stirred up the blogosphere last week. In a YouTube interview with pro-Palestinian advocate Frank Barat, Finkelstein said—in his aggressive, condescending way—that members of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which Finkelstein has prominently supported, care less for human rights than they do for Israel's destruction. When Finkelstein saw the reactions, rumor has it he tried to get Barat to take the video down.

But Finkelstein's angry comrades didn't understand what he was really admitting.

Finkelstein got into trouble when he said that some people in BDS "don't want Israel." He lectured his BDS colleagues:

Stop trying to be so clever, because you're only clever in your cult. The moment you step out, you have to deal with Israeli propaganda . . . They say, "No, they're not really talking about rights; they're talking about they want to destroy Israel." And in fact I think they're right, I think that's true.

In fact, Finkelstein said, it is "not an accident, an unwitting omission, that BDS does not mention Israel": They "know it will split the movement, because there's a large segment—component—of the movement that wants to eliminate Israel."

You can see why anti-Israel people were offended to hear this from Finkelstein, of all people. Yet Finkelstein was not revealing some deep secret about the motives of those BDS-ers. Anyone who has listened to their leaders, read their papers, seen them at play, or checked out their circle of acquaintances, supporters, and collaborators can hardly be surprised.

Finkelstein made his truly subversive comments elsewhere in the interview, and—perhaps not accidentally—they have provoked much less reaction from anti-Israel opinion. BDS is "a cult," Finkelstein said:

(Video) Plosker - Finkelstein on BDS: A Cult of Dishonesty

Norman Finkelstein on BDS

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting/Backspin..
19 February '12..

Professor Norman Finkelstein is an odious character, infamous for his anti-Israel activities and his book on the “Holocaust Industry”. Finkelstein is also a supporter of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Which is why a video of Finkelstein calling out the BDS movement as dishonest is causing such a stir.

It’s the video that the BDS movement didn’t want you to see as Finkelstein leaves his BDS supporting interviewer speechless. Here’s some of the highlights:



The video pretty much speaks for itself as one of the heroes of the BDS movement trashes it. That the person calling out BDS for what it really is happens to be Norman Finkelstein says it all about BDS’s moral bankruptcy.

Marquadt-Bigman - Norman Finkelstein’s metamorphosis

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
20 February '12..



It’s nothing short of Kafkaesque: when Norman Finkelstein, a veteran hero of Israel-haters left and right, criticized the BDS campaign in a recent interview, his erstwhile admirers turned on him with a ferocity that is positively delightful.

The +972 blog – which the New Israel Fund supports in order to help it become “sustainable” – posted this scathing verdict (which is real fun because it starts off with what can only be described as a Freudian typo):

Normal [sic!] Finkelstein has made a career out of being the son of holocaust survivors who doesn’t shy away from picking a fight with Israel’s backers, and who unabashedly defends the rights of Palestinians. […] Everything about the interview is classic Finkelstein: his demeanor, his tendency to raise his voice, his adversarial, passionate approach, everything, that is, except for the things he’s saying. In a bizarre turn of events, he comes off as a Zionist bully, or for that matter, any other angry right wing pundit.

[…] Finkelstein even resorts to the desperate tactic of denial. When the interviewer puts forth his contention that the BDS movement is growing in popularity, Finkelstein rejects the idea out of hand, comparing the movement to some Maoist group he apparently was affiliated with at some point in his more idealistic youth.

American Academic Supports the Targeting of Innocent Israeli Civilians

Alan M. Dershowitz
Hudson New York
11 April '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2033/norman-finkelstein-supports-targeting-israeli-civilians

The terrorists on the West Bank who murdered the Fogel family and the war criminals from Gaza who aimed sophisticated mortars at a school bus had the support of an American academic who is widely admired by Palestinians, Europeans and radical Americans. Norman Finkelstein didn't wield the knife that slit the throat of the Fogel baby or fire the mortar that seriously injured a 16 year old and barely missed killing 30 other students, but he might as well have. Just days after the Fogel murders, and days before the attempted school bus massacre, Finkelstein advised his Palestinian admirers that terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and presumably Hamas and Islamic Jihad "has the right to target Israeli civilians…"

This is a remarkable statement even for Finkelstein, who has compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

Targeting civilians is a universal war crime, and inciting others to kill innocent civilians is at least deeply immoral, if not arguably illegal. Finkelstein is particularly close to the Hezbollah leadership having met with Hezbollah figures in Lebanon and declaring that "we are all Hezbollah." When he tells Iran's major surrogate that they have the right to target Israeli civilians, they become emboldened, if not incited. Israeli intelligence has just concluded that Hezbollah is preparing to fire 10,000 rockets at Tel Aviv. And now they have Finkelstein's blessing. And what is "right" for Hezbollah certainly can't be wrong for Hamas and other terrorist groups that seek to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible.

Finkelstein will claim, as he always does, that he was quoted out of context and that he qualified his opinion. Here is the precise answer he gave to the question:

Do you unequivocally condemn Palestinian attacks against innocent civilians?

"It is impossible to justify terrorism, which is the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal. But it's also difficult to make categorical statements of the kind you suggest. I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts."

Finkelstein is an expert at double-speak: to his American and European audiences, he emphasizes the qualifying language; but to his terrorist audiences, all that matters is his imprimatur on their right to target Israeli civilians.

Let's consider his qualifying language that terrorist groups have the right to target Israeli civilians "if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts." Putting aside the question of whether Israel targets civilians, as distinguished from targeting terrorists who hide among civilians, thereby creating the possibility that civilians will be inadvertently killed—it is still unlawful to retaliate against the deliberate killing of civilians by deliberately killing other civilians. If that were not the law, then Israel would have the perfect right to target Palestinian or Lebanese civilians for what nobody denies is the Hezbollah and Hamas policy of targeting Israeli civilians. Israel has no such policy, nor do they claim such a right—as Hezbollah, Hamas and Finkelstein do.

Consider the implications of the "right" asserted by Finkelstein. Any time one nation or group targets another's civilians (or is falsely accused of doing so, as is the case with Israel), the other nation or group would have "the right" to retaliate indiscriminately against civilians. Such an approach to the "right" of retaliation would make civilians the legitimate, indeed the primary, target of warfare. This is precisely the opposite of the entire trend of international humanitarian law since the end of World War II, which has been to prohibit the specific targeting of civilians, while recognizing the inevitability of civilian casualties in all wars, and especially in wars fought by terrorists who fight from behind civilian shields, as does Hamas and Hezbollah.

But have no fear, Finkelstein would reject the targeting of civilians as a general matter. He did not say that all nations or groups have the right to target any civilians. He said that his favorite terrorist group, Hezbollah, has the right to target the civilians of his least favorite country, Israel. And he means to make this distinction, since he consistently applies a double standard to the Jewish state.

Consider his attack on me for having advocated the destruction of homes used by terrorists in retaliation for those terrorists murdering innocent Israeli civilians. He compared my proposal to the Nazi bombing of Lidice in which hundreds of civilians were killed, despite the fact that my proposal involved the destruction of property only in retaliation for the taking of life. Moreover, the people whose houses would be destroyed were far from innocent. He characterized my proposal as "collective punishment" of innocent Palestinians and called me a "war criminal" for even suggesting it. But now he is legitimating the murder of Israeli civilians in retaliation for the inadvertent killing of civilians by the Israeli military in its efforts to prevent terrorism and rocket attacks against its civilians.

Finkelstein's latest outrage should make him a pariah among all decent people. Yet he remains a popular speaker on American and European campuses, as well as a valued advisor to Hezbollah and a close associate of Noam Chomsky. The time has come to reject Finkelstein pernicious views in the marketplace of ideas, and to reiterate the crucial distinction between the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians, regardless of their religion or nationality, and legitimate military actions that inadvertently kill civilians. It is this distinction on which the law and morality of just war has rested since St. Augustine.

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Finkelstein’s Slander Against Israel

Joseph Klein
Frontpagemag.com
09 April '10

Norman Finkelstein, the professional Israel-basher, appeared before the United Nations Correspondents Association in New York on April 7th to hawk his newest diatribe against Israel entitled ‘This Time We Went Too Far.’ Finkelstein claimed in his book that he was providing “an accurate record” of the “suffering” that the Gazan population “endured” as a result of the “merciless Israeli assault.” He urged the UN correspondents to publicize his message about what he called the “bloodletting in Gaza.”

Finkelstein was referring to Operation Cast Lead, which Israel launched in December 2008 to put a stop to the incessant rocket attacks launched from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists against civilians living in Southern Israel.
In his remarks to the UN correspondents, Finkelstein said that it was inaccurate to characterize what happened in Gaza as a war. He described it as a “massacre” deliberately designed by the Israeli government and military to terrorize the people of Gaza with “disproportionate force.” The real reason for Israel’s invasion, Finkelstein asserted, was to teach Arabs a lesson after Israel’s “defeat” in Lebanon in 2006.

To support his thesis that Israel used unreasonably disproportionate force against a defenseless civilian population and engaged in a “massacre” rather than a war, Finkelstein cited testimony from unnamed Israeli soldiers who were quoted as saying that they did not engage any combatants on the Hamas side. He also referred, as an example of Israel’s true intentions, to former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who said at the time that “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.”

Often associated with rowdiness at soccer games, “hooliganism” is a slang word that in the worst dictionary definition of the term refers to willful wanton and malicious destruction of the property of others. Let us suppose for the moment that this is what Livni actually meant and that “willful wanton and malicious destruction of Palestinian property” in Gaza reflected Israel’s true intentions. Is Israel expected to stand by and let Hamas and its other terrorist allies shoot rockets into Israeli civilian centers all day and night long, day after day – following repeated Israeli warnings to stop or face the consequences – without finally inflicting real damage to Hamas’ infrastructure in return? The use of disproportionate force to inflict damage against the enemy’s infrastructure was the only means available to stop Hamas’ campaign of aggressive violence against Israeli civilians.

(Read full article)
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Fact-Checking Finkelstein’s New Book

Judeosphere
04 March '10

Unemployed professor and Holocaust humorist Norman Finkelstein is publishing a new book this month, This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.

An excerpt has been published in Counterpunch—which is very generous of Finkelstein, since it gives us an early opportunity to scrutinize his “scholarship.”

Finkelstein claims:

Public outrage at the Gaza invasion did not come out of the blue but rather marked the nadir of a curve plotting a steady decline in support for Israel.
One poll registering the fallout from the Gaza attack in the United States found that American voters calling themselves supporters of Israel plummeted from 69 percent before the attack to 49 percent in June 2009, while voters believing that the U.S. should support Israel dropped from 69 per cent to 44 per cent. Consumed by hate, emboldened by self-righteousness, and confident that it could control or intimidate public opinion, Israel carried on in Gaza as if it could get away with mass murder in broad daylight.

The poll Finkelstein is referring to was conducted by the Israel Project. However, he neglected to mention a few relevant facts:

(Read full post)
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