Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Norman Finkelstein sulla guerra dei 6 giorni

Norman Finkelstein, dissidente Americano, recentemente licenziato
dall'universita' di DePaul a causa del suo attivismo politico,
demolisce diversi miti su quel conflitto in un'intervista alla radio
di Chicago.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1067
Jerome McDonnell: Norman Finkelstein is Assistant Professor of
Political Science at DePaul and is the author of Beyond Chutzpah: on
the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. And I'll talk
with him towards the end of the hour about the very public debate over
his tenure bid at DePaul but we'll spend most of our time today with
the Six Day War. And Norman Finkelstein told me about the build up to
the war.
Norman Finkelstein: In order to understand the biuld up to the war the
best place to begin is November, 1966. There was an Israeli
retaliatory, as they call it, attack on a Jordanian village called
Samu. In the course of this attack on Samu they blew up around 125
buildings and killed a large number of Jordanian soldiers.
When that attack happened the Jordanians and also the Syrians began to
attack Nasser for not coming to their defense. Here was this Egyptian
president claiming to be the leader of Arab nationalism and Pan-
Arabism and he was doing nothing. Nasser was being taunted for his, as
it were, impotence in the face of Israeli aggression.
And there were various incidents in the Syrian Golan Heights and also
by Syrian-backed Palestinian commandos. Now there there's a certain
amount of confusion which is important to clarify. Moshe Dayan, who
became the defense minister during the June '67 war, gave an interview
in 1976 in which he acknowledges, and now I'm more or less quoting
him, that 80%, he said at least 80%, but I'll say 80% of the incidents
with the Syrians were instigated by us. That we were engaged, now I'm
using my language, but it's I think a correct paraphrase, we were
engaged in a land grab in what were called the demilitarized zones
between Syria and Israel. And in the course of this land grab there
were conflicts arising with the Syrians. And it was only as a result
of these conflicts that the Syrians then would fire artillery from the
Golan Heights on the Israelis. So Moshe Dayan himself acknowledged
that was instigated by the Israelis.
In April, just let me get right up to the point where the count down,
as it were, begins. In April 1967 one of those incidents instigated by
the Israelis then unfolded into an aerial battle with the Syrians. And
the Israelis knocked down 6 Syrian planes, 6 Syrian Migs, including 1
over Damascus. And it was at this point again when Nasser is being
taunted that "you're not doing anything."
Things then start deteriorating between Israel and the Syrians. Come
the beginning of May Israel is making clear that it's going to engage
in a large scale strike against Syria and now the test is for Nasser.
Are you going to do anything about it? The Israelis are announcing
over and over again, the generals, the statesmen, that we're going to
give Syria now a serious blow. And it's at that point that Nasser
announces, or Nasser tells Secretary General [not "of State"] U Thant,
that the peace keeping force which had been stationed between Israel
and Egypt in the Sinai, that peace keeping force should be withdrawn.
And that's the beginning of the count down to the war.
JM: A lot of people seem to think that Arab nationalism was in part
threatening the State of Israel. That really what was happening was
Arab nationalism threatening the State of Israel, when basically, in
the Straits of Tiran this was a situation where Egypt decided, well,
this was something that we're going to blockade there. Israel thought
this was in our national interest, we're being existentially
threatened by these countries, this was the last straw, and then that
was kind of the thrust of where it started.
NF: The problem with that is, here it's the devil in the details. You
have to know the facts in order to understand what actually happened.
It is correct that the Israelis always feared a kind of, what they
called, Ataturk, a secular nationalist in Turkey who modernized the
country. And they were fearful of the equivalent in the Arab world of
an Ataturk. And they saw that equivalent being Nasser, a secular
nationalist who was gonna mobilize the Arab world.
Now when Nasser came to power he wasn't at all interested in Israel.
He was interested in modernizing Egypt but the Israelis were fearful
of a modern Egypt, especially a modern Egypt preaching Pan-Arab
nationalism.
And so the record is very clear. 1953, 1954, Ben Gurion, the Prime
Minister, and people like Moshe Dayan, they are determined, and here I
don't think there's any controversy in the scholarly record, they are
determined to provoke Nasser into a war so they can knock him out. And
there was a famous raid in February 1955 in Gaza, many Egyptian
soldiers are killed, they're hoping, they're hoping, they're hoping to
provoke Nasser into a war. It doesn't work and in 1956 they simply
launch an attack of their own with the Brittish and the French, the so
called Sinai Campaign. What happens in '67 is, through the
concatenation of events, they see a new opportunity to knock out that
threat which they always feared, namely Nasser or a modernizing force
in the Arab world. And they used the opportunity of June '67 to crush
Nasser.
So in one sense it's true they were fearful of an Arab nationalism but
you have to understand what that fear was. They feared any
modernization of the Arab world because they viewed themselves as a
kind of alien entity in the Arab world which was was existentially in
conflict with that world. And the only way to preserve their security,
in their minds, is to keep taking out the club and breaking the skull
of the Arabs.
The famous Israeli adages, "The Arabs only understand the language of
force," you have to keep hitting them for them to get the message to
stay in line. When Israelis talk about their deterrence capacity,
deterrence means, as they state themselves, they have to fear us
because if they don't fear us then at some point they're going to
attack us. That's how the Israelis see it.
Just on the specific points, quickly.
Number one, the first dramatic moment is when Nasser removes the peace
keeping force from the Sinai. That's considered the first step towards
the war. But there was an easy solution to that problem. All Israel
had to say was, restation the UN forces on our side of the border. If
they were effective on the Egyptian side, they would have to have been
equally effective on the Israeli side.
U Thant in his memoir, the Secretary General, the main military figure
there, a fellow named Odd Bull, from Norway, in his memoir, they all
say the war could've been averted had Israel simply restationed those
UN forces on its side of the border. And even Tom Segev in his new
book 1967 he says, albeit, in a footnote, had they restationed the
forces on their side, the Israeli side, the war could've been
prevented.
The question of the Straits of Tiran. Ok. Number one, U Thant had made
an offer, he said let's do what happened in Cuba during the Missile
Crisis. Let's have a moratorium. The moratorium would be, Egypt
promises not to fire on foreign vessels that go through the Straits of
Tiran, Israel promises it won't send through Israeli-flagged vessels.
Egypt says, fine. Israel says, no.
Now, another unknown fact. Everybody refers to the blockade in the
Straits of Tiran. There was no blockade. I know you'll be surprised to
learn that. It's a little known fact. The first couple of days the
Egyptians searched ships. By the end of the week they stopped
searching the ships. The ships were going right through. We know that
because the main figure there, he actually just passed away this week,
Indar Jit Rikhye, he wrote a book called The Sinai Blunder, and he was
in charge of the UN forces there. There was no blockade. He writes it
in the book, I even asked, kind of surprised, I called him to check on
it a couple of years ago and he laughed. He said there was no
blockade.
Number three. Nasser said, you say you have the rights of passage in
the Straits of Tiran, we say you don't. If you want, go to the World
Court. Let the World Court adjudicate it. Nasser said, yes. The
Israelis said, no.
The important point is, if under international law you're duty bound
to exploit all diplomatic options before going to war, Israel didn't
exploit any diplomatic options for a very good reason. It wanted the
war. Why? Because they were confident it would be a walkover, it would
be won very quickly and very easily.
Now that may come as surprise to listners but the record is very clear
on that. Let me just briefly, quickly, go through it.
May 1967, Israel's big fear is not going to war. It's big fear is a
repetition of 1956. That is, we go in, we knock them out, but the
Americans say, get out. They're afraid not of the Arabs, they're
afraid of the American reaction. So throughout May they're sending
their people, many, to the United States, what will the US do? They're
asking Johnson, McNamara, the CIA, they're asking everyone, James
Angleton, what will the US do? The first 2 weeks the US is saying,
you're not going. The Israelis are saying, what do you mean we're not
going, they're threatening us, they're gonna attack us, they're gonna
destroy us, it's gonna be another Holocaust. Each time they said that
President Johnson asked another one of the intelligence agencies,
there were at least a half dozen, he keeps asking them, what's gonna
happen if there's a war? Over and over again the intelligence agencies
keep saying 2 things. Number one, there's not chance Nasser's going to
attack. None at all. And number two, if he does attack, to quote
Lyndon Johnson, as he said to the Israeli Eban, "you're gonna whip
their ass." In fact the CIA predicted the war would be 7 days long, 7
to 10 days.
Now, you may say, that's the American intelligence, what about the
Israeli? We know exactly what the Israeli intelligence was because
June 3, 2 days before the war, the head of Israeli intelligence, Meir
Amit, he comes to Washington. He's trying to feel them out, how will
they react? He meets with the Americans and the American say this is
our intelligence. And you know what Amit says to them? We do not
dispute any of your findings, any of your projections. That means June
3 he agrees no chance Nasser will attack and, if by some weird twist
of fate he does, "you'll whip their ass" to quote President Johnson.
Their only concenr was, what will the Americans say? And by the first
week in June they were getting signals, through back channels, that
the Americans were gonna let them do it, because the Americans didn't
like Nasser either, and they decide, let them do it. That was their
concern. There was never concern about the Arabs. They knew exactly
what would happen. It was the Americans, they didn't want a repeat of
'56.
JM: You're listening to Worldview from Chicago Public Radio. I'm
Jerome McDonell and we're talking about Israel's 1967 war with Egypt,
Jordan and Syria with Norman Finkelstein, Assistant Professor of
Political Science at DePaul University.
One interpretation says that Israel took the Golan Heights, General
Moshe Dayan went on an ego trip and decided on his own to take the
Heights without consulting the Israeli leadership, I asked Norman
Finkelstein what he thought about that.
NF: No, that's not really what happened, it was actually the reverse.
Dayan had no real interest in the Golan Heights. The one who did was
the Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. Eshkol was an agricultural, his main
concern was agriculture, he came from the, I think the Kibbutz
movement, may be the Moshav, but I think the Kibbutz movement, and
there were vital waters, the Baniyas, as they were called, in the
Golan, the water, and there was also rich land. And it was the
Kibbutzim in the North who were campaigning hard to attack the Golan.
So they sent delegations to Dayan and others during the war, because
the Golan, as you remember, was taken during the very last day. There
was a ceasefire being imposed and just at the last minute they took
the Golan. Dayan was fearful, basically they were all fearful, that if
they attack Syria it was gonna mean a clash with the Soviet Union,
because the main Syrian backer was the Russians at the time. So there
was a tactical concern there and the push came from Eshkol and the
Kibbutzim and the guy on the Northern front. All of them had coveted
different parts of the area outside Israel. A lot of the generals
coveted the West Bank. Others coveted the Sinai. Others coveted the
Golan. And once again, an opportunity arose to broaden or deepen
Israel's borders and different generals on different fronts took
different initiatives. I won't say they planned to do it and that's
why they created this war. They saw it as an opportunity.
Now people forget how small the timespan is. From '48 to '67, it's
less than 20 years. And they were never satisfied with those '48
borders. They called it the borders of lamentation because they didn't
get East Jerusalem, they didn't get the Jewish Quarter, they
considered the most sacred lands to be places like Hebron, you know,
Rachel's Tomb by Bethlehem. And so it's only a 20 year period. It's
all the same actors. It's all the same people. And it's only 11 years
after Sinai. In Sinai they conquered the Gaza and they wanted the West
Bank. So it's the same people, the same mentality, and here was a new
opportunity and they took advantage, it wasn't their first goal. The
first goal was clear, and there I think Segev gets it right, the first
goal, as he puts it -- crush Nasser. Then the second goal is, if you
can, reshape those borders.
00:18:22
JM: So is the interpretation that this was an accidental acquisition,
does that fit with you? NF: No. JM: I mean some people look at it and
say that Israel didn't really want to conquer all these areas...
NF: Right, that's what Michael Oren says, and I wrote a long
examination of his book and I said it was an accident waiting to
happen. All the pieces were in place and now you had the chance. But
they all talked about it before the war. It's all over their writings.
They had all, and it's something that Segev goes through, he goes
through all of their plans. They all had thought about this for years
and hey had all sorts of operational plans should the occassion arise.
So there was no accident about it.
Let me just make another point that Segev makes. You could've just
defeated Jordan without taking over the West Bank. You simply knock
out it's airforce and disable its army. You didn't have to take over
the West Bank to defeat Jordan. We know ourselves, in order to defeat
an enemy you don't have to always occupy its territory. You simply, as
it were, defang it militarily. The decision to occupy the West Bank
was a choice. It was, as I think Segev uses the expression, it was a
land grab in the West Bank.
JM: It's possible to interpret this differnt ways but after 1967 did
Israel become a more religious country because they had so many of the
sites in their possession you were just talking about, Rachel's
Tomb, ... of Jerusalem. Did it kind of reconect Israel with its
religious roots in a way that changed politicians and changed people
in Israel and kind of brought fourth the Settler movement and things
of that nature?
NF: I don't, you know... People make a big deal out of that, being
reconnected with the Wailing Wall and places like the Tomb of the
Patriarchs in Hebron and so fourth. I don't think that's really what
it was. What it was was the Israelis, because they were told by their
government that they were on the verge of a new Holocaust and because
the Israeli people were genuinely fearful, as were American Jews, it
did seem that what happened in '67 was a miracle.
And so there was all of this kind of religious metaphore about the 6
Day War, the 6 days of creation, this miracle that had happened, and
it proves there must be a god, and the Jews must be a chosen people,
and all of that went to their head and was very intoxicating and it
had a religious quality to it. But I don't think it was the
reconnection with the land and that sort of stuff. No, I think it was
the headiness of the war which was largely responsible for what you
could call the burst of irrationality and this belief that a miracle
had happened, whereas, in fact, there was nothing miraculous about it
at all. A perfectly rational assessment of the assembly of forces on
both sides would tell you who was going to win.
JM: Do you think that Israel, after it acquired all of this territory,
realized, well, this was going to be something that we could trade for
peace, this is going to transform the region because before we
couldn't really get anywhere with our neighbouring countries but now
we've got something to trade for peace and this is the thing that is
going to eventually lead to peace with Egypt and may be the
neighbours?
NF: Well, that question is predicated on the assumption that there
wasn't a diplomatic resolution possible before June 1967. I don't
think the record bears that out.
There were 2 issues before 1967 which prevented a diplomatic
settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
One issue was the borders. Israel was awarded 56% of Palestine under
the UN Partition resolution. By the end of the first Arab-Israeli War
in 1949 they had about 80% of Palestine. So there was an issue of it
having to return to those Partition borders.
And the second big question was the refugees. The 750,000 Palestinians
who'd been expelled in 1948 and the question of how to resolve that
question. And Israel didn't want to take back the Palestinian
refugees.
And so now you have after '67. What you can say with a certain amount
of accuracy, I think it was very well put by Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's
former Foreign Minister, in his book Scars of War, Wounds of Peace, he
said in June 1967 -- and it's your listners, I think it's worth
pondering -- "in June '67 we won the '48 borders." That is to say
after June '67 there was no longer any talk about returning to the
Partition Plan, "we won the borders."
And now the question was, you've won the borders, and now there's a
question of the refugees. It seems pretty clear after '67 Arab states
-- I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, I'm just saying it as a
fact -- the Arab states were open to the resolution of the refugee
question which would be compensation instead of return.
So if Israel had been willing to accept the '67 borders and
compensation -- which would've been basically paid for
internationally, not by Israel -- and compensation for the refugees,
they could've had peace since '68.
No question about it.
But, like most States, they just had this big victory, they are
intoxicated by it, the Arabs are humiliated and the famous line by
Moshe Dayan, we're standing by the telephone, waiting for your call,
and if you don't call, too bad, we're not leaving. And that's why I
think The Economist, this past week, it had an article on the 40th
anniversary, and the title was not bad, I didn't really agree with the
content, but the title was not bad, it was called "The Wasted
Victory," because they could've gotten the '48 borders and the
resolution of the refugee question. But they didn't want it, they
wanted more. They got greedy.
And the greediness, I think, history will show, destroyed the country.
I don't think pesonally any longer -- and I don't say it with any kind
of satisfaction -- I don't think Israel has a future there anymore.
It's turned into a, you could call it, it's turned into a crazy State
because when you listen to the language of Israel, it's totally out of
sync with the rest of the world. You take the last war in Iraq.
There're only 2 countries in the world that supported the war, Kuwait,
for reasons you can understand, and Israel -- 70% of the population.
Now, the war with Iran. There's literally only 1 country in the world,
you know, look at the polls -- Israel. The population, the government
pushing hard -- war, war, war. Attacking Lebanon, attacking Gaza, it's
become a kind of crazy State and a lot of the craziness came out of
this June '67 war. It could've had a relatively, you know, you can't
say it's gonna be perfect, it's not gonna be Scandinavia, but they
could've resolved the major problems 40 years ago.
Two things. They got intoxicated with their power and secondly, they
got entangled in ways which I think were very detrimental to them in
this relationship with the United States.
JM: Did the '67 War cement the relationship with the United States?
NF: Yes, there's no question. You know, Israel's main arms supplier
before 1967 was France. It was France that provided the Mist
[spelling?] airplanes for the airforce. And also it was France that
helped them build the Dimona, the nuclear reactor. They had ambivalent
relations with the US, sometimes warm, sometimes cold. But after '67,
and the record's very clear on this, '67, the United States, I guess
it's a National Security advisor to Lyndon Johnson, he's very thrilled
-- why? You knocked out Nasser. And they're worried about this Arab
nationalism spreading to places like Saudi Arabia, all those rickety
regimes which have all of our oil that happens to be under their land,
so they're very happy that Israel has knocked out Nasser. And that's
the beginning of this relationship, which I think is really
misunderstood here as Israel determining US foreign policy -- it's
just not what's happening.
There's a common interest. Israel has always sought to dominate the
Arab world and so has the United States. Now, for different reasons --
the US for the oil, Israel, because it viewed itself being in a, as it
were, intrinsically conflictual relationship with the Arab world, so
it has to either dominate it or it's gonna be destroyed, that's how
they see it.
In particular people like Ben Gurion, they never thought you could
live at peace with the Arab world because they said we're aliens, we
forced ourselves on them, they'll never accept us. And so they always
felt that they're gonna in conflict, as did the US because the US
wanted their oil.
00:29:38
JM: I think a lot of listeners would say, well, there's been Jews in
the Middle East for all these years, why do they necessarily feel
perpetually alien? They were not always aliens, they're people from
the Middle East too.
NF: Yes, I think the reason is, well, part of it, I don't want to say
all of it, is a psychological dimension. You know, Jews coming from
Eastern Europe and who see the world in terms of the Jews v. the
Goyim, the Jews v. the Gentiles, that there'll always be a conflict,
so they're transplanting that mentality to the Middle East and they're
saying the only reason Jews were acceptedin the Arab world before us
is because they head what was called a dhimmi status, namely a second
class status, that nobody will accept the Jews as being full equals,
whether it's in Europe or in the Arab world, and therefore we have to,
you know, constantly remind them who's in charge.
So part of it is a psychological dimension and part of it is a factual
one. They realized we came from there and we imposed ourselves here
and that it's going to be resisted. Of course there is the possibility
that there will be animus but there will also be acquiescence over a
period of time, as it were, acquiescing in the facts.
JM: Do you think the '67 war has any larger legacy now, 40 years
later? Obviously there's lots of unresolved issues that were created,
but are there other, larger legacies?
NF: Well, the main legacy is, how do you resolve the conflict. And you
could already see, right after the June '67 war, they are dealing with
the same issues as they're dealing with now. Number one, they have
this big problem, this is '67, they have absorbed 1 million Arabs and
they want to be a Jewish State. What do you do? They're afraid,
they're terrified of this Arab birth rate and now the 1 million more
Arabs, how do you preserve a Jewish State? And right after the war
they're already thinking in terms of, well, may be we can transfer
some, may be we can send a hundred or three hundred thousand to Iraq.
The same problem -- we got the land but we don't want the people, and
how do you resolve it?
Not an easy problem to resolve because in the great scheme of things
there're only 3 possible resolutions.
One, you can call it, so to speak, the American way -- wipe out the
indigenous population. That's not really an option, at least in the
second half of the 20th century and the 21st century.
A second option is to expel them. They tried that and they weren't all
together unsuccessful in '67 -- people forget they managed to expel
about 250,000 Arabs from the West Bank in 6 days. The whole population
was just 1,200,000. So for a 6 day period they got rid of quite a few
but it didn't work. They still were left with a million.
And then the third possibility is, if you can't exterminate them and
you can't expell them, the third possibility is reduce them to second
level people, namely an apartheid type resolution of the conflict, as
it were, the South African way.
And that's what Israel has been trying to do for the past number of
years, to create a kind of apartheid solution in the Occupied
Territories. Israel's absorbing 10% of the West Bank with the Wall.
It's absorbing the Jordan valley, which is about a 1/3 of the West
Bank. It's criss crossing the Occupied Territories with settlements to
break it up into what they call cantons and so they're trying to
create an apartheid type resolution.
Now, those are, as it were, the negative solutions to the problem:
extermination, expulsion and apartheid.
And then there's another option -- the option which is embraced by the
whole of human kind, apart from Israel and the United States. And that
is return to the June 1967 borders, mutual recognition between an
Israeli and Palestinian State and some sort of mutually acceptable
resolution of the refugee question. That's the option. Give them the
'67 border or a land swap of equal size and equal value, don't give us
the Negev. Equal size and equal value, it's settled.
Those are the terms to resolve the conflict. They have endured for 40
years.
JM: What do you think would've happened if there wasn't a '67 war,
that if it had just been Jordan sticking out there, in the West Bank,
East Jerusalem? What happens without it?
00:35:15
NF: To tell you the truth, I think a war was inevitable. It was
inevitable not because there was no diplomatic solution possible. The
war was inevitable for a separate reason. Israel will not allow the
Arab world to modernize. That's the big problem.
The big problem is that whenever any kind of autonomous modernizing
element emerges in the Middle East Israel sees it as, to use their
favorite word, an existential threat. Because they don't believe, if
the Arab world modernizes, it will ever accept them and that I think
is a very big problem. They will not allow an autonomous modernizing
element to exist in the Middle East, apart from themselves.
JM: Wasn't there a time during the Oslo Accords though when Shimon
Peres and others really thought, well, what we've got to do is build
up business relations NF: Right, a new JM: neighbouring relations,
modernization, everything...
NF: They called it A New Middle East. A New Middle East that we
control. And that's how all the Arabs looked at Peres' offer. [The
way] they looked at it is as he wants to create a new Middle East in
which we, with out technology, our Silicon Valley and our this and
that, and we'll be in charge. I'm not faulting them. I'm too old and
too wise in these things to hold Israel to a different standard. I'm
just saying, the racism is so deeply entrenched, they can't conceive
of dealing with Arabs as equals. They can't. They not only can't
conceive it, they dread it. Because they see themselves as, which they
are, they're a very small little entity in this Arab world and they
don't think the'll ever be accepted. And, frankly, you know, they want
now admission into the EU, they don't even see themselves as part of
the EU -- excuse me -- as part of the Middle East. They themselves see
themselves as Western, not Eastern. Modern, not backward. It's in many
ways a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you will not be accepted in large
part because you don't see yourself as part of us, you see yourself as
alien, you see yourself as superior, you see yourself as better. So
how can you expect under those circumstances you'll ever be accepted?
Palestinians, Arabs, give them a chance like everybody else. The
Israelis can't see that. The sense of superiority, the deeply
entrenched racism. It was a racism that had to be. You have to
understand that. It was like our racism with the Native Americans. If
you don't have that deeply entrenched racism, how could you justify in
your own minds what you're doing? You know? You're throwing people out
of their homes. You're saying their connection with the land is not as
important as our connection with the land. Well, how can you justify
that unless there's a very deeply entrenched racism? It's a functional
necessity. But if you get to know them, talk to them, meet them --
smart, nice, descent, like most people, on the whole, in general, you
know? Then there's hope.
There's a lot to overcome, for sure, but there are possibilities for
people to learn to respect each other and achieve, you know, no
eternal peace, but a reasonable, practical living together.
That's what you hope for. And work towards. That's the most important
[part] -- you have to work for it.
00:40:04
JM: You're listening to Worldview from Chicago Public Radio. I'm
Jerome McDonnell and we've been talking today with Norman Finkelstein,
Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePaul, about the 1967 war
in the Middle East but I couldn't help but as him a few questions
about his tenure bid at DePaul. Finkelstein's always had a
controversial edge, for example, he's written that some Jewish
organizations have exploited the Holocaust, but the controversy never
ends in his conflict with Harvard's Alan Dershowitz. It began on a
Democracy NOW! radio program several years ago when he alleged that
Dershowitz' book The Case for Israel was plagiarized. Then Dershowitz
tried to stop publication of Finkelstein's book Beyond Chutzpah: on
the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History -- a chunk of the
book is devoted to rebutting Dershowitz' book. More recently,
Dershowitz has mounted a long campaign against Finkelstein's tenure
bid at DePaul. DePaul's department of political science and college
personell committees have suported the tenure bid but some
administrators are against it. The president of DePaul University has
until about the middle of this month to decide on the matter and
Finkelstein gave me his reaction to the public controversy over his
tenure bid.
NF: Well, I can't say it's been easy. You know, I'm not going to play
the martyr. I was just reading a student paper, a student wrote a
paper about his mother who was in Guatemala during the 1970s and it's
describing how all of her friends, her faculty at the university,
they're all being killed, murdered. She said people stopped taking
bathes in the water because the water was filled with heads floating
all over it. She said at first we thought it was coconuts. And then we
realized it was human heads and people stopped bathing in the water.
So, you know, next to that, what is my suffering? It's meaningless.
And we should maintain our sense of proportion and recognize, by any
standard in the history of humanity, I'm doing fine, I'm healthy, my
head is on my shoulders, and my body parts aren't being splattered all
over the place.
Having said that, it hasn't been pleasant. And I wish I could say that
it had a sort of morally or politically redeeming element, that it's a
fight about principle. I wish I could say that. But it rapidly
degenerated into just mud slinging and a circus. And I wish I could
say I debated Professor Dershowitz but you don't debate with Professor
Dershowitz, it's just a spitball contest, it's not serious at all.
It's hurling all these fantastic ad hominum claims that I lost my job
because I was mentally -- previous job -- because i was mentally
unstable; that my late mother, who was in the Warsaw Ghetto, Maidanek
concentration camp, and two slave labor camps and lost, every single
member of her family was exterminated, he now claims my late mother
was a Nazi collaborator, or I think she was a Nazi collaborator.
That's not debate. There's no principle. It's just mud slinging. It
hasn't been a pleasant experience for me and I can't say there's been
any redeeming value in it. People keep trying to remind me there's a
political principle at stake but I've long forgotten it. And, to be
perfectly honest, I don't care what happens any more. If you took a
polygraph to my wrist and you told me, you got tenure, or you told me
I didn't, my pulse wouldn't skip a beat. I've been totally wearied by
it. People have no idea what happened this year.
JM: Have you come away from it with any respect for people at DePaul?
Your university seems to have supported you up to a pretty high
level.
NF: Ah, you know, you have to make distinctions. I've been overwhelmed
with support, by people. I must get about a half dozen beautifully
crafted letters each day CC'd to me, having been sent originally to
the president. These aren't form letters and they aren't e-mails, in
the sense of "hi, how are you." We're talking about letters which
consist of a good 6 or 8 hefty paragraphs, where people have thought
through a lot. And, you know, I'm sure in the future I'll have a
chance to look back and see the bigger picture. There was a huge
amount of support literally, not hyperbolically, literally from all
over the world, people poured in letters and support of all sorts. And
also some faculty at DePaul, certainly the students at DePaul, I had
to finally tell them to stop because each action on my side evoked
such a viscious counter reaction that at some point I told them, no
more action, because I can't deal with the counter reaction. And I
cannot tell you how vicious and ugly it got. It got very vicious and
very ugly. And it was not just Professor Dershowitz.
So I don't want to lose sight of the kind of support I got. But
unfortunately, the vicious reaction totally shocked me. It really did.
I mean, I'm no new boy on the block. JM: Yeah NF: I'm 53. I've been
thrown out of many universities but it's almost always done very
quietly. Behind the scenes, phone calls, letters, pressures. I did not
expect that this... It turns out that Professor Dershowitz was in
correspondence with the ex-chairman of my department for 3 years. He
was pushing. He had correspondence with the president, it turns out. I
wasn't aware of any of this, though, I felt it in my department. I
felt it but I had no idea. And that's how I thought it would work, it
was going to be behind the scenes and then if I make any kind of
protests it would be Finkelstein's paranoia, you know, he's imagining
it. But this time there was nothing left to the imagination. It was
all very forthright and it turned into a national hysteria. I didn't
expect that. And I didn't expect the level of ugliness that it would
reach.
JM: What does it mean for your scholarship in the future? I mean, does
it, you know, dampen any enthusiasm for your work?
NF: I lost a lot of time this year. I lost a lot of time, it was
squandered. There were many battles that had to be fought with the pen
to prove my innocence of very ugly charges. And it meant squandering
huge amounts of time and many weeks which were filled with consecutive
sleepless nights trying to answer the barrage of ad hominum, filthy
and sordid ad hominum attacks that were being leveled against me.
Professor Dershowitz inundated the Law School, the DePaul University
Law School. Sent each member of the Law School a 60 page dossier on
me, filled with the most filthy scurrilous allegations.
And many people in the Law School believed it. They were very adamant
that I was a Holocaust denier and worse. I had to fight senior members
of the Law School administration who were saying scurrilous things
because "how could Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of
Law at Harvard Law School, be lying?"
So I lost a huge amount of time this year. As to what will happen,
I'll survive.
JM: Well, thanks a lot for joining us and talking about the 1967 war
and your tenure battle.
NF: Thank you.

 dall'universita' di DePaul a causa del suo attivismo politico,
Fonte?
Tb
Ps: demolisce, rotfl.
-- 
רפוה שלמה לחולה פרנץ בן יוסף וחנה

appare irrilevante, perderci tempo č stupido.
Infatti.  La trovo una cosa molto ma molto ipocrita. (Persio)

 Fonte?
Nessuna.  Semplicemente non gli hanno dato la cattedra.
E resta quindi solo Assistente.
-Stefano


Il dato rilevante da un punto di vista politico non è sapere se hanno rifiutato 
la cattedra a Finkelstein secondo le normali procedure di valutazione ma se vi 
siano state pressioni sull'ateneo affinché non gli fosse data e se queste 
pressioni abbiano influenzato la decisione.
A me interessa capire quanto sia diffusa nel mondo la mentalità da squadrismo 
sionista che possiamo apprezzare anche qui, su IPI.
Mi interessa farmi un'idea del livello di degrado che hanno raggiunto i valori 
di riferimento delle persone e delle organizzazioni aderenti al Sionismo in 
confronto ai valori democratici e liberali e ai principi giuridici propri della 
moderna civiltà occidentale.
Mi interessa osservare come la miscela di revanscismo, di nazionalismo e di 
mitologia millenaristica abbia corroso e continui a corrodere questi valori e 
principi in quelle persone e in quelle organizzazioni.

appare irrilevante, perderci tempo è stupido.


 esprime, ahinoi, qui su IPI.
Persio, aka Sandro Marrone, è stato beccato a spremere la sua sacca di pus 
antisemita qui su IPI, e adesso se l'è presa un po'.
Lo strillo del gallinaccio in pentola (occhio, persio, un'altra minaccia di 
morte, e per cottura!) è uno delle più dolci ricompense a chi l'ha cucinato.
Forza Persio, aka sandro marrone, aka piattola "anticonformista", strepita un 
altro po' contro le degerazioni millenariste, fasciste, squadriste, del sionismo 
e le tare degli ebrei.
LOL
Tb


 valori e principi in quelle persone e in quelle organizzazioni.
In altre parole, caro Persio, aka Sandro Marrone, aka putrescente e certificato 
ristagno di smegma antisemita, hai voglia di dare fiato a qualcun'altra delle 
tue fantasie malate.
Oppure di farti fare tottò sul culetto.
(è una espressione figurata, sandro, non una minaccia di sculacciarti quando 
metti il naso fuori da casa).
Prevedo tenti divertenti.
Tb


 
Leggi un po'.
http://normanfinkelstein.wordpress.com/

 
http://normanfinkelstein.wordpress.com/
Lui almeno, con ste cazzate, ci guadagna dei soldi, Persio.
Suppongo lo faccia per dimostrare agli anti- che gli ebrei sono davvero moooolto 
più furbi.
Tb


Leggi un po'.
Degli idioti che danno sostegno ad un *COGLIONE* come Finkelstein mi
interessa ben poco.



Non ho mica scritto di "tare degli ebrei" io, queste sono idee putride che si 
sviluppano in ambienti ricchi di letame, come la tua testa.
Ma vedo che soffri di qualche bruciore, Antonio Pinter alias tonibaruch, 
dovresti rivolgerti al tuo farmacista di fiducia, ti prescriverà sicuramente 
qualche pomata efficace da applicare localmente.

 moooolto più furbi.
Furberia genetica?  E' davvero interessante come riesci a distribuire una 
uniforme coltre di merda su tutto.

 interessa ben poco.
Detto da te è una vera certificazione di credibilità.
Per i sostenitori di Finkelstein, ovviamente.

 Non ho mica scritto di "tare degli ebrei" 
Hai scritto della loro volontà di non integrarsi, della loro nevrosi, che poi 
sono tare.
Tu puoi non chiamare "sole" il sole, ma rimane lo stesso il sole, caro Sandro 
Marrone, secchio di diarrea razzista.


 una uniforme coltre di merda su tutto.
Ho fatto un ottimo lavoro sulla tua faccia, in effetti.


 quando metti il naso fuori da casa).
Bah, si tratta di riuscirci.

 E non sono antisemita.
Io invece sono Moira Orfei.


 Sandro Marrone, secchio di diarrea razzista.
Siamo alla citazione scespiriana, cioè alla frutta.

Detto da te è una vera certificazione di credibilità.
Certo, certo....
*pat pat*
Hai altro da portare per sostenere il tuo *complotto ebraico*?


Come ho giÃ  spiegato integrazione sta per 
=====
lemma precedente 
lemma seguente 
in|te|gra|zió|ne
s.f.
CO 
1a l’integrare, l’integrarsi e il loro risultato 
1b aggiunta che colma una mancanza, un’incompletezza o un’imperfezione:
lezioni di i., concedere una somma a i. dello stipendio, un’i.
dell’alimentazione 
2a annessione di un territorio da parte di uno stato 
2b rapporto di stretta collaborazione, di assistenza reciproca tra
stati: i. europea, atlantica 
3a fusione di più forze, coordinamento di organismi diversi con
interessi comuni: i. di due eserciti 
3b coordinamento o concentrazione di imprese con lo scopo di diminuire i
costi o di dominare il mercato | formazione di un mercato univoco 
4 inserimento in un determinato contesto sociale, culturale, politico e
sim.: i. di uno straniero in una società, i. di un handicappato nella
struttura scolastica | integrazione razziale 
5 TS filol., inserimento in un testo di parole, frasi, passi mancanti
per errore o per omissione della tradizione manoscritta, attuato con
procedimento induttivo o attraverso il confronto con altri codici 
6 TS fisiol., coordinazione e confluenza di più funzioni elementari in
un’attività complessa 
7 TS psic., processo di armonizzazione reciproca dei vari tratti della
personalità, in modo da permettere l’adattamento all’ambiente esterno 
8 TS mat., processo di determinazione del valore di una grandezza come
calcolo di un integrale definito di una funzione o di un’equazione
differenziale | determinazione delle funzioni primitive di una data
funzione o di una data equazione differenziale come calcolo di un
integrale indefinito 
9 TS elettr., realizzazione di un circuito integrato [quadro 33]
=====
Trova qualcosa che riguardi "assimilazione e scomparsa" povero *FESSO*
di un Persio.
Ma credi sul serio di poter prendere per il culo le persone dopo essere
stato smerdato pubblicamente?


 Io invece sono Moira Orfei.
Le pailettes ti donano alquanto.
Palmiro Pangloss
-- 
Tarpaulin: Amarcord Cold War
http://tarpaulin.blogspot.com/

 principi in quelle persone e in quelle organizzazioni.
Stai dicendo cose senza alcuna attinenza con la realta'.
Ciao
R.

 Voglio solo mostrare delle realtà evidenti. E non sono antisemita.
Da quando hanno introdotto le autocertificazioni, la qualita'
dell'informazione raccolta e' andata peggiorando.
Ciao
R.


Fortuna che ci sono anche gli accertamenti.


 Fortuna che ci sono anche gli accertamenti.
Di cui uno e' stato chiesto anche dall'interessato, che poi ha deciso
di non seguire il suggerimento.
Ciao
R.


Ostracizzare una persona a causa delle cose che pensa e che dice pubblicamente, 
facendo pressioni e ricatti su di essa o su chi ha potere su di essa affinché 
agisca in questo senso, è illiberale e antidemocratico, per principio.
E' davvero strana questa tua incapacità di percepire la contraddizione di tali 
comportamenti con i principi fondativi della nostra civiltà.

 di tali comportamenti con i principi fondativi della nostra civiltà.
La nostra civiltà (quando funziona) isola la merda razzista, sorry.


 isola. Nelle condizioni attuali è più conveniente isolarli. [cit]
Sono lusingato 

Jonathan Pine wrote:

Ne hai motivo, sto procedendo ad iscriverla nel marmo di carrara, a lettere d'oro.


antidemocratico, per principio.
Ma non dire stronzate per favore!
E' proprio la liberta' di parola che rende democratiche tali azioni.
Perche' "i ricatti" sono solo un parto della tua mente malata, fino a
quando non avrai *PROVE* della loro esistenza, povero Persio.


 La nostra civiltà (quando funziona) isola la merda razzista, sorry.
La "civiltà" dello organizzazioni sioniste: la tua, non la "nostra".
Sono cose diverse, con principi diversi e alternativi.
La nostra civiltà è altra cosa da quella.

 la tua, non la "nostra".
La "vostra" è la inciviltà del letame razzista.
Roba che nei paesi democratici si isola e si mette in quarantena politica.
Prova in Iran, lì sei più mainstream.


 quando non avrai *PROVE* della loro esistenza, povero Persio.
Beh, ne abbiamo avuto un esempio col caso Toaff di quanto siano "democratiche" 
tali azioni.
Ma non dire stronzate per favore! <cit>

Persio wrote:

Quoto. Un confronto di idee serrato ed esperto, che ha chiarito il caso e 
distrutto un libercolo pseudostorico.
Il buon lavoro di una società libera ed aperta, che disperde i miasmi aprendo le 
finestre e facendo piena luce.
Good Job.


 Prova in Iran, lì sei più mainstream.
Temo non siano peggiori di te.


Retorichetta da Baci Perugina, buona per i gonzi.
I tuoi simili hanno reso la vita impossibile a Toaff prima ancora di leggerne il 
libro.
Un ottimo esempio di squadrismo sionista: da tenere a mente per capire con chi 
abbiamo a che fare.

 Il let
Sciò.


 I tuoi sim
Sciò.
Torna nell'area "grandi infetti".


appare irrilevante, perderci tempo č stupido.


appare irrilevante, perderci tempo è stupido.


appare irrilevante, perderci tempo č stupido.


 addosso.
Direi più in isolamento sanitario.


 finestre e facendo piena luce.
minchia TB, ti vuoi suicidare e lo dici così al ng? Quali sono i
problemi insormontabili che ti stanno portando all'insano gesto?

 addosso.
Usa Google, somaro.

Usa Google, somaro.
*FESSO* di un Persio, le hai o no queste *PROVE* di fantasiosi "ricatti"
nel caso Toaff?
La risposta e' semplice: "si" o "no".


 La risposta e' semplice: "si" o "no".
Ho risposto: usa Google, somaro.

Ho risposto: usa Google, somaro.
Non hai risposto: "si" o "no", caro *FESSO* di un Persio?
Non e' difficile.  O le hai o non le hai.
