2 statements by Norman Finkelstein. 1. Finkelstein, a victim of the Israel lobby who has always denied its power in American political life, here accepts the idea that the Israel lobby played military expert Anthony Cordesman to say that Gaza was a fine and dandy operation. Finkelstein accepts the theory by pointing out that the American Jewish Committee funds Project Interchange, which paid for Cordesman's visit to the region. "War whore," he calls him.
2. I want to quote something else of Finkelstein's though: his quotation of Edward Said in a lecture last fall. Here it is. Emphases mine. Beautiful statement:
The Caribbean poet Aimé Césaire once wrote, "There's room for everyone
at the rendezvous of victory." Late in life, when his political
horizons broadened out, Edward Said would often quote this line. We
should make it our credo as well. We want to nurture a movement, not
hatch a cult. The victory to which we aspire is inclusive, not
exclusive; it is not at anyone's expense. It is to be victorious
without vanquishing. No one is a loser, and we all are gainers if
together we stand by truth and justice. "I am not anti-English; I am
not anti-British; I am not anti-any government," Gandhi insisted, "but
I am anti-untruth—anti-humbug, and anti-injustice."(188) Shouldn't we
also say that we are not anti-Jewish, anti-Israel or, for that matter,
anti-Zionist? The prize on which our eyes should be riveted is human
rights, human dignity, human equality. What, really, is the point of
ideological litmus tests such as, Are you now or have you ever been a
Zionist? Indeed, it is Israel's apologists who thrive on and cling to
them, bogging down interlocutors in distracting and endless
intellectual sideshows—What is a Jew? Are the Jews a nation? Don't Jews
have a right to national liberation? Shouldn't we use a vocabulary that
registers and resonates with the public conscience and the Jewish
conscience, winning over the decent many while isolating the diehard
few? Shouldn't we instead be asking, Are you for or against ethnic
cleansing, for or against torture, for or against house demolitions,
for or against Jews-only roads and Jews-only settlements, for or
against discriminatory laws? And if the answer comes, against, against
and against, shouldn't we then say, Keep your ideology, whatever it
might be—there's room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory?
at the rendezvous of victory." Late in life, when his political
horizons broadened out, Edward Said would often quote this line. We
should make it our credo as well. We want to nurture a movement, not
hatch a cult. The victory to which we aspire is inclusive, not
exclusive; it is not at anyone's expense. It is to be victorious
without vanquishing. No one is a loser, and we all are gainers if
together we stand by truth and justice. "I am not anti-English; I am
not anti-British; I am not anti-any government," Gandhi insisted, "but
I am anti-untruth—anti-humbug, and anti-injustice."(188) Shouldn't we
also say that we are not anti-Jewish, anti-Israel or, for that matter,
anti-Zionist? The prize on which our eyes should be riveted is human
rights, human dignity, human equality. What, really, is the point of
ideological litmus tests such as, Are you now or have you ever been a
Zionist? Indeed, it is Israel's apologists who thrive on and cling to
them, bogging down interlocutors in distracting and endless
intellectual sideshows—What is a Jew? Are the Jews a nation? Don't Jews
have a right to national liberation? Shouldn't we use a vocabulary that
registers and resonates with the public conscience and the Jewish
conscience, winning over the decent many while isolating the diehard
few? Shouldn't we instead be asking, Are you for or against ethnic
cleansing, for or against torture, for or against house demolitions,
for or against Jews-only roads and Jews-only settlements, for or
against discriminatory laws? And if the answer comes, against, against
and against, shouldn't we then say, Keep your ideology, whatever it
might be—there's room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory?
May we all, seekers of truth, fighters for justice, yet live to join the people of Palestine at the rendezvous of victory.
