ISRAEL: Seeing a threat in U.S. academic

When is a 55-year-old lifelong academic and son of Holocaust survivors a threat to the national security of Israel? When that academic is Norman Finkelstein, a former DePaul University professor and prominent critic of Israeli policy.

Israel's Shin Bet internal security service detained Finkelstein at the airport Friday when he arrived from a recent European speaking tour. After a night of detention and interrogation, Finkelstein was declared a security threat and sent back to Europe. According to his lawyer, Finkelstein is banned from the country for 10 years.

Shin Bet officials told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Finkelstein was deported because  of "suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon" -- a reference to Finkelstein meeting recently with leaders of Hezbollah and expressing solidarity with the Lebanese militant group.

Born in Brooklyn to parents who survived the Warsaw ghetto and Nazi concentration camps, Finkelstein has cut a polarizing swath throughout his career. His writings accuse Israel and its supporters of cynically using the legacy of the Holocaust and accusations of anti-Semitism to stifle international debate about its occupation of Palestinian lands.

Finkelstein's most prominent book bluntly sums up his thesis. It's called, "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering." His latest book is called "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History."

Clearly this is not a man who deals in subtleties.

Finkelstein's writings prompted a nasty public feud with prominent Israel-supporter
Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer and Harvard law professor. Last year, Dershowitz  launched an unprecedented public campaign, lobbying DePaul administrators to deny Finkelstein tenure.

When DePaul did reject Finkelstein's tenure application, students and supporters protested on campus  and claimed the defeat merely proved his contention about the systematic stifling of debate on Israel in America. Finkelstein eventually resigned.

Finkelstein spoke with Haaretz after arriving in Amsterdam, and claimed he was only coming to Israel to visit friends.

"I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me," he said.  "I support a two-state solution based on '67 borders and I told my interrogators I'm not an enemy of Israel."

—Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

Video: Norman Finkelstein praises Hezbollah in an interview this year with Lebanon's Future TV.

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Comments

[Michael Rosenberg]

As a supporter of Israel, I found it ironic to side with the person speaking Arabic. Of course, the Lebanese have always been a peace-loving people, when not controlled by the PLO, Syria, or Iran. I think that this reporter knows, as I know, that Israelis simply long to live in peace and have no expansionist aspirations. Finklestein claims that Israel and the US want to enslave Lebanon. The opposite is so obvious. Lebanon is full of people like this reporter who just want peace. Israel and the US want a strong democratic Lebanon where people like this reporter can vote for a government that actually controls the country. It is not the US or Israel who want to enslave the Lebanese, it is the Syrians and the Iranians who want to enslave them. As for Finklestein, you will never convince a person like him. Whenever you see people who hate anyone like themselves (i.e. he hates Americans and Jews), you know that he has a tremendous amount of self-loathing. He needs a lot of therapy to learn to like himself. Only then will he be able to see more clearly. It is for this reason that he should not be considered an academic. Benny Morris is a better example of an honest academic whose landmark work takes an honest and critical look at Israeli history.

[peter edberg]

well dershowitz and finkelstein are made of the same coin. just two sides of it.

just saw them both in this film below
www.americanradicalthefilm.com

[carlo geneletti]

those who challenge Finkelstein's academic credentials do that at their own peril. He holds a PhD. from Princeton, and has a very respectable list of publications.
One may disagree with his view that it is "possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage", but not with the fact that he brings exacting scholarly rigor to his work. He demolished, repeat demolished Peter's book about the history of Palestine, and demolished Dershowitz who took his revenge, a cheap revenge, preventing him from obtaining a chair which his, Finkelstein's intellectual rigor and wide publishing should have granted him with no delay.
Finkelstein is a good historian and has the guts of telling it like it is, which in the USA, is a capital sin.

[Michael Neilan]

"As a gay American I am strongly support ing my friend and mentor Finkelstein in his fight against the zionists. I totally support his association with Hizbollah and his statement about his support of eliminating israel. Finkelstein is a proud supporter of freadom fighters like Hizballah and Hamas. His support of Iran is legendary Good Luck, Professor Finkelstein!"

Nice troll, Mr. "Yaakov Sullivan".

If anybody is interested in the matter you can you listen many of the interviews and talks given by Mr. Finkelstein at any popular online video websites.

[Mack]

Does finklestein realize if he ever visited gaza with his homo lefitst friends the last words they'd hear would be ALLAH AKBAR before their heads got chopped off?

It reminds of that idiot leftist BBC reporter...everyday he made up false stories, trying to make Israel look bad, and guess what happened??? A palestinian terrorist group kidnapped him and demanded money or his head chopped off...that was freakin hilarious! Too bad they didn't stick to what they'd say they were gonna do.

PS- His name was Alan Johnston

[Claire]

The problem is that in universities non-academic subjects are passed as science. Opinion counts as truth, and requirements for scholarship are substituted with offering controversy and being articulate. If a "scholar" were to say that Julius Ceasar was American Indian or contend that gravity is absent in his kitchen, no department on Earth would give this person tenure. Why is opinion suddenly an academic subject? I resent that Funkelstein is called academic. Writer, journalist - sure. But let us not devalue academic research. Being a child of Holocaust survivors has nothing to do with Finkelstein's views, and spending a "lifetime" in academia has no impact on his writing.

[August West]

The headline should be "Israel Deports Truth." Israel must be very insecure if it fears any academic. But given the magnificent propaganda and disinformation machine Israel employs against America, it's no wonder.

Maybe the Zio-fascists would support Finkelstein if he killed a few Palestinian infants by bulldozing their houses on top of them and then confiscated their property. Or if his books accused Muslims of drinking the blood of Jewish children at Passover. Or if he argued that the men of the USS Liberty got what they deserved from Israel. Maybe if he proclaimed that all American Jews owe their first loyalty to Israel and not America, he'd get admitted on a red carpet.

[Ricki Bobbi]

Norman is Norman, he is abrasive and he is humorless, and most of the time, he is dead accurate. But even if he isn't, how does free speech ever hurt a democracy? All the apologists for Israel talking about security and the right of a country to allow people in or not, obviously miss the point. Dershowitz's crusade against Finklestein was the height of fatuous, self serving, and destructive behavior, less free speech for one means less free speech for everyone.

[tony julius]

Finklestein, I have heard about him but never heard him speak until now.
I found it very uncomfortable to listen to such a demonic diatribe and it is little wonder that he has lost his professorship.
I certainly wouldn't like my children to be taught by him.
There seems little scope in his views for understanding the underlying problems just deep seated anger and hate.
I am not so much angry at his comments more pity for such a wretched soul.

[Yaakov Sullivan]

As a gay American I am strongly support ing my friend and mentor Finkelstein in his fight against the zionists. I totally support his association with Hizbollah and his statement about his support of eliminating israel. Finkelstein is a proud supporter of freadom fighters like Hizballah and Hamas. His support of Iran is legendary Good Luck, Professor Finkelstein!

[Robbi]

Doesn't every sovereign and democratic country have the right to decide which foreigner they would allow to enter the country, and which foreigner they wouldn't?