A few years ago, a Jewish 'intellectual', Norman Finkelstein, burst onto the public domain with a couple of books, one of which was 'The holocost industry'. As tends to happen with the cultural marxist left leaning crowd, they seem to think that they must hang on every word of a Jewish intellectual, as long as he too is left leaning. Offer these sandal wearers a non Jewish intellectual or professor, and without even reading any of their material, they will turn their nose up and cling to their Finkelstein and their Chomsky. I have a problem with Finkelstein. Indeed I have several issues with Norman. And no, don't be stupid, one of them is not that 'he is a Jew'. After all, I am the first on here to salute the bravery of Vanunu or to a lesser extent, Gilad Atmzon. Other Jews that are noted acceptions to the rule are Benjamen Freedman(sp?), these are Jews who are publicly known to me, and whose 'Jewishness' is unimportant in so far as they have shown themselves to be righteous men, in their own way. My first issue with Norman is that he chastises Jews for crassly making an $$$$ and political industry out of the 'holocost'. Well, he is unquestionably right to do so, since it is an ugly and sickening (shoah) business. So. When Norman calls that out, he is right to do so. But he could have chosen to do so for free. There are any number of ways he could have written the same book, and put it out free for the public, if he had passionate belief in his own words and standards. Educated he may be, but clearly he is unable to see the deep irony in charging for a book that criticises those that make money from the 'holocost'. The other problem I have with him, is that he is again right when he talks about Jews playing the holcost card™ . The only problem(again), is the curious contradiction of Norman opening many of his talks....by playing that same card! And the last problem I have is his muddled thinking. He demonstrates 'controlled criticism' of Israel, yet does not go as far as to say he would not want there to be a Zionist state. Instead, I believe his pref position would be the myth(that some leftists still buy) of a two state solution. He knows this is just BS, anyone thinking that this has ever been part of Jewish identity politics and Israeli outlook, does not know them well, and has not been following the fact that everything Israel are doing, each day, is to make that more difficult. I consider anyone suggesting it to be like Norman, a Jewish intellectual yet soft Zionist, or a leftist dreamer, that is so drunk on stupid fantasies that they are blind to the reality.
Interesting post, very well spoken. I used to quite like Chomsky back when I was a socialist. Leaves me wanting to know what your solution is to the conflict.
