A speech tonight by a controversial critic of Israel is causing a stir among some in Duke's Jewish community who say that the speaker, a Jew, discounts the importance of the Holocaust. The organization sponsoring the event, however, defends the speaker as a valid critic of Israeli actions against Palestinians.
Norman Finkelstein, a professor of political science at DePaul University and well-known scholar on Zionism, will be speaking at 7 p.m. in 130 Sociology-Psychology Building about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the Sept. 11 attacks. Several members of Duke's Jewish community who are critics of Finkelstein's work have expressed discontent that he will speak on campus, and plan to attend the event to try to counter his ideas.
"He is not someone who is considered a great friend of the Jewish people," said Roger Kaplan, director of the Freeman Center for Jewish Life. "Students are very, very concerned. A lot of supporters of the Jewish community are concerned."
Author of The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein has criticized the portrayal of the killing of Jews during World War II, saying that their deaths have been exploited for other Jews' gains like the recent $1.5 billion settlement with Swiss banks. He also condemns Israel's occupation of lands it acquired in the 1967 Six-Day War against its Arab neighbors, as well as other actions against Palestinians.
"There's a consensus in the entire international community calling for Israel to withdraw from the areas occupied after the 1967 war as a critical precondition for peace," Finkelstein said in an interview Wednesday. "I think American Jews are making a big mistake by defending the indefensible.... All it does is foment anti-Semitism, and the belief that Jews like to kill little kids."
Those beliefs have drawn condemnation from many Jewish leaders who defend both the attention paid to the Holocaust and Israel's right to occupy the land it currently holds. Some Jews have called Finkelstein, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, an anti-Semite himself, while others have accused him of minimizing the importance of the Holocaust. Finkelstein has said Israel would not exist if not for the Holocaust.
"Most rational people would say that the Holocaust was not an excuse. It was a tragedy," said senior David Nefouse, president of Duke Friends of Israel. "To do something like this is sending out a message, and if that's the message [the event organizers] want to send out, that the Holocaust is an excuse for the state of Israel, they can do that. But if I were to go about promoting peace, this is not how I would do it."
Finkelstein will speak specifically about the current situation in the Middle East, and organizers of the event say he brings a unique voice to this issue, both because of his religion and his scholarship. The speech is being sponsored by HIWAR, a student group that focuses on human rights issues in North Africa and the Mideast.
"We feel what he has to say is very important and very underrepresented in our society," said sophomore Yousuf Al-Bulushi, president of HIWAR. "We're bringing him here to talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has written books on the Holocaust, but that's not what he'll be speaking about."
Claudia Koonz, a professor of history at Duke who studies the Holocaust, said Finkelstein's work is an essential part of a heated, ongoing debate about Zionism, and that his views are not unique. "That's something that people get really confused about. You can be really pro-Jewish and be really anti-Zionist," Koonz said.
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