Academic Self-Haters

Norman Finkelstein

It has always been a terrible pain for us that there are Jews who hate other Jews so much that they will do anything to cause us even more trouble than we have already endured these 1900 years.

Today the most deliberate anti-Jewish propagandist in America is Norman Finkelstein, a professor of political science at De Paul University in Chicago. It is therefore gratifying to learn that on June 8, 2007, the president of that university denied tenure, or a lifetime appointment, to this hatemonger.

Before we describe some of Finkelstein’s venom toward the Jewish people, we need to understand the meaning of tenure in its academic setting. The word is derived from “tenare” or “to hold” and refers to the need of scholars to be protected from losing their jobs on the grounds that their work is not to the liking of someone with a different view. This is what is meant by academic freedom .

Yet, even as academic freedom is absolutely necessary to further scholarly inquiry and publication, it is also necessary that those who label themselves scholars abide by the truth and not to use the cloak of academic freedom to lie, to cheat and to personally attack others in a slanderous and malicious form .

It is precisely the malicious conduct of Finkelstein which cost him his job at DePaul and at Hunter College, Brooklyn College and New York University. This is, then, the fourth time that Finkelstein has been rejected in his effort to attain a tenured position. These four schools dismissed him because they all feared that if given a lifetime appointment he would misuse their names to promote his campaign against Jews everywhere.

The Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, President of De Paul University, denied tenure to Finkelstein because Finkelstein defames others, lies, invents events and attacks people with different views ad hominem. Father Holtschneider refused to keep Finkelstein on the faculty because the ethics of Roman Catholicism are compromised by a man who claims that the demands of Holocaust survivors for compensation from Germany are “blackmailing” the Germans.

De Paul University is a private university established by the Vincentian Fathers. It has 23,000 students and is regarded as a seat of scholarship and free inquiry. There is no evidence that anyone has ever been denied tenure there because of their political views. However, deceit and fraud cannot be supported by even the most devoted supporter of freedom of expression. (See my forthcoming book: FRAUD: Deceit Among Scientists, Academics, Writers and Philanthropists).

Here are some of the lies published by Norman Finkelstein:

He wrote a book called The Holocaust Industry, which repeats all the allegations against Jews that may be found in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, concerning Jewish greed, Jewish conspiracies to rule the world, etc. Finkelstein invents interviews and cites sources that don’t exist. He denounced the movie Schindler’s List as a diversion to cover up the “crimes” of Israel; He claims that Israel is governed by a “Nazi” ideology and writes that “anti-semitism” is caused by Jews themselves. Finkelstein regularly visits Arab countries where he attends meetings and conventions and blames “the Jews” for everything that is wrong in the world. Finkelstein even denounced Leon Uris for writing a book called Exodus which depicts British and Arab treachery toward the Jewish people. Finkelstein claims that American Jews caused the attack on the World Trade Center and that American Jews dominate the American political agenda.

Finkelstein is of course not the only hater of the Jewish people who descends from Jewish parents. Another such deviant is Richard Falk, a professor of international law who spent many years at Princeton and recently moved to the University of California. Falk writes endless anti-Jewish treatises clothed in learned language but essentially delivering the same message as Finkelstein. “The Jews” are always at fault, the slaughter of Jews is no crime, Israel must be destroyed and holocaust survivors are blackmailing the innocent Germans.

The “grandfather” of all Jewish Jew haters is Noam Chomsky. He is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  There he preaches that holocaust deniers are not anti-Jewish and that Israel has no right to exist, etc., etc.

The academic profession has a large number of these former Jews who make money by denouncing other Jews. It should be understood that this is not new at all. On the contrary. As early as the first century, a Jew named Barnabas wrote anti-Jewish tracts in Alexandria, Egypt, in which he accused other Jews of drinking the blood of children, poisoning the wells and all the other hate inspired accusations which were repeated over and over again to the present day as excuses for murdering our people.

Throughout the Middle Ages there were Jews in every generation who denounced their own people even as there were Jews who did the same during the Nazi era.

These are Jews or people of Jewish descent who believe that we will all be slaughtered and that they must save themselves by siding with the killers. The lesson they have not learned is that our enemies are also their enemies. The Nazi murderers made no distinction between the Jews who denounced other Jews and the other six million. They killed them all.

Meanwhile we will stand by Israel and our President, George W. Bush,  the only president of the United States who has supported the right of Israel to exist and the one president who appointed more Jews to important positions than any other president in American history. The Democrats, like Bill Clinton, side with the Moslem killers and seek to undermine Israel. May we be protected from them and their terrorist allies.

Shalom u’vracha.

Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The Restoration of Israel (2006).

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