Israel Arrests Outspoken Academic Norman Finkelstein

[blackbear]

Israel Arrests Outspoken Academic Norman Finkelstein

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/23/headlines

American academic Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and ordered deported from Israel. Finkelstein arrived in Tel Aviv earlier today on his way to the Occupied Territories. He was immediately detained and told he is banned from Israel for ten years. He’s expected to be deported tomorrow. Finkelstein is known one of the most prominent academic critics of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

SonOfKitty.....Wow. WTF!

An interesting interview of Finkelstein in Lebanon.

http://palestinevideoblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/norman-finkelstein-hezb ollah-honour-of.html

AlicetheKurious
Finklestein is not only cute, he's really smart, and brave, too.

I saw that joint interview with Derschowitz (on YouTube, I believe) -- he wiped the floor with Derschowitz, and left him looking like the unprofessional, unprincipled hack he is.

As for the interview you linked to, SonOfKitty, I can't check right now, but I guess that's the one he did with Saad al-Hariri's Future TV -- he wiped the floor with that interviewer, too.

He's got a mouth on him, and one heck of a brain attached to it.

I like that in a man

hava1

No mention here yet about this event. I posted in my blog, there are comments from journalists wondering whether and why it is not published.
Hope it is not a false alarm (i put my name on it).

Ine comment says that this would be the first political expulsion of a Jew in a decade, i am not sure about it. Anyway that's a new level, for sure, of political control here. I wonder when people on this board will realize that there is a rougher treatment of Jews/Israelis who are perceived as "fifth column" then to other, similarly oriented, critics who are foreigners.

At the same day, a headline in the news tells about a government program to eradicate violence at schools and community, sponspored by a "zionist" christian fundie org from the USA. Avi Dichter - head of domestic security cabinet - has also approved taking money from this program for the police force workshops. So, we witness on one hand tolerance to fundie antisemitism and zero tolerance to Jewish crticique of the regime. Follow the money trail...

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=17829

[karlos]

Finkelstein is one of very few Truthspeakers about the business otherwise known as 'holocaust' and it's founder 'zionism'
Probably Israelis dont want their public educated about these matters.
Finkelstein has actually studied at university a PhD in Holocaust Studies.

[blackbear]

Prof Finkelstein Rips The Holocaust Industry

Jousor (Bridges) with Prof. Norman Finkelstein P7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuE1X94LqlQ

Finkelstein...........the Muslim community should stay away/boycott it......
"HMD".....has nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust. It is an Ideological Weapon for Israel......

Hava

strangely, the news broke only this hour, well after the man has been deported. according to haaretz, the man was abused and belittled by the wardens and security people (GSS). He was asked demeaning questions and was handcuffed. HE decided to waive his right to appeal to the court (which would mean probably 2-3 days in custody).

quite a precedent, I believe, very disturbing.

AlicetheKurious

There was ZERO chance that Finklestein would be allowed to travel to the West Bank, let alone the hermetically-sealed Gaza Strip. (Hello? They're not letting food and medicines in -- it's a blasted' concentration camp, for creep's sake). The restrictions on foreign nationals and even Israelis (except for illegal settlers and forces of the illegal occupation army) have been in place for almost 3 years, in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Entry denied: Deporting witnesses of Israeli occupation and unilateralism

Maureen Clare Murphy,

In another Israeli move designed to further isolate Palestinians from the rest of the world community, it is being reported that the Israeli army will be declaring the West Bank closed to foreign nationals. The Gaza Strip has already been made virtually inaccessible to foreign nationals; those who wish to enter must apply to the Israeli authorities, weeks in advance, to receive elusive permits. The effect is that the plight of the Palestinian civilian population living under Israeli occupation becomes all the more invisible to the international community.

The recent trend of deportation of foreign nationals (including foreign passport-holding Palestinians) working in Palestinian civil society, studying at Palestinian universities, and those living with Palestinian family gives further cause for concern that West Bank Palestinians will no longer be allowed visitors to their open-air prison. Of course, this policy of isolation is being justified under the guise of "security." The rightist Israeli daily Maariv reports, "According to the plan, the IDF will declare the Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] closed to foreign nationals. Denying entry to ... activists has been defined as prevention of political subversion and involvement of members of the movement in acts of terrorism, and limitation of friction with Jewish settlers."

However, Israel has long been denying entry to scores of internationals whether they are activists or not -- a policy that has been intensified in recent months. ...

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4859.shtml

Eldritch

I notice that many of those who oppose Dr. Finkelstein have made all kinds of allegations about the man and his work, but none of his critics has managed successfully to argue against a key thesis of his: that the government of Israel and many of its supporters have used the Holocaust as a means of deflecting criticism from the state of Israel and from its many crimes.

That the martyrdom of millions of Jewish people has been—and continues to be—used in this cowardly and manipulative way, is a deeply offensive form of anti-semitism, which is espoused by the government of Israel itself.

Further, that this form of anti-semitism is being used to deflect criticism from an ongoing genocide against another people, the Palestinian people, is a matter of concern that inspires outrage and calls for universal condemnation by people of goodwill everywhere.

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=17829&postdays=0 &postorder=asc&start=15

[blackbear]

The viewpoint from a popular Zionazi site.

Finkelstein in trouble, again...David T,

Apparently, Norman Finkelstein has been refused entry to Israel for 10 years.

There seems to be a little confusion in the Guardian as to the validity of Israel’s reason for banning him. Toni O’Loughlin reports:

Shin Bet interrogated him for around 24 hours about his contact with the Lebanese Islamic militia, Hizbullah, when he travelled to Lebanon earlier this year and expressed solidarity with the group which waged war against Israel in 2006. He was also accused of having contact with al-Qaida. But Finkelstein rejected the accusations, saying he had travelled to Israel to visit an old friend.

“I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me,” he told an Israeli newspaper in an email exchange.

“I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn’t much more to say for myself: alas, no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations. I’ve always supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I’m not an enemy of Israel.”

The Guardian report gives the misleading impression that Finkelstein did not meet with Hezbollah at all - which would be quite a reasonable basis to exclude somebody from the country - and that he was “deported and banned for criticising Israel”.

Of course, what Finkelstein is saying is literally true. He did not have any “secret rendevous with terrorist organisations”. The meeting with Hezbollah was quite open. Neither was it a mere allegation, as the original Haaretz article from which the Guardian report is taken makes clear.

Indeed, Finkelstein does not regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation at all. Here he is scolding a Lebanese TV reporter for questioning the role of Hezbollah in her country. Here is a report of his meeting with the, erm, sectarian milita organisation. And here he is discussing his meeting with Hezbollah:

“After the horror and after the shame and after the anger there still remain a hope, and I know that I can get in a lot of trouble for what I am about to say, but I think that the Hezbollah represents the hope. They are fighting to defend their homeland,” the Brooklyn-born Finkelstein told reporters.

Given that he met with Hezbollah - an organisation which prefers the “destruction by terrorist violence aimed at ordinary Israeli civilians” solution to the “two state” solution that Finkelstein claims to support - it can hardy have surprised him that he was barred from the country. Actually, I don’t think he was genuinely surprised at all by what happened.

I smell a publicity stunt. The things people will do to keep themselves in the headlines!

If the Guardian was genuinely not aware that Finkelstein had in fact met and then written about his meeting with Hezbollah, and that he had in fact been banned merely for “criticising Israel”, then it looks as if they’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes. If they did know that Finkelstein had met with a top Hezbollah commander, then they’ve pulled the wool over the eyes of their readership.

Update

Also, see Engage and Martin in the Margins, who thinks that the Guardian’s reporting was “disingenuous, not to say deliberately mischievous”.

The Guardian has a Readers’ Editor to correct such errors. Unfortunately, if the Guardian did make it clear that they’d misreported this affair, it would only prove to some the supernatural powers of the Jewish Lobby.

Update

Over at the UCU Activists List, poor old Prof Haim Bresheeth has been sent into a tailspin of panic by the Guardian’s misleading report:

I assume you all know of Norman Finkelstein, the American historian. It may be interesting to learn that Israel now arrest academics on arrival, for no other reason than their disagreement with Israeli policies. Needless to say, each one of us may suffer from this innovation in the near future, should we be silly enough to go to Israel…
Haim

Silly fellow.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/05/26/finkelstein-in-trouble-again/#c omments

22 comments.....many from Zionazi racists.......