Sorry, still super busy but here’s a well-written and straightforward post on Darfur and AI’s latest initiative related to the conflict. Here’s Colin Powell on Guantanamo and finally the news of Norman Finkelstein’s tenure denial.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Ah, good old Fink. Never thought reading about him would be pleasant for a change, even though the article writer seemed to be biased in his favor.
Fink is a quack, a disgrace to his parents, and a goddamn idiot.
Colin Powell’s Guantanamo stance is a few years old by now; Gitmo is beginning to make more sense, in that it does a lot of damage to outdated notions of “international justice’. Those notions are the main problem, not Gitmo.
As to Norman Finkelstein: I’ve only been following the arguments from afar, but suffice it to say that the best critics of Jewish policies and stances… are the Jews themselves. It is that kind of transparent societal criticism that makes me trust Jews. The whole Finkelstein-Dershowitz debate is fascinating simply because it is so public. It is this kind of spotlighting that makes Jewish ethical thinking so much more powerful than anything Christians could muster (and we can forget about Muslim ethics).
Tenure, however, is an outdated concept. It winds up ossifying academia.
As to Amnesty International, all I can ask is where were they when Paris Hilton was put in jail? This poor girl hasn’t hurt a fly, and is obviously a victim of gross societal prejudism. Yet AI is more interested in protecting the rights of murderous terrorists in Gitmo and elsewhere. It just goes to show that their priorities are skewed and… bigoted.
Finn.. I am not sure I understand.. you coments about Finkelstein Dershowitz… debate… maybe it started as an intellectual debate but it has gone beyond that .. Dershowitz is out to destroy Finkelstein… just because Finkelstein exposed Dershowitz’s lack of genuine scholarship in that book called “case for israel”… I believe Finkelstein lasted this long because he was the son of holocaust survivors and a jew… not because the “best critics” of jewish or israeli policy are jewish…
Non-jewish who critical of jewish or israeli policy don’t have a chance to say hello before been slapped by “anti-semite” label..
However, on other hand this espisode is not much of intellectual debate, it is more like “silencing” campaign..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dershowitz-Finkelstein_affair
One thing you notice is that Dershowitz is not really engaging in any intellectual or scholar debate he just tries to silence Finkelstein criticism by using his “connection” from preventing the publication of his books to campaigning to get his tenure denied… this is more of a smear campaign..
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/06/09/finkelstein-denied-tenure-at-depaul/
Courageous individual like Finkelstein or Jimmy Carter who are critical of israeli policy… are always fall victim of a major campaign to discredit from public life.. Considering how critical Finkelstein was of Israeli policy and usage of “anti-semitism”, I am honestly surprised he lasted this long..
Really Scholars like father of Holocaust studies Prof. Raul Hilberg and or even one leading expert on Arab-Israeli conflict Prof. Avi Shlaim believed Finkelstein was a “targetted” man.
Even Prof. Avi Shliam says this about Finkelstein
“I think very highly of Professor Finkelstein. I regard him as a very able, very erudite and original scholar who has made an important contribution to the study of Zionism, to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in particular, to the study of American attitudes towards Israel and towards the Middle East.”
But also, we have an israeli scholar by the name of Roman Kalik who feels that “Fink is a quack, a disgrace to his parents, and a goddamn idiot.” … I can’t vouch for Kalik previous scholarly work or his PHD credential..
I do not understand the amensty international comment… is this an attempt in irony..
Jonah, I am not a scholar, but I am an individual entitiled to an opinion on the matter. That is my opinion. If you have a problem with it, by all means.
As for Finkelstein, he exposed nothing beyond the following: That out of hundreds of source materials used by Dershowitz in writing his book, about twenty were the same ones Joan Peters used. Fortunately the investigation into this matter found Dershowitz innocent of Finkelstein’s charges (using Peters’ work as a source without proper citation), and supported Dershowitz’ academic integrity. Finkelstein’s argument was entirely built on the supposition that in two out of those twenty overlapping sources, Dershowitz made the same errors Peters did.
Sorry, I’ll go with the results of the investigation, shall I? And call Finkelstein an idiot who attacks particular books because they go against his world view. Dershovitz wasn’t the only one Finkelstein went against, after all.
As for Prof. Avi Shliam, you may respect him. I merely consider him a history revisionist, a… New Historian, as he considers himself to be. There’s more than one expert on the Middle-East and Israel around, many of them hardly share Shliam’s views.
Me? I consider it notable that David Irving praises Finkelstein. David Irving, a consistent Holocaust denier. Apparently, Finkelstein likes Irving too. I consider Finkelstein’s attack on Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, a man awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and a prominent author, to be revolting. Finkelstein called him the “resident clown of the Holocaust circus”.
http://www.alandershowitz.com/news.php
I also remember that the only reason Finkelstein went all the way to DePaul in Chicago was that he was thrown out of every college and university he worked in, in New York.
I can also note that his academic bibliography is non-existent beyond a smattering of books and articles attacking Israel. This makes him a quack with no real academic credentials in my book, and if his Chicago exile is any indication, some of his former employers share my view.
Oh and speaking of Carter: http://kishkushim.blogspot.com/2007/05/jimmy-carter-at-berkeley.html
It’s amusing how the man gave his book a controversial title only to get people to notice it. It’s even more amusing to note that most people didn’t read the book but judged it by its cover, or rather its name. Gotta love politicians.
By the way, having taken a look at the titles he gives to articles that somehow relate to him, on his website (at least those that reflect negatively on him or have to do with people he doesn’t like):
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=840
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=613
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=89
I’d say his own title picks don’t just show him as an idiot, but a goddamn idiot. In case you didn’t know, “Grand Dragon” is a title used by Ku Klux Klan leaders.
I’ll stick to my views on Fink, thank you.
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