In Defense of Finkelstein

Most American academics will go out of their way to be unhelpful to you at best. One of the few exceptions to this rule is Norman Finkelstein. The few times I have contacted him by e-mail he has responded promptly and been helpful. He is also one of the few academics doing honest research. It was from reading him that I discovered that the Labor Zionists under Ben Gurion had modeled their ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in part upon the Soviet deportations of the Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars. It was also from Finkelstein that I learned that Joseph Schechtman had studied the forced expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II precisely to provide a template for dealing with the Palestinians. Yet, because he does not tow the standard left Zionist line that predominates in American academia he has found his livelihood under constant threat. The current attempt by Alan Dershowitz and others to deny Finkelstein tenure at DePaul University is despicable. He certainly deserves tenure far more than Dershowitz does.

Mark Elf of JSF has put up what I hope is the first of several posts in defense of Finkelstein. If anybody else puts up anything else along these lines please let me know and I will link to it. For all the academic whinging about academic freedom I see very few US professors going to bat for Finkelstein. It is kind of like they only believe in freedom for ideas they support.