Norman Finkelstein: A Man With Nothing to Do

Hat tip Campus Watch

Just days ago I mentioned Norman Finkelstein in connection with Steven Salaita, who has accepted a teaching job in Lebanon after being refused hire at the University of Illinois. I mentioned that Finkelstein was teaching in Turkey having been unable to land any teaching jobs in the US.

In the below article cross-posted by Campus Watch from the New Republic, we learn that Finkelstein's teaching gig in Turkey has ended. and he is now spending his days in his Brooklyn apartment apparently abandoned not only by academia  but by both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Get out your hankies because the New Republic paints a sad picture of Mr Finkelstein.


http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/14890

To that fawning video in the link, I would submit one here which shows part of Finkelstein's rather disastrous appearance at UC Irvine in May 2010 on behalf of the Muslim Student Union. That was when I asked him to sign a letter from UCI Jewish faculty expressing concern over anti-Semitism arising out of events like these.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/05/norm-finklestein-refuses-to-sign-letter.html

Near the end of his rambling discourse on Richard Goldstone, I got up and walked off in exasperation stating that I would go ask Goldstone to sign the letter.

At the risk of sounding cruel, I find it hard to sympathize with Finkelstein. For too many years, this arrogant guy traipsed around college campuses treating anyone who disagreed with his speeches in a condescending manner designed to humiliate the person.

I myself have seen and heard Finkelstein speak in Southern California three times. To me, he always came across as an arrogant misfit. If you read between the lines of the above article, it confirms my impressions.