Diplomacy and Arab Paralysis vs. Hizbullah’s impressive results, Norman Finkelstein Interview Part I
Source: crossingthecrescent.com, 28-09-2008
Norman Finkelstein is one of the world's most outspoken and tenacious scholars on the 'Israel'-Palestine conflict, and a fierce critic of the way 'Israel's' supporters try to wield the memory of anti-Semitism as a baton to beat up on those who criticize the country's well-documented atrocities.
Author of "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," along with "Image and Reality of the 'Israel'-Palestine Conflict" and other books, Finkelstein was hailed by a leading authority of Holocaust studies, the late Raul Hilberg, for his "acuity of vision and analytical power," and by prominent 'Israeli'-British historian Avi Shlaim as "as a very able, very erudite and original scholar."
I
n 2007, Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University because of an intimidation campaign spearheaded by Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, whose book, "The Case for 'Israel'," was pilloried by Finkelstein as blatant plagiarism of an earlier work, Joan Peters' "From Time Immemorial," which, in turn, was long ago exposed as a hoax.
In our hour-long phone interview on Sept. 14th, Finkelstein discussed a broad range of topics, including Gaza, the paralysis gripping the Arab world, and the reach and the limits of the 'Israeli' lobby. He reflected on his teaching career ("I'll almost certainly never teach again"), his pursuit of self- improvement, and the "battery of humorless lawyers" who vet his printed works, which frequently combine painstaking research with searing polemics. He also talked about his raging battles with Alan Dershowitz, who once mangled Finkelstein's words to claim that he called his mother, a Holocaust survivor, a Nazi collaborator. Finally, acknowledging the consequences of his intellectual activism ("You speak out, you pay a price"), Finkelstein spoke about the meaning and impact of his scholarship.
Below is part one of an edited transcript of our interview, presented as four parts.
Part One: Gaza, Diplomacy, and Arab Paralysis
Levesque-Alam: I wanted to start off talking about developments in the Gaza Strip. Taking a cursory glance at [Egyptian weekly] al-Ahram last week, it was clear that the subject on everyone's mind, aside from the humanitarian cost being paid by residents in Gaza, is whether there is any real overarching 'Israeli' policy or plan here. What do you think 'Israel' is really hoping to achieve with its siege of Gaza?
Finkelstein: After Salvador Allende was elected, the US said it was going to make the Chilean economy scream. The U.S tormented Nicaragua to unseat the Sandinistas. You tell the people that if you keep reelecting this government we're going to keep strangling you, while if you elect our government we will allow you a marginal existence but still better than before.
Levesque-Alam: In that vein, there appear to be two related observations. Once, again turning to Al-Ahram, there was an analysis by Khalid Amayreh, saying that, "the very legitimacy of the PA now depends on the continuation of the talks, regardless of whether progress is made or not. Needless to say, this posture is more than good news for 'Israel' since it allows the 'Jewish' (Zionist) state to keep on building settlements in the West Bank and create more irreversible facts in East 'Jerusalem' (occupied al-Quds), all under the rubric of the peace process."
My question is, number one, do you see Fatah as fulfilling any role other than peace talks for the sake of peace talks, and two, do you think facts are being created on the ground in such a way that the two-state solution is not even a viable option anymore?
Finkelstein: I don't get involved in internal Palestinian politics. Those are choices Palestinians have to make. This much however can be said. You cannot win from diplomacy what you haven't won on the battlefield. I don't necessarily mean an exchange of lethal weapons; mobilizing public opinion is also a potent force. A good versus a bad diplomat will make some difference. Abba Eban made some difference; I don't want to discount it. But negotiations are the most trivial aspect of politics. What counts in politics is your ability to organize, mobilize, and bring to bear superior force-and again force doesn't necessarily mean lethal force; there is also the force of public opinion. The so-called Palestinian leadership has not invested anytime in trying to organize its constituency either in the Occupied Territories or abroad. Nothing is going to change without such organization-it's just silliness; for the Palestinian leadership, lucrative silliness.
Levesque-Alam: Do you see any parallels with Hizbullah and Lebanon and the way that-
Finkelstein: The comparison is striking. Hizbullah organized. Hizbullah prepared. Hizbullah analyzed and understood its enemy. Its judgment was not 100% accurate, but certainly that's where it invested its energy, with very impressive results. When you read detailed accounts of the 2006 Lebanon war, you realize just how astonishing was its defeat of the 'Israeli' military. Hizbullah fired about 5,000 missiles altogether at 'Israel' or in Lebanon (anti-tank missiles); 'Israel' delivered or fired 162,000 weapons at Lebanon (about 4,800 per day). 'Israel' fielded about 30,000 troops; Hizbullah's fighters numbered about 2,000 and there were about 4,000 village militia. 'Israel' never even faced the crack Hizbullah forces which were stationed on the Litani waiting for an 'Israeli' invasion that never happened.
Levesque-Alam: On a related note, there was an article by journalist Jonathan Cook, where he was describing some ways in which the 'Israeli' government encourages the creation of collaborators among the Palestinians. He says that in view of the occupation and the siege and the scarcity of medical supplies and nutritional supplies, that 'Israel' obviously denies a broad swath of Palestinians the chance to do more than subsist. And he says, "According to the 'Israeli' branch of Physicians for Human Rights, the Shin Bet ['Israeli' internal secret police] is exploiting the distress of these families to pressure them to agree to collaborate in return for an exit permit."
Finkelstein: Although the pressure to collaborate did not (to my knowledge) in the past reach to life-and-death issues, 'Israel' has always resorted to similar tactics. If you won a scholarship to study abroad the Shin Bet would ask you whether you would be willing to spy for them. If you said "no," they would deny you an exit permit and you couldn't study abroad. This is what happened to my close friend Musa Abu Hashhash after he won a scholarship in the 1980s to Manchester University in England. He had to turn down the scholarship.
Levesque-Alam: The breaking of the Gaza siege was one of the most recent striking examples of resistance by, really, a handful of activists. But it also set into sharp relief the official impotence of the Arab regimes and the surrounding Arab world to affect change all this time, where, you know, here this handful of activists is able to make at least a symbolic gesture.
To what do you attribute this sort of ongoing paralysis? Is this really a continuation of policy by the Arab regimes to just provide lip-service to the Palestinians without taking concrete action?
Finkelstein: Why should one expect more from the Saudis? The Arab regimes are completely in thrall to the United States. They would of course prefer to settle the 'Israel'-Palestine conflict in terms of the international consensus. The Arab League has repeatedly put forth perfectly reasonable proposals to end the conflict in line with the whole of the international community. But they are not going to do more than express a preference. They're unpopular, corrupt, and therefore dependent on the United States.
Norman Finkelstein is one of the world's most outspoken and tenacious scholars on the 'Israel'-Palestine conflict, and a fierce critic of the way 'Israel's' supporters try to wield the memory of anti-Semitism as a baton to beat up on those who criticize the country's well-documented atrocities.
Author of "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," along with "Image and Reality of the 'Israel'-Palestine Conflict" and other books, Finkelstein was hailed by a leading authority of Holocaust studies, the late Raul Hilberg, for his "acuity of vision and analytical power," and by prominent 'Israeli'-British historian Avi Shlaim as "as a very able, very erudite and original scholar."
I
n 2007, Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University because of an intimidation campaign spearheaded by Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, whose book, "The Case for 'Israel'," was pilloried by Finkelstein as blatant plagiarism of an earlier work, Joan Peters' "From Time Immemorial," which, in turn, was long ago exposed as a hoax.
In our hour-long phone interview on Sept. 14th, Finkelstein discussed a broad range of topics, including Gaza, the paralysis gripping the Arab world, and the reach and the limits of the 'Israeli' lobby. He reflected on his teaching career ("I'll almost certainly never teach again"), his pursuit of self- improvement, and the "battery of humorless lawyers" who vet his printed works, which frequently combine painstaking research with searing polemics. He also talked about his raging battles with Alan Dershowitz, who once mangled Finkelstein's words to claim that he called his mother, a Holocaust survivor, a Nazi collaborator. Finally, acknowledging the consequences of his intellectual activism ("You speak out, you pay a price"), Finkelstein spoke about the meaning and impact of his scholarship.
Below is part one of an edited transcript of our interview, presented as four parts.
Part One: Gaza, Diplomacy, and Arab Paralysis
Levesque-Alam: I wanted to start off talking about developments in the Gaza Strip. Taking a cursory glance at [Egyptian weekly] al-Ahram last week, it was clear that the subject on everyone's mind, aside from the humanitarian cost being paid by residents in Gaza, is whether there is any real overarching 'Israeli' policy or plan here. What do you think 'Israel' is really hoping to achieve with its siege of Gaza?
Finkelstein: After Salvador Allende was elected, the US said it was going to make the Chilean economy scream. The U.S tormented Nicaragua to unseat the Sandinistas. You tell the people that if you keep reelecting this government we're going to keep strangling you, while if you elect our government we will allow you a marginal existence but still better than before.
Levesque-Alam: In that vein, there appear to be two related observations. Once, again turning to Al-Ahram, there was an analysis by Khalid Amayreh, saying that, "the very legitimacy of the PA now depends on the continuation of the talks, regardless of whether progress is made or not. Needless to say, this posture is more than good news for 'Israel' since it allows the 'Jewish' (Zionist) state to keep on building settlements in the West Bank and create more irreversible facts in East 'Jerusalem' (occupied al-Quds), all under the rubric of the peace process."
My question is, number one, do you see Fatah as fulfilling any role other than peace talks for the sake of peace talks, and two, do you think facts are being created on the ground in such a way that the two-state solution is not even a viable option anymore?
Finkelstein: I don't get involved in internal Palestinian politics. Those are choices Palestinians have to make. This much however can be said. You cannot win from diplomacy what you haven't won on the battlefield. I don't necessarily mean an exchange of lethal weapons; mobilizing public opinion is also a potent force. A good versus a bad diplomat will make some difference. Abba Eban made some difference; I don't want to discount it. But negotiations are the most trivial aspect of politics. What counts in politics is your ability to organize, mobilize, and bring to bear superior force-and again force doesn't necessarily mean lethal force; there is also the force of public opinion. The so-called Palestinian leadership has not invested anytime in trying to organize its constituency either in the Occupied Territories or abroad. Nothing is going to change without such organization-it's just silliness; for the Palestinian leadership, lucrative silliness.
Levesque-Alam: Do you see any parallels with Hizbullah and Lebanon and the way that-
Finkelstein: The comparison is striking. Hizbullah organized. Hizbullah prepared. Hizbullah analyzed and understood its enemy. Its judgment was not 100% accurate, but certainly that's where it invested its energy, with very impressive results. When you read detailed accounts of the 2006 Lebanon war, you realize just how astonishing was its defeat of the 'Israeli' military. Hizbullah fired about 5,000 missiles altogether at 'Israel' or in Lebanon (anti-tank missiles); 'Israel' delivered or fired 162,000 weapons at Lebanon (about 4,800 per day). 'Israel' fielded about 30,000 troops; Hizbullah's fighters numbered about 2,000 and there were about 4,000 village militia. 'Israel' never even faced the crack Hizbullah forces which were stationed on the Litani waiting for an 'Israeli' invasion that never happened.
Levesque-Alam: On a related note, there was an article by journalist Jonathan Cook, where he was describing some ways in which the 'Israeli' government encourages the creation of collaborators among the Palestinians. He says that in view of the occupation and the siege and the scarcity of medical supplies and nutritional supplies, that 'Israel' obviously denies a broad swath of Palestinians the chance to do more than subsist. And he says, "According to the 'Israeli' branch of Physicians for Human Rights, the Shin Bet ['Israeli' internal secret police] is exploiting the distress of these families to pressure them to agree to collaborate in return for an exit permit."
Finkelstein: Although the pressure to collaborate did not (to my knowledge) in the past reach to life-and-death issues, 'Israel' has always resorted to similar tactics. If you won a scholarship to study abroad the Shin Bet would ask you whether you would be willing to spy for them. If you said "no," they would deny you an exit permit and you couldn't study abroad. This is what happened to my close friend Musa Abu Hashhash after he won a scholarship in the 1980s to Manchester University in England. He had to turn down the scholarship.
Levesque-Alam: The breaking of the Gaza siege was one of the most recent striking examples of resistance by, really, a handful of activists. But it also set into sharp relief the official impotence of the Arab regimes and the surrounding Arab world to affect change all this time, where, you know, here this handful of activists is able to make at least a symbolic gesture.
To what do you attribute this sort of ongoing paralysis? Is this really a continuation of policy by the Arab regimes to just provide lip-service to the Palestinians without taking concrete action?
Finkelstein: Why should one expect more from the Saudis? The Arab regimes are completely in thrall to the United States. They would of course prefer to settle the 'Israel'-Palestine conflict in terms of the international consensus. The Arab League has repeatedly put forth perfectly reasonable proposals to end the conflict in line with the whole of the international community. But they are not going to do more than express a preference. They're unpopular, corrupt, and therefore dependent on the United States.
