Talk:Norman Finkelstein

Gestapo

I'm moving to the talk page this quote: "[I] can’t imagine why Israel’s apologists would be offended by a comparison with the Gestapo.", because the subject of the comparison appears to be missing, i.e. the comparison of whom with the Gestapo? I'd assume that it's one of the Israeli army units that operate in Palestinian cities, or Shabak, etc. (if the quote itself isn't a fabrication). Without the subject of the comparison, it's ridicules to include this quote. When googling, it all comes down to Alan Dershowitz providing this quote, sometimes with ellipses ("[...]") exactly where to subject of the comparison should be, and sometimes without, probably because the kind of websites that use such quotes also have no problem to take the liberty to remove the ellipses. If someone cares about this quote, try to get the full article in which it appeared, or contact the wrmea.com magazine or Norman Finkelstein and ask about it. BTW the rest of this page is also terrible, but this quote in particular caught my eye. iddo999 12:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

more on Gestapo quote and references to Jews as Nazis

Alan Dershowitz had mentioned John Authors and the Financial Times http://www.alandershowitz.com/publications/docs/restshiscase.html In an article in The Financial Times (Aug. 23, 2003), John Authors observed that, “Finkelstein appears to suffer from an almost total lack of self-control. His readers might find him harder to take seriously if they had watched him screaming questions as a heckler at the back of the audience.” They might also better understand his motive for attacking pro-Israel writers if they knew that he regularly compares Israel to “the Gestapo.” “I can’t imagine why Israel’s apologists…would be offended by a comparison with the Gestapo.” He suggested that [they] should be flattered by the comparison. (Ibid). No wonder Gabriel Schoenfeld, in an article in Commentary labeled Finkelstein’s views “crackpot ideas, some of them mirrored almost verbatim in the propaganda put out by neo-Nazis around the world” (Jan. 2001).

But I have found a fuller quote http://oudaily.com/news/2011/apr/07/letter-editor-wrong-choice-guest-speaker/ Equally troublesome, Finkelstein unabashedly compares Israelis and their American Jewish supporters to Nazis. According to Finkelstein, Israel’s supporters should be flattered by such comparisons. As he once stated, “I can’t imagine why Israel’s apologists would be offended by a comparison with the Gestapo. I would think that, for them it is like Lee Iacocca being told that Chrysler is using Toyota tactics.”

and a source given http://www.think-israel.org/alexander.intro.html INTRODUCTION TO THE JEWISH DIVIDE OVER ISRAEL (this is a discussion from their book, and this is also mentioned in their book)

36. "I can't imagine," Finkelstein has said, "why Israel's apologists would be offended by a comparison with the Gestapo. I would think that, for them, it is like Lee Iacocca being told that Chrysler is using Toyota tactics." Quoted in John Dirlik, "Canadian Jewish Organizations Charged with Stifling Campus Debate," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1992.

On a related note, Finkelstein has made lots of references to Jews as Nazis

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2009/01/18/holocaust-nazi-s-vs-israeli-s-by-norman-g-finkelstein/

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/deutschland-uber-alles/

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/12/31/norman-finkelstein-on-the-holocaust/