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Szarzynski goes too far

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by Letters to the Editor

Thursday, September 13, 2007

I would like to express my extreme displeasure with an article written by Kyle Szarzynski in Tuesday's Badger Herald ("Israel lobby censors academic honesty," Sept. 11). His article is filled with prodigious lies and false accusations.

First, I want to point out his lack of background information on Dr. Finkelstein. Mr. Szarzynski makes Dr. Finkelstein out to be a victim of "U.S. and Israeli Power." However, the author fails to inform the reader of Dr. Finkelstein's past comments regarding the Holocaust.

Dr. Finkelstein was quoted calling Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel a "resident clown of the Holocaust circus" and "a ridiculous character." I don't think a man who calls a Holocaust survivor a "clown" should be allowed tenure at any university. I also don't think a man who calls the Holocaust a "circus" should be teaching university students.

Academic freedom can only go so far. Once you start attacking an event in which six million people died, you have gone way too far.

Jon Leener

UW Student

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Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 5:08am):

just because someone is a holocaust surviver doesn't mean they are immune from being called a "clown". NF is an expert on the holocaust who's grandparents died in it. Let's not get carried Jon, he never called the holocaust a circus... he only makes the argument that it has been used, often times, to perpetuate the occupation of Palestine.

Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 9:08am):

You need to do background information....Wiesel was a clown! He juggled, made animal shaped-balloons and scared the crap out of kids at a circus that just happened to be called the "Holocaust". Just a coincidence- don't get mad.

Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 10:16am):

9:08, you sound like a Holocaust denier. Would you care to elaborate on your point?

Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 11:31am):

Plus, Finkelstein differentiates between "the Holocaust," which he uses to describe the juedocide as its represented in popular culture, and "the Nazi Holocaust," the actual historical event. I know books can be tricky, but reading them before you comment on them can help stop you from making an ass of yourself.

Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 11:32am):

"he only makes the argument that it has been used, often times, to perpetuate the occupation of Palestine."

Wrong. The Palestinians are the occupiers, not the Israelis. For trying to right a 2000-year-old wrong, they have to put up with this? Don't you hippies have anything better to do? I take that back-if you DID have anything better to do, you wouldn't be hippies. Slackers maybe, but not hippies.

Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 10:21pm):

"Wrong. The Palestinians are the occupiers, not the Israelis. For trying to right a 2000-year-old wrong, they have to put up with this?"

By this logic, I assume that you would also agree that people of European descent are the occupiers of America, and that our "wrong" could be righted by returning all U.S. territory to native Americans. Somehow I doubt this is the case.

2000 year wrongs can't be righted-history is too messy, and all these terms-Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Arabs-imply far clearer delineations and continuities than those that actually exist. What we need is a tenable political solution as removed from incendiary ideologies as possible.

Anonymous (September 13, 2007 @ 11:20pm):

"By this logic, I assume that you would also agree that people of European descent are the occupiers of America, and that our "wrong" could be righted by returning all U.S. territory to native Americans. Somehow I doubt this is the case."

Assume what you will, but would you also agree that 2000 years of blaming all Jews for all time for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was wrong too? How do you think all that Jew-bashing got started? Christians were the ones who got that ball rolling, then Muslims joined in later on. After the Holocaust, the Jews have every right to claim Israel as their own. Everyone else can blow.

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