Norm Finkelstein, the reasonable Jew
Reasonable, as in “the voice of reason”; because very few of the prominent Jewish voices are honest enough intellectually as to criticize the actions of the state of Israel in Gaza.
As the search feature of this site doesn’t search in the comments, I’ll hint to the fact that, from all my posts under the tag Israel, I only cited Norman Finkelstein in two comments to The Human Shield mantra about Gaza, as in Yanis and the “Zionism Über Alles” Germany, he was only mentioned en passant. To be honest, if Norman Finkelstein weren’t intellectually honest, then who else would? As I said, most Jews prefer to defend whatever Israel does. Bill Maher is one such disappointment. An honest and outspoken person of Jewish extraction is Jon Stewart, but one swallow does not make a spring. So you have to listen to Professor Finkelstein!
Here’s what you didn’t know you needed to know about Norm Finkelstein
TRT World: Palestine Talks | Norman Finkelstein (Apr. 19, 2024):
That was an easy introduction to him, and to reality. If I’m allowed to develop one tiny thing: should Biden lose and Trump win, this will happen in part because the leadership of the Democratic Party has indeed lost the connection to the grassroots and to the voter base, and they failed to take real action against Israel’s wrongdoings, e.g. by stopping the deliveries of weapons.
One step forward
Breaking Points: Norm Finkelstein SHREDS Bill Maher’s Israel Defense (Dec. 22, 2023)
Since I mentioned Bill Maher…
And the really tough one
PoliticsJOE: Norman Finkelstein on Israel Palestine (Apr. 26, 2024)
I couldn’t comment to the extent I’d like to, so I’ll leave the major points untouched. What I still want to add is this: beyond the danger posed by Russia to Europe (and possibly to the entire world if nukes are involved), and not counting China’s progress towards a global domination (economically) and its ambitions for a regional hegemony (militarily in the South China Sea, not only regarding Taiwan), and even considering the abject political and religious regime in Tehran, we now have to admit that Israel too is lunatic enough to have become a danger to civilization.
Throughout the centuries, Jews have been subject to countless pogroms. And then the Shoah. But that doesn’t give them the right to do what they’re doing in Gaza, in the West Bank, and, more generally, the ethnic cleansing they’re conducting in Palestine since they returned.
May the flying spaghetti monster help us!
BONUS VIDEO
Recorded on April 19, 2023: Why Wokeness Is a Scam | Glenn Loury & Norman Finkelstein | The Glenn Show.
I won’t embed it here, as watching it on YT allows you to benefit from the official timestamps:
0:00 Has Norman been shut out of mainstream political debates?
7:54 Norman’s conflict with Alan Dershowitz
16:50 Is Israel an apartheid state?
19:25 Identifying with Paul Robeson
33:08 Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!
44:42 Norman: Wokeness is a “triple scam”
53:28 What’s become of Angela Davis?
1:00:05 Cornel West’s chosen path
1:09:01 Obama’s self-proclaimed “neat trick”
1:24:38 The political intelligence of Carter, Clinton, and Obama
1:38:10 South Carolina 2020: a case study in identity politics
1:47:24 Would Bernie have won in 2016?
Anyway, Glenn’s interview with Professor Finkelstein has 200k views, but if 3000 people in the U.S. know and understand ALL the people and topics discussed there, I’d be surprised. It’s very dense intellectually and information-wise, and not for the uneducated.
As for Obama, I didn’t know what I didn’t know about him. I’d never encountered such an informed rebuttal of Barrack “Fraud” Obama!
BTW, if relativity is understood (not acknowledged, but really understood) only by a handful of people, how about Dirac’s antimatter, and what about quantum mechanics per se, which can be used to explain, e.g., why semiconductors work, but understanding it is another matter altogether? Heck, Einstein himself failed to understand the “spooky action at a distance,” aka quantum entanglement!
Unfortunately, on the topic of wokeness, not enough has been said. There are so many aspects of today’s wokeness! The irony is that wokeness has been repeatedly ridiculed, for instance, by Bill Maher, but him being the staunch and uncompromising Jew… sigh.
Firstly, there’s a misspelling in the post. My country is called The State of Israel.
I follow you because I’m interested in your technical opinions. I was surprised to discover that you hold such extreme views regarding the Jewish people. I hope you realize that Christianity and Islam are based on the Jewish Bible. Perhaps you don’t care because you don’t believe in God. What about Intel Pentium being designed in Haifa? Or the first cell phone being developed by Motorola in Tel Aviv?
The Israel Defense Forces risks the lives of soldiers to liberate Arab children in Gaza. Hamas is holding hostages regardless of their beliefs or nationalities.
I look forward to hearing your technical observations.
Your country is officially called The State of Israel, but it is commonly called Israel. When I wrote “the state of Israel,” I was implying I was referring to the country, because one could also say “the people of Israel,” etc.
I do not hold any view regarding the Jewish People! Read again everything I ever wrote. I only hold a rage against the extremists, most of them from within Israel, but some of them from outside, who don’t understand that you cannot repair a 2,000-year-old injustice by killing, expelling, or persecuting other people. The British Protectorate of Palestine was not an empty land when people of Jewish extraction came back there! Actually, they did not “come back,” as it wasn’t them to have left the place 2,000 years ago.
I suppose that, to you, all those Jews, most of them American Jews, who believe that the Palestinians are abused by The State of Israel, are… extremists, right?
You don’t need to tell me that in Israel there have been created marvelous pieces of technology, or of software, or that you have great physicians (doctors), or economists, or whatever. Wherever people live, they create value. And, as I wrote not in my first post about Gaza, but in the second one, Judaism has a long tradition of valuing education. This has led to a great number of intellectuals in Europe and elsewhere being Jews. Nobody can deny the immense contribution that your people has brought to the humanity.
But centuries of discriminations and pogroms, ending with the Shoah, don’t give you the right to behave Nazi-like against other people. The 1977 platform of Likud said: “between the Sea and the Jordan, there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” It’s The State of Israel who’s responsible for most of the conflicts in the Middle East. You have been brainwashed as not to know what Nakba was really about: an attempt to ethnic cleansing. Also, had you not invaded Lebanon, Hezbollah wouldn’t have existed. I agree, though, that the Iranian regime is a threat to everyone in the region. And that Hamas is terrorist.
Oh, this:
This is preposterous. There have been proofs of countless abuses by the IDF. Nobody did what you just said. The IDF is responsible for 100% of the deaths in Gaza. Israel is responsible for many of the deaths for medical reasons that took place in the Ghetto of Gaza since 2007, because people could not get out and help could not get in.
Let me put it bluntly: really intelligent Jews are on the part of humanity, not on the part of massacring Palestinians. Here’s the famous trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté discussing with Piers Morgan the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel, Hamas and Palestine. You’ll find why former Zionist Gabor Maté now supports the people of Palestine in this historical conflict, even whilst having a Jewish family and being a Holocaust survivor. I’m glad he clarified that this is about the post-1967 situation, not about the post-1948 one, and that Israel does have a right to defend; but Israel is also an occupier. So Israel is defending itself against whom? Against people that it’s occupying and oppressing?
Israel-Hamas War: Gabor Maté vs Piers Morgan On Palestine and Gaza | The Full Interview.
An interesting parallel with the 1956 Hungarian revolution: in their justified revolt against the Soviet occupation, Hungarians have committed atrocities. How much right did the USSR have to defend itself against the Hungarian action?
I don’t receive any email notifications when you respond to my comments.
Got it.
I was born in the USSR and have been living in Israel for 25 years. Every man and woman serves in the IDF. I don’t think I’m an extremist. Have you been to Israel?
It depends on what we understand by value. I listed examples like the Pentium processor and cell phones as something that serves humanity for good. For example, people in Gaza produce values of murders and terror.
It’s not new. The Jewish people returned to the promised land, which was promised to them by God. I suppose all Christian and Muslim scholars agree on it because it’s written in the Bible. Surprise.
I know you appreciate details. You provided a couple of historic facts with your interpretations. I’m familiar with all of these. I trust your ability to find opposing interpretations of the same facts.
I’m glad you mentioned Piers Morgan. I like the way he conducts interviews. My favorite interviewee is Douglas Murray. No surprise.
I’m sorry that this blog doesn’t work like it should. This new hosting isn’t properly configured, but right now I don’t have the time to fiddle with it.
Nope. Should I? Why? I’ve never been to Italy, Spain, Greece, and other countries I might want to visit one day.
All people in Gaza?
OTOH, prior to these bombings, Gaza was literally a ghetto. Which makes The State of Israel literally Nazi.
Nobody agrees to anything like that. Religious scholars are lunatics. OK, they’re theologians. Nobody promised anyone any piece of land, with the exception of Lord Balfour. Specifically, God cannot promise anyone anything, and even less with legal value, because God cannot prove its/His existence. It/He literally and objectively (and legally) doesn’t exist.
But as long as God allows these massacres, including the acts of terror against Jews and other acts of terror by Islamists against whoever happens to be their victims, but also the persecution of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and now the genocide in Gaza, maybe God is sadistic, impotent, or indifferent, unconcerned.
Look, Bill Maher, who is 100% pro-Israel (in contrast with other prominent American Jews), is also 100% atheist. Lucky for him that he lives in the US and not in Israel. Apparently, it’s difficult to have no religion in Israel, because being a Jew is both an ethnic and a religious identity. Quite unique in the civilized world. The side effect is that Israel and Greece are the only countries in the civilized world that don’t offer civil, non-religious marriages. They recognize foreign marriage certificates, but they don’t perform non-religious marriages. In Israel, as a “Christian” (say, you were baptized, but nobody asked you if you wanted this “treatment”), you’ll have to find a priest to marry you, as the Israeli public administration is, just like the Greek one, still medieval, and it’s not concerned with performing marriages.
>Have you been to Israel?
>>Nope. Should I?
You should. Israel is a beautiful country. Its inhabitants are warm, friendly, and speak all languages of the world. It’s a paradise for tourists. After I visited Israel in 1997 as a tourist, I decided to live here. I guess you know that 70% of the population are Jewish, 20% are Muslims, and 10% follow other beliefs. Tourists of every belief are welcomed.
>All people in Gaza?
I don’t see anything good coming from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or Russia. Do you?
>Gaza was literally a ghetto.
I agree. The Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was a mistake. The Western Negev is part of the promised land. I hope the State of Israel will soon integrate this piece into the whole.
>Which makes The State of Israel literally Nazi.
Nazi Germany? LOL.
>Religious scholars are lunatics. OK, they’re theologians.
There is a logical error right here!
>with the exception of Lord Balfour
You’re 100% on point. Arthur Balfour believed that the so-called Palestine is the Jewish people’s promised land. I don’t agree with ‘the exception to Lord Balfour’ because he represented the whole British government.
>God cannot prove its/His existence
I agree with everything you say about God. I understand Him similarly.
I’ve watched Bill Maher, and I’m familiar with non-religious marriages in Israel. None of that convinces me to betray the Land.