“He [Dershowitz] launched a Jihad against Norman Finkelstein…”
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… simply to try to vilify and defame him in the hope that maybe what he’s writing will disappear.
Part II of the joint interview with Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now! included this remark by Noam. He is referring to the Dersh’s attempts first to stop publication [according to Chomsky] of Finkelstein’s book Beyond Chutzpah1 then failing that, to cause Finkelstein to be denied tenure. Noam claims that DePaul University has complained to Harvard administration about Dersh’s kibitzing. In an April 12 article [w. correction 4/14], A Bitter Spat Over Ideas, Israel and Tenure, Patricia Cohen of the New York Times says:
At one point the 12-member Arts and Sciences’ Faculty Governance Council, annoyed by Mr. Dershowitz’s pressure, unanimously voted to send letters to the presidents of DePaul and Harvard complaining of Mr. Dershowitz’s interference.
Noam asserted that Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg supports Finkelstein. Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors.
1 In an e-mail to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dersh denies that he was trying to stop publication of the book. The UC Press statement above seems to imply that SOMEBODY was.
