Last year, the Muslim Public Affairs Council of UK came out with an article "justifying" their refusal to observe the event.
http://www.mpacuk.org/story/280110/why-muslim-leaders-must-not-attend-holocaust-day-betray-palestine.html
And who did they refer to in this lame explanation? Why none other than that great "independent scholar with a PhD from Princeton", Norman Finkelstein, one of America's most prominent academic misfits.
Of course that is a direct lead-in to Finkelstein's reaction to Richard Goldstone's recantation of the Goldstone Report, which blamed Israel for war crimes in the Gaza fighting-based entirely on what Hamas told his team of "investigators".
Now Finkelstein, in reaction to Goldstone's own disavowal of that report, has rushed into print a revised edition of "This Time We Have Gone Too Far", to stop the bleeding from his own twisted analysis of the Gaza fighting.
http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/this-time-revised/
"This new paperback edition is not only a revised but also a vastly expanded version of the hardback.
It is based on thousands of pages of human rights reports as well as testimonies of Israeli soldiers and statements of Israeli officials.
It includes an analysis of all the official Israeli reports on the Gaza invasion right up until January 2011.
It also contains the only analysis in any language of the Israeli Turkel Commission report on what happened on the Mavi Marmara.
It is the only comprehensive study in any language of what happened in Gaza during and after the invasion.
The challenge now is to preserve the integrity of the historical record on what happened in Gaza against those who are exploiting Goldstone's recantation to whitewash the Gaza massacre and pave the way for yet another round of death and destruction."
And well he should. Last year, when Finkelstein came to UC-Irvine and was made a fool of, he referred to Goldstone in glowing terms as the South African Zionist Jew who had the courage to condemn Israel. This irrelevant information was in response to my request that he sign a petition/letter signed by dozens of UC-Irvine Jewish professors (and me) protesting anti-Semitism on the campus.
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/05/norm-finklestein-refuses-to-sign-letter.html
I anxiously await the return of Finkelstein to UC-Irvine to listen to how he unwinds this one. This is just another example of why DePaul University canned his sorry behind; his "scholarly work" is a joke.
And this is who the MPAC-UK calls "brave and great."
When three people with an ax to grind start picking over a set of facts, the result is never enlightening. What Goldstone did and said, in the report, and in his mis-called "recantation" is far more complex than his sudden admirers or his disenchanted detractors are giving him credit for.
ReplyDeleteThat MPACUK site is pretty disturbing. My favorite piece was about "Israel's Culture of Rape and Immorality":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mpacuk.org/story/150411/israels-culture-rape-and-immorality.html#comments
Because we know how much the Arab/Muslim countries shine in comparison in this regard...
(Sidenote: a couple years ago, some far-left commentator accused IDF soldiers of racism on the grounds that they DON'T rape Palestinian women.)