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Lily

Oh dear! Which holocaust is this Kerux?

The one that you and IA vehemently deny ever occurred?

That is a bit weak, using something that you deny happening, as an argument when it suits you.

lom

^Ah, Lily it did happen. But only a tiny little wee bit. By mistake

kerux

Sorry Lilypad, that was Finkelstein who said that, or at least that's what the reviewer you quoted thought Finkelstein said. Remember Finkelstein's jewish. And the Holocaust didn't actually have to happen for the 'victims' to extort billions, as there are plenty of suckers like you around will believe whatever the Jews tell you, whether it happened or not.

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stroller

Unlike yourself, Finkelstein is not a holocaust denier, you are cherry-picking his work to suit your racist hate-agenda.

Yes, Finkelstein is Jewish, kerux. The irony seems to have escaped you. What is the title of this topic?

kerux

I never said or implied Finkelstein said there was no jewish holocaust. His thrust or subject of his exposure in much of his writings is the exploitation of the allegations of the holocaust by the Holocaust Industry.

And I am not a holocaust denier. I believe the holocaust did indeed happen - in Dresden.

sabang

This article is dated 26 June 2007, from the Tehran Times of all papers.

They state Finkelstein is still an Assistant Professor too- that is amazing. The climate of academic censorship and suppression in the States has gone well beyond a joke. If this sort of thing were happening in the UK, you'd be reading about it on the front pages.

I recently read about a Mossad front in Turkey, a news bureau or something. It's job is to put together disinformation, ie trumped up or exaggerated stories to suit Israels agenda, then feed them back to the Israeli and western media under the veneer of legitimacy afforded by being from a Bureau in a Moslem country with an Arabic name. When you look at it, the "Joan Peters" book was no different.

So why -
1- Can you still buy the 'Joan Peters' Since Time Immemorial book in US bookstores? It is a hoax.
2- Has it never been divulged what actual person or people (more likely) were behind this book? Plenty of people must know. I know that it is rumoured to be a Mossad involved job.
3- Is Finkelstein being treated in this blatantly unfair manner? Is it a crime for an intellectual to expose a hoax?
4- Can you not buy Finkelsteins books in the States? You either have to go to radical or obscure academic bookshops, or order it off the net?
5- Do next to no people actually know about this? It is remarkable for a scholar of this calibre to be denied tenure, and to still be an Assistant Professor at an obscure university. But noone is saying anything to the Public.

This suppression of the truth, and persecution of the truthteller, has much more in common with Fascism than it does with Democracy. It proves that academic freedom and integrity in the US is a joke, at least where Middle Eastern issues are concerned. The USA in this regard has more in common with Hitlers Germany or Mussolini's Italy than it does with the true western democracies, I am indeed sorry to say.

"The Finkelstein principle"

By Abukar Arman
June 26, 2007
"Just like all other actions, speaking the truth has its reaction and indeed price.

A few months ago, I was honored to join two Middle East experts -- Professor John Mueller and Professor John Quigley -- in a panel discussion on Jimmy Carter’s “controversial” book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
As I, a small-time writer, was franticly searching for material to make me sound halfway intelligent, I came across numerous articles, essays, and reviews that offered little or no refutation of the content of the book and instead focused on the author’s alleged “anti-Semitic” motive.
Leading that ad hominem campaign was none other than Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard. No surprise there, as the longtime “civil libertarian” has lately turned into a blatant advocate of legalizing torture, executing collective punishment, and sustaining the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people.
As I continued my search, I was distracted by a profoundly more caustic campaign of character assassination by Dershowitz and company aimed at Assistant Professor Norman Finkelstein of DePaul.
I must confess I became more intrigued when I discovered that the latter, albeit being attacked for “anti-Semitic” and “bigoted” views, happens to be the son of two holocaust survivors.
Dershowitz has been on this case for several years. And according to the New York Times, in recent years he has lobbied professors, alumni, and the administration of DePaul, a Roman Catholic university in Chicago, to deny Finkelstein tenure -- a campaign that many faculty members at DePaul and elsewhere said has used “heavy-handed tactics”. This to them could not be dismissed as an isolated episode of the incivility of modern politics. So what is the impetus of this ferocious animosity?
Apparently Finkelstein simply did the unthinkable -- he dared to set the truth in motion. And, in a time of universal deceit, as George Orwell said, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Like Carter, Finkelstein surrendered to his conscience and decided to swim against the political tides. He criticized Israel for its brutal treatment of the stateless Palestinians. In his scholarly research he also exposed how the Zionists have exploited “anti-Semitism” (a real racist phenomenon) to camouflage the atrocities committed by Israel and how the holocaust tragedy has been exploited and turned into a “lucrative industry”.
Anyone who has read his books or perhaps saw Finkelstein recently on the Doha Debates -- one of the premiere debate forums moderated by Tim Sebastian, former host of the BBC’s HardTalk -- as he lucidly argued in favor of the motion “This house believes the pro-Israel lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel’s actions” could see why Dershowitz and company would go down as low as defaming Finkelstein’s mother.
In that debate, Finkelstein came across as someone who has reconciled with the fact that he will have to sacrifice a great deal as he fights this lonely and fateful battle. He was hardly uncomfortable referring to himself as the oldest untenured assistant professor.
And though those who campaigned to block his tenure accuse him of academic deficiency, a great number of his peers express other views. They scream foul and argue that Finkelstein is being politically persecuted for his intellectual views. Professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University, a world-renowned scholar and author of many books, delivered this passionate appeal in a recent interview: “Israel has no immunity to criticism, moral immunity to criticism, because of the holocaust. Israel… should be judged by the same standards as any other… And Norman Finkelstein is a very serious critic and a very well-informed critic and hard-hitting critic of Israeli practices in the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians.” He said Finkelstein has made “…an important contribution to the study of Zionism, to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in particular, to the study of American attitudes towards Israel and towards the Middle East.” To Shlaim it is important to separate “questions of anti-Semitism from critique of Israel”. And presenting himself as an example, he said, “I am critical of Israel as a scholar, and anti-Semitism just doesn’t come into it. My view is that the blind supporters of Israel -- and there are many of them in America, in particular -- use the charge of anti-Semitism to try to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli practices. I regard this as moral blackmail.” Echoing a similar sentiment, a letter of support signed by hundreds of Finkelstein’s peers had this to say: “To challenge the status quo of Zionist historiography in the U.S., as Finkelstein has done in his scholarship, most certainly ignites controversy; but his ability to address the subject with thorough documented evidence that encourages readers to see the subject of Palestine and Israel anew is precisely why scholars around the world value his work.” In response to the news of his denial of tenure, he unapologetically reiterated his principled, indeed inspirational stand by saying: “They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach. But they will never stop me from saying what I believe.” In an era when intellectual freedom is routinely suppressed, and at a time when people of good character and moral integrity have become the unprotected endangered species, here comes Finkelstein walking self-assuredly like a mammoth of moral rectitude."

Why do we only read about this in the Tehran Times?
What else is your government, media, intellectual establishment hiding from you??

Description of Selected News

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Butterfly

Western media is just there for entertainment and government spin

They have jumped the shark for more than a decade now. Our free press is gone. Corruption of money etc...

raycarey

unfortunately this seems to be true.

sabang

This is UNBELIEVABLE. Norman Finkelstein has been sacked, given a good reference but SACKED!!!

His courses cancelled, not allowed to teach before an 'arrangement' was arrived at. Assistant Professor btw- I could be more senior than that and I am nowhere near the scholar he is.

AMERICA LOOK WITHIN, YOU, YOUR HEART, YOUR SOUL, YOUR 'GOVERNMENT', YOURSELF, YOUR MEDIA, ACADEMIA, POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT, MI COMPLEX, LOOK HARD AND DEEP.

I SINCERELY HOPE YOU ARE UP TO IT.

stroller

Here's an interesting article from his website:
"Israel and Censorship at Harvard" Norman G. Finkelstein

sabang

America's Campaign to Smear Israel's Critics
By Salim Muwakkil, In These Times. Posted September 11, 2007.


In the U.S., scholars who contest the conventional wisdom about Israel all too often lose their reputations -- and their jobs.

DePaul University canceled courses taught by Norman Finkelstein, the controversial political science professor known for his forthright criticism of Israel, just a week before classes resumed in June. Finkelstein, who taught at DePaul for six years, was denied tenure at the Chicago school but permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.


In late August, however, the university decided to axe him and pulled his required books from the schools' bookstore. This was a break from the academic tradition that grants a faculty member who is denied tenure one last year (the "terminal year") in the classroom. Finkelstein initially vowed to protest his suspension, but later reached an agreement (including a monetary settlement) with DePaul to end his fight. However, even as he announced the agreement, Finkelstein charged his tenure denial was due "to external pressure resulting in a national hysteria."

Finkelstein's rough treatment followed a vigorous national campaign initiated by right-wing supporters of Israel to taint his name. They attacked Finkelstein for his scholarship, which has consistently excoriated the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the deceitful arguments of the Jewish state's uncritical supporters. And Finkelstein is just one of many public figures currently under attack for contesting the conventional wisdom about Israel.

Harvard law professor and avid Zionist Alan Dershowitz mounted a relentless public campaign to have Finkelstein dismissed. Surely it is no coincidence that Finkelstein's recent book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is a sustained, well-researched attack on Dershowitz and his ilk for their lurid distortions of history on behalf of Israel.

DePaul's political science department and a college-wide faculty committee overwhelmingly backed Finkelstein's tenure bid. Yet that was not enough to shield him from the national campaign to punish him for his acerbic criticism of Israel. An influential dean persuaded the tenure panel to reject him for the style and tone of his scholarship rather than its content.

Finkelstein's boosters argue that right-wing supporters of Israel are persecuting him for his strident opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and for his criticism that they are unscrupulously exploiting the horror of the Holocaust to justify Israeli excesses. Finkelstein's previous book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, makes the case that many Holocaust scholars use the tragedy to justify Israel's existence and continue to utilize it to extort guilt money from various sources.

Finkelstein also provokes ire from Jewish groups because he is the son of two Holocaust survivors, which gives his critiques more credence. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has repeatedly accused Finkelstein of being a Holocaust denier, a baseless charge.

The former DePaul professor's supporters claim his tenure denial is completely unjustified and that his suspension violates academic ethics. The Chicago Tribune reported that the American Association of University Professors would soon launch a protest of Finkelstein's treatment as a violation of normal academic procedure.

Finkelstein thus joins former president Jimmy Carter, NYU historian Tony Judt, Harvard University professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer (the latter two are co-authors of a new book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy) whose forthright criticism of Israel have earned them accusations of anti-Semitism.

Jimmy Carter is facing a firestorm of criticism from right-wing American Jewish organizations for his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which mildly condemned the Jewish state's occupation policies in the Palestinian territories.

Judt, a descendant of Holocaust victims who argues that power in Israel has tragically shifted to religious fundamentalists and territorial zealots, is another victim of this pressure. The history professor, who also speaks out against American Jewish groups' attempts to stifle honest discussion on Israel's policies, has been forced to cancel many speaking engagements because of pressure from Jewish organizations.

Similar reactions have greeted Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, who have co-authored a book arguing that the American-Israel lobby has pushed policies that are not in the United States' best interests and encourage Israel to engage in self-destructive behavior. The two respected scholars have been denounced as anti-Semites by ADL Director Abraham Foxman, among others.

These scholars are victims of a national campaign to punish scholarship that challenges media-made myths about Israel. This grave threat to academic freedom should concern American progressives, who often remain eerily silent.



Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times and an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community.

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: America's Campaign to Smear Israel's Critics

I think it is time to realise the Truth. The Democratic experiment is behind us now, and your society is a plutocracy. In this day, it is expected and mandatory that your government, academia and media lie to you. If there is someone who defies the odds and gets the public platform to be able to spread the Truth and not lie to you, that person has only one of two possible outcomes.

Finkelstein, or Kennedy.

At least you have shelter and adequate food in your stomach, unlike so many of our 'victims'. The hypocracy of our 'culture' is amazing, yet real. Few people will even be aware of the Finkelstein story, and that is no mistake. Living in the West, you are now sheep- as long as they feed and clothe you, You will stick with the flock and think what the flock is allowed to think about.

That means sport and tits. Do not fool yourself that the likely next Democratic President will make any tangible difference to the underlying reality. You have no actual real choice in the Democratic process, short of revolution, and thats why they keep you fed.

AntRobertson

Yup, seems even that these days you can count yourself lucky that you vote is even counted. Or that the person winning the majority of the popular vote is actually the one put into office.

It's all a bit of an illusion/sham really.

sabang

Walt, Mearsheimer to protest Finkelstein firing

Published: 08/30/2007

Academics sympathetic to Norman Finkelstein, including "The Israel Lobby" authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, will gather to protest his firing.

The Oct. 12 protest at the University of Chicago, Mearsheimer's employer, will include Tony Judt and Noam Chomsky, academics who like Finkelstein claim that pro-Israel voices have tried to silence them.
"The Israel Lobby," alleging undue pro-Israel influence on U.S. foreign policy, appears in bookstores next week.

DePaul University fired Finkelstein last year, saying his vituperative attacks on Israel and its supporters were not in line with its Franciscan principles of respect for others. Its officials denied that a campaign led by Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard University law professor, played a role in the firing.
Among the protest organizers is a student group at DePaul called the Academic Freedom Committee, which says it is trying to to preserve academic freedom on campus.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103917.html

Expect a virtual media Blackout on this one.
I doubt you'll hear about it on Fox or CNN.

sabang

[NOTICE TO OUR ESTEEMED READERS: Cyrano’s Journal Online/Thomas Paine’s Corner has weathered numerous contradictory and false accusations concerning our stance on Israel and Zionism. Some assert that we are “Jewish conspirators”; others contend we are “anti-Semitic”; and there are even those who characterize us as “Zionists.” Guess what, folks? We are none of the above!
As a declaration of our position on the highly contentious subject of Israel and the Palestinians, we are throwing our full support behind people of all races, religions, ethnicities, nationalities, and political stripes who oppose Zionism and the myriad miseries it has rained down upon the Palestinian people. We salute bold groups like Jews for a Just Peace, intrepid Jewish American academics like Norman Finkelstein, and many courageous Jewish people within the state of Israel (including much-decorated members of the IDF and Israel’s brave peace movement) who vehemently oppose the horrific crimes their state commits against the Palestinians (with the full approval and financial backing of the filthy plutocracy ruling the United States)—The editors]

On the eighth of June, DePaul University in Chicago denied tenure to one of the world experts on the Israel/Palestine conflict, Norman G. Finkelstein. There’s been a great uproar on campus and worldwide because it is well known that Prof. Finkelstein’s contract was terminated as a result of intervention from outside the university, and ultimately because of the power of his ideas. In a book entitled The Holocaust Industry, Dr. Finkelstein argues that since 1967 Zionist organizations and certain Jewish leaders have capitalized on the memory of the Holocaust to generate wealth and power for themselves and to silence criticism of Israel’s [war] crimes against Palestinians. Professor Finkelstein’s ideas are dangerous, and he has paid the price, losing his position in academia despite his tremendous intellectual productivity – 5 books in 12 years.

Terminating Prof. Finkelstein’s contract is meant to set an example, to scare other scholars into biting their tongues. To the extent that this occurs, we are saddened. However, we are certain that many scholars will be inspired by his courage.


Reacting to the decision, Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, said, “They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach. But they will never stop me from saying what I believe.”

Full article- THOMAS PAINE’S CORNER |• » Vancouver Jewish Group Supports Norman Finkelstein

Milkman

The suppression of academic freedom and the freedom of speech has been going on for decades in American universities.

Link & Entire: Norman G. Finkelstein

Those that are interested in this topic can read this book. I just started reading it. Dershowitz's own words are copied and printed with Finklestein's opposing arguments.

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sabang

This just keeps getting better. Or is that Worse?

"It all began with this short passage in the Jerusalem Post last week:

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) detained and deported Finkelstein, who is a prominent critic of the Israeli occupation, when he landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Friday. He was interrogated for several hours and held in an airport holding cell before being returned to Amsterdam, where he had been lecturing. Finkelstein said he was told he could not return to Israel for at least 10 years.


On Tuesday, the Shin Bet said that if [Norman] Finkelstein tried returning to Israel it would need to re-evaluate its position.

[Some] experiences similar to Finkelstein's -

1. Tariq Ramadan, whose US visa to teach at Notre Dame was revoked in part because Daniel Pipes and other neocons lied, claiming Ramadan was a supporter of Islamic terror.
2. Yigal Arens, computer security expert at the University of Southern California and son of former Israeli defence minister Moshe Arens. The younger Arens was invited to lead a section of a Ben Gurion University conference in his field. But the Shin Bet conference participants objected to his presence because he is a strident critic of Israeli policy. Conference organisers disinvited him.
3. Avrum Burg, whose new book The Holocaust is Over, scandalised the Israeli political elite when it was published in Hebrew last year because Burg, scion of a distinguished Orthodox Zionist family, has moved to France and turned his back on Israeli Zionism.
4. Menachem Klein, professor at Bar Ilan University, whose academic department refuses to grant him tenure because his analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict violates the department's narrow political-academic consensus.
5. Neve Gordon, professor at Ben Gurion University, who has endured a savage letter-writing campaign to his university president and trustees smearing his name and seeking to get him fired for his critical writing about Israeli policy. Another Israeli academic, Steven Plaut, called him a "kapo" and "Juden-Rat," and ended up losing a libel case brought by Gordon and a subsequent appeal.
6. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, an Israeli-Arab law professor at the Hebrew University who was denied permission to exit Israel (again while at Ben Gurion airport) to attend an academic conference; all this at the hands of the same Shin Bet which deported Finkelstein.
7. Hadeel Abukwaik, one of seven Palestinian Fulbright winners who recently gained permission to take up their US studies after it was initially denied by the IDF, which refused to allow them to exit Gaza.
8. Juan Cole, professor at University of Michigan, denied an endowed chair at Yale University after a campaign by right-wing alumni attacking him for being anti-Israel.
9. Rashid Khalidi, professor of Middle East studies at Columbia University, similarly smeared while he was under consideration for an endowed chair at Princeton and also fired from teaching a course to New York public school teachers about the Middle East, because of false charges made by Daniel Pipes of supporting Arab radicalism.
10. Nadia Abu El-Haj, professor of anthropology at Barnard College, targeted by pro-Israel militants who attempted unsuccessfully to deny her tenure for her critical writings about Israeli archaeology.
11. Sami Bahour, Palestinian-American entrepreneur and peace activist denied entry to Israel for no discernible reason.
12. Zvi Schreiber, Israeli technology entrepreneur and developer of G.ho.st, a program allowing computer users to access their computers anywhere in the world. The project is a collaboration between Israelis and Palestinian programmers.
13. Rabbi Menachem Froman, founder of Gush Emunim and a West Bank settler, who is close to Hamas. The Shin Bet prevented Froman from holding a joint press conference to promote his ideas about Israeli-Palestinian peace."

Full Article-
Richard Silverstein: Norman Finkelstein should return to Israel | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

So much for the Jewish right of return. Honestly, I couldn't make this stuff up.