OPINION & EDITORIAL
Israel lobby censors academic honesty
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Also by Kyle Szarzynski:
- John Edwards may prove best option (December 4, 2007)
- America, stop kneeling at altar of religious insanity (November 27, 2007)
- Critics ignore Kumar's progressive strides (November 26, 2007)
- Islam no defense for extremist action (November 20, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Szarzynski goes too far (September 13, 2007)
- The 'fink' in Finkelstein (September 13, 2007)
- Jimmy Carter confronts fallacies of pro-Israel lobby (February 21, 2007)
- Stay classy, Barrett (September 4, 2006)
- Public TV rejects Greens (October 13, 2006)
by Kyle Szarzynski
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
In an event that received major international coverage this summer, DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure due to his outspoken views on a number of issues. This past week the Catholic university went even further, canceling Dr. Finkelstein's remaining classes and officially terminating his employment.
The Finkelstein episode is highly controversial because of its political connotations, specifically regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Dr. Finkelstein, an outspoken leftist and champion of Palestinian self-determination, is reviled by the right and the Israel lobby in particular. His books, including "The Holocaust Industry" and "Beyond Chutzpah," have received much attention and praise in the European press, but have mostly been ignored, and occasionally scorned, in the United States.
Dr. Finkelstein's candidacy received the enthusiastic endorsement of many renowned scholars, including the late Raul Hillberg, founder of Holocaust studies, and Noam Chomsky, famous linguist who was recently named the world's Top Intellectual by The Guardian.
In truth, Dr. Finkelstein's highly acclaimed research and support from his fellow academics should have made him a glowing candidate. Not surprisingly, the college committee voted 5-0 in favor of offering Dr. Finkelstein tenure and the political science department voted 9-3, also in favor of tenure. It was the University Board on Promotion and Tenure, in a 4-3 vote, which rejected his candidacy.
The contradiction between Dr. Finkelstein's highly regarded credentials — even the university recently conceded that he is a "prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher" — and the results of his bid for tenure has aroused suspicion that outside factors determined the outcome.
Indeed, pro-Palestinian academics are often harassed by groups and individuals outside the university. With regard to Dr. Finkelstein, he has faced persecution from the Israel lobby for decades, and his tenure case was no exception.
Dr. Finkelstein's most infamous critic is Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, an aggressive and lifelong defender of Israeli apartheid. Dr. Finkelstein earned the ire of Dr. Dershowitz after he exposed the latter's book, "The Case for Israel," as plagiaristic and untruthful.
Dr. Dershowitz attempted to censor Dr. Finkelstein's findings, even appealing to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to block its publication. That attempt failed, so Dr. Dershowitz degenerated even further and accused Dr. Finkelstein's late mother, a Holocaust survivor, of serving as a "Kapo" in Auschwitz. It hardly needs to be said that this claim is demonstrably absurd. The Harvard professor has also actively lobbied against Dr. Finkelstein at DePaul. He even sent a dossier to tenure committee members intended to defame Dr. Finkelstein, a highly unorthodox action from a fellow academic.
Outside of academia, the attention that Dr. Finkelstein's case has received in America has been largely one-sided. For example, a Fox News story showed Dr. Finkelstein giving a speech in which he expressed support for Lebanese resistance to Israel's invasion and ethnic cleansing campaign in 2006. The caption at the bottom of the screen read, "Controversial Prof Caught On Tape Making Anti-Semitic Remarks."
Dr. Finkelstein's tenure denial has nothing to do with his scholarship and everything to do with his politics. His writings and activism penetrate the faÃ
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 6:33am):
Where's David Urman?
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 8:18am):
Since this comment box is about to get filled to the brim with the most vicious, obsurd, pedantic, right-wing, Zionist vitriol, let me just through one out to Kyle on this phatt article. Way to be, brother!
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 9:36am):
Where's Professor Klocek?
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 9:48am):
Kyle, can you campus liberals possibly go one day in your pathetic little lives without bashing Jews? That's what this whole anti-Israel campaign is really all about. There are places in this world where real atrocities are being committed. What's going on in Israel is pretty tame compared what's going on in Darfur or Somalia. And the hell being wreaked upon innocent people in those countries is being committed by Muslims, not Jews or Christians.
I'd like to be able to get through one years of college without being bombarded by anti-Jewish BS from you liberals. One year without some hippy spouting off about those "poor, poor Palestinians" who are now killing each other off in a nasty little civil war, in case you haven't been paying attention. One year without some a-hole Arab student whining about "the big mean Zionists are doing to my people, waaaah!" while history shows that the opposite has always been-and still is-the case.
Your motive is obviously to instill hatred of Jews, and it won't work on me. I choose NOT to hate anyone. I will not let anyone try to brainwash me. Who's next on your hit list? Is it Hindus? Buddhists? What about atheists? Kyle, if you want to let a bunch of Islamic extremists turn you into their little mouthpiece, that's your choice. But the rest of us are here to be enlightened. Hate speech is not enlightenment.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 9:56am):
DePaul fired Norman Finkelstein for pseudo-scholarship and bigotry and also canned Finkelstein's ally Mehrene Larudee, who failed to get tenure as an economist, having tried to get it mainly on the basis of her Marxist screeds.
But if anyone thinks that DePaul is out of the woods and has put a stop to radical faculty misrepresenting their ideological propagandizing as research and trying to get tenure for political propagandizing and indoctrination, think again.
A case in hand is Matthew Abraham, who teaches English at DePaul and is a very active apologist on behalf of Norman Finkelstein. Abraham has a long article in the pro-jihadist website Counterpunch this week repeating all the myths the left has concocted about the (third or is it fourth?) university firing of Professor Finkelstein.
Abraham describes Finkelstein as "the most heroic critic of U.S. and Israeli policy in Palestine ever to set foot in the U.S. academy." DePaul's having finally stood up for real standards of scholarship is described by Abraham thus: "By capitulating to the threats, antics, and pressures of Alan Dershowitz, the Israel Lobby, and its numerous affiliates, DePaul has compromised something so integral to an educational institution's mission, that once so compromised, it is impossible to regain."
He then makes baseless charges against his own school: "DePaul University is more vulnerable than ever to the next assault upon its integrity and autonomy-no matter how many millions of dollars have poured into its coffers because of the Finkelstein tenure denial, we are vulnerable." He adds: "Will those faculty associated with, and standing in support of Finkelstein, be the next targets of DePaul's administration? If so, I would certainly be a likely target."
Well, we would like to take Abraham up on the challenge and urge DePaul to take a close look at this fella's academic record, which can be seen here. Abraham holds a PhD in English from Purdue, where he wrote a dissertation about "The Rhetoric of Resistance," in other words a propaganda tract for the "revolutionary" left. Before that he completed an MA thesis in Arkansas that was a sycophantic celebration of the Maoist "philosopher" Michel Foucault.
Three of the five journal articles he has published are similar paeans to the Israel-hating Edward Said. At least one of them promotes Palestinian terrorism (which he calls "resistance"). Lest there be confusion, it is Said's politics that attracts him to Abraham not his literary criticism (which is also heavy on the dogma side). In other words, his entire corpus of "scholarly" work consists of exercises in "revolutionary" politics.
Besides his journal articles, he has written some other predictable political screeds (e.g., about "racism"), including a number of ecstatic reviews of Norman Finkelstein's anti-Semitic oeuvre (e.g.). Naturally, Abraham just loves Finkelstein's poisonous rantings and can't praise them enough.
One of Abraham's reviews is sufficiently hostile to Jews that it has been posted on a Holocaust Denial web site. A sample of Abraham's own rants "America's Zionist Jews" can be found here. All this from someone who professes to be a professor of English Literature.
If DePaul is serious about raising its academic standards, a good place to start would be the Department of English.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 10:49am):
If American Jews would stop slobbering over apartheid Israel, articles like this one wouldn't have to be written.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 11:07am):
Finkelstein's academic credentials can't seriously be questioned. His books have won praise from Baruch Kimmerling, probably the most renowned Israeli sociologist, Sara Roy, Professor at Harvard and world's top expert on Gaza (also daughter of Holocaust survivors), and Avi Shlaim, who's a professor of international relations at oxford. If you're going to say Finkelstein's research is wrong, you're basically claiming you know more about the Mideast than the top scholars in the world do.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 11:26am):
Oh, give us a break. Finkelstein was a scholar in the same sense that Ward Churchill was an Indian. Meaning, he was not. Finkie is an anti-Semitic gutter bigot and a Neo-Nazi. He belongs in a Munich beer hall and not on a campus. Incredible that so many leftists are endorsing this fan of david Irving and Ernst Zundel. Is integrity dead on the Left? Finkelstein is no "victim," except of a mediocre university suddenly getting serious about academic standards. Larudee - ditto.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 11:50am):
Don't read this trash.
Go see the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for the truth.
Reality Check (September 11, 2007 @ 11:52am):
It is Norman Finkelstein who censors academic honesty not the Israeli lobby, Mr. Szarzynsky. You got it wrong, I am afraid.
And I certainly question Mr. Kyle Szarzynsky,'s honesty.
The blame lies within Mr. Finkelstein's own deeds and talks. Anyone with a slight sense of integrity who delves into Finkelstein's writings can see that he is not well as a persona and certainly as an educator who stick to factual truth. I had to take an alka Seltzer after reading his diatribe and self-destructive agenda he created to himself.
And you, Kyle, are lending a had to evil, pure evil,regretfully. Otherwise you are a skillful writer.
Norman Finkelstein should have been institutionalized growing up with parents who were both Holocaust survivors in the full sense of the experience, sadly. He certainly suffers of SGHSS, Second Generation Holocaust Survivors Syndrome, serious lack of love and attention growing up.
Mr. Finkelstein teachings is about propounding evil neo-Nazi ideology. He gravely distorts and disrespectful of Academic Freedom, to say the least.
Anti-Semites and anti-Americans are buzzing around him because he is a Jew and further a second generation Holocaust survivor; anti-Semite and anti-American would use a Jew in every turn they could to propound their hate and lies when they find such sham and disgrace to humanity and freedom.
Luckily, such as NF are far, few and between.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 12:11pm):
"I choose NOT to hate anyone"... except Liberals.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 12:54pm):
So it was Alan Dershowitz, an agent of the Israel Lobby (read Jews), who is to blame for Finkelstein's failure to get tenure. What's the proof? The writer doesn't provide any. But I suppose if your thinking is similar to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion you don't need to provide proof. Of course, one could claim that all those wealthy Jewish donors to DePaul University put pressure on DePaul's University Board for Promotion and Tenure and the DePaul president to deny Finkelstein tenure. Or maybe they're all closet members of the "Israel Lobby"?
I think what really bothers the writer is that some people dare to criticize Finkelstein's "scholarship." If you dare criticize Israel-bashers, that's "creating a hostile atmoshphere." The Israel haters can dish it out but they can't take it.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 3:15pm):
I hate liberals too.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 4:12pm):
Great article Kyle, it's interesting how people criticize work like Finkelstein's as hateful, yet turn around and use their own hateful rhetoric.
Anyone interested in the influence of the Israel lobby in US foreign policy should read John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's recent work, "The Israel Lobby."
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 5:24pm):
hey kyle,
your columns demonstrate that your abilities as a writer are quite good. the only problem is that your ideas suck.
left-wing asshole.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 7:17pm):
Thank you for this honest and straightforward reading of the Finkelstein-Dershowitz case. Now that the Lobby's facade is beginning to crumble, I hope that we can look forward to more articles like this. It would seem that there's a new case brewing -- the "controversy" over Joel Kovel's new book on the crucial need for the Palestinian-Israel conflict to resolve itself in a binational/multinational state, i.e., the solution suggested by Tony Judt, who has been pilloried by the Lobby as an antisemite and a self-hating Jew. I know Kovel's scholarly work well and use it often in my university courses: it is, like Finkelstein's, impeccable. Once more, thank you for this.
Anonymous (September 11, 2007 @ 11:03pm):
first off, depaul is a PRIVATE university, a catholic one also, so i dont quite understand why you argue that they are controlled by Israeli lobbyists (the catholic church hates israel almost as much as you)
also, if you are so concerned about academic freedom, why don't you also write an article about the British boycott of Israel and blacklisting of Zionist professors. How about articles about the lack of freedom of education in the arab world you so vehemently defend.
your bleeding heart bleeds onto the allready blood soaked hands of the terrorists
Anonymous (September 12, 2007 @ 12:08am):
10:49 and 11:50, go to hell! Stop trying to turn all of us into haters! 9:48 speaks for a lot of folks here. I'm sick and tired of seeing Jews being targeted. And we really don't give a sh!it about the damn Palestinians anymore! Israel's fed up with them, Lebanon wants to ship their Palestinian "refugees" somewhere else and the rest of the Arab world never cared about them in the first place. So why the hell should anyone else?!
Anonymous (September 12, 2007 @ 12:15am):
If people that support the bloodthirsty Palestinians keep calling Israel supporters racist Zionists then people that support Israel will keep calling Palestine supporters anti-Semites. Get used to it!
Reality Check (September 12, 2007 @ 10:10am):
This mean clown, Kyle Szarzynski,spreads lies, distortions, and worse, hate. And who is this K.? KKK?
Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 2:24am):
Ah, yes ... I see the usual chorus of Chicken Littles are once more polluting bandwidth. Perhaps they're not aware that some of us have actually read the work of Professor Finkelstein and aren't so easily convinced by argument ad hominem. Hardly surprising that he should rankle them, particularly when they evince no capacity to address the content of his Holocaust Industry thesis with anything more substantive than puerile epithets.
Must present quite a dilemma when they deny the Jewish role in smearing academics who dare to criticize Israel while screaming "anti-semitism!" at them for daring to criticize Israel.
Anonymous (September 14, 2007 @ 4:52pm):
I wonder if they have donuts and coffee in the Lobby.
Anonymous (September 15, 2007 @ 12:46am):
"I wonder if they have donuts and coffee in the Lobby."
Dunno, but there's probably plenty of strychnine and arsenic to go around.
Anonymous (September 15, 2007 @ 4:38pm):
I don't think strychnine and arsenic are kosher.
Reality Check (September 17, 2007 @ 10:33am):
This article clarify who Norman Finklestien is. It is MUST READ:
Finkelstein Revisionism
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=76B162C1-1038-400B-B112-87C09C917227
Anonymous (September 17, 2007 @ 6:31pm):
It is obvious that most of the comments are from Jews and AIPAC agents who stifle any criticism against us. If we do not watch out, we will become like those who once persecuted us in Germany. Professors Finelstein, Mearsheimer and Walt have done us a great service. We should heed what they say before we invite another Holocaust upon ourselves and/or become like our very persecutors. I used to be proud to be Jewish - but not after what we have done to the Palestinians.
Reality Check (September 18, 2007 @ 4:19pm):
Professors Finelstein, Mearsheimer and Walt et al are all neo-Nazis, dreadfully.
Anonymous (March 4, 2008 @ 9:15am):
I am trying to find out how I might read comments from persons who have opinions about the AAUP. I find that there is alot of energy generated by this topic of Finkelstein but I can't seem to find any dialogue about AAUP. Can anybody tell me where , if anywhere, I could find this?
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