What makes the dispute even more toxic is the 25-page appendix table in Beyond Chutzpah in which Finkelstein lays outs quotes from The Case for Israel next to quotes from Peters' From Time Immemorial and alleges that Dershowitz is "lifting without attribution" large sections of From Time Immemorial. This plagiarism accusation is the academic equivalent of accusing a district attorney of accepting bribes; no small matter and one to which, to repeat, Dershowitz has been found innocent by Harvard.
The problem for Dershowitz is that in reading the appendix, it looks pretty damning and appears that Dershowitz is indeed passing off some of Peters' work as his own. One wonders how, if Dershowitz did his own research, he can replicate Peters' idiosyncratic mistakes that are noted by Finkelstein. As Finkelstein writes in a letter in The Nation (August 29, 2005), "The Case for Israel exactly reproduces Joan Peter's errors of transcription from the originals, as I copiously document in Beyond Chutzpah. No one who actually checked the originals could have made these identical errors." But I can't pretend to know with any certainty.
Dershowitz has knocked down these charges in numerous venues, and he devotes a chapter in response in his new The Case for Peace that accuses Finkelstein (along with MIT professor Noam Chomsky and writer Alexander Cockburn) of a --well-coordinated pattern of literary McCarthyism-- and hate directed against defenders of Israel.
As the U.S. allocates billions of dollars to Middle East nations, innocents continue to be killed and maimed, and communities literally destroyed, it is up to American readers to find the truth and act in accordance to how they view the policies well represented by this noxious disagreement.
As for me, you know what? I do not wish to minimize these gentlemens' concerns. As first I was intrigued and indignant, but not now. I am actually becoming sick of living for five years under the Bush regime, I literally cannot stand to see this man on TV. I feel fatigued and discouraged by this battle.
These are two imposing intellects with powerful characters with one hell of a lot to offer this world. I love Chomsky, Cockburn, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) (condemned by Finkelstein). Have you ever read the ADL's "The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America"? It's superb. It may border on, what's the word, the childish, but I wish somehow these two men and everything they represent -- the power of the intellect, classical liberal values, and Jewish traditions -- would join forces and go after the most dangerous adversary threatening us today: the SOBs in the White House, because these people just need to be stopped and we absolutely need a two-front war against them. The indictments give me hope, like an injection of pure oxygen.
In light of the vicious accusations and aspersions cast, the horrors visited upon millions of Jewish and Palestinian people throughout history and continuing today, a call to join forces may seem absurd, but that's true Chutzpah.
For more information, visit:
" http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dershowitz/
" http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=11
###
The problem for Dershowitz is that in reading the appendix, it looks pretty damning and appears that Dershowitz is indeed passing off some of Peters' work as his own. One wonders how, if Dershowitz did his own research, he can replicate Peters' idiosyncratic mistakes that are noted by Finkelstein. As Finkelstein writes in a letter in The Nation (August 29, 2005), "The Case for Israel exactly reproduces Joan Peter's errors of transcription from the originals, as I copiously document in Beyond Chutzpah. No one who actually checked the originals could have made these identical errors." But I can't pretend to know with any certainty.
Dershowitz has knocked down these charges in numerous venues, and he devotes a chapter in response in his new The Case for Peace that accuses Finkelstein (along with MIT professor Noam Chomsky and writer Alexander Cockburn) of a --well-coordinated pattern of literary McCarthyism-- and hate directed against defenders of Israel.
As the U.S. allocates billions of dollars to Middle East nations, innocents continue to be killed and maimed, and communities literally destroyed, it is up to American readers to find the truth and act in accordance to how they view the policies well represented by this noxious disagreement.
These are two imposing intellects with powerful characters with one hell of a lot to offer this world. I love Chomsky, Cockburn, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) (condemned by Finkelstein). Have you ever read the ADL's "The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America"? It's superb. It may border on, what's the word, the childish, but I wish somehow these two men and everything they represent -- the power of the intellect, classical liberal values, and Jewish traditions -- would join forces and go after the most dangerous adversary threatening us today: the SOBs in the White House, because these people just need to be stopped and we absolutely need a two-front war against them. The indictments give me hope, like an injection of pure oxygen.
In light of the vicious accusations and aspersions cast, the horrors visited upon millions of Jewish and Palestinian people throughout history and continuing today, a call to join forces may seem absurd, but that's true Chutzpah.
For more information, visit:
" http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dershowitz/
" http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=11
###
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