I keep thinking about Clark University's decision to censor a lecture by Norman Finkelstein scheduled for later this month, an unfortunate decision on any number of levels.
1, Part of the Clark president''s reasoning is that the Finkelstein lecture would come just before a conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. Of course, Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors. And here is the late Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg praising Finkelstein's tenacious scholarship/insight re Swiss payments to Holocaust victims in his book The Holocaust Industry.
2, Finkelstein's talk has nothing to do with the Holocaust. It is titled, "The Gaza Massacre." Hillel objected. Hillel won. (How symptomatic of the larger absence of discussion of Gaza, whose many horrors continue to echo in many a Jewish bosom; believe me, I talk to people who are agonized by what they saw).
3, Writes a friend: "Freud lectured 100 years ago at Clark, which the Holocaust center, which is sponsoring the conference this month, proudly touts on its homepage:"
Continues my friend: "Clark had the foresight to be the only US school to invite Freud; 100 years later it seems they want to be known for plugging their ears rather than listen to challenging & difficult ideas."
You must be a very abusive man or woman, R.
I invite Hillel and Chabad to participate in events and defend them verbally and physically when idiots harrass them.
There are other venues in Worcester that the students could engage besides directly on campus at Clark.
Clark is very isolated from the community at large there.
It would be wonderful if Norman sought to speak where the general public were invited. At his lecture at Mount Holyoke a few weeks ago, I had to get a special pass from a professor there to get in.
I don't know if the same was planned at Clark. Its not a large school, and doesn't have large halls.
This is the program of the event that was considered conflicting.
I'm curious as to how Norman would conduct himself in the role of researcher or conference participant, rather than as proponent.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
7:30 pm – Keynote Address
Yehuda Bauer, Yad Vashem and Hebrew University, Israel
Holocaust and Genocide – Two Concepts or Part of Each Other?
Friday, 24 April 2009
9:00-10:45 am – Panel 1: Children and Youth during the Holocaust
Chair: Debórah Dwork, Clark University, USA
Joanna Sliwa, Clark University, USA
Coping with the Distorted Reality: Children in the Kraków Ghetto
Jeffrey Koerber, Clark University, USA
Beyond the Polemics: Jewish Youth in Soviet Vitebsk on the Eve of the Holocaust
Henricus Theo Gerardus (Harry) Monkel, University of Amsterdam, Holland
Prosperity and Survival? 1500 Jewish Children in Occupied Amsterdam
9:00-10:45 am – Panel 2: The Holocaust in the East
Chair: Thomas Kühne, Clark University, USA
Waitman W. Beorn, University of North Carolina, USA
Gray Areas in White Russia: Examining Complicity of Wehrmacht Units in the Holocaust in Belarus
Martin R. Gutmann, Syracuse University, USA
Scandinavian Waffen-SS Officers and the Holocaust
Eric C. Steinhart, University of North Carolina, USA
Family, Fascists, and ’Volksdeutsche’: The Bogdanovka Collective Farm and the Holocaust in Ukraine
Jared McBride, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Popular Anti-Jewish Violence during the Summer of 1941 in Ukraine: Olevs’k and Beyond
11:00-12:45 pm – Panel 3: Collective Memory
Chair: Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
Jeremy Maron, Carleton University, Canada
Unbridgeable History: Towards a Heuristic of Canadian Holocaust Cinema
Jacob S. Eder, University of Pennsylvania, USA
The ‘New Germany’ and the ‘Americanization of the Holocaust’
Solvej Berlau, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
Testimonies from Theresienstadt
11:00-12:45 pm – Panel 4: Jewish Life in Nazi Ghettos
Chair: Ilana F. Offenberger, Clark University, USA
Sarah Rosen, Hebrew University, Israel
Surviving in Murafa Ghetto: A Case Study of Life in the Ghettos in Transnistria
Michaela Soyer, University of Chicago, USA
Behavioral Choices and Social Structure in the Ghettos Lachwa, Piotrokow, and Tarnow
Elizabeth Strauss, University of Notre Dame, USA
’Do Not Cast Me Off in the Time of Old Age…’: Institutional Care for the Elderly in the Łódź Ghetto
1:00 pm Lunch
2:30-4:15 pm – Panel 5: Law and the Concept of Genocide
Chair: Srinivasan Sitaraman, Clark University, USA
Christoph Jens Kamissek, European University Institute, Italy
Reconstructing Genocide as Ideal Type: Weber and Lemkin on Intent and Causation
Clotilde Pegorier, University of Exeter, England
The French Position on the Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A Question of Legal and Moral Legitimacy?
Martha Mutisi, George Mason University, USA
Endogenous Methods of Dealing with the Aftermath of Genocide: The Gacaca Process in Rwanda
2:30-4:15 pm – Panel 6: Bystanders to the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry
Chair: Anita H. Fábos, Clark University, USA
László Csősz, University of Szeged, Hungary
Volunteers, Opportunists, Mitigators: ‘Bystanders’ of the Holocaust in Hungary: A Comparative Study
Raz Segal, Clark University, USA
National Revival and Genocide: The Case of Ruthenian Bystanders to the Destruction of Subcarpathian Rus’ Jewry
Doreen Eschinger, Humboldt University, Germany
Bystanders and Perpetrators of the Hungarian Holocaust: Oral and Written Testimonies of Female Hungarian Survivors
4:30-6:15 pm – Panel 7: Genocide against Native Americans
Chair: Andrea Smith, University of California, Riverside, USA
Carroll P. Kakel, III, Royal Halloway, University of London, England
Settler Colonialism and Genocide as a Paradigm for the ‘American West’ and the ‘Nazi East’
Benjamin Madley, Yale University, USA
The Modoc Genocide in Northern California and Southern Oregon, 1851-1873
Alex (Abraham) Kerner, Tel Aviv University, Israel
‘The Invisible Body’: Physiological Factors in Defining Levels of Humanity in Sixteenth-Century Spain Following the Encounter with the Natives of the New World
4:30-6:15 pm – Panel 8: Gender and Genocide
Chair: Jody Emel, Clark University, USA
Alaettin Çarikci, Sabanci University, Turkey
En(gendering) Trauma in the Late Ottoman Empire Period
Anika Walke, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
(Post)-Soviet Commemorations of the Nazi Genocide: Public Terror, Jewish Resistance, and the Hidden Struggle for Survival
Alicja Białecka, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Structures of Memory: Auschwitz in Women’s Literature
7:00 pm Dinner
Saturday, 25 April 2009
9:00-10:45 am – Panel 9: Holocaust Refugees
Chair: Kristen Williams, Clark University, USA
Bonnie M. Harris, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
From Zbaszyn to Manila: Refugee Rescue in the Philippines
Adara Goldberg, Clark University, USA
‘We Were Called Greenies’: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar Canada
Elizabeth Anthony, Clark University, USA
Rückkehrer: Holocaust Survivors and Refugees’ Repatriation to Austria
9:00-10:45 am – Panel 10: Holocaust Memory in Israel
Chair: Taner Akçam, Clark University, USA
Amir Peleg-Uziyahu, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Holocaust, Politics, and Memory in Israel: The Case of the Jewish Military Union (ZZW)
Gish Amit, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
A Bizarre Insanity: The Loot of Jewish Cultural Assets during the Holocaust and its Restitution after World War II
Cristina Andriani, Clark University, USA
Jewish-Israeli Sense of Belonging: An Exploration of Life Story Interview Themes within the Context of Trauma, Memory, and the Holocaust
11:00-12:45 pm – Panel 11: Post-Genocide Identity
Chair: George Foster, University of Sydney, Australia
Nicole S. Fox, Brandeis University, USA
‘Their History Is Part of Me’: Post-Genocide Identity Politics and the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma to Third Generation Holocaust Survivors
Sara Seerup Laursen, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Living in a State of Distrust: Friendship and Secrecy among Students in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Juliette Brungs, University of Minnesota, USA
Dirty Jewishness: Recapturing the Jewish Body in Contemporary Germany
11:00-12:45 pm – Panel 12: Camps and Genocide
Chair: Jeffrey Koerber, Clark University, USA
Natalya Lazar, Clark University, USA
Russian and Soviet Concentration Camps until 1941
Dominique Schröder, Bielefeld University, Germany
Writing the Indescribable: Diary Writing in Concentration Camps, 1933-1945
Alexis Herr, Clark University, USA
Trapped in Limbo: The History and Memory of Fossoli di Carpi
1:00 pm Lunch
2:30-4:15 pm – Panel 13: Holocaust Museums and Memorial Sites
Chair: John K. Roth, Claremont McKenna College, USA
Jody Russell Manning, Clark University, USA
Living in the Shadows of Auschwitz and Dachau
Katarzyna Stec, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Portrait of Contemporary Visitors to the Memorial Sites of the Former Death Camps: Results of Sociological Research Conducted in Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Belzec
Avril Alba, University of Sydney, Australia
Holocaust Museums: Sacred Memory in Secular Space, Comparative Case Study: The Sydney Jewish Museum and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
2:30-4:15 pm – Panel 14: Roots of Genocide: Three Case Studies
Chair: Ben Kiernan, Yale University, USA
Andrei Gomez-Saurez, University of Sussex, England
Genocidists: Why Perpetrator Blocs, and How to Study Them
Ihediwa Nkemjika Chimee, University of Nigeria, Nigeria
Interrogating the Factors of Ethnicity, Revenge, and Power Struggle as Forces Motivating Genocide: A Comparative Discourse of Nigeria and Rwanda
Tea Rozman-Clark, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Unintentional Results of UN Military Intervention: The Case of Srebrenica, the UN ‘Safe Area’
4:30-6:15 pm – Panel 15: Relations between Jews and Non-Jews, 1930-1945
Chair: Eric D. Weitz, University of Minnesota, USA
Stefanie Maria Fischer, Technical University, Berlin, Germany
Violence against Jews in the German Countryside, 1930-1935
Michael Geheran, Clark University, USA
Keine Kameraden: German-Jewish WWI Veterans under the Third Reich
Stefan Ionescu, Clark University, USA
Opportunism, Ideology, and Opposition in World War II Bucharest: Gentile Responses to the Romanization Policy during the Antonescu Regime:1940-1944
4:30-6:15 pm – Panel 16: Sources for Holocaust Research
Chair: Robin May Schott, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
Christiane Hess, Bielefeld University, Germany
Visual Archives: Bodily Representations and Social Hierarchy in Drawings of Concentration Camp Prisoners
Mark Volovici, Hebrew University, Israel
‘The Officer Entered the House without Taking His Hat off’: The Hermeneutics of Manners under the Nazi Regime
Marina Shafran, Western Michigan University, USA
Soviet Jewish Holocaust Survivors: An Ethnographic Study
7:00 pm Dinner
Sunday, 26 April 2009
9:00-10:45 am – Panel 17: Holocaust and Genocide Education
Chair: Shelly Tenenbaum, Clark University, USA
Sara A. Levy, University of Minnesota, USA
An Examination of the Role Secondary School Teachers Play in the Authoring of Holocaust History
Michelle Kelso, University of Michigan, USA
‘…and Gypsies Were Victims Too’: An Ethnography of Holocaust Education in Romania and Discourses on Romani Suffering
Tine Brøndum, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
Learning about Genocide – in Bosnia and Beyond
9:00-10:45 am – Panel 18: Mass Media and Genocide
Chair: Ken MacLean, Clark University, USA
Tobias Seidl, Mainz University, Germany
Genocides Need Slogans – Slogans Need to be Transmitted: Genocide and the Role of Media
Catherine Morrow, Tufts University, USA
Hitler on Film: Monster, Fool, or Man?
Sine Molbæk-Steensig, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
Holocaust Denial on the Internet: Is There Really a Problem?
11:00 am – Concluding Roundtable Discussion
Panelists: Yehuda Bauer, Debórah Dwork, Ben Kiernan, John K. Roth, Andrea Smith, and Eric D. Weitz
Moderator: Thomas Kühne
Since this symposium is celebrating Freud I wonder if they will quote from his letter refusing to support the zionist enterprise after they asked for his support following the 1929 riots. In part he said:
"It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of the wealthy….I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of an Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives."
oh, and witty…could you give us a hint as to why you posted the entire program from this ludicrous event at Clark as though it mattered in the slightest to anyone besides Jewish Nazis and their apologists?
6 million were murdered in cold blood so GARBAGE like these friends of yours could cynically use them to underwrite more murder and suffering in the Occupied Territories. Of all the grotesqueries I've witnessed in life, that surely takes the cake. And please tell me who BETTER to be on hand for this abortion and crime against history than the very fellow who exposed these frauds and hucksters, namely Norman Finkelstein?
And please tell me who BETTER to be on hand for this abortion and crime against history than the very fellow who exposed these frauds and hucksters, namely Norman Finkelstein….
in a book lavishly praised by the DEAN of holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, whose multi-volume work "The Destruction of the European Jews" remains the gold standard in holocaust scholarship.
good cover…
More and more we learn that the most intelligent Jews like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud were against the Zionist plan. (And Kafka too I think)
Does this mean that the actual Zionists were less intelligent? It would be wrong to generalize, but the image of the rather dumb, religious, bloodthirsty brown shirt mob certainly fits the Zionists behaviour in the land of much sand.
As Richard Witty unwittingly illustrated; the University is willing to make time and room for about 100 speakers on the topic of the Jewish holocaust, but is not willing to let one single man speak on the subject of Israel's massacre in Gaza. Although one thing does not deny the other.
And the reason? Mr. Basset pontificated, on behalf of the University; that Norman Finkelstein is an "Extremist". Laughable. An extremist? Qouting "extremist" sources like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch? Citing "radical" organisations such as B'Tselem, and the United Nations?
Sad but true, the conservative Zionist influence in the States is eating up your academic freedom, to defend Israel's blatantly colonialist actions.
As I said, R, you seem to be a very abusive man or woman.
You've threatened violence on people, quoted on this site.
You didn't read that I wrote to the president of Clark asking him to allow Norman to speak?
Pablo,
Perhaps you don't know of the relationship of the permanent relationship of the holocaust studies program referred to.
I can see reasons why the president of Clark and participants in the program would be concerned that Norman and his "followers" would disrupt it. He is pugnacious, like Norman Podhoretz, and forgets that he is a participant in inquiry. He assaults people, even when they agree with him on conclusion but not on method. His followers willingly attempt to stifle others' free speech in the name of free speech.
Still, I believe that he should be permitted to speak, and if the students can't find a venue within the Clark campus, that if they are committed to social justice and believe that Norman fosters social justice, then they should find an alternative venue.
If they don't, one could conclude that they don't care that much. That its play to them. A leisure activity.
Phil had a reference to a Plato quote earlier, "Is it more important to not have injustice committed to you, or to commit injustice?"
The question was asked around the Vietnam War, whether it was more important to oppose the draft, or to oppose the killing. Most opposed the draft, understandably. And, then the next question, HOW to oppose what you oppose, by doing actions that were comparable to the original crime?
It is such a critical question, that sheds very different light than Phil anticipated.
Phil is outlandish in calling Clark's decision censorship.
He might have described it as genocide.
"Phil is outlandish in calling Clark's decision censorship."
Yeah, it's only censorship if the Russians, the Chinese or (god forgive me I haven't mentioned it earlier) Nazi Germany does it.
Censorship is prohibiting free speech. Noone has a "right" to free speech in a private setting.
Finkelstein is free to speak, free to write, free to publish, free to assemble, as he does in MANY locales.
He could speak in other venues in Worcester if someone were inclined to organize it and he was willing.
Anyone know what he charges for speaking fee?
Two articles back in this chain of blogentries, Citizen made a comment that requires some qualification.
The historic insider status of Jews in the former territories of Commonwealth Poland was gradually lost after that state began the process of collapse in the 17th century.
In German and Austrian controlled territories the Jewish community became a native collaborator population. Because the Czarist government had no interest in giving Jews that status, Jews became the core of anti-Czarist agitation and revolutionary activities.
In all three areas Jews dominated entrepreneurship and commerce with significant competition only at the magnate level, where Polish and German-speaking elites also had a major role.
From the early 19th century through the beginning of the 20th century, European Jewish population underwent tremendous growth as indicated in this table.
Note that the size more than doubled between 1800 and 1840.
Because the traditional Jewish sector which was vanishing could not sustain the Jewish population, a Jewish industrial wage-earning and proletariat population developed.
After 1840 a Russian Jewish intelligentsia developed in response to the Russian draft, which was easiest to escape by seeking higher Yeshiva education (a sort of educational exemption) at a time when the Russian Empire experienced a wave of loss of faith.
In general in E. Europe there was a relative decline in individual Jewish wealth and status even though Jews generally had more education, higher incomes, and better health than co-territorial non-Jewish population.
Overall the power of Jews in the economy and in knoweldge-related professions was probably increasing.
The combination was a powder keg and probably led to increasing Jewish violence starting in the 1840s when numerous Jews began to participate in sabotage, targeted assassinations and other forms of radical revolutionary activities.
In terms of immigration to the USA Jews were the only immigrant group that arrived in the USA to be served by an extensive communal help network mostly provided by earlier arriving Spanish and German, Swiss or Austrian Jews.
The statistics usually indicate that E. European Jewish immigrants arrived in a state of poverty with only somewhere between $7 and $20 in their pockets, but the data is misleading because immigrants from other groups generally arrived heavily in debt and because mature male Jewish immigrants generally arrived with a good deal more capital, established small businessness, and then brought over wives, marriageable young women, and younger males, who arrived with no capital or sometimes a small debt that could be quickly paid off.
The Jewish situation should be contrasted with Sicilian immigrants who arrived at the same time period, who were almost all younger males, who stepped off the boat with considerable debt burden, and who would have to deal with an exploitative padrone.
On the whole E. European Jewish immigrants arrived with considerable advantages over other immigrant and even native populations, and quickly used those advantages as wall as traditional E. European Jewish business practices to establish a prominent role within the US economy.
Under the Nixon administration the E. European Jewish/Yiddish business elite (the New Crowd) began to supplant the older German Jewish elite (Our Crowd) and quickly took dominant positions in American politics and in the US economy.
While I agree with Todd that there are considerable costs to US immigration policy, until someone builds a time machine to reverse the outcome of the Mexican-American war, I am not sure that much can be done to reverse the current trend.
I would argue that transnational Jewish politics is a far greater threat to the US political and social system than Hispanic, Asian, or African immigration because the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland has rendered the US government a dependent and intimidated client state while corrupt Jewish social networking in the finance industry has at least severely damaged and possibly destroyed the US and world economic system, which at this point could well be a zombie with only the semblance of life even if Obama claims to see glimmers of recovery.
My wife should have an op-ed on the subject later this week, and I will try to put together a more extensive blog entry sometime soon to explain the situation about which so many economists like Summers are either clueless or lying.
I wonder if Richard Witty wasn't being delightfully subversive listing all those folks who are going to speak at Clark and their subjects. After all what was the name of Finkelstein's big book … "The Holocaust Industry," right? And then what do we see but some guy who's making a living "studying" something called "‘The Hermeneutics of Manners under the Nazi Regime."
Wasn't it in one of Don DiLillo's novels that a university had a whole department engaged in "Hitler Studies"? Parody, meet Clark University.
Kind of poetically hilarious in another way too: Clark University, who welcomed the quack Freud, shunning Finkelstein. I.e., academia as fashion.
Thanks for the qualification, and additional information, Joachim. Look forward to your wife's analysis and your supplementation regarding the networking behind our hand-in-glove Fed Reserve-Treasury-Wall St cabal. Geithner in charge?
Tons of speakers on Holocaust and Genocide, even one speaking on Interrogating the Factors of Ethnicity, Revenge, and Power Struggle as Forces Motivating Genocide: A Comparative Discourse of Nigeria and Rwanda–and not even one discussing the I-P scenario? Yet one speaker on The Gacaca Process in Rwanda… Nothing on Gaza? Another on Armenian massacre… A german speaking on Genocides Need Slogans – Slogans Need to be Transmitted: Genocide and the Role of Media, another speaker on internet coverage… Another speaker to spout off on Settler Colonialism and Genocide as a Paradigm for the ‘American West’ and the ‘Nazi East’–yet no one to speak on Israeli settler movement?
They couldn't get one arab American scholar to speak? Perhaps I didn't read the agenda close enough…
Most of the speakers will dwell on every facet of the Shoah, which happened how long ago?
This long list of speakers and their OK'd subjects is very revealing.
Witty, thanks for your effort in requesting the president to allow Norman to speak (though you think his confrontational delivery actually gets in the way of receptivity to his courageous valid content) and also for sharing that list of agenda sub-topics. Considering some of them, it's hard to believe they couldn't find
anyone to address the I-P situation–even an Arab scholar, considering the speakers covering Media coverage, one speaker on the Armenian catastrophe, a few others on African situations, another on the settlers in the USA Old West and Nazi German East, and so on.
"I'm curious as to how Norman would conduct himself in the role of researcher or conference participant, rather than as proponent."
Do you? I don't – he's been there, done that, Witty….
Witty, thanks for your plea to let Norman speak (though you hate his confrontational delivery) & also for sharing the sub-topic agenda, which makes it clear Africa, Armenia, the USA Old West,
the Nazi German East in terms of colonial settlers, the exposure or lack of it on MSM & internet, etc makes it very clear that the planners of the speaking agenda intentionally ignored the
I-P scenario, which is pretty amazing since its so contemporary and most the speakers are
to discuss what happened over a half century ago–they couldn't find one arab scholar?
Witty thanks for making a plea to let Norman speak, especially in light of the sub-topics on that list (thanks again for sharing)–willing to talk about Armenian genocide, settlers in America Old West & Nazi Germany East, African scenarios, coverage in MSM & internet–but not the I-P
scenario….
@ Joachim Martillo
Re the article your wife is writing on our finance system/cabal, this might be helpful:
link to counterpunch.org
/>
So the I lobby strikes again. Professor Norman Finkelstein has taken some serious hits. It is pathetic and oh so telling that Hillel is keeping Finkelstein from the Campus of Clark University.
the I lobby at work.
Write to the university let them know this is pathetic.
There is a war against the truth and Finkelstein is one of the truth tellers
Finkelstein's "confrontational style" is another Zionist trope, endlessly repeated. Evidence? Zero.
He presents facts and talks about the mainstream human rights reports and mainstream press coverage. You can watch many of his lectures online. He is unusually patient with many pro-Israel slobs who show up to heckle him. watch and judge for yourself.
He's not a bullshit artist. That makes him "confrontational."
When he debated Dershowitz, he presented quotes and page numbers from Dershowitz' "book" comparing these with the documentary record. Dershowitz claims he "was ambushed."
If you read dershowitz; crap and can rebut it with facts, you're "ambushing" him.
If the meaning of "censorship" is limited to situations where a person is forbidden from saying anything anywhere, then we need another word for the more sorts of thought control that we apparently have taking place at Clark–you know, where a private institution makes it quite clear that one particular subject will not be mentioned, no matter how relevant it might be.
The notion that what happened to Finkelstein wasn't censorship is ridiculous. "Censorship" is not something only a state does, Richard.
Phil is outlandish in calling Clark's decision censorship.
He might have described it as genocide.
Posted by: Richard Witty | April 13, 2009 at 05:55 AM
Are you trying a Dada revival? Or are you trying to be cynical?
Richard Witty's petulant poo-lobbing at Professor Finkelstein is childish and silly.
I have had the honor of seeing Prof. Finkelstein speak on more than half a dozen occasions, and in every case I have been impressed by his professionalism, diplomacy, and scholarly precision. When Mr. Witty describes him as a "pugnacious", controversial and censorious bully, I can't help but observe that this has no resemblance to reality. It just reminds me of how increasing;y petty and malevolent these Israel-worshippers have grown, and brings to mind all the hundreds of other equally silly career-detroying hate campaigns these relentless zionists have torched off on whichever supposed enemy-du-jour had the gall to challenge their racist fairytales.
As Finkelstein very carefully explains at the beginning of virtually every presentation, there are matters which reasonable, intelligent, informed people can disagree on, and there are also matters which enjoy a consensus among reasonable, intelligent, informed people. He is careful to clarify, repeatedly, when he is referring to issues which – apart from zionist drones – enjoy fairly universal consensus, and when he is referring to issues which reasonable people can disagree on. I have always found his clarity on this matter to be very honest and refreshing. I have always suspected that it is precisely this careful honesty which causes zionists to fume and rant whenever his name is mentioned. Prof. Finkelstein's meticulous, careful academic honesty is intolerable to zionists because it so effectively spotlights the extent to which zionism is a pariah ideology, sustainable only through constant lies and self-deception, and willfull aversion of attention from glaringly obvious facts – an ideology at increasingly drastic odds with the moral and political consensus of the entire world.
Witty snidely asks "Anyone know what he charges for speaking fee?" – as if Finkelstein were some sleazy Elie Wiesel wanna-be, sucking up $25K a pop everywhere he goes. I can only say that on the two occasions I asked him to speak at events, he graciously accepted, and in each case spoke at very great length for an entire evening, at short notice, for no fee of any kind.
All honest participants in this struggle, on all sides, owe Finkelstein an enormous debt of gratitude for his enormous personal and academic contributions. I feel personally indebted. Having already had his career devoured by the hysterical racist thugs who prowl this terrain, I can't tell you how shameful and repugnant these nasty and fraudulent potshots about Professor Finkelstein's character and conduct seem to me.
Anomalous,
I appreciate when Mr. Finkelstein suggests "do the reading, do the research yourself, don't believe me".
At the lecture that I attended, and the three that I watched in entirety on You-tube, that didn't characterize his approach. At the lecture I attended, he ranted, name-calling, falsely attributing statements and inferences to his "opponent", after introducing his presentation as reasoned.
Even his chosen topic range is difficult and primarily confrontational.
My comment on his fee, was partially cynical, but also contained the suggestion that the students determine to find another venue in Worcester, which exist.
Activists should not be so easily cowed, and also not so easily condemn.
"Functional censorship" might apply if there were truly no options. There are options, better ones. I've only seen evidence of Finkelstein speaking at academic settings, less than fully public. A determined activist would not be deterred by even functional censorship.
The current status is incredibly mild compared to what early union activists confronted.
Its similar to the use of the term "genocide", to mean anything that harms anyone.
The harming is enough to describe accurately. Genocide is something more specific and macabre. Similarly for the "use" of the term censorship.
With Finkelstein, until he drops character assassination from his tether, it will be difficult to defend his process. You'll be limited to his message, which also has a lot of holes.
He could be effective, and multiply political voice by unity, rather than paralyze political voice by offensiveness.
to discuss what happened over a half century ago–they couldn't find one arab scholar?
Posted by: Citizen | April 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM
They could invite the palestinian president. He has a degree in holocaust denialism.
Mr. Witty -
Looking back over the last several decades, I think it is fair to say that virtually the entire terrain of Israel/Palestine studies has been dominated at the public level by zionists, although at the academic level the towering figure of Edward Said kept the hounds at bay, somewhat. This fairly uninterrupted domination of public discourse by zionists has, as you would certainly agree, included quite a lot of shady characters who have acted as ideological hit-men, targeting first of all dissident Jews, but more broadly anyone who challenged the prevailing narratives of zionism, no matter how patently fictional many of them now appear. For many decades we have all watched one critical voice after another attacked, defamed, denounced, and to the extent possible discredited and silenced by legions of shabby zionist character assassins.
Prof. Finklestein has emerged from this shameful and really indefensibly toxic terrain with a successful strategy which is unusually resistant to the deceptions and chicanery of zionist goons. His meticulous academic anaylses efficiently destroys the fictions which surround this issue, and consequently highlights and exposes the frauds who peddle them. It is not simply his rigorous work to expose fraud – scholarly fraud, academic fraud, intellectual fraud – for which he should be thanked by every serious participant in this debate; it is this careful and rigorous scholarly technique which has already transformed the terrain, and which we all benefit from.
As such we should not be surprised that he has himself become the target of vicious personal and professional attack by those very goons his work has so effectively exposed.
Prof. Finkelstein's "process" is one which exposes character assassins with a singular efficiency. If we were all to strive towards the academic professionalism of Prof. Finkelstein, the Dershowitzes and Abe Foxmen and all the other charlatans and character assassins of Zionism would be out of jobs, and the field of debate of this important matter would be a far less shabby and thuggish place, where ideas would be allowed to stand on their intellectual merits rather than on the ad-hominem violence with which they are defended by zionist fraudsters.
When Mr. Witty says, of Prof. Finkelstein, that "until he drops character assassination from his tether, it will be difficult to defend his process", I can only laugh at the irony.
anom..superb post..though I'm afraid I can't agree with:
"If we were all to strive towards the academic professionalism of Prof. Finkelstein, the Dershowitzes and Abe Foxmen and all the other charlatans and character assassins of Zionism would be out of jobs, and the field of debate of this important matter would be a far less shabby and thuggish place, where ideas would be allowed to stand on their intellectual merits rather than on the ad-hominem violence with which they are defended by zionist fraudsters."
Finkelstein is the unhappy proof that it is the loudmouthed fraudsters and Zionazi freaks who rule the day. Finkelstein is out of a job while Joan Peters' grotesque comic book goes into its 27 trillionth printing and re-scales the bestseller lists and Alan Dershowitz stuffs another few million in his pocket.
Anomalous,
My experience has been different. My oppressive sea has been the left community, of which many enforce a political correctness, and viciously at times.
As I said earlier, I've encountered three referenced Jewish individuals that each describe their manner as "pugnacious". Allan Dershowitz, Norman Podhoretz, and Norman Finkelstein.
I haven't seen much in real life by Norman Podhoretz. I have seen Norman Finkelstein tear into others on panels with him, viciously name-calling, all introduced by his classic "lets be calm and intellectual" repetition (that he rarely applies).
I've seen I think 4 complete lectures by him, one live at which I introduced myself to him after a week of correspondence, and 3 on You-tube. In each, he started off civil, giving me hope to see an inquiring intellectual process in real time. But, then relapsed into verbal violence.
I know many think that he has cut through the noise to truth, but I think he's cut through the noise to noise.
"I have seen Norman Finkelstein tear into others on panels with him, viciously name-calling, all introduced by his classic "lets be calm and intellectual" repetition (that he rarely applies)."
Support your slander with a video link.
Dishonest LOUT.
You can cut the antisemitism with a knife.