The Finkelstein Lobby Gets Clobbered, Again
1. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=7CEDE651-A059-4B32-8FB2-93DDF0BB3AF3The Finkelstein Lobby Gets Clobbered, AgainBy Steven PlautFrontPageMagazine.com | 9/18/2008st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } In recent years, one of the worst segments of the huge Destroy-Israel Lobby operates on behalf of the unemployed ex-faculty member Norman Finkelstein. You may recall that DePaul University last year joined the growing list of academic institutions in which the anti-Semitic hate-mongerer Finkelstein has gotten himself fired, and Finkelstein has been unemployed ever since. The Finkelstein Lobby refused to surrender to common sense since then, and in fact recently tried, unsuccessfully, once again to get its guru of terrorism hired at yet another school.Norman Finkelstein is a leading anti-Semite and Holocaust mocker and trivializer. In spite of having been born to Jewish parents, he tried to build an academic career on turning out anti-Jewish hate, misrepresented as “scholarship.” The New York Times dismissed Finkelstein’s scribblings as comparable to the czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Finkelstein is renowned not only for smearing and obscene mocking of Holocaust survivors, but also for his obsessive vulgarity and juvenile insulting of serious academics. He is also notorious for his devoted service on behalf of Hezbollah and Islamofascism.Finkelstein has proclaimed Holocaust denier David Irving (who insists there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz) a great historian and his role model. Finkelstein’s personal web site is a collection of hate and bigotry, including death threats and pornographic cartoons, as well as countless smug denunciations of all Holocaust survivors, whom he accuses of stealing money from Germany and victimizing the Germans. Finkelstein’s “books” have been dismissed as pseudo-scholarship by nearly every serious historian to review them. He maintains the most intimate ties with Holocaust Deniers and he is himself considered by the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and many others to be a Holocaust Denier.The Finkelstein Lobby, which operates on his behalf, is a hodgepodge of anti-Semites, including Middle East jihadniks, ranging from David Duke and the Holocaust Deniers on the ultra-right to the Neo-Stalinist cheerleaders of the jihad in Counterpunch on the left. The Finkelstein lobby is as devoted to historical revisionism when it comes to the career of its hero as Finkelstein himself is devoted to Holocaust revisionism. The Destroy-Israel Lobby seeks to attribute Finkelstein’s career failure to the all-but-nonexistent “Israel Lobby,” while overlooking the bizarre alliance of hatred and bigotry comprising the Finkelstein Lobby.Finkelstein apologists run about the globe and the cyber-world proclaiming that Finkelstein was the “victim” of a nefarious sinister conspiracy. They claim a sinister cabal of Jews is suppressing academic freedom in America and elsewhere, denying freedom of speech to critics of Israel.The “narrative” of the firing of Finkelstein by his lobby is maliciously wrong about what actually happened on each and every point. Such a collection of deliberate disinformation would be hard to find anywhere else. Finkelstein was fired not only by DePaul, but by three schools in the New York area before that . all for the same reason . a complete lack of serious scholarship and academic publications. Such a record makes clear that Finkelstein is not a scholar at all, but a propagandist. The fact that he published books hardly makes him a scholar or academic researcher. David Irving, the notorious British pseudo-historian and Holocaust Denier, has published books, as have David Duke, and Alexander Cockburn. Publishers choose which books to publish based on their commercial potential, and Bash-the-Jews books always sell well. No serious academic institution would count the sort of hate propaganda peddled by Finkelstein as research or scholarship. That of course does not mean that unserious institutions are reluctant to hire hate propagandists from the Left as academics.And that is really the lesson of the Finkelstein saga at DePaul. That university decided to get serious about enforcing academic standards and tests of academic excellence when Finkelstein’s apologists decided to try to get him tenure there. Finkelstein was fired because he has no academic credentials, with not a single article published in a bona fide academic journal. Indeed, he was hired in the first place by the entrenched far Left at DePaul University, which has managed to hornswaggle the administration there into granting other pseudo-academic leftists tenure. But Finkelstein’s career of vulgar hate and anti-Semitism had drawn too much attention to be ignored by university leaders.More generally, the problem in American academia is not suppression of academic freedom by some imaginary Israel Lobby, but rather the orchestration of campaigns of support on behalf of incompetent far-leftist pseudo-scholars as acts of solidarity by the entrenched Campus Tenured Left. Those campaigns have resulted in charlatans and buffoons who do little more than mouth anti-American and anti-Israel slogans getting hired and promoted, often in spite of their having no serious academic accomplishments whatsoever. The Anti-Israel Lobby is the enemy of academic excellence and plays a destructive role in this attempt at subverting American academic standards.The bulk of the outside interference in Finkelstein’s promotion proceedings was by his supporters, not his detractors. A media myth has arisen about the role of Alan Dershowitz in all that, but Dershowitz merely expressed his well-documented opinion when it was solicited by DePaul. The Left recruited Israel-hating propagandists at other universities to come to the aid of Finkelstein and pressured DePaul to give him tenure. In one of the worst cases of academic prostitution in recent years, Ian Lustick from the University of Pennsylvania and the anti-Israel propagandist Avi Shlaim from Oxford wrote sycophantic letters of recommendation on Finkelstein’s behalf, hailing his “scholarship.” Noam Chomsky also pitched in, as did even a few Israeli self-hating leftist extremists.The narrative of Finkelstein’s firing by DePaul as told by the Finkelstein Lobby is pure fiction. Finkelstein’s apologists claim he fell victim to academic politicization. But the simple truth is that Finkelstein was one of the country’s most obvious beneficiaries of academic politicization and scholarly prostitution, and he would never have been hired at DePaul without it. The lobby on behalf of Finkelstein did inadvertently succeed in one thing - drawing light to the fact that academia is crawling with pseudo-scholarly extremists who have made a career out of ladling out political advocacy and extremist agitprop. The recruitment of political support on behalf of such characters demonstrates how dishonest and unscrupulous are the depths to which the Bash-Israel Lobby is willing to sink.That brings us to the latest developments in the continuing Finkelstein mythology. Since getting booted out of DePaul in the summer of 2007, Finkelstein has been unemployed, although he continues to travel the speaking circuit, offering his opinions to Hezbollah terrorists, jihadists of all stripes, and others. New York Magazine reports that he is living in a dusty rent-controlled basement tenement owned by his parents near Coney Island. But the newest campaign on his behalf by his groupies has consisted of an attempt to get him hired at California State University in Northridge, near Los Angeles.Most of the initiative to get Finkelstein a new job at CSUN seems to have come from a far-leftist professor of math there, one David Klein. He has a track record of goofiness, such as claiming that Big Business wants to prevent oppressed minorities from learning math and that the LA Board of Education wants to suppress thinking and debate in schools.After Finkelstein was evicted by DePaul, Klein decided to rush to his rescue. Whether Klein was motivated by mere stupidity, actually believing that Finkelstein is a serious scholar fired because of Zionist pressure, or something far more nefarious, is open to debate. Klein demanded of his own university that they hire Finkelstein, if only as a visiting professor. In a statement about his efforts on behalf of Finkelstein, Klein writes: “There can be little doubt that Finkelstein was fired (at DePaul) because of his criticisms of Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinian people, and for his fact-based criticisms of the Israel lobby.” Klein then adds: “An unstated axiom for U.S. universities is that criticism of Israel by untenured faculty members is not allowed. Academic freedom protects critics of the national policies of the U.S., France, England, and every other country in the world, save one: Israel.”Starting in July 2007, Klein started haranguing his own university officials to hire Finkelstein. In February 2008, Finkelstein showed up on campus to give some agitprop guest lectures. Klein was joined by one Mehran Kamrava, an Iranian professor in political science at CSUN, in marketing Finkelstein. As usually happens when Finkelstein speaks outside Arab terrorist encampments, his “lectures” at CSUN triggered protests and hostility. Some local Jewish groups distributed a booklet about “Stinky Finky.” CSUN officials got letters of protest and some threats to withhold financial support if it hosted or hired Finkelstein. The student paper at CSUN, the Daily Sundial, ran pieces exposing Finkelstein as a hatemonger and opposing the visit. Jody Myers, Professor of Religious Studies and Coordinator of the Jewish Studies Program at CSUN, opined: “We believe our administration should be following its own stated mission and only invite speakers who meet our high level of scholarship and who exercise academic responsibility… He (Finkelstein) isn’t a responsible scholar.”The tenured Left at CSUN, including the entire “Women’s Studies” department, wrote letters endorsing Finkelstein and demanding he be hired. Chomsky sent in a letter of support. The same people so outraged when Dershowitz wrote a letter about Finkelstein to DePaul have had nothing to say about this! Despite the juggernaut by the Finkelstein Lobby, all the efforts failed. There is simply too much material available now about Finkelstein and he could not slip under the academic radar screen at CSUN, as his lobby managed to do with him when he was hired at DePaul in 2000. The CSUN university heads vetoed the idea of granting him a new academic podium from which he could spew his agitprop.Klein wrote his own provost that the Israel Lobby is preventing honest discussion of the Middle East and of Israel. Klein then wrote a long-winded essay about cases in which the “Zionist Lobby” supposedly prevented serious academics from speaking on campuses, such as the infamous incident involving Robert Trivers. In fact ultra-leftist Trivers was prevented from speaking at Harvard, but only because he had threatened to murder Alan Dershowitz.In recent years, it has gotten harder for the Tenured Left to muscle campus heads into hiring and promoting Far Leftist propagandists and pseudo-scholars. There is no shortage of radicals among the faculty on most campuses, but those with near-zero academic accomplishments and achievements in research are having a harder time getting past the hurdles. Far leftists, anti-American podium preachers, and foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Semites are having their academic records scrutinized more closely, and that is what has the Left in terror. Some leftist pseudo-academics are finding their “academic careers” blocked by universities which are at last getting serious about enforcing academic standards, even for members of the Far Left. And that is why the anti-Israel Lobby is in hysterics.2. Livni .wins. the Kadima Primary by 431 votes? You realize what that means? Her victory margin is less than a fifth of the number of Jews who have been murdered by the Oslo policies of Kadima and its partners!Is Tzipi really clean? Here is the magnificent Caroline Glick on the question: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2008/09/mrs_clean_is_a_fraud.asp3. http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=75488What? Israel to help Muslims carve Quranic verses on Temple MountIslamic writings all over holiest site for JudaismPosted: September 16, 20088:46 pm EasternBy Aaron Klein 2008 WorldNetDailyJERUSALEM . After three years of waiting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quietly has granted permission to the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount to repair and enhance Quranic verses plastered around Judaism’s holiest site, WND has learned.The approval came as result of the petitioning of the Israeli government by Jordan, which has been solidifying control over the Temple Mount in recent years.There are more than 4,000 Quranic quotations written in Arabic calligraphy and carved into various Islamic buildings throughout the Temple Mount, including inside and outside the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.Six hundred of the carved verses are in poor condition, according to the Waqf, the Mount’s Muslim custodians.(Story continues below)The Waqf has been asking Israel for permission to repair the Quranic quotation carvings for years now. It even transported to the Israeli port city of Ashdod boxes of European tools and machinery especially made to repair the Temple Mount Quranic verses. The tools have been sitting in Ashdod for three years, according to informed sources.Following Jordanian intervention, Olmert last week gave the Waqf approval to begin fixing the Quranic quotes, the informed sources told WND.Jordan controlled areas of eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, from 1948 until Israel recaptured the site in the 1967 Six Day War.During the period of Jordanian control, Jews were barred from the Western Wall and Temple Mount, and hundreds of synagogues in eastern Jerusalem were destroyed. Jordan constructed a road that stretched across the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the Temple Mount, bulldozing hundreds of Jewish gravestones in the process.Following the Six Day War, one of the first acts of Moshe Dayan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, was to ensure the Jordanian-allied Mufti of Jerusalem, Abd Al Hamid A Saih, the holy site would remain under Islamic custodianship.Dayan later also famously ordered an Israeli flag removed from the Dome of the Rock.Jordan continues to maintain a major influence over the Temple Mount. Sheik Azzam Khateeb, who was installed in February 2007 as the new manager of the Waqf, is known to be close to the Jordanian monarchy. The previous Waqf manager, Sheik Adnon Husseini, was loyal to Palestinian Authority although toward the end of his rein, he seemed to be warming to Jordan.In a gesture to Jordan, in January 2006, Israel granted Jordan permission to replace the main podium in the Al Aqsa Mosque from which Islamic preachers deliver their sermons. The podium, which was partially funded by Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the most important stands in the Muslim world. Muslims now believe it marks the “exact spot” Muhammad went up to heaven to receive revelations from Allah.The new stand bears the emblem of the Jordanian kingdom. It replaced a 1,000-year-old podium believed to have been shipped to Jerusalem by the Islamic conqueror Saladin.That stand was destroyed in 1969, when an Australian tourist set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque.In recent years, Jordan quietly has been purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials speaking to WND.The officials disclosed the Jordanian kingdom in 2006 and 2007 used shell companies to purchase several apartments and shops located at key peripheral sections of the Temple Mount. The shell companies at times presented themselves as acting on behalf of the Waqf custodians of the Temple Mount, according to information obtained.The officials said Jordan also set up a commission to use the shell companies to petition mostly Arab landowners adjacent to eastern sections of the Temple Mount to sell their properties. They said profits from sales at any purchased shops would be reinvested to buy more real estate near the Mount and in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods.The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. The First Jewish Temple was built there by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God’s shechina or “presence” dwelt. All Jewish holidays centered on worship at the Temple. The Jewish Temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place for the Jewish people.According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. The site is believed to be the Biblical Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham fulfilled God’s test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.Jewish tradition holds Mashiach, or the Jewish Messiah, will return and rebuild the third and final Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem.The Kotel, or Western Wall, is the one part of the Temple Mount that survived the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and stands today in Jerusalem.Throughout all notorious Jewish exiles, thorough documentation shows the Jews never gave up their hope of returning to Jerusalem and re-establishing their Temple. To this day Jews worldwide pray facing the Western Wall, while Muslims turn their backs away from the Temple Mount and pray toward Mecca.The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph.About 100 years ago, Al Aqsa in Jerusalem became associated with the place Muslims came to believe Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jerusalem, however, is not mentioned in the Quran.Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from “a sacred mosque” . believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia . to “the farthest mosque,” and from a rock there ascended to heaven to receive revelations from Allah that became part of the Quran.Palestinians today claim exclusivity over the Temple Mount and Palestinian leaders routinely deny Jewish historic connection to the site, but historically, Muslims did not claim the Al Aqsa Mosque as their third holiest site and admitted the Jewish Temples existed.According to research by Israeli author Shmuel Berkovits, Islam previously disregarded Jerusalem. He points out in his book “How Dreadful Is this Place!” that Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for. Berkovits wrote that Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship, and sanctifying only one place . the Kaaba in Mecca . to signify the unity of God.As late as the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings influenced the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be found only in the Arabian Peninsula, and that “in Jerusalem, there is not a place one calls sacred, and the same holds true for the tombs of Hebron.”It wasn’t until the late 19th century . incidentally when Jews started immigrating to Palestine . that some Muslim scholars began claiming Muhammad tied his horse to the Western Wall and associated Muhammad’s purported night journey with the Temple Mount.A guide to the Temple Mount by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem published in 1925 listed the Mount as the site of Solomon’s Temple. The Temple Institute acquired a copy of the official 1925 “Guide Book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” which states on page 4, “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which ‘David built there an altar unto the Lord.’”4. .Voluntary Violence. in Paris: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221489061996&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull5. About the .right of return.: See this: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=39C3D491-CF5D-4D56-99D2-D252CBAC7EFD and then see this from isracampus.org.il: University of Haifa - Ron Kuzar (Dept of English) - fan of the “Canaanite” movement of post-Jewishness - deconstructs and prettifies the “Palestinian Right to Return,” discovers it means something other than the annihilation of Israel, a discovery that will come as a great shock to the Palestinians:”The Term Return in the Palestinian Discourse on the Right of Return”2008, Discourse & Society 19(5)’The term return is used in the English texts of contemporary Palestinian political authors writing on the Right of Return of Palestinians to their homes and homeland. The first part is dedicated to a semantic analysis of return as a radial category with a core meaning and extensions. Then the meanings of return in these texts are discussed, as used in the discourse of Palestinian maximalists versus pragmatists. It is shown that (1) different meanings of return are selected according to whether the writer is a maximalist or a pragmatist, and (2) a reality that harmonizes with these meanings is narratively constructed.’(We would like to see Kuzar present his findings in Gaza City!)For more published material by Ron Kuzar’s see these:http://members.tripod.com/alabasters_archive/kuzar_intros.html and http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar/afterword-excerpt.htmlFor more details and to see the full original article, go here6. Check out the latest from ALEF WATCH at the Isracampus site: http://isracampus.org.il/ALEF%20Watch.htm
Tags: Mortgage Rate Quotes
