 "Photo: Chris Moriarty/Collegian")
Professor, author and outspoken critic of Israel, Norman Finkelstein gave a guest lecture in the University of Massachusetts student union ballroom Wednesday night.
His lecture titled, "Palestine and Israel: roots of conflict, prospects for peace," was centered on Israeli treatment of Palestinians as being the primary obstacle to peace in the region, the distortion of the conflict in the media and the manipulation of Anti-Semitism.
Finkelstein repeated throughout his lecture that there was little controversy to the issue. For someone who speaks of there being a lack controversy, Finkelstein himself generates a lot of it.
Finkelstein has been castigated for his audacious opinion of there being a "holocaust industry," which asserts Israel uses the holocaust and anti-Semitism as a political tool.
Finkelstein calls it "the uniqueness doctrine," asserting that there is the idea that Jewish suffering was unique and therefore Israel uses that as a basis to ignore regular moral ethical standards in regard to their policy with Palestinians.
"The purpose is to turn perpetrators into victims. To focus on the suffering of Jews rather than the suffering of the Palestinians," said Finkelstein. While Finkelstein does not deny the degree of genocide during the holocaust, his believes that the suffering should not be used as a means to a political end.
According to Finkelstein there is no controversy to the issue of Israeli occupation when seen through the prism of international law.
"Why is it that when it comes to these questions that are called so controversial, there is absolutely no controversy in the ruling of the world court?" he said.
Finkelstein cites the takeover of Palestinian land by Israel in June 1967 as a violation of law, stating it is inadmissible to acquire territory by force. Finkelstein said that the proposal of a two-state settlement has been on the table at the United Nations for almost 30 years, and the vast majority of the members each year vote in support.
"Israel has been the primary obstacle to a peace agreement," said Finkelstein.
Finkelstein cites the decision of the world court ruling unanimously that the Israeli settlements are illegal.
"It is difficult to find a conflict in history where there is that level of accordance," he said. "It is remarkably uncontroversial."
Finkelstein stated that Israel must adhere to the same borders as in 1967 in order to achieve peace.
"If in the fundamental question there is no controversy, how do you explain the huge amount of controversy in the media?" he asked.
Finkelstein said it was a fabrication that the conflict is so complex and hard to define that it cannot be compared to any other conflict and a resolution is also difficult to reach.
"There's an effort to mystify the conflict and claim it is so complicated it cannot be easily understood. That it is a cosmic clash of religion and civilizations," he said. "The purpose of that is to make people suspend their legal and ethical judgments."
Finkelstein said the treatment of the Palestinians in Israel is an ethnic cleansing and that it is similar to Apartheid in South Africa and to the treatment of Native Americans in the United States.
Finkelstein asserts there is a fundamental contradiction in the demands that are made on Palestine. "Israel has failed to implement the opinion of the international court, yet they escape the imposition of sanctions. Instead the Palestinian government is subjected to the most rigorous sanctions in modern times."
While Palestinians are required to disarm, that demand is not reciprocated to Israel, according to Finkelstein.
"No international demand has been put on Israel to denounce its terrorism," he said.
At the entrance of the lecture were representatives from the Student Alliance for Israel, who handed out flyers questioning Finkelstein's academic integrity and pointing out his opinions as fodder for anti Semitism and Neo-Nazi propaganda. Matt Hoffman who is with the SAFI said, "Finkelstein asserts that Jews are exploiting the holocaust to put us in an unfair position of power."
At the lecture was Henia Lewin, who is a child survivor of the holocaust was born in 1940 in Lithuania and lived in the Jewish ghetto in Kaunas.
"Finkelstein says that the [Palestinian] refugees have a right to go back to their homes, after the holocaust we couldn't go back to our homes. Some people tried to go back and were killed. The only reason Jews had a home to go back to was Israel, " said Lewin.
Lewin believes that Finkelstein is exploiting the holocaust for his own career benefits.
Also at the event were students from the Palestine Action Coalition. Yuval Sivan is a grad student at UMass, he was born in Haifa, Israel in 1981. "I don't support the state of Israel," he said. "I would like a democracy with equal rights for everyone, where Palestinians can move back to their homes. It wouldn't be considered a Jewish state; even if it was still called Israel."
Finkelstein has many adversaries in response to his opinions. Most notably is Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard University, and academic proponent of Israel.
In the lecture, Finkelstein called Dershowitz's book, "The case for Israel," "a complete fraud from start to finish." Finkelstein said that Dershowitz's claims of Israel's human rights record "bore no resemblance to what human rights organizations report," and that he could never quote human rights organization's because in doing so would contradict himself.
Finkelstein directly accused Dershowitz of plagiarism, charges that were eventually dropped by Harvard. In return Dershowitz attempted a lawsuit to prevent the publishing of Finkelstein's book, "Beyond Chutzpah," which is critical of Dershowitz and his research. Dershowitz has referred to Finkelstein as a "crackpot."
Norman Finkelstein was born in New York in 1953. His parents were Polish Jews who survived the holocaust. He holds a PhD in Political Studies from Princeton University. He has been a professor at Rutgers, Brooklyn College, New York University and Hunter College, although he has never earned tenure. Since 2003, Finkelstein has been an assistant professor of political theory at DePaul University in Chicago.
Wes Rahn can be reached at wrahn@student.umass.edu.
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