mondojohnson

Despite the title, this excellent book is not concerned per se with demolition of Alan Dershowitz’s breathtakingly stupid Case for Israel. It is a carefully constructed argument of moral philosophy, using uncontroversial bits of the historical record sparingly, to butress certain points. I’m told that Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah is a better place to go for a frontal assault on the notorious Dershowitz.

As both Neumann, Finkelstein and others have noted, there is a tendency to make the Israel-Palestine conflict into some mystical puzzle of statecraft; when in fact it is really quite simple. This book reminds us of the simplicity of the issue. To wit: Zionism is an illegitimate idea, the “bastard child of ethnic nationalism” (Neumann). Palestinians had, and have, the right to resist occupation by any means necessary. Israel could end the crisis tomorrow by moving back to the pre-1967 borders. The only strategic interest Israel has in remaining is to please the idiot settler fringe and their fanatic pals in the Knesset.

Read this book. It is presented with crystal clarity (and Neumann’s style has a bit of borscht-belt zing to it, not unlike Finkelstein’s).

Devastating critique of the “misuse” of the Nazi holocaust to serve political ends. Finkelstein (whose parents were camp survivors, the last of their respective lineages) blasts the “double shakedown” of the Swiss banks by organizations claiming to represent Holocaust victims.

Predictably, Finkelstein has provoked outrage among the usual suspects. However, no one seems able to dispute his scholarship, which is mind-numbingly thorough. They instead resort to inflamatory and unsupportable ad hominem (e.g. Finkelstein is a “holocaust denier”, Finkelstein’s mother was a Nazi collaborator, etc.)

Most recently Finkelstein has been made popular by his public dust up with the odious Alan Dershowitz. Finkelstein has ripped Dershowitz’s bestseller “The Case for Israel“, demonstrating that the book is filled with lazy, second-hand attributions. The arguments are laid out in Finkelstein’s new book, “Beyond Chutzpah”, which is definitely on my list.