Talk:Norman Finkelstein/Archive 1

message: In order to avoid edit-wars, we can begin to assign sourced to all opinions. What has been eliminated are Norman's POVs, and since this is an article about him these opinions should be included. We can't describe his positions as controversial, because all opinions are when they are not agreed upon 100%. Certainly the sources included at the bottom of the article support that he does have some POV critical to certain movements. --Vizcarra 21:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norman Finkelstein 

message: How about this: changing
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called Finkelstein a "Holocaust denier" and accused him of pursuing an anti-Semitic agenda.
to
Predictably, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called Finkelstein a "Holocaust denier" and accused him of pursuing an anti-Semitic agenda, accusations Finkelstein flatly dismisses. "
Do we need to discuss here how this is a POV edit, or is it obvious to all? Or how about changing
Finkelstein has expanded his findings in a book entitled Beyond Chutzpah...
to
Finkelstein subsequently expanded his findings in a devastating volume entitled Beyond Chutzpah...
I'm not sure if this is the proper venue to discuss why the insertion of "devastating" is purely POV. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 22:56, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not following, which portions are POV? The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called Finkelstein a "Holocaust denier" and accused him of pursuing an anti-Semitic agenda. certainly isn't. It is a fact that he's been called such by the ADL. "Predictably" is certainly POV, I give you that. --Vizcarra 23:45, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good examples of breaches of POV 

message: Apparently is was not the linked Fisher (Mark Fisher) who said it, but rather Marc Fisher, a columnist for the Washington Post.  As such, I'm not sure it's encyclopedic, as I don't know enough about Marc Fisher. Jayjg (talk) 22:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I know I've read it before, but I can't remember where. I'm sure I'll be able to find it. --Ian Pitchford 22:36, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just do a Google on the text. It's been reprinted a thousand times, and was the subject of a small controversy with Finkelstein participating. The matter may be worth a paragraph. -Willmcw 23:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fisher quote 

message: Norman G. Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American who is an assistant professor of political science at DePaul University.  Although he claims to be a full professor, he is an assistant professor.   Finkelstein is infamous for his ad hominem debating style. During lectures, such as at Yale University, and on webcasts, he often calls another person an "imbecile", "idiot", "fraud", or "liar". Unlike most professors (even assistant professors), he has never published a scholarly or research paper in a peer reviewed journal. His books are not published in the mainstream press. 
*Please provide sources for these statements. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-14 06:16
** The whole "discussion" in this page is a good example of how people with an  agenda, and possibly in an organised manner, can dominate and control the editing of text in an open-source encyclopaedia.The Gnome 05:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Additions by [[User:I Speak Only Truth|I Speak Only Truth]]

message: Last addition to introduction (Finkelstein only being accepted by the far-right) is too debatable to include.
-Finkelstein includes ad hominum articles on his website that he disagrees with, the fact that the quote was taken from his website proves nothing, see his letters section which includes viscous hate mail.-HW
:First of all if you're going to use the talk page to discuss an edit than you have to say so in your edit summary so that people can find what you're saying. You also have to put edits in the talk page in a new section for the same reason. As for the content of my edit - it is very important for wikipedia to put things in context. In the real world its very easy to distinguish between someones whose criticisms are mainstream and influential and someone whose opinions are rejected by the minstream. Because the internet lowers the playing field, this distinction is eliminated and someone like Finkelstein appears to be just as important as someone like Elie Wiesel. I have included the quote from the economist because it shows where Finkelstein is in relation to other commentators on the issue. There is nothing debatable about saying that he has not found much traction among mainstream thinkers, he hasn't. There is nothing debatable about saying that his work has caught the attention of the far-right, at least its not debatable enough to be included at Holocaust denial. I don't see any reason to revert my edits. GabrielF 20:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: The 2003 discussion on this page provided a complete guide to what is an argument and what is an opinion. Why repeat it???
But if somebody needs to discuss something, please do it here - my computer time is too limited for a revert war!
: Well, I see that in 2003 Mirv said,
::But possibly relatedly, the first edit I made to the "affair" page is to change a sentence that called Finkelstein's accusation "plagiarism" to an accusation that "Finkelstein called 'plagiarism.'" That's because what Finkelstein would tell you that Dershowitz did--the actual motions he went through and the product that resulted--does not fit what the word "plagiarism" connotes to most people, and doesn't even count as plagiarism to some, for instance me. D has been accused of "plagiarism" in F-speak but in normal English it's hasty and tendentious to give the accusation that label.
: This is exactly the point I'm making.  No one even tried to refute Mirv, just as no one has even tried to refute me.
: As it stands, it's as if an article said "Abe has accused Bill of attempted murder, and documented the charge in a book.  Bill has denied the charge," and elaborates no further.  This would hardly be NPOV, if the documentation showed only that Bill got several speeding tickets.    That situation is exactly analogous to the current state of the article. F. has charged Dersh. with academic high crimes, but provided only evidence of trivial errors, at best. So, the article needs to be fixed. 
: By the way, it seems that the 2003 debate led to the ADL's unsupported charges being relegated to a single sentence, with a long rebuttal.  That ought to be the outcome with Finkelstein's unsupported charges too. Ragout 03:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  no next war, please! 

message: This section is growing excessively long.  The article is about Norman Finkelstein in general, not just his conflict with Dershowitz.  It should state only the major points of the D-F debate -- there is an entirely separate article discussing the Dershowitz-Finkelstein Affair.
Part of the problem is the redundancy of the article.  There is no need to say twice that Dershowitz threatened to sue.  There is no need to say three times that F. has accused D. of lacking knowledge about his book.  Hence, I'm removing these redundencies.  Ragout 05:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundancy and Excessive Length in Dershowitz Section 

message: 1.  Mentioning Dershowitz's letter to the governor makes D. look a little foolish, but has no relevance to the plagiarism charge or the ghostwriting charge. It belongs in the D-F Affair article, and I'm removing it from here.
2.  Someone has written:
: The charge that Dershowitz was not the true author of The Case for Israel was also rephrased to read Dershowitz didn't have "a clue of his book's content"..."manifestly ignorant of the content of his own book" (Beyond Chutzpah, pp. 95, 254), although one article cites the publisher as saying "the suggestion that Dershowitz did not read his book has been removed from the text" and "Withey told Inside Higher Ed why the University of California Press decided to remove Finkelstein’s suggestions that Dershowitz did not write The Case for Israel. ... 'It was unclear the point he was trying to make, and he couldn’t document that, so we asked him to take it out,' she said, noting that there could have been multiple readings of the reference in Finkelstein’s book." 
This is incoherent, mostly because the rebuttal (F. didn't remove ghostwriting charge) has swallowed the original claim (F. did remove ghostwriting charge).  It is also poorly written.  So I'm reverting it.
3. This statement from the article is extremely biased: Finkelstein expanded his findings in a book entitled Beyond Chutzpah, providing evidence that in at least two instances, Dershowitz reproduces errors in Peters' citiation of original sources, and so could not have checked the original sources he cited.  
This statement says: F. ... provided evidence ... that D. could not have checked the original sources he cited.  F. may claim this, but it is not a fact.  There is not reason why D. could not have have reproduced the errors, and also checked the original sources.  So I will edit this to make it NPOV.
4. The article says that citing original sources without consulting them violates rules in the CMS and WWS.  This is true, but the article should make clear that neither source calls these violations "plagiarism."  The WWS rule isn't even in the plagiarism chapter.
5. I've removed the cites to academic studies of citation practices, which Deuterium objects to on the grounds that they discuss scientific fields rather than history.  This is true, but irrelevant, since the rules for plagiarism and citations are the same for those fields.  WWS doesn't say "plagiarism is bad, except in scientific research" !  However, I'll move them to the D-F affair article in the interests of brevity and comity.
6.  I've removed the sentence:  When confronted by Finkelstein, Dershowitz admitted that if "somebody borrowed the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that, obviously that would be a serious charge." 
This sentence is stripped of important context and so is misleading.  So I'm deleting it.
In context it is clear that D.'s use of the phrase "the quote" does not refer to just any quotation.  "The quote" refers specifically to inaccurate quotations that don't accurately reflect what the source said.  No one has accused D. of this -- so he's being a little tricky, defending himself against something no one has alleged.  Further, in context, D. is talking about quotes from Peters, which may be relevant to his point.  He may be saying that it would be stupid to quote Peters without checking the original sources, since it is well known that some Peters quotes are inaccurate.Ragout 05:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest on Dershowitz-Finkelstein 

message: Some editors seem unhappy with the following language:
* Writing with Sources, a writing manual cited by Finkelstein, criticizes the practice of quoting sources not actually consulted, but does not call it "plagiarism."
on the grounds that WWS calls borrowing ideas plagiarism.
But both are true.  The WWS does not call citing w/o consulting "plagiarism."  And it does call borrowing ideas "plagiarism."  So, I think the article should explain that the WWS says both these things. So, please stop deleting the statement about quoting sources without consulting not being plagiarsim (according to WWS).  Instead add a statement about what is plagiarism.Ragout 13:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with you.  --LuckyLittleGrasshopper 05:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Borrowing Ideas Vs. Borrowing Quotes 

message: Referencing a citation database is not original research.  Citation records
are only a partial measure of a work's scholarly reception, obviously, but they are verifiable. -- Danny Yee 05:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have presented a novel narrative regarding the effect of Finkelstein's work on Peters' credibility.  Please provide a proper citation for that thesis instead, and please do not remove the request for citation until you provide one. Jayjg (talk) 06:06, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jayjg, your link seems to imply that the phrase "novel thesis" is to be found in WP:NOR, but when I look at this page, I don't see these words.  What gives? Ragout 06:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Novel thesis, novel argument, novel narrative, etc. Jayjg (talk) 06:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Danny, you need a source if you want to say the book isn't highly regarded among scholars (by scholars, do you mean academics, by the way?). A review in the NY Review of Books indicates it was taken seriously, though I suppose that depends on what it said. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If a work has no citations in the scholarly literature, then a citation database seems like a reasonable source for asserting its lack of scholarly regard.  I agree that citation measures are a blunt instrument for evaluating a work's reception, but they are at least verifiable - not OR! - and perhaps ideal for controversial Wikipedia articles for the same reason they are beloved of grant awarding bodies. (I have no problems with NYROB and TLS, btw, but they tend to the polemical and are not substitutes for peer-reviewed professional journals.)  Anyway, I see Jayg's point now -- the issue is not whether the book has standing among scholars or not, but whether Finkelstein had anything to do with that. -- Danny Yee 06:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Danny, it would be original research for you to make that edit on the basis of absence of evidence only. You could check to see what the TLS and NYRB said and who wrote the reviews. Maybe you'd get a scholarly comment that way. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be a weak argument (for scholarly reception), but surely not original research.  A citation database is a verifiable external source, not something someone makes up!  But we're splitting hairs now.  (I have some general questions about this for you, but I'll post those on your talk page as they're not relevant to this article.) -- Danny Yee 07:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It surely is original research; you are using primary sources to present a theory or argument. Jayjg (talk) 16:29, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Hey Danny, we've interacted before on Kuro5hin btw.  Here is a book review in the prestiguious Foreign Affairs magazine that says "Finkelstein already has one victory to his credit. Along with a few other conscientious scholars, he demonstrated that Joan Peters' book "From Time Immemorial", which claimed that Palestinians arrived in Palestine only recently, was based on shoddy scholarship. That landmark essay is included in this collection and is the best of his offerings." .  This search in Google Scholar turns up a lot more hits -- it may be that someone isn't doing it properly: .  --LuckyLittleGrasshopper 15:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose that we add something like "the prestiguous Foreign Affairs magazine referred to Finkelsteins work on From Time Immemorial as a 'landmark essay'".  --LuckyLittleGrasshopper 15:41, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  From Time Immemorial - citation records and scholarly reception 

message: I see that MEMRI's severely edited Finkelstein interview is causing some misunderstandings.  Readers are directed here for a correction.  CJCurrie 03:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems to be interesting enough to put in the MEMRI article. -- Dissident (Talk) 19:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Holocaust Denial

message: What a horrible page he has. It needs a redo. Especially separating facts and opinions. Why are we this bad & unreadable on wikipedia? I'll start changing, -DePiep 19:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horrible article, needs redo 

message: I've restored the reference to the ADL's description of Finkelstein as a Holocaust denier.  I had entered this material in a previous edit and somehow neglected to source it, my apologies.  The NOR rule was also raised so I'd like to clarify.  The ADL in this case was specifically responding to The Holocaust Industry and pointing to it as evidence for its claim that Finkelstein is a Holocaust denier. The Finkelstein quote is not a random one selected for juxtaposition with the ADL quote; it is rather the concluding sentence and argumentative summary of the very book the ADL is referring to. --G-Dett 14:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You've used a non-reliable source, a blog in this case. Also, the quote does indeed appear to be a random one inserted for the purpose of undermining the ADL's alleged claim; does the ADL refer to this quote? Jayjg (talk) 18:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I've restored the part that isn't original research. By the way, I don't think most of the links you gave were the links you intended. Jayjg (talk) 20:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The "Holocaust story"?  Am I reading this right?  159.105.80.92, are you a plant? --G-Dett 15:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ADL

message: Jayig, please do not get emotional. First of all, there is no incivility that I can see in your opponent's entries. When one can't rebut a valid criticism of his own position, an unsubstantiated attempt to turn the table by accusing an opponent of WP:PA and violation of WP:Civil is the wrong approach. I will not tell you "reread the WP:PA" because I am sure you know what's there. Just don't put the argument on its head by bringing up the policies that do not apply.
Now, to the specific of the argument. That "ADL does not support their accusations in Holocaust Denial by citing anything by F." is the statement of fact and not the interpretation. If you claim that this is a false statement of fact, the right way to proceed is to bring up any ADL's release where it accuses F in HD and adds examples of F's writings or speeches that he denies the Holocaust. When you come up with them, we will integrate them into the article. Until then, the statement of lack of substantiation of ADL accusation stands since ADL does not substantiate them in the Georgetown letter.
Finally, the article deflects significantly from an objective presentation tone by going at length to cite the ADL directly in the text. The lengthy quotations should be either eliminated or moved to refs. ADL is not an academic but a political organization. We should we wary of using the political quotes in encyclopedia article. Someone somewhere in a political speech said "Mission accomplished". Such statement cannot be used in Wikipedia article as a proof of a success of a certain mission. --Irpen 23:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Irpen, I'm not emotional, and I don't respond to or even read comments that start with "please do not get emotional". I've outlined a number of incivilities in G-Dett's statements as well. I'm perfectly willing to read and respond to arguments which are not personal; that is, they deal solely with article content, and make no ad hominem comments regarding other editors (allegations about emotional states would fall into that category), or suppositions about their motivations. I'm eager to have a proper discussion about article content, but only when the Talk: pages are being used properly and for that exact purpose, rather than to violate policy. Jayjg (talk) 17:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I found your edit which inserted the text 'without specifically citing statements of doubt or denial.' to be POV editorializing. The ADL letter is referenced, and readers can make up their own minds as to the quality of their arguments. Isarig 22:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Irpen, there is absolutely no need whatsoever to speculate regarding, pontificate about, analyze or in any way refer to another editor's "emotional state", alleged motivations, etc. These kinds of statements are by definition ad hominem. Please read the linked article regarding the meaning of ad hominem. There is no place for this kind of argumentation on any article Talk: page, and there's been far too much of it on this article Talk: page. No editor is under any obligation to try to subject themselves to that kind of argumentation, as it fundemantally violates a key Wikipedia policy, WP:CIVIL. I've proposed in the next section that any concerns about article content be raised there, completely avoiding any ad hominem statements. Please take advantage of it. Jayjg (talk) 23:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Revert war

message: Speaking of sources. http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:ytScaEO-KNQJ:israel.georgetown.edu/ADL-letter.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a is not opening for the obvious reasons. Frontpage is usually not considered WP:RS. Thus, we do not have any RS information about the content of the letter anyway. I guess if ADL pulled down the letter from the web there is something wrong with it. I propose to use WP:BLP and pull down the paragraph about the letter (and the tag) all together or at least put according to frontpage before it. abakharev 04:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt Georgetown University put it there; the website in question is that of the "Georgetown Israel Alliance", which appears to be a Georgetown University student group. Jayjg (talk) 22:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Letter to Georgetown University

message: I believe Finkelstein is a full tenured professor now, not an assistant professor. On his website, he posted a response by Alan Dershowitz to an article he wrote, and Dershowitz says that Finkelstein "is now up for tenure" at DePaul.
:I think "up for tenure" means currently under consideration for tenure.  Tenure decisions are never a sure thing til they're final, and the decision about Finkelstein will surely be a difficult one for De Paul.
:That said, I think the introductory sentence needs work.  Finkelstein "is an American assistant professor at De Paul University"?  His current employment status is hardly what makes him a noteworthy figure.  Moreover, the phrase just sounds ridiculous to the ear, not to mention a little patronizing.  Wikipedia doesn't describe Daniel Goldhagen, for example, as an "American former assistant professor at Harvard University"; it describes him as a "American political scientist."  I notice that one editor here used the same phrase for Finkelstein, and his edit was reverted without explanation.
:It seems we should begin with something like, "Norman Finkelstein is a controversial American political scientist," or "controversial American author and academic."  The rest of that first paragraph is fine.  The second paragraph gives his employment resume, and explains that he now teaches at De Paul; if we think it's important to give his current position on the track to tenure, that would be the place to insert it.--G-Dett 19:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with G-Dett. john k 01:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe also that in the caption to one of the latest broadcasts of Democracy Now it says that it features professor Norman Finkelstein, whereas in the past it always specified assistant professor of political science. I'm not positive, though, so maybe not. Either way, I agree that the opening sentence needs reworking. 152.23.84.168 23:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's the thing, "professor" is both the generic word for assistant, associate,  and full professors, as well as a specific term for a full professor.  The Democracy Now thing doesn't decide it: the honorific in every case is simply "professor."  I've looked at DePaul's faculty directory; it's not clear there whether he has tenure yet.  They'll probably keep quiet about the whole thing.  Based on his publishing resume, he'd probably get tenure if he weren't so controversial.  I don't envy DePaul; it'll hit the fan for them either way.--G-Dett 04:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status 

message: Why is there a section called "Finkelstein on David Irving and on numbers of Holocaust victims"?
What do these two things have to do with one another?  The information therein is OK, but packaging them together in this way, and with this kind of subtitle, is incredibly tendentious.  Finkelstein passingly affirms consensus opinion about two different things, in two different contexts: 1) that David Irving is a "notorious" and "obtuse" Holocaust denier who was once a serious archival scholar; and 2) that he, Finkelstein, regards as definitive the three-volume historical account of the Nazi Holocaust by Raul Hilberg (described in his own Wikipedia article as "one of the best-known and most distinguished of genocide historians").  
Bundling these two things together under this subtitle is multiply misleading: it suggests that his work is somehow related to Irving's, which it isn't; and it suggests that he has done his own research on the number of Holocaust victims, which he hasn't (he just cites a leading authority's account as definitive).  
Let's get rid of the section, and assimilate the material elsewhere in the article.  Maybe a new section called "Finkelstein and Allegations of Holocaust Denial."  That's the implied subject of this section, as well as an explicit subject of the next.--G-Dett 18:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dissolve Irving section? 

message: In the Post-Zionism article someone has listed Norman Finkelstein as a post-Zionist.  There was no source listed.  There is now a category for post zionists here :Category:Post-Zionists.  If someone finds a source for this, can you please add the category and describe him as such in the body of the article?  Thanks.  --Deodar 14:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: also, I deleted the qualification "Anti-Zionist" from his initial description. he has been describe like this in a newspaper (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05074/471598.stm) , and I don't doubt he may be anti-zionism, but I cringe to the idea of using a headline that could well come from a POV press-release to describe a scholar. Also, it shouldn't be in the first paragraph, but in the description of his activities and scholarship. Does someone has any excerpt by NF in which he defines himself on one way or another?--Ninarosa 05:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does Norman Finkelstein self-identify as a [[post-Zionist]]? 

message: Yaocihuatl has edited the Norman Finkelstein page, changing "son of Holocaust survivors" to "son of Auschwitz survivors".  Only one of Finkelstein's parents was at Auschwitz, so the edit is incorrect.  See the Biography section on www.normanfinkelstein.com.  I will revert this change within one week.  I have left this message on Yacihautl's talk page and invited him/her to email for discussion. Roberterubin 01:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Finkelstein's parents

message: I removed the following, which was placed under "Criticisms of Finkelstein's Scholarship":
:"Roz Rothstein, national director of StandWithUs, in the Jewish Journal. "As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, I find Finkelstein beyond despicable. I believe he openly and methodically lies in order to promote his own anti-Israel agenda. It is well known that some children of Holocaust survivors carry severe scars and wounds that actually manifest in peculiar psychological behavior. For two decades, I worked as a licensed family therapist, and I believe that some day soon there will be a formal psychological syndrome that would account for self-hating Jews like Norman Finkelstein... His true occupation is as a member of a traveling circus, a freak show of anti-Semites who promote anti-Israel propaganda from campus to campus. He openly admits to having high regard for Hezbollah on his Web site...}"
Saying that someone is despicable, lies to promote his own agenda and has "a formal psychological syndrome" is not a critique of his scholarship -- it's an ad hominem attack.  Nor is the fact that someone thinks an individual is truly "a member of... a freak show..." appropriate for an encyclopedia entry.  Unless, of course, they are.  But only if it's a notable freak show.OhSusanne 08:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The essay, "Psychoanalyzing the dissenter" by historian Howard Zinn (collected in his book The Politics of History 1970, reprinted 1990) is relevant here. 137.82.188.68 03:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of quote under "Criticisms..." 

message: This article is not NPOV.  It appears to be an advertisement for the subject.  All those external links are not in proper Wikipedia formatting for citations.  All the sources being linked need to be re-formatted into proper citation format, checked for notability and reliability; many probably need to be deleted as there needs to be a rationale for including them in an enclopedia entry.  See Wikipedia:Reliable sources; Wikipedia:Cite and other editing policies.  This does not read like an encyclopedia article.  It looks like an alternate website for the subject.  Finkelstein's own website is a commercial site advertising his own publications and career.  This article needs a complete overhaul.  Sample structure is: Introduction; Biographical facts (e.g. Personal or Family life); Wikiquote; Bibliography; Notes (including all those not yet formatted properly as citations); References; External links; See also.  --NYScholar 10:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup tag added

message: I don't understand why there is a section on the extreme right supporting Finkelstein. There could be as well a section on the extreme left supporting finkelstein. Or the moderate right. Or the moderate left. Or a section on "Hilberg supports Finkelstein". Shouldn't all these opinions just be put together in a section on "repercussion of his work"? It would be nice to say, as well, out of fairness, that Finkelstein has in more than one occasion, manifested absolute distance of these groups (explicitly extreme-right and holocaust deniers).--Ninarosa 07:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Far-right 

message: This appears serious, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/arts/12tenu.html
Involves Middle East Studies Association of North America and others now.  (Also this talk page really needs to have some of its material archived.  It is incredibly long.) --64.230.127.125 08:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152838045&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull --70.48.68.77 00:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Finkelstein-Dershowitz issue in the NYT 

message: Jay, how have you determined that Finkelstein is not a scholar of antisemitism?--G-Dett 18:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is arguable that he isn't strictly a scholar of it, but I wonder about whether Alan Dershowitz and Phyllis Chesler merit inclusion in Category:Scholars_of_antisemitism either.  And whether this could represent the first salvo in another tedious POV war. --Coroebus 19:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He is a political scientist whose peer-reviewed work on anti-Semitism has been published by prestigious university presses, and has been praised by eminent figures in his field, including the so-called "dean of Holocaust studies" Raul Hilberg.  How on earth would Finkelstein not qualify, unless we're limiting the list of "scholars of antisemitism" to those of a given political persuasion?  --G-Dett 19:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that he has studied the rhetoric and political usage of accusations of anti-Semitism, not anti-Semitism per se.  But your point is well taken. --Coroebus 20:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand the distinction you're drawing, but I think you're conflating topic with argument.  The topic of much of his work is antisemitism; the argument is that it has been politically exploited.  I don't see how kicking Finkelstein off a list of "scholars of antisemitism" that includes Alan Dershowitz, Phyllis Chesler, Deborah Lipstadt, and Amnon Rubinstein can be anything but a political purge.--G-Dett 20:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category for "Scholars of Antisemitism" changed to "Antisemitism"