Report back from Finkelstein lecture

Norman Finkelstein scored perhaps only a 90% on a test of his spirit for true justice for Palestinians, still 90% is not bad for a Jewish man whose parents both did time in Nazi concentration camps.

He is 100% better than Chomsky in every way at any rate.  He is a better speaker, much stronger, more direct and precise in all his viewpoints.  He seems also to have more heart than Chomsky, who comes across like a cold fish academic.  Finkelstein does his very best to take away the fog or obfuscation surrounding the creation of the state of Israel, which is really quite noble.

However, it was not quite standing ovation material.

Where did he fail to come through to score a perfect score of 100% on the strength of spirit for the pro-justice for Palestinian movement?

Let me count the ways...

#1.  He finds too many excuses to avoid the most humane, progressive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is the one-democratic-state solution (http://www.one-democratic-state.org).  In his opinion, the one-state solution should only be pursued if the two-state solution (OFFICIAL APARTHEID) utterly fails.  In case he hasn’t noticed, the two-state solution (OFFICIAL APARTHEID) HAS utterly failed, thanks to the Israelis, who are greedy for ALL the land.  Greedy was a word he simply could not find it in himself to describe the Israelis, preferring to use the euphemistic word of “obstinate”.  Let’s call it like it is, it’s GREED. Besides, the two-state solution (OFFICIAL APARTHEID) can NEVER work, not in Palestine-Israel especially, where everything is so enmeshed, and the resources simply must be shared in such a small area.  I say, let’s go the route of dismantling the Israeli apartheid regime just like the South African apartheid regime was dismantled.  There must be no double standards!

#2.  He says that activists should avoid saying they are “anti-Zionism” or “anti-Zionist activists”, since he thinks it’s too divisive.  Well, I say let’s call a spade a spade.  Finkelstein himself said that the original Zionists wanted (and obviously most Zionists still want), a Jewish-only country (where only Jews enjoy equal rights and they are an militarily maintained “majority”) and they stated that they had two modes of operendi they intended to use to achieve this racist goal: apartheid and/or explusion/transfer/ethnic cleansing.  The Zionists did the expulsion thing back in 1948 when they chased off over half of the Palestinian population in terror (around 800,000) when they went around demolishing and massacring entire Palestinian villages.  And now they are doing the Apartheid thing, and threatening another explustion/transfer thing openly in public political discourse.  I don’t know about you, but in that case, I am extremely proud to refer to myself as an “anti-Zionist activist”.

#3.  Several times he refers to the manipulations of Zionists to take advantage of certain “windows of opportunity” to subjugate the Palestinians and take their land as “smart”, yet later in the lecture he says that Israeli Jews and American Jews are not smart and think only short term.  Which one is it?  I prefer to think of it as diabolically smart but since “diabolically” = bad, then they will lose, since good triumphs over evil or so most of us like to believe.  Most of us believe that truth and justice will indeed triumph.  Mr. Finkelstein also said that he believes this. Let’s have some consistency please.

#4.  He was too critical of Arafat, who although not a saint by any means, has tried his best, it seems, to attain a Palestinian state under the most trying, harsh, imbalanced and unfair conditions.  Personally, I think Arafat deserves some slack.  As Finkelstein pointed out, the PLO AND the Saudis have both offered to recognize Israel’s right to exist based on the two-state solution, along with some justice for the Palestinian refugees, but NO, that’s not good enough for greedy Israel.

So I still have a high opinion of Norman Finkelstein, but, surprise... He is not perfect!  Few people are.  Let’s just hope that truth and justice do prevail soon, as he hopes, and hopefully, we who believe in justice for all hope.