This is for those who may not know who Dr. Norman Finkelstein is. The following is a report done by Dr. Henry Lindner who attended a speech given by this great Jewish Professor. It is quite enlightening: Dear Friends,
I had the great pleasure of seeing Norman Finkelstein lecture on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on 13 November at Binghamton University. Binghamton is Norman's alma mater and just a 60-minute drive from my home. He sat behind the podium with a beautiful smile on his face as he watched the audience pile in. Our group of two "adult" couples stood out in an auditorium filled with college kids. We sat front and center. About one-third of the audience appeared to be Jewish. He spoke resolutely and passionately, unfolding the long sequence of events in the history of Israel and Palestine. He made eye contact with every person in the audience. The text of his talk, with very useful references, can be found at ://www.normanfinkelstein.com/id128.htm I believe that this is the single best article-length introduction to this conflict ever written. The speech was most remarkable in how Norman used direct quotes from Israeli officials and historians to dismiss so many of the myths surrounding this conflict. He made it very clear that the Zionists were, from the beginning, committed to "the way of transfer" to deal with the "population problem". He quotes numerous observers and historians to support the argument that it was the Palestinians' real and justified fear of expulsion that caused them to resist and attack Jews in the pre-war years, not some irrational "anti-semitism". He recounts how in 1967 the transfer option was no longer available, so Israel has attempted the "apartheid option" instead. He recounts Israel's long and bloody efforts to avoid a two-state solution. He graphically recounts the violent Israeli response to every Palestinian/Arab two-state "peace offensive"--from the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the recent Operation Defensive Shield and bombing of Gaza. He highlighted a few salient facts: Israel mourns the deaths of 20,000 Jews, mostly combatants, in the last 120 years of struggle. By comparison, Israel killed 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, mostly civilians, in just four months in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. 5000 Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley consume an amount of water that is 75% of the total water consumed by 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Norman recounted how the Oslo accords were basically an attempt to create a permanent apartheid regime, with Arafat lording it over the Palestinians as an agent of Israel, meanwhile enjoying the trappings of statehood and enriching himself and his cronies. In the end, Arafat, corrupt as he was, had the courage, or the fear of his own people, to refuse the Barak bantustan plan. With the apartheid option dead, Norman believes that the situation is moving tragically towards a new attempt at the "transfer option". He recalled that in 1989, Benjamin Netanyahu (my Antichrist frontrunner) urged the Israeli government to exploit politically favorable circumstances like the Tiananmen massacre to carry out "large-scale"expulsions when the "damage to Israel would have been relatively small." Norman fears this horrible event may occur during the US attack on Iraq, after international journalists and activists have been expelled from Israel and the West Bank. He hopes that some combination of Palestinian non-violent resistance and international pressure will bring an Israeli withdrawal, but one can sense that he doesn't believe it will happen. He urged everyone of us to do anything we could to prevent it--so that we would not feel that we had known it was coming and did nothing. After speaking for nearly two hours, he took questions for an hour. It was a marvel to behold his grip on the subject and his skill in providing the right response for that particular individual. He knew all the standard questions/accusations that would be brought by the Jewish members of the audience. He made a point of picking them out from among the many hands raised and he seemed to relish their angry remarks and questions. His skill is understandable, since he's been lecturing on the Israel/Palestine since he was a young man. In fact he and his mother lectured together. She would deal with the Nazi/Jewish Holocaust, then he would deal with the Israel/Palestinian conflict. He said that audiences always loved his mother's presentation but hated his--even though they both were examples of ethnic cleansing. When accosted with the classical "the land belongs to the Jews" argument. He asked the questionner how he would feel if a man showed up at his door one day and said "according to my Bible, your house and land belong to me." "Would you leave?", he asked. In response to complaints about Palestinian anti-semitism and violence, he made an analogy to the American Indians. He reminded readers that the Indian resistance to white colonialism was often very, very bloody--yet no one accused the Indians of an irrational hatred of Europeans. It was, as in Palestine today, a war over land. To a young Jews who excitedly raised the old "Arab radio told them to leave" and several other myths, Finkelstein offered praise for his lack of cynicism, and gently explained to him that the "radio" story was a myth that had long ago been disproved. He mentioned that Americans Jews repeat many myths that Israeli Jews stopped using years ago. He gently encouraged the young man to question everything, and to do his own research, starting with Finkelstein's own copious references in his text on the web. At one point Finkelstein asked Jews in the audience, "What crime did the Palestinians commit?" "Their only crime was to be born in Palestine." Norman has lived in the West Bank with Palestinian families. He gave us a graphic portrayal of their lives during these past months and their current fear and foreboding as they wait helplessly for the dreadful unknown--will the Israelis invade their homes, shell their neighborhoods, or even attempt to expel them en masse? He broke into tears when he told of how he offered to bring two daughters of a Palestinian family here to the US until this crisis is past. The father refused, saying that such an action would demoralize his family and all his friends. I asked Norman about the possibility of a one-state solution, named "Israel", following the South African model. He acted as though he was hearing this for the first time and seemed rather unable to offer a response. He noted that in SA, the whites still had most of the money and controlled most of the businesses and the government, but he did acknowledge that institutionalized discrimination and state violence no longer exist there. Personally, I felt that Norman found it impossible to envision Israel as anything but a Jewish state--and here I think that his personal and family background limited his vision. He knows that the two-state solution is impossible now due to Israeli settlements, he knows that apartheid cannot work now due to Palestinian rejection. The only other solutions are transfer and one-state. Since he abhors transfer, shouldn't he be arguing for a single, multiethnic, republican state with full guarantees for minority rights? If Norman can't grasp the only possible win-win solution, how many Jews can? I was struck with the thought that the Jewish people of the world are now being driven to a kind of self-destruction by the logic of Zionism. How long can Israel exist as a racist state in this modern world? How long can it endure the hatred of neighbors and of cognizant people all over the Earth? How long can American politicians, preachers, and media provide it the necessary cover? How will the world react when Israel expels all but a few Arabs from Palestine? How will the world feel about Jews and Judaism then? How will Jews feel about themselves and their religion? It appears that the Jewish people are not thinking about any of this--they are letting their Israeli/Zionist leadership drive them blindly on, via an increasing cycle of violence, to an inevitable, horrible, ignoble end. I believe that, in the end, the Jews' paranoia will ruin them. They will get their superpower Jewish state free of Palestinians, but they will be more hated than ever and will feel less secure outside of their great ghetto Israel. Once the fighting is over, when the great conflict is finished, those outside Israel will begin to assimilate while those inside the ghetto will go about their lives behind their walls, loathing themselves and each other, ashamed to look each other in the eye. Henry Lindner "Strive as in a race to achieve the goal of excellence in all that you do." For real insights visit: http://www.geocities.com/mewatch99/ Regards, Nashid
