Criticism of Israel and Anti-Semitism Are NOT Synonymous

Here's some thoughtful and engaging commentary by Johann Hari who, in addition to his time spent undercover in extremist Islamist and neo-Nazi organizations, has become a critic of (at least some of) the actions of the State of Israel:

The Loathsome Smearing of Israel's Critics
by Johann Hari
The Independent - Thursday, 8 May 2008

Although in years past Hari worked undercover as an investigative reporter uncovering the ugly face of anti-Semitism in various places, which included the unfortunately rather easy job of documenting its prevalence amongst Islamic extremists, he has now been labeled an anti-Semite since he has the gall to criticize the inhumane actions of the Zionist government and their oppression of the Palestinian people. This gem of an article discusses everyone from Melanie Phillips and former President Jimmy Carter to Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein, and is thus highly recommended. It demonstrates once again that not only do the pro-Zionists not entertain such effrontery very well, but their responses are getting increasingly irrational and transparent. This is probably because the non sequitur of the "Criticism of Israel = Anti-Semitism" formula should be obvious to any morally decent person with a single active brain cell...especially when an increasing number of the critics are Jews and Israelis themselves.

For readers who may have been duped into believing that Islam condones anti-Semitism, then I suggest taking a look at Holocaust Denial Undermines Islam, by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, as well as all of our postings on the topics of Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Israel...keeping the title of this posting in mind while reading.

On that note, I'll add that there are a couple [(1)(2)] of new interviews with Norman Finkelstein out on YouTube.com that are well worth a watch. In the first one, although edited by the pro-Zionist group MEMRI, the truth still manages to come out...and it's great watching the former professor at DePaul University chastise the Lebanese interviewer. The latter video contains an interview with Riz Khan, formerly of CNN but now with Aljazeera, from July 2007, and focuses on the circumstances surrounding Finkelstein's denial of tenure by DePaul University, which was largely due to the efforts of Alan Dershowitz—Professor of Law at Harvard University, Advocate of Torture, Denier of the Plight of the Palestinian People, and Documented Plagiarizer.

Deen on...

Alan Dershowitz and the Identical Errors Issue

Here's a link to the latest CounterPunch Special Report, which offers a detailed analysis of the charges of plagiarism leveled against Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz by Norman Finkelstein. In his discussion of this ongoing debate, Frank J. Menetrez shows how Dershowitz is both desperately trying to avoid discussing the detailed evidence against him and has deliberately misrepresented the issues as presented by Finkelstein. This is a fascinating issue, which has still managed to stay under the radar of the mainstream media, that I've been tracking for a couple of years now since I find what Dershowitz has managed to get away with to be truly outrageous. Even though this latest article is rather lengthy, it actually serves as a rather useful summary of this ongoing and heavily documented saga. Due to this, I strongly recommend reading it since it not only cuts to the chase and focuses on the real issues, but also provides some perspective on what's really at stake in all of this:

The Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Plagiarism, Cover Up and Misrepresentations
By Frank J. Menetrez
CounterPunch.org - February 11, 2008

As the article points out, what lies at the heart of the case against Alan Dershowitz is the "identical errors argument"—which is why he has not only continually avoided discussing it, but deliberately misrepresented Finkelstein's case in order keep attention away from it. Upon looking at the evidence, Dershowitz's desperation is understandable, since he could be in some real hot water if Harvard ever initiated a forthright and detailed investigation. As Frank J. Menetrez states, "If Harvard never investigated the identical errors issue and Dershowitz has always known that, and if I am also right that Finkelstein's charge concerning the Twain quote is sound, then Dershowitz has committed academic misconduct on several levels." These "several levels" are then expounded upon. Once these are considered, along with the rest of the evidence that the article puts forward, I think any honest person should be outraged and frustrated by the fact that "No honest and competent investigation by Harvard would have held Dershowitz to a lower standard than Harvard sets for its freshmen." So what are they waiting for?

Well it seems that for awhile Dershowitz had them duped, but the article in question might just be one more step towards waking the Harvard University administration from their stupor. As Menetrez explains, "Dershowitz's characterizations of the dispute are demonstrably incorrect. The identical errors argument, which lies at the heart of Finkelstein's case, shows that the plagiarism charge is not a technical matter about citation style or about the definition of plagiarism. Rather, it is factual dispute about whether Dershowitz copied primary source material directly from Peters without citing Peters and without checking the primary source himself. Again, Dershowitz has known this since the fall of 2003. It thus appears that Dershowitz's strategy from the start has been to pretend that this factual dispute does not exist and to hope that no one will notice." Ouch!

And keep in mind, that this isn't just a petty squabble between a couple of Ivory Tower academics, since there are looming questions concerning not only ethics and the long-term reputation of one of the most respected universities in the world, but academic freedom as well. As Menetrez puts it, "this is not just between Harvard and Dershowitz, or between Dershowitz and Finkelstein. Rather, Harvard has a moral obligation to Finkelstein to acknowledge, at a bare minimum, that it has never completely cleared Dershowitz of Finkelstein's plagiarism charges, because it has never rejected Finkelstein's argument concerning the identical errors"—so don't let Dershowitz's smoke screen fool you.

We've blogged on The Dershowitz Hoax and related topics quite a few times before ([1][2][3][4][5][6]), so hopefully this latest post will server as a good synopsis for those who don't have the time to read Norman Finkelstein's entire book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History and the whole host of articles on this topic. However, if you have time, take a few minutes and watch these videos, since they provide ample evidence on just how pathetic Alan Dershowitz really is.

Deen on...

More Problems with B. Hussein Obama...

The other day, I posted regarding an article in which Imam Zaid Shakir, our beloved scholar of African-American descent, brought some thoughtful considerations concerning Barack Hussein Obama to light. If that wasn't enough to raise your eyebrows, maybe this article, in which he makes it clear that he is an uncritical and biased supporter of Israel, will:

Obama's Letter to the UN in Support of Israel [95 KB JPG file]

Personally, I don't see how any person who confuses a country's right to defend itself against violent attack (even if they're occupying land that they don't rightfully own in the first place) with gross human rights violations and generalized abuse against an entire civilian population is qualified to be president. I wonder what he would say if the case of apartheid in question was taking place in South Africa rather than Israel. Would he side with the white Afrikaaners who were defending themselves against attacks by the (allegedly) "backward" and "barbaric" blacks? Isn't it amazing that when it comes to Israel, how many people throw basic human morality out the window?

Personally, another thing that really bothers me about the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama is his stand on gun control. If you check CNN's Campaign Issues, which is a convenient reference for finding out where the candidates stand on various top issues, you'll see that in regards to Guns he supports a "national law against carrying concealed weapons"—although this seems rather unconstitutional. Is Obama unaware that Amendment X of the U.S. Constitution (i.e. the last amendment in the Bill of Rights), says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people"? Seemingly so. Unfortunately, about the only strict constitutionalist that's running this year is Ron Paul, but the media seems determined not to let him have a chance.

Anyway, Obama's position on gun control makes it patently clear that he's just another Big Government Democrat who, besides wanting to disarm law-abiding citizens that the majority of U.S. states have seen fit to arm, seems to think that "rights" are something that a government grants rather than being God-given and inalienable—whether the government agrees or not. Instead of presiding over a republic of free men and women, Barack seems to think citizens should be disarmed and cowering in their homes until Big Daddy Government can come to their rescue. Needless to say, this isn't what the Founding Fathers had in mind...not to speak of the founder of Islam!

Please note that what Barack is calling for on this point is the intellectual equivalent of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) blaming automobiles for alcohol-related highway deaths. Fortunately, however, the mothers at MADD are astute enough to realize—and you don't have to be too smart to realize this—that it's not the inanimate object that should be blamed, but rather the human actor. Even when faced with the fact that far, far more children in America die each year by drowning in swimming pools than are killed by firearms, they haven't allowed themselves to become morally confused and call for the abolition of swimming pools. In the final analysis, I think Obama probably realizes this too, but since the gun issue is such a convenient way for Big Government Democrats to manipulate the emotions of a painfully misinformed public, he just jumps on the bandwagon. Sad, but seemingly true...

Ninety Years Since Balfour...

Media Monitors has an interesting, although somewhat disjointed and sarcastic, article which provides some great background information for the upcoming Middle East Peace conference scheduled to begin shortly in Annapolis, Maryland...a conference that was seemingly (?) scheduled to roughly coincide with the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Some of the quotations in the article are real eye-openers, so it's certainly worth a read.

Annapolis, November 27, 2007:
Only Fools Believing in Miracles Rush In Land
for Peace or Land--Piece by Piece by Piece

This reminds me that I once heard that (and this was years ago), upon being asked whether they would formally recognize the State of Israel, Palestinian negotiators replied: "Define the State of Israel"—which obviously put the Zionists in the precarious position of having to answer the one question that is now at the heart of this conflict: What are the borders of the Zionist state? If they had said it includes the West Bank and Gaza, well they would have defied the U.N., almost every country in the world...thus the Palestinians could have just walked away and gained at least a moral and diplomatic victory (assuming that media coverage was fair...which it never is). However, if the Israelis said that the State of Israel constitutes only its pre-1967 borders, and thus promised to adhere to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, then the Palestinians would have won the justice that they've so long been denied! So whether this story is apocryphal or not, the point behind it is quite solid: Demand that Israel define its borders before asking to be recognized. This will be one giant step towards ending the confusion and the conflict...but don't hold your breath.

Deen on...

Interview with Norman Finkelstein

Below is a link to a recent Islamica Magazine interview with Norman Finkelstein, a "prolific scholar and outstanding teacher", who was recently denied tenure and put on administrative leave by DePaul University after scandalous, and ultimately successful, efforts initiated by Professor Alan Dershowitz not only brought about a grave injustice, but undermined academic freedom as well. As I touched upon in a previous blog posting, reading in detail about the anti-Finkelstein antics of Dershowitz is well worth the time invested. Not only is the fact that Alan Dershowitz got away with bringing Professor Finkelstein down totally outrageous, but the fact that a Harvard Law professor wrote a book that is "a mixture of plagiarism, shoddy research, and poor scholarship" (as Wahajat Ali puts in in the interview) but still manages to keep his job (although possibly not a very stellar reputation) is mind-boggling. Here's the link to the interview:

Interview with Norman Finkelstein [PDF]
On Islamo-Fascism and Other Vacuous Epithets
By Wajahat Ali - November 20, 2007
http://www.IslamicaMagazine.com/

Information on Dr. Finkelstein's book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, in which he exposes the shoddy scholarship of Alan Dershowitz's book The Case for Israel, can be found here. As always, it's eye-opening to read the 1-star reviews of Finkelstein's book on Amazon.com just to get a taste of the myopic criticism that is normally thrown his way, including all of the banal accusations of anti-Semitism (keeping in mind that Norman Finkelstein is himself Jewish and his parents were survivors of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust). To fully understand just how misplaced this criticism is, I strongly recommend watching the videos of a lecture given by Dr. Finkelstein entitled Is Criticism of Israel Anti-Semitic?, which can be found here.

For more information related to the Dershowitz-Finkelstein scandal, check out these links ([1], [2], [3]) and well as our previous postings ([1], [2], [3]) related to Norman Finkelstein...as well as this.

Enjoy...

See, Muslims Aren't All Bad After All

Hear's a heartwarmer:

A Gesture of Love
SkyNews - November 07, 2005

"The parents of a Palestinian boy killed by Israeli soldiers have donated his organs to three Israeli children."

In Religious Tolerance News...

Just when you thought you'd seen it all:

Israel Plans to Build 'Museum of Tolerance' on Muslim Graves
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
The Independent (UK) - 09 February 2006

As Rolled-Up Trousers put it: "You better believe it baby..."

If Americans Knew...The Truth About What's Going on in Israel/Palestine

I just happened to come across the If Americans Knew website today. The subtitle to the site is "what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine", and it contains a wealth of information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including comparative facts on children killed, deaths, injuries, U.S. Aid, U.N. Resolutions, prisoners, homes destroyed, unemployment rates and illegal settlements.

Also, their Media Analysis section contains some great information exposing the double-standards and slanted reporting of some well known news agencies. For a couple of examples of this, check out Off the Charts and Accuracy in Israel/Palestine Reporting - San Francisco Chronicle.

Please remember to share this with a friend...and Deen On.