Censoring Norman Finkelstein (update)

I've long greatly admired Norman G. Finkelstein, an eloquent and learned critic of Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians.

It has come to my attention that if you Google his name, you will not be shown a link to his website -- at least, not on the first few result pages. (The third page does, however, include a link to the work of a rather obscure children's book author named Norman H. Finkelstein.) I'm sure Google will insist that no censorship is involved. I'm not sure how many people will be convinced by that denial.

Censorship, without question, reared its proverbially ugly head when Finkelstein was disinvited from speaking at Clark University.The full details are here.

Although the talk was on the recent action in Gaza, Finkelstein was canceled by request of the group Hillel. The reason? Yes, you guessed it: Clark acted out of (alleged) sensitivity to the Holocaust. Once again, Hitler's past barbarity is being used as an all-purpose excuse for censoring all discussion of Israel's current barbarity.

After learning that a student organization planned for Mr. Finkelstein to speak at Clark the same week as a scheduled Holocaust and genocide studies conference, however, Mr. Bassett questioned the timing of the speech. Mr. Finkelstein, whose Jewish parents survived concentration camps during World War II, has written and spoken about a “Holocaust industry” that he believes exploits the memory of the Holocaust. He has also argued that the genocide is overused to justify Israeli behavior in the current conflict with Palestinians.

Let us repeat: Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors. In no way can his works be construed as sympathetic to the scurrilous claims of the Holocaust revisionists and their anti-Semitic ilk (although some Finkelstein critics may try to propagate that impression).

His book The Holocaust Industry addresses the ways in which Israel's apologists have used the memory of that tragedy in order to justify modern-day actions that would be universally condemned if committed by any other state. I encourage you to read the book and to judge for yourself.

If Finkelstein is going to be censored, then I am going to place a permanent link to his website on this blog.

When Clark issued it's decision, one Doug Tarnopol issued the following response:

As for Hillel’s position, take it from this American Jew whose family lost members during the Nazi holocaust: by using that historical event to undermine, Nazi-like, the free speech and academic freedom of a nonviolent scholar, you have committed one of the worst moral atrocities I can imagine that doesn’t entail physical violence. Well done!

This is surely the triumph of ethnocentrism over ethics, and it pretty much solidifies in the public’s mind that Dr. Finkelstein’s work on Israeli crimes in the occupied territories, and the ideological use of the Holocaust to silence those crimes, is pretty much on the ball.

I’m of two minds on this — on the one hand, I’d like to see you stop your hysterical jihad against Finkelstein; on the other hand, said hysteria is the best imaginable publicity for his utterly crucial message.

I've just printed words written by an American Jew in defense of another American Jew. I'll be very impressed if someone finds a way to call me an "anti-Semite" for doing so.

Update: Suddenly, Google serves up a link to Finkelstein's site first thing. Well, it certainly was not so kind when I did the experiment last night. As coincidence would have it, a number of other bloggers voiced the same complaint at the same time I did. I'm sure there's an innocent reason for this oddity.

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