The Finkelstein-Weiss Deception

Last week, two notorious speakers were invited to Cambridge to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At MIT, Dovid Weiss, a leader of the tiny, rabidly anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism known as "Neturei Karta," participated in a panel sponsored by several student groups as well as by MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. And at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Norman Finkelstein, an assistant professor at DePaul University, spoke at an event sponsored by the Palestine Awareness Committee, the Society of Arab Students, and other campus groups.

Both of these speakers are no strangers to controversy and represent fringe views among the general public. Indeed, if peace is really the goal of student and University-sponsored discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one wonders what either of these antagonistic speakers even contribute to the debate.

Weiss, who routinely demonizes the State of Israel as an aberration and calls for its destruction, recently attended the Iranian Global Vision of the Holocaust conference, hosted by the genocide-preaching Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, joining the ranks of former KKK leader David Duke and other notable Holocaust apologists and deniers.

Finkelstein, whose works include "Beyond Chutzpah" and "The Holocaust Industry," has been accused of shoddy scholarship by many prominent academics, as well as by the very people he quotes in his books, such as historian Benny Morris. A central thesis to his work is that the Holocaust is exaggerated and exploited by American Jews for financial gain and to defend Israel, a view that a New York Times book review in August 2000 described as a "novel variation on the anti-Semitic forgery, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’"

These men’s views may seem far from those held by most Jews, or by most critically thinking individuals for that matter. Yet, both Weiss and Finkelstein play on their Jewish backgrounds to draw attention to their fringe opinions. By doing so, they become, in effect, traveling sideshows, "iconoclastic" anti-Jewish Jews, of interest only to groups seeking to delegitimize Israel.

In particular, the event at MIT billed Weiss as representing a "Jewish view" on foreign policy and social justice. Weiss routinely presents the Neturei Karta as representing "authentic Judaism" despite the fact that only several thousand people identify as members of the sect and that most Jews, including the Ultra-Orthodox, have strongly denounced Weiss and his associates. Finkelstein is more subtle: He harnesses his Jewish background in an attempt to bring legitimacy to his opinions. He routinely and targetedly mentions that his mother is a Holocaust survivor, and employs common Jewish expressions—such as "chutzpah"—in his work.

For many Jews, it is difficult to respond to the likes of Finkelstein and Weiss, because of the core Jewish belief in pluralism and freedom of expression; among a sampling of Jews, you are likely to find the very religious, the completely secular, Zionists, anti-Zionists, Democrats, and Republicans—all of whom cite something distinctly "Jewish" about their point of view. Finkelstein and Weiss take advantage of this pluralism in order to further their political goals.

Still, a line can be drawn at some point as to what constitutes a "Jewish view," and it is fair to say that both Weiss and Finkelstein have routinely crossed that line. They not only disparage other Jewish opinions as inauthentic and conspiratorial, but have supported those who commit violence and threaten genocide against the Jewish people.

At Weiss’ talk on "foreign policy and social justice," he described Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, and Zionists as "the works of Satan." Claiming that he was "God’s messenger," he advocated for the complete dismantling of Israel. Unfortunately, this represented a relatively moderate view for Weiss, who as a defender of Ahmadinejad, has implicitly adopted the Iranian President’s message that Israel, and its six million Jews, should be "wiped off the map." Nonetheless, Weiss had the audacity—some might say willful ignorance—to claim that Ahmadinejad’s call for genocide was "not indicative of anti-Jewish sentiments."

Finkelstein has tacitly condoned attacks against Israeli civilians by explicitly equating Palestinian terrorist attacks against civilians with Israeli operations against militants. He spent much of last week’s discussion praising the terrorist group Hezbollah, which triggered this summer’s war with a deadly raid across an internationally recognized border into Israel, and which, prior to Sept. 11th, had killed the most Americans of any terrorist group in the Middle East. And, regarding 9/11, Finkelstein has said, "We deserve the problem on our hands because some things Bin Laden says are true."

Finkelstein and Weiss’s opinions only carry weight because they cynically make use of their Jewish backgrounds to popularize their malicious opinions as legitimate expressions of a "Jewish view." Describing them as such is not only disingenuous, but entirely antithetical to any sort of productive Israeli-Arab dialogue. Student groups seeking to sow the seeds of peace, rather than to engender further misunderstanding, should not play into this deception and should instead seek out speakers that accurately and responsibly represent the different perspectives surrounding the conflict. It is important to remember that the extreme beliefs that Weiss and Finkelstein hold are no more legitimate because these men are Jewish. Rather, all sides should agree that such men, who further conspiracy theories, apologize for violence against civilians, and excuse calls for genocide, have no place on a campus interested in coexistence and mutual understanding.