FINKELSTEIN ON HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
CrossTalk on Holocaust: Murder Revenues
01.27.2010 | YouTube
FROM A CORRESPONDENT:
I did a quick google search for the “renounce being Jewish” quote. Here’s what I found: Radio Islam (whatever the hell that is) has a page that comments (favorably) on and quotes from The Holocaust Industry
2009 WAIS Conference
Globalities and Localities
Stanford University, California
10-12 October, 2009
PROCEEDINGS ARE BEING POSTED
Re: JUDAISM: Norman Finkelstein
Randy Black wrote: Norman Finkelstein makes a small fortune fr0m his writings. Christopher Jones writes: Ronald Hilton asked for proof.� Norman Finkelstein answered this in an interview in Australia.� Finkelstein: “Allow me just to finish. Faithful to your beliefs, and hope that you’re not being corrupted in the process. As to the benefits of my book, I published with a very tiny publishing house, Verso Books, which I understood yesterday, and I hope he won’t kill me for saying this, have had a great difficulty paying royalties to their authors, because they’re a tiny publishing house. I don’t expect benefits. I don’t want to claim I’m a scholar of great stature, but I have made a certain reputation for myself, I’ve published several books, I’ve never been able to get a permanent teaching job. And my income in the United States is, you’d have to translate into Australian dollars, but I earn, in a good year, between fifteen and eighteen thousand dollars a year. I mean I live below poverty in my income. And I don’t think anyone who’s familiar with my track record can seriously make the claim that I do what I do for profits. You know, frankly speaking, money just doesn’t figure largely in my world view.”
Christopher Jones commenys: In an effort to keep our postings shorter, I will not go into Randy’s message, point by point, which I could and refute it completely.� I hope he just picked it up on some Zionist website.� For his information, Judaism is not Zionism.� Judaism existed a while before — I think that the case can be made that Zionism is the only surviving “nationalism” based on race, after the demise of v�lkisch National Socialism.� Norman does a better job than I could of answering Randy’s points, so I am including the interview as an attachment.
Source: http://wwwcounterpunch.org/finkelstein1.html
�Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:�� http://wais.stanford.edu/ Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.
Norman Finkelstein: American Radical
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/01/18/norman-finkelstein-american-radical/
During the 1980s a Jewish doctoral student from New York wrote a damning thesis on a best-selling book that many had rallied behind with their professional endorsements. In it Norman Finkelstein revealed Joan Peter’s From Time Immemorial to be a “monumental hoax” – an uncontroversial statement now, but something deemed difficult to accept at the time given the academic community’s unabated acceptance of the arguments it put forward. In response Princeton University delayed the granting of Finkelstein’s PhD and even after they did grant it, refused to give him professional backing. His ”factual record” was however undeniable, forcing everyone to eventually cast aside the book into a pile of embarrassing misjudgments of Zionist propaganda, while still refusing to give the investigator his well-deserved credit. So began Finkelstein’s long and arduous uphill battle in academia and in life, a battle that he has lost almost everything to except his dignity and his belief in what’s right.
David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier’s “American Radical: the Trials of Norman Finkelstein” documents Finkelstein’s life story, from his complex relationship with his mother, to his unwillingness to sacrifice the truth for professional success. From his demolition of the factual inaccuracies of books by Zionist authors like Peters and Alan Dershowitz, to his famous debates with the likes of Wolf Blitzer and interviewswhere he advocates the right of violent resistance, Finkelstein has often been pushed into the spotlight by those who have been intent on destroying him. He has however remained as one long-time Palestinian friend notes in the film, incredibly “human,” continuing to speak out against Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians as fervently as his late mother denounced those who were responsible for the suffering of millions of people during the Nazi holocaust.
It was Finkelstein’s well-known debate with Dershowitz on Democracy Now!, where he showed Dershowitz’s book The Case for Israel to be full of factual inaccuracies, that ultimately ended Finkelstein’s academic career. As a childhood friend now living in Tel Aviv notes during the film, Finkelstein underestimated Dershowitz’s power and influence. After leaving Hunter College in New York when the administration tried to further reduce his meager salary from the already ridiculously low $18,000, Finkelstein began his first (and long past due) tenure bid at DePaul University in Chicago. But after Finkelstein accused Dershowitz of fraud during the DN debate, Dershowitz used his lobbying might to pressure DePaul into denying Finkelstein tenure. Despite rallies in solidarity with Finkelstein and overwhelming support from the faculty at DePaul as well as from other academics around the world, both DePaul’s dean and president voted to reject Finkelstein’s tenure bid, effectively terminating his position after 6 years of Finkelstein’s service. Finkelstein threatened to sue and ultimately came to a settlement with the administration (he later stated that rather than waste years of his life in courtrooms, he wanted to continue focusing on his work), but not without demanding that DePaul officially admit that:
Professor Finklestein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher. The university thanks him for his contributions and his service.
Since this crushing blow in 2007, 57 year old Finkelstein has endured by continuing to publish books on Israel/Palestine and travelling the world to lecture. He notes in the film that he is a private and sedentary person and that he is in “agony” while travelling until he returns home to his work and his books – a home which the film reveals to be simple and modest, the walls covered with photos of his heroes and his late family members.
Certainly one can justifiably take issue with some of Finkelstein’s arguments, including his constant reference to the “international consenus” over Palestine (as though the mere existence of one can somehow lead to the implementation of a just solution), his brushing off of the importance of the Palestinian right of return, and perhaps most importantly his downplaying of the power and influence of the Israel lobby in shaping American foreign policy (an ironic claim given how much suffering he has endured at the hands of those he denies the power of ). But no one can deny how important Finkelstein’s work has been in advocating and garnering support for the Palestinian cause in the West. He has always articulated what everyone thinks but do not dare say, from comparing Israel’s violent repression of the native Palestinian population through expulsion, arrests, torture and murder to the actions of Nazis during the Holocaust, to his open support of the right to violent resistance against violent oppressors. It has been his refusal to remain within the unsaid academic code of careful tiptoeing around controversial issues and his committment to speaking out regardless of the consequences that has in the end isolated him from almost everyone. With this in mind it is no surprise that his life of struggle has not been without doubts. At one point during the film Finkelstein notes: “sometimes I wonder whether it’s all worth it…” But it is his statement near the end of the film when he defines his understanding of the term “radical” (a characterization he embraces), that will remain with viewers:
To me it’s quantitatively more than the usual discontent a person feels with the world…This is a radically unfair place and it requires a radical change.
The film’s trailer is found below. You can find a screening near you by going here or you can purchase the DVD. To learn more about Finkelstein and to purchase his books (his most important source of income given the academic community’s refusal to allow him to work again), visit his official website.
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