Demeaning Jewish Victims of Terrorism [on Norman Finkelstein]

Following the terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday which killed at least 3 Israelis and injured approximately 50 others, discredited academic Norman Finkelstein sunk to a new low -- which is saying something for a man who has trivialized the Holocaust, supported terrorism, and claimed that Libya had nothing to do with the downing of Pan Am 103. On his website he carries the following faked news story, which he attributes to the New York Times writer who covered the terrorist attack in Jerusalem.

Times Exclusive: Deranged Arab in bulldozer attacks NY Times’ Isabel Kershner at her pedicure. Reporting live from the scene still in her curlers and with her beautician at her side, Kershner gives a minute by minute account of the horrifying moment when the bulldozer crashed through the pedicure’s windowfront crushing the nail on her little toe. “My friends in the Catskills just won’t believe it,” she said. “A smashed toenail. How can Israelis live with so much anxiety?”

The kind of people who regularly read Finkelstein’s despicable website may actually believe that the story is accurate. Most relatively intelligent people will recognize it as a really despicable attempt at humor, that stereotypes Jewish women and trivializes the suffering of victims of terrorism. Had a right-wing academic stereotyped any other minority in this manner, he would have been brought up on academic discliplinary charges, considering the atmosphere of selective political correctness that dominates so many campuses today.

Having failed as an academic, Finkelstein is now trying to emulate Ann Coulter, except that Coulter is actually sometimes funny, where Finkelstein is merely disgusting. He has mocked Holocaust survivors and victims of terrorism. He has used anti-Semitic stereotypes to describe Jewish leaders. He also specializes in making up phony quotes and attributing them to his enemies. This was one of the reasons he was denied tenure at DePaul University.

Just yesterday he made up another quote and placed it on his website. Referring to one of my clients he wrote the following: “Dershowitz predicts ‘Second Holocaust’ if conviction is not overturned.” Of course I never said anything of the sort, but Finkelstein’s readers won’t know that.

The only questions are: How could anybody take Finkelstein seriously? And how could any university have even considered giving this manufacturer of false quotations and phony news stories tenure?

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