As I am no longer posting at History News Network over a difference of opinion with the editors, I thought I would post my thoughts on a recent book review here. The review in question is by Neve Gordon and the book is Norman Finkelstein's, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Before I say anything, I should note that I have never read either Finkelstein's book, nor the book it is responding too, Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel. Thus my comments are relying on the review and various interviews and debates between the two men.
It should also be known that from what I have read, Finkelstein clearly has a political agenda in his writings, and is certainly no friend to the Jews, calling Holocaust Eli Wiesel, for example, a “wimp,” a “a ridiculous character,” and the “resident clown of the Holocaust circus,” and calling for solidarity with the terrorist group Hezbollah (and indeed those comments represent only some of the most mild that he has made). Based on what I have read from him, I think the label of anti-Semite is appropriate but NOT simply because he criticizes Israel. In any event, none of this has anything to do with the validity of his book, and so I will move on to the review.
One of the central claims Finkelstein makes against Dershowitz is that he has plagerized material from Joan Peter’s controvercial book, From Time Immemorial. On this, Gordon claims,
“After a careful examination of the documents Finkelstein presents in Beyond Chutzpah, it is difficult not to infer that the Harvard professor did indeed pass off someone else's information as his own.”
Apparently, not so difficult for Professor Charles Fried, the former Solicitor General and a Professor of Law at Harvard. He called the charge “stupid, unfair and ridiculous… from a biased accuser.” The distinguished chief-librarian at Harvard Law School reached the same conclusions, as did an inquiry by Harvard after the charge gained momentum. So why does Finkelstein and Gordon accuse Dershowitz of plagerism? Apparently, Dershowitz read Peters’ book, and used some of her references. When he cited those references in his own book, he cited the original sources where Finkelstein claims that he should have cited Peters.
As James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth concluded after reviewing the Finkelstein charge: “I do not understand [Finkelstein’s] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) [Finkelstein’s] complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them.” In point of fact, the Chicago Manual of Style supports Dershowitz’s method, as does virtually every researcher that I have ever come in contact with.
(NOTE: By Finkelstein and Gordon’s standards, I have just plagerized Mr. Dershowitz for attributing the above quotes to their authors rather than to this website where I got them).
I commend Gordon for at least disgreeing with Finkelstein’s claim that the actions of some Jews is the cause of anti-Semitism.
Gordon goes on to say that “Academically, the section discussing Israel's human rights record raises serious questions about intellectual honesty and the ideological bias of our cultural institutions, since it reveals how a prominent professor holding an endowed chair at a leading university can publish a book whose major claims are false.”
Clearly, Gordon believes that Finkelstein makes the stronger argument and on this particular issue, I am inclined to agree with Finkelstein’s claim that certain human rights violations were commited over Dershowitz’s rather hard-to-believe categorical claim that “There is no evidence that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed even a single civilian.” Does Dershowitz simply ignore all of the evidence to the contrary? Gordon and Finkelstein implies that he does, but in fact, based on a debate between the two authors (during which Finkelstein actually implies that Dershowitz didn’t even write the book), Dershowitz makes clear that he does not ignore the record, he simply disagrees with it.
“We have a reasonable dispute about that,” Dershowitz says in the debate. “What Israel does and what Israel did until 1999 was what the United States is now doing on Guantanamo Bay. That is they put people in uncomfortable "shabach" positions, they put hoods over their head, often foul smelling hoods, they play loud music, there's a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly this month which talks about rough interrogation techniques. It describes what the United States is doing and it says that Israel used to do that, some possibility it continues to do it. That's simply not the kind of torture that international law prohibits.” As to whether or not Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot civilians, Dershowitz claims that this issue is dealt with in his book.
Gordon concludes his review with the following:
“On the other hand, the heated response to his book is just another example of how the literature discussing the new anti-Semitism delegitimizes those who expose Israel's egregious violations of international law.”
Frankly, I get a little tired of hearing this straw-man argument made every time someone challenges anti-Israel views. I do not recall Dershowitz, or the ADL, or virtually ANY other prominent wtiter or organization EVER claim that criticiszing Israel is anti-Semetic in ANY WAY, and yet every time I hear some anti-Israel diatribe, it almost inevitably includes cries of victimhood and lamenting all of the accusations NO ONE makes about them. The problem is that most people who are genuinely anti-Semetic are also anti-Israel, but the claim of anti-Semitism is not made simply BECAUSE people criticize Israel. In any event, this is a discusson for another post.
What struck me about the book review was not the conclusion that Finkelstein’s conclusions were better supported than Dershowitz or more thoroughly researched, but the fact that it determines Finkelstein as “right” and Dershowitz as “wrong” despite the apparent ambiguity in the evidence.
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