Friday, June 4, 2010
Norman Finkelstein Argues with Daniel Pollack of ZOA
In the above video, that great "independent Scholar with a PHD from Princeton University" (but no teaching job because he is a crackpot), Norman Finkelstein, engages in a debate with Daniel Pollack of the Zionist Organization of America. The debate takes place on Russia Today, one of the few media outlets in the world that still take Finklestein seriously.
As is his style, Finkelstein is arrogant and obnoxious. He has a problem in this debate. The problem is that the videotape evidence makes him look like a fool (which he is). He can't explain why people on board attacked the Israeli commandos. He can't explain why, if the Israelis were so bloodthirsty, their primary arms were paintguns until they were attacked with pipes, clubs, knives and their own weapons.I (Frankly, I can't explain the use of paint guns either, but that is a question for the Israelis to thrash out.) In this debate, the "independent scholar with a PHD from Princeton University" talks about the Israeli raid (in the dead of night) as if that is relevent and bemoans the lack of videos from the Turks on board the ship. He conveniently omits the videos of crew members singing the ode to "Khaybar, Khaybar ah Yahud" and the statement of the woman in the Palestinian kaffiya about achieving martyrdom. Those videos were not shot by the Israelis, they were seized or came from other media outlets.
The fact of the matter is that Hamas in Gaza is in a state of war with Israel, and Israel has every right to control what enters Gaza. They have already intercepted two or three ships laden with weapons. They exercised every restraint to have the boats in this flotilla proceed to Ashdod, Israel where the cargo would be inspected and legitimate relief goods delivered to Gaza just as Israel allows relief goods to enter Gaza every day through the appropriate checkpoint. The boats refused. Their stated objective was to break the blockade. They take full responsibility for the dead that resulted. Those shootings were fully justified in self defense.
Of course, none of this matters to the ideologue "independent scholar with a PHD from Princeton". The man has a pathological hatred for Israel that prevents any contrary argument from penetrating his thick head.
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6 comments:
Norm comes off pretty badly there but I would guess his supporters will say he won that debate.
Below Norman Finkelstein debates Benny Morris and Norm acts like he is more of an expert on what Morris wrote in his book than Morris himself.
http://tinyurl.com/2d7d4ls
wejomerv
How long before Helen "Jews should go back to Polland and Germany and get out of Palestine" Thomas appears on Russian TV to share her enlightened opinions?
As an independent scholar who does not have a Ph.D, and who even you would not call a crackpot, I would like to suggest that the Ph.D is more likely to make one an academically unemployable crackpot than is being an independent scholar.
Israel defied the international community? What nation hasn't? The USA certainly has at times. Sometimes the international community is right, sometimes it is wrong, just like those nations that defy it.
Despite of repeated attempts Literate Gary Fouse fails to write down the name of that "independent scholar with a PHD from Princeton" correctly. He always writes Finklestein. So, there is no wonder that he neither Pollack nor FinKELstein understands.But his main problem is, I believe, that he "has a pathological hatred for" critics of the world's last remaining racist-apartheid state "Israel that prevents any contrary argument from penetrating his thick head."
Gary does seem to have a fixation on support for Israel, one might indulge in the descriptive "Uber Alles," but I think more accurately, "right or wrong." Israel isn't so almighty critical to the whole world as all that. But it does have a historical claim to existence, and even if there is a plausible case for sending its inhabitants somewhere else, there is no place for them to go, just like you can't send all of us currently in North America back to Europe, China, Spain, etc.
Further, I take issue with the description racist-apartheid. There are among the so-called "religious" parties some who are virulently racist toward Arabs. This is somewhat understandable, if not worthy of approbation, since many of these parties rely on Israeli voters who were rather unceremoniously evicted from Arabic nations where they had peacefully lived for centuries. Israel, per se, is not inherently racist. Certainly, nobody who advocates "driving the Jews into the sea" has any foundation to call anyone racist.
To be really consistent, Native Americans should go back to Siberia, except many claim literally that their ancestors emerged from the ground in North America, and we should ALL go back to Africa. Also, the Anglo-Saxons should go back to Germany, except their genes are so mixed with the Celts by now that...
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