In flinching move, Finkelstein slams boycott movement

[Mosby]

The interview with Norman Finkelstein that circulated all over the web on Wednesday, in which he calls the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel a “cult” and compares it to Maoism is, I think, a milestone of sorts. Or, more accurately, the symptom of a milestone – a sign that the ground is shifting on Israel/Palestine issues.

Normal Finkelstein has made a career out of being the son of holocaust survivors who doesn’t shy away from picking a fight with Israel’s backers, and who unabashedly defends the rights of Palestinians. At times his controversial positions have set his career back, as when he was denied tenure at DePaul University. However, on balance he has certainly benefited, as a less combative scholar would today likely be simply one of thousands of obscure political science professors.

Everything about the interview is classic Finkelstein: his demeanor, his tendency to raise his voice, his adversarial, passionate approach, everything, that is, except for the things he’s saying. In a bizarre turn of events, he comes off as a Zionist bully, or for that matter, any other angry right wing pundit. He accuses activists for Palestinian civil rights of having a secret agenda, that of destroying Israel. He seems obsessed with some overarching concept of the Law as final arbiter in all matters, as though in this case we weren’t talking about a variety of laws, many of which at times contradict each other, and as though there isn’t a history of the law being written, enforced, and misinterpreted by political actors at the expense of the weak. His complaint that solidarity movement activists want to cherry pick which laws they respect is reminiscent of the claims made by white religious leaders that Dr. Martin Luther King so famously refuted in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

http://972mag.com/in-flinching-move-finkelstein-slams-boycott-movement/35497/

All they got is name calling, what a shock, lol.

[pelsar]

1. my favorite sentence.....

There is an increasing consensus among Israel’s critics to see the issue as one of civil rights, rather than a conflict between two nations.

does that mean, that the Israeli critics are enough concerned about the Palestinian civil rights that they will put pressure on hamas and the PA to let the their own write critical articles, protest their own lack of basic civil rights within the PA society?

just the fact that Finkelstein was pressure to take down his interview shows just how interested these people are in 'civil rights"....tolerance, a basic foundation of civil rights is not one of their values.

[shira]

4. Palestinian rights only matter when Jews are involved. Under Hamas or in Lebanon, not so much. n/t

[shira]

2. Richard Goldstone was thrown under the bus by Leftwing cultists before Finkelstein

Judge Goldstone presides: Apartheid vs. State of Israel
http://972mag.com/judge-goldstone-presides-apartheid-vs-state-of-israel/26978/

Racked by guilt for having exposed a modicum of the truth regarding Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians, Judge Richard Goldstone does an about-face and becomes a spokesperson for the Israeli right wing. Is Goldstone the new Benny Morris?

<snip>

See how it works?

Finkelstein
Goldstone
Benny Morris

All former heroes of the insane Left. All crossed the line and dared to voice their dissent.

All are "rightwingers" now.

[shira]

3. Finkelstein's former bigoted BDS friends get their Jew hating shwerve on....

Ken O’Keefe, who was on board the Mavi Marmara, compared Jews to both the Nazis and to the German people whom, he implies, as a whole collaborated with the Nazis. I have transcribed the final part of his speech below. After referring to “the Jewish people” O’Keefe uses “you” or “your” twelve times to personally direct his rhetoric at the Jews in the theatre. He admits his intent was to inflame:

“So if Israel is inherently a racist state, if it is inherently an apartheid state, then I want no part of Israel, it has no place in this world. And it does in its current form, if you want me to use some inflammatory language, in its current form should be destroyed.

...You have a special obligation brought upon you just like the Nazis brought upon the decent Germans. Good luck to you because the way of Israel, the way of Palestine is the way of the world. And you can mouth at me all you want, good luck to you, because guess what, you are making enemies of all the people, not just me and the falsely accused anti-Semites.” (huge applause)

======

Ghada Karmi described Israel as a “gangster state” and gave us her definition of who is Jew:

“Is it somebody who practices the Jewish religion? They have never been able to find an agreed position.

At the beginning they talked about ‘a person born of a Jewish mother and/or a person who had been converted according to the orthodox system’. That’s it, nobody else.

Over time, when they saw that they were drying up, they started to make it much more elastic. So, now, anybody who has a Jewish parent or a Jewish grandparent is now Jewish.

Not only that. Among the million immigrants from Soviet Russia how many of you know that 40% of these people are not Jewish? They are not Jews! They go to Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches in Israel, ok? 40%.

Not only that. They brought in the Ethiopean Jews. They went fishing for Jews in Peru. They’ve gone to India. Anything. You know what the main purpose of it is? It’s that they should be non-Arab. Non-Arab. You can be any sort of person. You can call yourself ‘a Jew’. As long as you’re not an Arab, it’s alright.”

===================

Jenny Tonge, who describes herself as an “ethnic Christian” (see clip 4), started by telling the audience to beware of the Israel lobby because “once they have decided to go for you, they will go for you. I bear the scars” (clip 5). She finished by saying that “Israel is not going to be there forever” and warned that eventually Israel “will lose its support and then they will reap what they have sown.” (Clip 3)

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/ken-okeefe-compares-jewish-people-to-nazis/

[shira]

5. "NORMAN FINKELSTEIN STABS US IN THE BACK"

We were there for Norman Finkelstein when he was denied tenure at DePaul University…

We were there when he was deported from Israel and banned for ten years for holding opinions such as these…

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We were there supporting every speech he presented at university campuses…

We were behind him every step he took as he was a friend of our cause in every sense of the word… with positions like the following, how could we not support him?

=======

Yet, almost two years ago he turned his back on many of us when he took the following position;
“Why I resigned from the Gaza Freedom March coalition”

I joined the coalition because I believed that an unprecedented opportunity now exists to mobilize a broad public whereby we could make a substantive and not just symbolic contribution towards breaking the illegal and immoral siege of Gaza and, accordingly, realize a genuine and not just token gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza. In its present political configuration I no longer believe the coalition can achieve such a goal. His entire post can be found HERE*

Because of his ‘track record’, most of us left room for his opinions and disagreements and continued to support him wherever necessary.

*

BUT…

*

He literally put a knife in our backs this past week when he slammed the entire BDS Movement. At a time when the Israeli government is doing everything in its power to destroy that movement, including legislation outlawing it, the last thing we needed was a ‘friend’ coming out against it publicly. In the US, the Movement is going mainstream, yet Finkelstein refers to it as a ‘cult’. To quote from Mark Twain; The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right. That was found in his notebook, written in 1898. And we thought Norman Finkelstein was a friend… He is being accused of sounding like Dershowitz. Read on to see why…*

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http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/norman-finkelstein-stabs-us-in-the-back/

[King_David]

6. LOL nt