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Dershowitz infuriated over Latuff/Finkelstein duo

Latuff | 22.08.2006 18:46 | Lebanon War 2006 | Anti-militarism | World

Copyleft cartoon by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz


NORMAN FINKELSTEIN'S OBSCENITIES

By Alan M. Dershowitz

FrontPageMagazine.com | August 22, 2006

The level of “academic” discourse on the Middle-East reached a new low—quite a feat considering some of the old lows—when the notorious Jewish anti-Semite and Holocaust-justice denier Norman Finkelstein wrote a screed suggesting that I be targeted “for assassination” because of my views on Israel. The obscene article was accompanied by an obscene cartoon drawn by “Latuff”, a frequent accomplice of Finkelstein. The cartoon portrayed me as masturbating in rapturous joy while viewing images of dead Lebanese civilians on a TV set labeled “Israel peep show,” with a Jewish Star of David prominently featured. The cartoon aptly represents the content of Finkelstein’s piece, which accuses me of being a “moral pervert” who “missed the climactic scene of his little peep show.” He also claims quite absurdly that I “sanction mass murder” and “the extermination of the Lebanese people.” (I’m surprised he hasn’t accused me of kicking of puppy dogs, scowling at little children, and parking in handicapped spaces.)

Finkelstein calls me a Nazi not once, but twice, first saying that I subscribe to “Nazi ideology” and then comparing me to Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, who was prosecuted at Nuremberg by my mentor Telford Taylor.

The peep-show cartoon was even too extreme for the notorious “Counterpunch,” a Stalinist website that glorifies Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist enemies of the U.S. and Israel. Prior to its decision not to run this particular cartoon, Counterpunch seemed to have no standards, but even for them this one was apparently too much (though they kept in the “peep show” reference that inspired the cartoon).

The article itself is typical Finkelstein. He totally distorts my positions, uses quotes out of context, and simply makes things up. He assumes that his readers will not have read the material he criticizes, because if they did, they would not recognize his characterizations of them. Indeed I challenge any reasonable reader to peruse my writings and then Finkelstein’s characterization of them and decide whether his characterizations are even close to what I actually said.

It was President Bush who once famously said, “I don’t do nuance.” Well at least Finkelstein has that much in common with our president. Any effort by a pro-Israel writer to be reasonable, balanced or nuanced is turned by Finkelstein into a justification for genocide.

Finkelstein himself is a well-known Holocaust minimizer and Holocaust-justice denier. He is beloved by full blown Holocaust deniers. Listen to Ernst Zundel, the notorious Hitler lover and Holocaust denier:

"Some people hate it when I pitch Finkelstein and his ‘Holocaust Industry’ yet one more time - because they know, as I know, that what must be for tactical reasons, ‘Stormin' Norman’ doesn't go all the way and says what he must surely have come to realize in his heart: That the "gassing-of-millions" stories of the so-called Holocaust are just a pot of crock.

[…]

That doesn't mean that Finkelstein isn't exceedingly useful to us and to the Revisionist cause. He is making three-fourths of our argument - and making it effectively. Never fret - the rest of the argument is being made by us, and will topple the lie within our lifetime. We would not be making vast inroads in Europe with our outreach program, were it not for his courageous little booklet, "The Holocaust Industry."

Zundel’s wife and fellow Neo-Nazi, Ingrid Rimland, referred to Finkelstein admiringly as the “Jewish David Irving”—a reference to the well known Holocaust denier and admirer of Hitler. Finkelstein himself admires Irving’s “historical” research.

Finkelstein is also an admirer of Hezbollah, having said that his “chief regret is that I wasn’t even more forceful in publicly defending Hezbollah against terrorist intimidation and attack.”

This academic pornographer, who uses “professor” in his byline even when he is spewing unacademic hate, is now up for tenure at DePaul University, a Catholic school in Chicago that recently fired a teacher named Thomas Klocek for offending Arab students during a discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Finkelstein was fired by several universities at which he previously worked for abusing students who disagreed with his bigoted views. The chairman of one department where he taught said he was fired for “incompetence”, “mental instability” and “abuse” of students with politics different from his own. I wonder whether Finkelstein will submit this “assassination” article as part of his tenure portfolio at DePaul. He certainly should, since it is quite representative of his “scholarship”. If he submits it, will it be accompanied by the masturbation cartoon? It should, because the cartoon too personifies Finkelstein’s academic standards.

Latuff
- e-mail: latuff@uninet.com.br
- Homepage: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Hitler and Stalin too)

22.08.2006 21:20

So complaining of being compared to Hitler he sees no irony in describing Counterpunch as Stalinist. I guess he sees no irony period.

dan


IMHO

22.08.2006 23:21

I heard Finklestein speak at an event not so long ago - maybe 6 months ago or something. He seemed pretty coherent and reasoned to me. I was handed at that meeting a weird photocopy of a book by some Union of Jewish Students who claimed Finklestein was biased and distorted, yet the article descended into total distortion (and quite blatantly too - even from within the confines of it's own argument -) itself! Finkelstein would not be drawn on why he was deprived (at the last moment, very often,) the opportunity to talk about his newest book on most of the corporate and national TV stations. Personally I put it down to the narrow confines of argument that the corporate media allows itself to manoevre within. And pandering to the extreme prejudices of those who have such an influence on American elections. I'm sure Chomsky would and has much to say about all of this.

Anyway, i seem to remember that it is a classic totalitarian tactic to dismiss enemies as crazy or unstable. The Nazis and Chinese Communists and many others have used this tactic. The Chinese today regularly imprison dissidents as 'insane'. But you don't need to imprison or medicate people up - you can just try and ruin their credibility using the same tactic!

We all know that many Israelis feel (mostly) quite content to kill as many 'cockroaches' (the term used by some of the Israeli populace to describe Palestinians + others?) as is necessary to assure the Israeli states continued domination over the region in which it has established itself. The evidence of this is too great for any level headed person to ignore. Surely it is those that claim - to the contrary of all available evidence (from institutions such as the UN to people of all other political perspectives such as Cherie Blair of all people) - that Israel is the victim in this saga that must be actually be mad. Or at the very least, totally irrational.

Krop


So What? FPM Is A Zionist Hate Site

23.08.2006 19:45

Dershowitz's a discredited hatemonger, so who cares what he thinks? I'd like to hear what Finklestein actually says, because Dershy always seems to resort to misrepresenting his opponent, since he always refutes Dershowitz' Zionist Propaganda/Hasbara/LIES.

If we wanted to read this kind of tripe, we'd visit your little Hate Site, instead of IndyMedia ...

Zionism, Irrelevant Within A Generation


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