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April 13. 2004 | April 30, 2004 | June 16, 2004 | November 19, 2004
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April 13. 2004 | April 30, 2004 | June 16, 2004 | November 19, 2004
1575 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE*MASSACHUSETTS*02138
April 13,2004
Printable PDF
Mr. Colin Robinson
Publisher
The New Press
38 Greene Street
New York, NY 10013
PERSONAL, CONFIDENTIAL AND - OFF-THE-RECORD COMMUNINICATION - NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Dear Mr. Robinson:
I have received your letter of March 26th with regard to Rohit Goel. I have just retumed from a trip to Australia. As I told Mr. Goel, I am in the process of obtaining the entire file from the Israeli authorities, which I am told contains the investigative report of the independent investigation. I will forward it to him as soon as I have obtained it.
I am, however, somewhat confused by your letter, which indicates that Mr. Goel’s factchecking is in connection with a book tentatively titled, Everything Old Is New Again: Reflections on the New Anti-Semitism. As I am sure you know, Mr. Finkelstein has publicly stated on numerous occasions that he is writing a very different book for you, namely a personal attack on me entitled Letters to an Old Shyster. Not only has he made this statement on numerous occasions, it has been repeated by others on the internet. I don’t know what the situation is, and I certainly have no interest in trying to prevent the publication of any book, since I believe strongly in the marketplace of ideas, but I am concerned that any book you publish not contain false statements about me. That is why I am happy to cooperate with your fact-checker. But thus far your fact-checker has simply asked me about one false assertion made by Finkelstein about me. I am aware of numerous other willfully false and malicious statements that Finkelstein has made in public about me and that he has implied he will publish in his book. For example, he has told numerous audiences that I did not write The Case for Israel; that it was ghost-written for me by students; and that I did not even read it. He has asserted that this is “literally” the fact and that the “evidence is very clear” that I did not write or read The Case for Israel. As Mr. Finkelstein well knows, I wrote every single word of the text of The Case for Israel by hand and I have my hand-written manuscripts to prove it, since I do not type or use a computer. (I did receive assistance on some of the footnotes from student researchers.) Moreover, I have numerous witnesses who will attest to the fact that every word of the text was written by me. Yet Mr. Finkelstein persists in making this false and defamatory statement
I do not know what other false and malicious statements appear in the forthcoming book, but based on Finkelstein’s past record, I can anticipate that there will be many, since he repeatedly distorts or makes up facts to support his ideological predispositions. Let me illustrate Finkelstein’s modus operandi with one of many possible examples.
Mr. Finkelstein has repeatedly asserted that I did not care about Israel until after its victory in the Six Day War and only became a “fair weather friend” of Israel in order to benefit from its victory in that war. This is a part of a more general, preposterous, allegation that the “only two prominent American Jewish intellectuals who were identified with Israel before June 1967 were Noam Chomsky and Hannah Arendt,” and that today’s leading American Zionists, such as Michael Walzer and Martin Peretz, also didn’t care about Israel until after its victory in June 1967. He claims that I actually say “at the very beginning” of The Case for Israel that I only “became actively involved in supporting Israel after June 1967.” I urge you to look at what I actually say, to see how deceptive Finkelstein is. I say that in 1967 — not after Israel’s victory in June of that year — I began to make the case for Israel on campuses. In fact, I began to make that case in early 1967 before the war began. I led the student and faculty campaign at Harvard in support of Israel during the months, weeks and days leading up to the Six Day War (along with Walzer and Peretz). Moreover, I have cared deeply about Israel since I was a child in 1948, though I have been publicly critical of some of its policies, in the early 1960’s with regard to imposing the death sentence on Eichmann, and since the early 1970′ with regard to settlements and occupation. Finkelstein knows this because he has read my earlier book Chutzpah in which I describe my activities on behalf of Israel before the Six Day War. Finkelstein’s demonstrably and knowingly false statements are all too typical of his modus operandi.
Mr. Finkelstein has made numerous false statements about my use of historical quotations that appear both in my book and in Joan Peters book From Time Immemorial. I am in the process of documenting each of Finkelstein’s false statements and will be happy to provide them to the fact-checker if he tells me what facts he is checking. With regard specifically to the Twain quote, which he has highlighted in his charge of plagiarism: I have been using that quote since 1970 — and I can prove it. Moreover, his claim that I use the identical words that were quoted by Peters is demonstrably false. Two entire sentences that appear in Peters were not included in my quote of Twain. Moreover, the same quote appears in numerous books about that historical time period other than Peters. The same is true with regard to my quotations from the Peel Commission Report, which I have also been using for decades. I use many quotes from that report which do not appear in Peters. His charge that I have “plagiarized” my book from Peters is maliciously and demonstrably false. Numerous experts — including the former president of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and Dartmouth as well as several experts at Harvard and other universities — have compared the two books and concluded there is not even an arguable claim of plagiarism and that Finkelstein’s charges are totally unfounded and false. If Finkelstein persists in making the false and defamatory claim of plagiarism, it is imperative that he include the fact that experienced experts have concluded that his accusation is false, as well as the undisputed fact that every single sentence and phrase that appears in my book and that was written by others has quotation marks around it. This is essential, since no reasonable person would conclude that plagiarism can occur unless sentences or phrases written by another are used without indicating they are not the author’s words. As far as ideas are concerned, I explicitly state in my book that I do not accept Peters’ ideas or her interpretation of the historical quotations.
Finkelstein’s most serious defamation is that based on a relatively small number of criticisms, focused on a relatively few pages in a 264 page book dealing with nineteenth century history, he has characterized the entire book as a “hoax,” a “fraud,” and a product of “plagiarism,” and has said that it contains no “facts” or “arguments.” This is simply false and unfair and displays his ideological bias and malice. The vast majority of the book deals with contemporary issues and is beyond dispute factually correct and he knows it. Yet he uses words that suggest that he has proved the entire book to be a fake or fraud of some sort. This too is typical of Finkelstein’s malicious modus operandi. Nor does he tell his audiences that his sole basis for leveling the false charge of plagiarism is his claim that I originally came upon several quotations I use in my book (all within quotation marks) in Peters book and that I cite to the original sources rather than to Peters. He does not claim that I used even a single phrase or sentence written by Peters without attribution, or that I use a single quotation from any one else without attribution. His bizarre complaint relates solely to a disagreement over whether it is better form to cite the original or to cite the secondary source in which the original quote was first found by the author. He does not tell his audiences that the minor and trivial disagreement is the entire basis for his accusation of plagiarism. Instead, he tells his audiences that I lifted two chapters “practically whole cloth” from Peters. Although he doesn’t challenge the accuracy of any of the quotes in my book, he complains that I lifted them from “a hoax,” thus implying that I borrowed Peters’ conclusions or arguments, which he knows I did not. He simply lies — even about his own accusations!
Finkelstein and others have pointed out several accidental typographical errors, which I have corrected in subsequent printings. Yet. he persists in repeating them, as if they were deliberate and remain uncorrected. One in particular discloses his malice. On page 80, I discuss Benny Morris’ account of a particular phase of the evacuation of Arabs from villages, which became part of Israel in 1948. During this phase, according to Morris, “Arab commanders ordered the villagers to leave…” Obviously the more villagers ordered by Arab commanders to leave, the stronger my argument becomes. Yet, as a result of a secretarial mistranscription, the figure of two to three hundred thousand Arabs became two to three thousand Arabs, thus inadvertently weakening my point. Only a person with malice and no intellectual honesty would claim this self-defeating typo was deliberate, but Finkelstein has persisted in making this obviously false claim.
I am sure you are aware of Mr. Finkelstein’s personal animus and malice toward me. Although he has stated that he never engages in ad hominems and that his criticism of me is purely academic, he has publicly called me an “imbecile,” a “raving maniac,” a “shyster,” “evil,” a “pathological fraudster,” and a “Nazi” comparable to “Adolph Eichmann.” When criticized for analogizing Jews to Nazis (he never analogizes them to Stalinists or even Mussolini fascists — only Nazis) Finkelstein has said: “Nazis never like to hear they’re being Nazis.” He has also said that he “can’t imagine why Israel’s apologists would be offended by comparison with the Gestapo.” Finkelstein’s own connection to neo-Nazis has been documented. He drew cheers from large Nazi audiences in Germany when he invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes, calling Jewish victims of the Holocaust who seek reparation “greedy,” “cheats” and “a band of crooks and liars”. He also received sustained applause from Holocaust-deniers when he supported their denial by calling Elie Wiesel — who has written movingly about his experiences at Auschwitz — a “liar” and a “clown,” and when he said that most “survivors” are “bogus” and have “fabricated their pasts.” And he lent support to Holocaust minimizers when he equated the murder of six million Jews with “other crimes,” characterizing the Holocaust as merely “a Nazi experiment in demographic engineering.” The only constant in Finkelstein’s life has been a hatred of Zionism, the Jewish religion, Holocaust survivors and decency. He is prepared to get into bed with Stalinists or Nazis, as long as they hate Jews, Israel and Holocaust survivors who are seeking justice. He has been aptly described as a Jew who “supports anti-Semitism.” A German writer observed “seldom has a Jew been more celebrated by brown propaganda than Finkelstein.” One neo-Nazi-admirer has called Finkelstein “The Jewish David Irving” — a reference to the notorious Holocaust denier and Jew-hater who recently lost a defamation suit in England.
His personal animus seems entirely selectively aimed at Jews who either support Israel or justice for Holocaust survivors. He repeatedly uses the same words to characterize his political and ideological enemies: “hoax,” “fraud,” “fake,” “plagiarist,” “liar”, etc. He never uses these loaded words against those who agree with his politics or ideology. It cannot be that Finkelstein – who claims to be an objective “forensic” analyst — is incapable of finding any fault with the writings of his ideological soul mates. He is clearly an ideologically selective critic who throw around these ad homimens knowing that they are false but hoping they will stick nonetheless.
Finkelstein is a failed academic who by his own admission had been fired by several colleges and universities. I have learned that the reasons for these firings include serious questions about his academic integrity, his alleged scholarship and biases. I am aware of no peer-reviewed publication that has ever accepted anything from him after review by professionals in his discipline. He has repeatedly lied about his academic status, implying that he is a full professor, when in fact he is a 50 plus year old assistant professor, who was once an associate professor and has now been demoted.
Again, let me emphasize that I have no wish to prevent the publication of anything written by Finkelstein, since everything he writes further discredits him and his publishers among serious people. Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry was devastated by The New York Times reviewer who called it “indecent,” “juvenile,” “stupid,” “reckless,” “ruthless,” irrational,” and “insidious.” I fully anticipate similar reactions to this book. But I do respectfully request that you check each statement he makes about me because of his long track record of making false and defamatory statements about Jewish supporters of Israel and of justice for Holocaust survivors. The repeated use of ad hominems against me surely demonstrate extreme malice and require scrupulous checking of every possibly false statement he makes about me. I respectfully request that your fact-checker provide me with an opportunity to provide refutation to every such allegation in the book, and I await the opportunity to correct his false and malicious defamations before they are published.
Sincerely,
Alan Dershowitz
cc: New Press Board of Directors
April 30,2004
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CONFIDENTIAL - NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Colin Robinson
New Press
38 Greene Street
New York, NY 10013
Dear Mr, Robinson:
I arn now in a position to answer Mr. Goel’s initial enquiry regarding endnote 9 of Chapter 18 in The Case For Israel, though I was promised all the fact checks together. First, some background.
Here is the charge Finkelstein has publicly leveled against me on C-SPAN and said will be part of his forthcoming book about me:
“Dershowitz simply conjures things up frcm thin air, I’ll give you one example. There was a famous case in 1995 of a Palestinian who was shaken to death while in detention. And nobody disputed the facts–the Israeli pathologists’ office, the forensic pathologists who were brought into the case, eventually it went to the Israeli High Court of Justic–they all agreed. And I’m quoting now from the High Court of Justice Judgement: ‘All agree that Harizad (phonetic) died from the shaking.’ If you go to Dershowitz’s book, he discusses the case and says, quote, ‘An independent inquiry found that he didn’t die from the shaking, but from a previous illness’ (emphasis added). That was just made up. Now that was literally made up.”Virtually everything in Finkelstein’s statement is demonstrably false–including his alleged “quotes.” Let me note first that the statemsnt Finkelstein says I made (he deliberately misquotes it) appears in an endnote, not even a footnote, though Finkelstein makes it appear as if the statement was central to the text of my book. Second, Finkelstein is referring to a different case than the one I describe in the endnote, and he knows that.
Most important, every word I wrote in endnote 9 is absolutely true and there is documentary evidence to support it, including the actual autopsy reports, I made nothing up, and Finkelstein knows it. Several years ago I was told about a case in which a detainee named Mustafa Akawai died of an unknown, pre-existing heart condition after having been shaken. I was told about this case by a number of sources, including the doctor who conducted the autopsy at the request of Boston’s Physicians For Human Rights and the state attorney in charge of the investigation” I also read about this case in the press. I have spoken publicly about the case for several years in speeches and lectures. The official conclusion of the Israeli investigation based on the autopsies was that Mustafa Akawai’s death was caused by a “heart attack” and “no other reason.” Dr. Michael Baden, among the most eminent forensic pathologists in the world, flew to Israel to conduct an autopsy on the body of Akawai, who had died following interrogation. The Israelis were accused of having caused his death by the treatment he received while under arrest, including shaking during interrogation. Dr. Baden told me, confirming what I had been told by a high-ranking official in the Israel State Attorney’s Office, that Akawai died from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. Baden was, however, quite critical of Israeli authorities and did conclude that their rough treatment of Akawai precipitated the heart attack, but that such treatment would not have precipitated a heart attack in a person without an extremely sever heart condition, and that the Israeli authorities were entirely unaware of his heart condition.[1] Accordingly, the investigation was ultimately closed on the ground that “the pathologist’s post-mortem examination did not suggest a connection between the interrogation and/or its character, and the heart attack that caused his death.” Nonetheless, the investigator in charge of Akawai’s interrogation was disciplined because his actions violated accepted standards “although a connection was not found between his behavior and the death of the deceased.” Reasonable people can disagree about this conclusion, but there is no doubt that an independent investigation attributed his death to an unknown pre-existing medical condition, precisely as I wrote.
| fn 1; pg2. Baden told me that when he made his
announcement, he was greetcd with derision by anti-Israel activists who
were hoping that he would conclude that Akawai died directly from the shaking. (Another doctor, Derek Pounder,
has been “called in by anti-Israel groups to examine several cases, and had always blamed Israeli authorities,
regardless of the evidence, Dr. Pounder’s reputation was very poor in the community of experts and at least one
prominent forensic pathologist has called him a fraud and a one-sided political hack.) Because Dr. Baden had
previously come to
“a conclusion in an earlier case that supported the Palestinian account, it was assumed that he
would come to a similar conclusion in the Akawai case. But his autopsy revealed the pre-existing coronary
condition and that it was unknown to the Israeli authorities. fn 2; pg2. I not only wrote every word of the book by hand, despite Finkelstein’s defamation to the contrary’ I also wrote the text of the endnotes. My research assistants did help in finding the authorities cited in support of the textual endnotes. |
When I wrote the text of endnote 9,[2] I was referring to the Akawai case, which had received considerable publicity around the world. That was “the famous case”" I did not make it up. It is Finkelstein who has made up his alleged quote from the High Court of Justice judgement and a quote from me. There is no statement in the High Court judgement that says “all agree that Harizad [referring to the other case] died from the shaking.” What the High Court said is that “all agree that, in one particular case, (HCJ 4054/95) the suspect expired after being shaken” (emphasis added). Finkelstein pretended to be making a direct quote and then made up the words “died from the shaking”. The difference between died fron the shaking and died “after being shaken” is considerable, especialiy since the sentence in the High Court judgment is preceded by the following description of the medical literature offered by the state and quoted by the High Court: “medical literature has not, to date, reported a case in which a person died as a direct result of having been shaken.” One sentence after saying that the suspect “expired after being shaken”, the High Court said that “death was caused by an extremely rare complication which resulted in pulmonary edema.” |
Finkelstein then proceeds to distort a quote about me, putting the following words between quotation marks and in my mouth “an independent enquiry found that he didn’t die from the shaking, but from a previous illness.” What I in fact said in endnote 9 was the following: “one person died following shaking, but an independent investigation attributed his death to an unknown pre-existing medical condition.” Even though the substance is similar, the very fact that he would falsely describe it as a direct quote is typical of Finkelstein. Although I was referring to the Akawai case, and Finkelstein was referring to the Harizad case, my description — as it turns out — comes much closer to what actually occurred in the Harizad case than does Finketstein’s, because Finkelstein deliberately distorted the quote from the Israel High Court to serve his ideological interests.
In any event, the fact is — and I can prove this by external evidence — that I was referring to the Akawai case when I wrote the text of endnote 9. I have spoken about the Akawai case repeatedly and saw the documentation in that case. I was unaware of the Harizad case Finkelstein refers to. Accordingly, Finkelstein’s allegation that I literally made up what I wrote in endnote 9 is false and defamatory.
After reading my one sentence textual endnote, my research assistant cited to the opinion of the high court in general {”See Public Committee”, etc.} which includes the language that the “medical literature has not, to date, reported a case in which a person died as a direct result of having been shaken” — language that supports my text. According to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (17th ed. 2000), a citation preceded by “see” is designed to indicate that “the proposition is not directly stated by the cited authority but obviously follows from it; there is an inferential step between the authority cited and the proposition it supports,” Where the citation does not direct the reader to a particular page (as mine does not), it is citing the entire case as inferential support. In this instance, the proposition is inferentially supported by at least two statements in the opinion quoted previously.
The opinion also refers to a case by number, not by name, in which a person died after being shaken. I was aware of only one case involving a death following shaking” the Akawi case. That is the case I wrote about. To accuse me of making something up on this basis is both irresponsible and defamatory. If it were anyone else but Finkelstein, I would be prepared to accept his mistake as an honest one, but because of his pattern of lies, it seems more likely that he is aware of his error, yet persists in his irresponsible politically motivated accusation.
I am, of cour,se, not surprised that Finkelstein would make this charge in light of other false and defamatory charges he makes. For example, he alleges that “the first two chapters of The Case for Israel are lifted practically whole cloth from Peters… ” Yet he knows that I cite Peters numerous times and explicitly mention that I disagree with her conclusions. There is not a single idea or phrase in my book that is lifted from Peters. (I did, mistakenly believe that the word “turnspeak” had come from Huxley. I confused turnspeak with newspeak. This honest mistake has been corrected in the forthcoming paperback edition, along with several other honest mistakes of little consequence.) I did originally find several historical quotes used by Peters in her book and, after checking the originals when I could, I used those quotes, citing them to the original, as the Chicago Style Manual mandates. Every author who does research finds useful quotes inother books; it’s called research. No one disputes their accuracy or the fact they are cited to the original. Whatever one may think of Peters’ conclusions — which I explicitly reject in my book — no one has questioned the accuracy of the quotes I found in her book. No one says she made up the quotes I used! Moreover, I checked them independently whenever possible. What then is the issue? As every responsible person who has been shown this — including the former president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dartmouth, and the University of Iowa — agrees, this is not plagiarism; it is scholarship. At most, it is a disagreement about proper citation styles, a disagreement about which the authorities clearly support me. But under no conceivable understanding of the term plagiarism, is this even close to plagiarism. What is it Finkelstein claims I “plagiarized,” if not Peters’ words or ideas — her ellipses? Even those are different in the major quote from Mark Twain he claims (eroneously) I first found in her book. (I have been using the Twain quote since before the Peters book was written.)
The proof of the pudding of Finkelstein’s malice and selective criticism only of pro-Israel writers is his acknowledgement on C-SPAN that “I don’t get too excited about the plagiarism issue” — except apparently when he can use it to throw mud at pro-Israel writers.
Another example of a categorical and demonstrable lie by Finkelstein is the following, from his C-SPAN talk:
If you look at it, about three-quarters [of The Case for Israel] is given over to discussing human rights issues: house demolitions, torture, so on and so forth. About three quarters is given over to discussing it. And if you look at the footnotes for the book, he never once — I mean literally, not once — mentions any mainstream human rights organization. Never a mention of Amnesty’s findings, never a mention of Human Rights Watch’s findings, never a mention of B’Tselem’s findings, Public Committee Against Torture, Physicians for Human Rigbts — none. (emphasis added)Yet a simple review of my book reveals that I cite Amnesty on at least five occasions, B’Tselem on three occasions and numerous other human rights groups and individuals (such as Chomsky, Said and Boyle) who are extremely critical of Israel’s human rights policies. (Amnesty and B’Tselem even appear in the index!) Again, Finkelstein simply looks his audience in the face and deliberately lies aftor assuring them that he is purporting to be “literal.” This is his standard modus operandi, of which you are on notice.
None of this surprises me since I recently learned from one of the several universities that fired Finkelstein, that he was fired for three reasons: 1) serious questions about his scholarship; 2) his “abuse” of students who disagreed with his politics and 3) his “mental instability”. A recent incident supports this last conclusion. In a speech at the University of Buffalo, Finkelstein apparently tried to prove that Israel is a Nazi state because it favors “blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryan types” (refening to Russian Jews). To support this bizarre point, he said that the lead character in the novel Exodus was named “Ari” because it was short for Aryan. (Ari is, of course, short for ancient Semitic names such as Arieh and Ariel, and is common among Sephardic and Ethiopian Jews). Finkelstein is truly an irresponsible person who will say and write anything, so long as it is anti-Israel.
You should beware that there is documentary evidence establishing these serious allegations. If you are not, this is to put you on notice that they exist. You are now also on notice of his demonstrable lies during his C-SPAN speech. This should place a heavy burden on you to be certain that every one of his defamatory statements are entirely truthful and are not motivated by malice or political bias — a malice and a bias he virtually admits.
Once again, let me emphasize that I have no wish to prevent any book from being published. I insist, however, that every defamatory accusation directed against me be scrupulously and independently examined, not by an intern for The Nation, which has also falsely defamed me by repeating Finkelstein’s false charges of plagiarism in a column by Alexander Cockburn, but by an independent fact-checker with no political or ideological axe to grind.
Sincerely,
Alan Dershowitz
P.S. I am enclosing a copy of Dr. Baden’s recent letter [see PDF file for April 30, 2004 letter] to me confirming what I say. He is still looking for his files in the case. I am also enclosing the original Hebrew version of a 1993 letter from the Israel State Attorney’s Office, supporting what I wrote in endnote 9. [see PDF file for April 30, 2004 letter]
Cc: Rohit Goel
Andre Schiffrin
June 16, 2004
Printable PDF
Via Fed Ex
Mr. Colin Robinson
Publisher
The New Press
38 Greene Street
New York, NY 10013
PERSONAL, CONFIDENTIAL AND
OFF.THE — RECORD COMMUNICATION –
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Dear Mr. Robinson:
I am writing this letter to report a serious breach of publishing ethics committed by Rohit Goel. You told me that he was working as a fact-checker for your publishing company on a book by Norman Finkelstein. Last week Goel called Dr. Michael Baden and represented himself as working for me — Alan Dershowitz. He said he was working on my book for my publisher and that he was calling to check some facts for me. It was on that basis that Dr. Baden spoke with him.
Only after eliciting information from Dr. Baden based on his misrepresentation, did Goel clearly identify himself as working for Finkelstein and against me. He then criticized Dr. Baden for the conclusions he had incorporated in his letter to me. He claimed that Dr. Baden’s letter contradicted a report by the Physicians For Human Rights and statements made at a press conference. Since these events occurred years ago, Dr. Baden understandably asked Goel to send him the material he claimed contradicted his recent statement. Goel agreed to do so. But then, according to an email sent by Goel to Dr. Baden, “after speaking with my boss, Norman Finkelstein, the author of the forthcoming book on Alan Dershowitz and the “new anti-Semitism,” I will not be able to provide you with the Physicians for Human Rights report or the Press Conference you gave in 1992 after you conducted the autopsy of Akawi.”
There are several ethical problems implicit in the actions taken by Goel and Finkelstein. First and foremost, a fact-checker who misrepresents himself as working for me has violated not only journalistic ethics, but my legal rights. I intend to pursue all legal remedies against Goel and Finkelstein for this willful and illegal misrepresentation. This misrepresentation may also constitute a vioiation of criminal law, since it was fraudulently done over the telephone and by wire. Second, Goel now claims that Norman Finkelstein is his boss. This is completely contradictory to what he told me. He told me that his only interest was in checking facts for you and that he was hired by the publisher to protect the publisher from factual errors made by Finkelstein. He now says that Finkelstein is his “boss.” This demonstrates a clear conflict of interest in Goel’s role. Finally, it is not the role of a fact-checker for a publisher to threaten a source, as Goel clearly threatened Dr. Baden in his boss’s name.
All in all, this is conduct totally unbecoming a reasonable publishing company. I do not know whether you are aware of this pattern of behavior, which is all too tlpical of Finkelstein. If not, this note, along with the others I have previously sent you, is intended to put you on notice so that you can take all appropriate action.
As I have previously written to you, I have no interest in trying to prevent the publication of a book critical of me, since I can adequately defend myself in the marketplace of ideas. I insist, however, that all the alleged facts in the book be checked in an objective manner, especially in light of Finkelstein’s long track record of misstating facts and misrepresenting the truth, of which you are aware. The fact-checking process currently in place does not meet those standards.
Sincerely, Alan Dershowitz
Enclosure: Goel email
cc: New Press Board of Directors
November 19, 2004
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Federal Express
Mr. Niels Hooper
University of California Press
2120 Berkeley Way
Berkeley , CA 94104
Dear Mr. Hooper:
I have just been advised that you are planning to publish a book by Norman Finkelstein containing false and defamatory information about me. The book, entitled “Beyond Chutzpah”, (an obvious reference to my book “Chutzpah”), claims to expose “spurious scholarship” and mendaciousness on my part. This Letter is to put you on notice that Finkelstein has repeatedly and deliberately distorted the facts in describing my writings. I am enclosing, as an attachment to this letter, a draft of an article I am publishing which summarizes Finkelstein’s distortions, as well as the letters I previously wrote to the publisher who was originally supposed to be publishing his book. I don’t know whether Finkelstein showed you this correspondence before you agreed to publish the book, but you are now on notice as to its contents.
I have no desire to prevent publication of anything, but I do insist that anything published about me be factually correct. Finkelstein has a long documented track record of publishing malicious falsehoods about me (as well as about others who write favorably about lsrael or about compensation for Holocaust survivors). I am not speaking about differences of opinion, but rather, as the attached material clearly proves, demonstrably false statements of fact that no one can possibly dispute. He claims to quote material, but he makes up words and phrases in the allegedly quoted material. He makes up facts from whole cloth. In a recent speech in Canada, which has even tougher defamation laws than the United States’ Finkelstein repeatedly alleged facts about me (and others) which are entirely false, including the claim that I did not even write The Case for Israel. (I don’t type or use a computer, so that the entire manuscript of my book was written by me by hand. I wrote every single word of the text.) I note that in your advertisement, you say that Finkelstein’s book will be “available worldwide”. Finkelstein’s book, as presently written, contains defamatory material that is actionable not only in America, but in many other countries in which this book wil] be distributed. I suggest that you check with lawyers in those countries as well as with American lawyers, in deciding the nature of the fact checking process that you are obligated to undertake, especially in light of Finkelstein’s documented history of defamation against me.
Because of this extensive track record, which is easily accessible to you, you are under a professional, moral and legal obligation to check every single claim he makes about me for its accuracy. This check must be completely independent of Finkelstein. In the past he has hired fact-checkers (including a man named Rohit Goel) who simply does his bidding and provides no independent check on Finkelstein’s willful and malicious distortions. In one case his fact checker willfully misrepresented himself as my research assistant to Dr. Michael Baden, in an effort to persuade Baden to change somethlng he had written. You are on notice of this as well.
You are also on notice of Finkelstein’s demonstrated personal malice toward me. Although he has stated he never engages in ad hominems and that his criticism of me is purely academic, he has publicly called me an “imbecile,” a “raving maniac,” a “shyster,” “evil,” a “pathological fraudster,” and a “Nazi” comparable to “Adolph Eichmann.” When criticized for analogizing Jews to Nazis (he never analogizes them to Stalinists or even Mussolini fascists — only Nazis) Finkelstein has said: “Nazis never like to hear they’re being Nazis.”
I am confident that when you read the entire file that I am sending you, you will agree that you hive a heavy burden to check independently every defamatory statement Finkelstein makes. As of this time, no fact checker has called me (other than the notorious Rohit Goel, who acknowledged that he works for Finkelstein, and is anything but independent). Please advise me as to what steps you are taking to assure that you are not knowingly publishing defamatory macerial.
I want to emphasize once again that I am not interested in stopping the publication of anything Finkelstein seeks to write, since everything he writes further discredits him and his publishers among serious people. Finkelstein’s book The Holocaust Industry was devastated by The New York Times reviewer who called it “indecent,” “juvenile,” “stupid,” “reckless,” “ruthless,” “irrational,” and “insidious.” I fully anticipate similar reactions to this book. My sole interest is in assuring a fair process for checking the accuracy of defamatory statements he has made in the past and seems intent on repeating in this book.
I await your reply.
Sincerely yours,
Alan Dershowitz
