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Video: Finkelstein at Brandeis Norman Finkelstein at Brandeis 05.11.2007 | Google Video Part 1 of 3 Part 2 of 3 Part 3 of 3 Rush Transcript Q&A Session Questioner: Listening to this lecture I had this feeling of dejavu, as if I were at the Chomsky teach-in. It was just as long and just moderately less boring. This lecture was a hoax from start to finish. Unfortunately, the circumstances preclude me from opening a debate and I can debate you on pretty much every point you made. You made a huge number of misstatements, misleading statements and... [audience members: "do you have a question?... what's your question, man?"]... I have a minute and a half... [interruptions]... I will get to the question... [interruption] if you're patient enough. The fact that you don't like what I have to say, doesn't give you the right to shout me down. [Moderator, Sarah Roy: "I would ask the audience to refrain from calling out, alright? We want to have a civil exchange here and it's important that people be allowed to say what they want to say. Please, ask your question as soon as you can. Thank you."] Questioner: The sources you used are, in the natural sciences you can collect any number of points of data and then you can select your points to draw your curve to prove that your theory is right. Nevermind, that there's countless number of points that prove the opposite, you can select whatever you want. This is what Professor Finkelstein did. The one common theme that he had, he mentioned a number of reviewers. 3 things unite the reviewers of his Beyond Chutzpah: anti-Israelism, Leftism and wrapping themselves in their fake human rights language. I would suggest people check each and every fact that was uttered here because most likely you're going to find out it is not a fact but a lie, ok?... 3 facts: Palestinians habitually use civilians and children as human shields, which leads to higher casualty rates; Palestinians habitually create the news and I would urge you to Google for Pallywood and also look up MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), PMW (Palestinian Media Watch) and IMRA (Independent Media Research Analysis). It'll be an eye opener for you. And my question is... simple one [long pause]... find it [audience laughter]... It's rather rhetorical but you can answer it. Do you hate your parents? How long have you hated Israel and why? And the last question is purely rhetorical to drive the point home. I'll let you figure out what it means. Do you habitually [bad audio quality] rate your niece or your nephew as well? [audience comments] Finkelstein: Actually... actually, I appreciate those comments and I think honestly, we should listen. Because the whole point of my lecture this evening was [that] the record is uncontroversial, so what Israel's alleged supporters do is, they try to change the subject. So when the first questioner finally came to the question, the question was "do you hate your parents?" and "are you an anti-Semite?" Excatly the kinds of questions that were put before President Carter and exactly for the same reason. Questioner: I'm willing to debate the facts if you give me time. Finkelstein: You had time, sir. Sarah was very careful to give you the time and then when it finally came to the question, recall what your question was. Moderator, Sarah Roy: I was told that Brandeis students get to ask the first few questions. Are you? Ok, are there other Brandeis students? Let's take 3 Brandeis students, because I'm told those are the rules... Questioner: Good evening, thank you for coming. I'm a sophomore at Brandeis, Physics Major. You seem to imply in your speach that there was a conspiracy may be led by Professor Dershowitz to drive you from institution to institution but let me offer my own analysis, perhaps, after what I heard tonight. Sir, if you conduct your professional academic research in the same way you analyze the topic at hand tonight, namely disregarding reason completely, disregarding history, disregarding reality -- sir, do not look to Professor Dershowitz for the reason that you are shifting from institution to institution. Sir, just look in the mirror. Finkelstein: Now, that was a second illustration of tonight's lecture. Not one so far, not one person asked about the content of my remarks. Not one. Go ahead. Questioner: [inaudible] ...my name's Adam Ross, I'm a freshman studying Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and I wanted to wish you a happy holiday on Israel's 59th Independence Day and I was wondering, I heard a lot about the problems that Israel has in this conflict, I was wondering what reforms need to happen with the Palestinians in order for peace to be achieved. Thank you. 00:06:44 Finkelstein: Ok, there are, obviously, there are two dimensions on the Palestinian side. There's the internal dimension and then there's the external dimension. And Palestinian society, like every society, has to do a lot of house cleaning. Anyone who reads Haaretz or follows Israel politics knows that given the current scandal-a-day, a rapist on one day is charged, an embezzler on the second day is charged, a third day another scandal and the fourth day another scandal. I think we can all agree that just as Palestinian society needs to do house cleaning, so does Israeli society and if we're fair, I'm here in the United States now and I'm an American citizen, the Americans have a lot of house cleaning to do. But that's the internal aspect. The external aspect is -- which side is the obstacle to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict? And there on the external side I think that Jimmy Carter accurately reports the documentary record as registered in the World Court decision, as registered at various United Nations bodies and as registered in human rights reports, namely, to quote Carter again, "peace will not come to the Middle East until Israel withdraws to its legal borders." On the Palestinian/Arab side, we have, yet again, the reiteration of its April, 2002 initiative which was supported by the whole of the Arab League, every single member on record and on board, supporting the two state settlement as understood by the international community. Now, does that make Saudi Arabia a desirable society? They initiated the Arab League proposal. No, of course not. Does it make Syria a desirable society? Of course not. But that doesn't change the fact that on the fundamental question of resolving the conflict they are on the side of international law -- on this question -- and the international consensus and Israel's on the side of Naru, Palu, Tuvalu, Micronesia and the Martial Islands. That's what the record shows. You wanna show me where I'm wrong? I'm happy to listen. Questioner: Am I allowed a rebuttal? Moderator, Sarah Roy: No actually [inaudible]... Questioner: Good evening, Jeff Rosenthal, Class of 2007. Firstly, I wanna thank you for coming and secondly, I wanna appologize for this farce of which [inaudible]... My question is... I'm sure that after many times speaking at universities you've truly seen it all. I'm wondering if you could explain the reasons why Americans who live thousands of miles away from the Middle East and certainly removed from the consequences of that which happens there feel so personally charged to obstruct, control and silence any dialogue on this issue, if you could address that, please. Finkelstein: I think that's an interesting question and a lot has been discussed about it in recent times, namely the impact of the Israel lobby and distorting and deforming debate in the United States on the topic and the question always comes up of motive. And I happen to be, as it were, an heretic on this question because I don't find any evidence whatsoever that so-called supporters of Israel give a hoot, care a jot about Israel. Allow me just a simple example. If you look at the record before June 1967, before Israel became United States' strategic asset in the Middle East, you find almost no mention of Israel at all by leading American Jewish intellectuals. It simply was not a topic. Nobody cared about Israel. You can go through many symposia, which I recently did for something I'm writing, Commentary magazine, the main periodical of the American Jewish Committee, Commentary magazine had these symposia: American Jewish intellectuals -- what are they thinking, what are they feeling, what are their concerns? And you go through them -- nobody cares about Israel. You take the case of the most famous Israel so-called supporter, Norman Podhoretz. Podhoretz, in fact, in 1957 he writes an article for Midstream magazine, a Zionist publication, and the article says, you know what, Jewish intellectuals have no interest in Israel, I wonder why? That's in 1957. In 1960, Norman Podhoretz, who became the most rabid supporter of Israel, becomes Editor in Chief of Commentary. It's very interesting to look at the record. 1960 - there are 99 articles in Commentary, only 3 are on Israel. In the six month period before the June 1967 war there are 60 articles, 2 on Israel. They didn't care about Israel. After June '67 Israel began to serve certain advantages for these people and then they became pro-Israel. But this notion of some kind of tribal allegiance to their people, which you know folks like, with all due respect, they've been very generous to me, people like Walt / Mearsheimer have been saying that people like Paul Wolfowitz, Libby, Wordser [spelling?], all these guys are really faithful and loyal to their tribal members in Israel is just shear nonsense. These people are about power and they're about privelege, they don't care about Israel, unless Israel is useful for them. You'd be very surprised, if you look at the record, there are only 2 public intellectuals I cam across in the period before 1967 who were really concerned about Israel. One was Noam Chomsky who lived on a Kibbutz and was very close to Israeli life because his father was a Hebraist and two was Hanna Arendt who became the boggy of the American Jewish community. That's it. I don't think these people care about Israel. What they're really doing is working to destroy Israel and at that I think that they've been quite successful. Questioner: My name is Shanit [poor audio quality], I'm an Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies major here at Brandeis and I'm hoping you'll be able to clearify one of the points that you made that I took issue with. You said that in connection to the qualifications set to Hamas by the United States and the greater international community, that Hamas has already met it's obligation, I believe your words were "fully committed to its obligation towards peace" that "it's already recognized Israel as a practical reality." Finkelstein: Correct. Questioner: Just a few weeks ago Hamas and Fatah finally reached a unity agreement, following about 5 months of intense violence during which countless human rights violations took place and numerous children were killed, upon the conclusion of these talks and the unity gov't reached by Hamas and Fatah, Hamas reiterated its refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the State of Israel. Finkelstein: That's absolutely correct. Questioner: And also reaffirmed its right to resistance, the term used which everyone takes to reffer to terrorism. How do you reconcile the claims that you made with these historical documented records? Finkelstein: Yes, I think that's absolutely correct, the second point I'll get to, about the right to resistance. The first point is, you qualify this statement by saying not recognized Israel as a defacto reality under international law but recognized it's legitimacy. Nobody's obliged to recognize the legitimacy of a State. For example, let's take the Native Americans. The United States is a fact. And Native Americans, it seems to me, are obliged to recognize that fact. It's a practical reality. Now, would you put upon Native Americans the demand that they recognize the legitimacy of the United States if a condition for the United States becoming what it was, was the expulsion and extermination of the native population? Now bear in mind, I quoted Benny Morris as saying, I think accurately, I can go through the record, but just a statement for now. He says that, "transfer," that's the euphemism for expulsion, was "inbuilt and intrinsic to the Zionist project." So do you really expect and is it reasonable to accept that Palestinians would acknowledge the "legitimacy" of their ethnic cleansing? That doesn't make sense to me. If they're saying they recognize Israel as a fact on the June 1967 borders, which is their current position, the national unity position, that seems to me as far as they are required to go both on a moral and on a legal plane. Now, on the question of right of resistance. You're surely aware that under international law you do have a right to use force to expell an occupier. You don't have the right to target civilians. But there is a right of resistance. And so long as Hamas has not said it's right includes the right to target civilians, it's again within the parameters of international law, and, in my view, perfectly legitimate. Questioner: Hello, my name is ...[inaudible] Davis, I would just like to very briefly comment and say that I find the tone of your remarks, especially concerning Alan Dershowitz, which many people've considered almost a maniacal obsession on your part, very regrettable in terms of civil discourse, referring to him as a clown. I don't think this really advances the debate much. I really regret this and I hope you regret that as well. But I'm mainly concerned about something you said about 3/4 of the way through your talk and that was a very very quick dismissing jesture towards the existence of Islamic anti-Semitism. We all know the Hamas Charter, if you don't know the Hamas Charter, it's readily available on the internet. It doesn't speak of Israelis, it speaks of Jews. It doesn't only target Israelis, it targets Jews with its ally Hezbollah in Buenos Aires and in Turkey and other areas. It even talks of Jews meaning you, professor Finkelstein. So let's not be oscuring about that. And my question was, I'm aware that you're not a historian of Islamic thought or jurisprudence or history but are you absolutely sure that Islamic anti-Semitism is a vapor, doesn't exist? There's a body of knowledge now coming out that is very very authoritative and in your words "indesputable," beginning with the genocide of the ...[inaudible] Tribe at the Battle of ...[inaudible], all the way through the massacre of the Jewish community of Grenada in 1066, which exceeded the massacre of Jews in the Rhineland thirty years later. Are you possibly unaware of the sacrilized nature of Islamic anti-Semitism? Perhaps, you should read up on it. Finkelstein: Ok, let's look at the claims one by one. First of all, there's the issue of what I said. I made two comments regarding Islamic or Arab anti-Semitism, or gestures [inaudible]. Number one, I referred to the New Anti-Semitism. If you read the books on the topic, the New Anti-Semitism doesn't refer to anti-Semitism in the Arab world, which is old, dating back at least to '48 if not before. The claim is of a New Anti-Semitism in the heart of the Western world. And it's that claim of a New Anti-Semitism which I said is fraudulent. Questioner: You also mentioned... [inaudible] Finkelstein: Number two... I promise I'll get to you and I have a good memory about what I said. Number two, I said that the claim is being made that Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, "they are all Hitler" and "they are all Nazis." I'm not going to go into now whether that's a gross trivialization of what the Nazi phenomenon was about and the destruction that was wrought. I was saying that there's now a pattern going back to at least '48 with Ben Gurion of claiming that all of the Arab opponents of Israel are Nazis and Hitlerites and at the same time saying "you should never compare" the Nazi Holocaust with any other anti-Semitic project. Questioner: You made references to that... [inaudible] Finkelstein: Yes, I look at, I'm happy to, I'm very happy to go look at the cover story by Daniel Goldhagen in the New Republic. It's a very long article. Has anyone read it? Ok. He compares Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran to Hitler. That was the thrust. Now, the third question, namely, has there been anti-Semitism in the Arab world? The answer is obviously yes. There's been anti-Semitism everywhere. The question I was addressing was -- is that the root cause of the conflict? Or is it, as Benny Morris says, "the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession?" And, even if there are elements and egregious elements of anti-Semitism in the Arab world, I find myself agreeing, surprisingly, with what Walter Laqueur wrote in that last book I mentioned The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism. He says -- remember this is the leading Zionist historian in the world and very much on the Right end of the spectrum -- he's a commentator [Commentary] contributor. Laqueur writes "if you solve the conflict," that is to say achieve a political settlement, he says "you'll be able to reduce the anti-Semitism among Palestinians and the Arab world to manageable proportions because people will be concerned, as they often are, with the struggles in their daily life." And so Walter Laqueur himself says "if you're really concerned about the problem of anti-Semitism" and you're not just using it to deflect attention from the real problems, he says, "then solve the conflict." Questioner: Hi, my name is Daniel, I'm a History and Sociology major. First of all, thank you very much for coming. The last questioner made a big deal out of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. I'm an Israeli and recently I had a conversation with a brother in law who is a very Right Wing Israeli. His remarks were "Arabs are inherently untrustworthy and we should basically kill them all" was the thrust of his statement. So my question to you is what role does anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian-ism play on the Israeli side, to mirror the question about anti-Semitism on the side of Arabs. Finkelstein: Well, there's a lot of ugliness on both sides and I see no point in playing... [inaudible] You know there are members like Effie Eitan, the National Religious Party, who calls for expulsion. There people like the head of the new Russian party who calls for handing over the Arab areas of Israel to the Palestinian State, getting rid of all the Arabs. There's a lot of ugliness on all sides and it's easily documented on both sides. My own view, I see no point in trying to prove who's uglier. The conflict has produced an awful lot of hatred on both sides. And the more useful exercise is to try to figure out a way to resolve it in such a way that people's lives aren't being systematically wrecked and destroyed. And if you care, and there's no legitimate reason why you shouldn't care, the systematic moral wreckage that Israel has become in recent years, if you care about that, then your real concern ought to be to try to figure out a way to resolve the conflict that is in accordance with international law, that's in accordance with world opinion, and therefore has a realistic chance of bringing about a relative peace between Israelis and Palestinians. That's what I think our goal should be. Questioner: Thank you professor Finkelstein for coming. You mentioned, you brought up during your talk the wall or barrier that's being built in Israel that it annexes about 10% of the West Bank. One thing that I often notice is left out of these sorts of discussions is the fate of the Palestinians who are being walled in. Israel obviously doesn't want them to become citizens, they want to remain a Jewish State. What are the prospects for them either for becoming citizens or whatever, I don't know what to call it? Finkelstein: Ok, we should be clear about the numbers, the wall, due to Israel High Court decisions, it's been rerouted in different ways. Right now about 70,000 Palestinians would be caught between the wall and the Green Line and several hundred thousand Palestinians would be separated from their farmland or, in the case of Jerusalemites, from their places of business and work inside Jerusalem. The expectation for the 70,000 who'll be trapped is that conditions will become so miserable they'll be unable to farm their land. No point in going into it now, there's this very complex gate system that Israel's created. In fact, the gate system barely works, the gates are open arbitrarilly, one day it's open another day it's not. It's obviously for farmers impossible to grow crops under those conditions and so the expectation is about the 70,000 Palestinians, by hook or by crook, will leave that area. And then there are 200,000 Jerusalemites who're now being walled out of the city -- [turns to Sarah Roy] is it 100,000 in, 200,000 out -- I think it's 200,000 out and 100,000 in. The 100,000 in won't be able to go to their places of business in the West Bank, the 200,000 out won't be able to use the universities and hospitals in Jerusalem and so lives would be systematicall wrecked in big ways.... tbc... SHARE THIS POST:     |
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Video: On the place of civility in academic life (10.18.2007) Finkelstein's talk at the academic freedom conference Tenure Denial Letters (June - November, 2007) On How Actual Survivors Were Cheated by Jewish Organizations:
Communication for Middle East Journal. (02.19.2006) Alleged Errors in Beyond Chutzpah. (2005) MEMRI NAZIS (again) (10.23.2006)  New evidence of old lies (2005) Under the heading DIABOLICAL PLOTS, I stated in Beyond Chutzpah...    Articles and Reviews Related to The Holocaust Industry  Preface to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine Postscript to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine The Dershowitz File:
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