I was in the Old City of Jerusalem when I first learned that Dr. Norman Finkelstein would be speaking at Tufts. The irony was not lost on me. The news raised a red flag, not because of Finkelstein's notorious tendency to demonize the state of Israel, but because of the potential ramifications for the Tufts community.
Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine has the right to bring any speaker they wish to campus, just as Finkelstein has the right to say whatever he wishes. The question is: Was his presence productive for dialogue on campus? I am less concerned with Finkelstein's demagogic message than I am with the legacy he will leave behind at Tufts.
Finkelstein is regarded as one of the most controversial speakers on the Israeli−Palestinian conflict. His speeches are generally more inflammatory than thought−provoking and more dramatic than anything your mother might watch on ABC daytime television.
Currently an independent scholar, Finkelstein has held short−lived positions at several colleges and has written six books. His claim to fame came with "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" in 2000. Despite being the son of two Holocaust survivors, he asserts that following 1967, Israeli and American Jewry created a so−called industry to monetarily and politically exploit the greatest tragedy of the Jewish people, the Holocaust. This "extortion racket," as he calls it, was designed to extract compensation from European governments, as well as to justify Israel's presence in the occupied territories.
Finkelstein almost completely ignores the other vital field that has formed around the Holocaust, which seeks to create awareness of the atrocities committed during World War II and to prevent further incidents of genocide. When he does acknowledge this area, he mocks it, even calling highly esteemed Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel "the resident clown of the Holocaust circus."
Ironically, Finkelstein reveals his own hypocrisy through his fervent exploitation of the Holocaust. He capitalizes on his parents' suffering in a thinly veiled attempt to legitimize his own weak contentions against Israel and American Jewish organizations.
Even more disturbing are Finkelstein's unfounded comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany. He draws a parallel between the Nazi−organized genocide of the Jewish people and the Israeli−Palestinian conflict and brutally contends that, "If Israelis don't want to stand accused of being Nazis, they should simply stop acting like Nazis."
Finkelstein makes this insensitive claim despite that British military expert Col. Richard Kemp stated during the 2008 Gaza War, "I would say that from my knowledge of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and from the extent to which I have been following the current operation, I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza."
Additionally, Finkelstein has publicly proclaimed his solidarity with the internationally recognized terrorist organization Hezbollah. The Iranian−backed extremist group was responsible for the most American deaths by terrorism before Sept. 11, as noted by Foreign Affairs, USA Today and others. However, following his meeting with members of Hezbollah in 2008, Finkelstein professed: "To my thinking the honorable thing now is to show solidarity with Hezbollah as the U.S. and Israel target it for liquidation. Indeed, looking back, my chief regret is that I wasn't even more forceful in publicly defending Hezbollah."
Finkelstein also repeatedly denies that other internationally recognized terrorist organization Hamas' autocratic rule in the Gaza Strip is a hindrance to peace.
Perhaps Finkelstein should indulge in some light reading of the Hamas Charter, which in Article Seven — among other areas — declares that Hamas, as an organization, seeks the destruction of Israel and the Jews, rejecting any hope for a diplomatic solution. Article Seven states: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say … there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
While Hamas is not the only obstacle to peace, most Muslim and Jewish groups of all pragmatic political persuasion recognize its detrimental effect on the peace process.
Finkelstein has been challenged for taking on the title of "scholar" since his days at Princeton University. There, he could scarcely find any faculty member who would even read his thesis. Then, following his dismissals from several colleges, Finkelstein landed at DePaul University, only to be denied tenure there as well. He claims that the dismissals were for political reasons, but most scholars and professors across the country concur that his academic work simply lacks integrity.
Former Harvard University Professor of Political Science Daniel Jonah Goldhagen remarks that "Finkelstein's work is, from beginning to end, a tendentious series of inventions." while University of Chicago Professor Emeritus of Modern History Peter Novick declared his work "the hate campaign of a zealot."
A more distressing issue involves his behavior toward students. During question−and−answer sessions, Finkelstein has a tendency to intimidate and mock students. The most alarming instance was at the University of Waterloo where Finkelstein made a young girl cry, yelling at her and condemning her crocodile tears after she expressed that his comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany offended her. A second example has Finkelstein calling a student's question "filthy" at the University of California, Irvine.
Finkelstein's lack of academic decorum and the unprofessional manner in which he handles situations are not befitting of any "scholar," particularly one lecturing on the Tufts University campus.
At Tufts we've been incredibly lucky this year regarding dialogue on campus. With organizations like the New Initiative for Middle East Peace, Tufts has put itself in a position to be a model for universities all over to build a unique intellectual framework.
Earlier in the semester, I was fortunate to attend a joint retreat sponsored by the Office of the Provost that brought together members of Tufts Hillel, Students for Justice in Palestine, Friends of Israel and unaffiliated individuals. It was an incredible experience. Though differences were clear, the tone was remarkably respectful. What we saw was a desire and willingness to come together. We enjoyed open dialogue and disagreement without the heavy tension of polarization.
This is not the mentality that Finkelstein promotes.
Rather, he incites the hatred and polarization Tufts should so desperately avoid. A speaker like Norman Finkelstein cements the lines between groups and even pushes nonaffiliated persons into camps they never thought they would feel compelled to join. The idea is to create awareness and promote discussion on campus about the conflict, not to spread hatred through polarization.
I ask then: Is he the type of speaker we want to see advance dialogue on campus? Is this the direction we want to be headed? We can appreciate controversy, yes, but not antagonism.
The issue at hand is not about the rhetoric employed by Finkelstein, nor the Israeli−Palestinian conflict itself. It is about what this kind of speaker means for Tufts, a campus that enjoys an ethos incomparable to most other institutions of higher education. While I will unequivocally defend the right of an organization to bring engaging and even controversial events to campus, it is imperative that groups take into account the dire consequences of hosting inflammatory speakers and the imprint they leave in their wake.
We don't need speakers to plant seeds of mistrust and polarization. We can do better.
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