Israel imposes a 10-year ban on American critic of Israeli policies
(updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)
Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday May 27, 2008 10:28 EDT
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/27/finkelstein/index.html
[go to article for links mentioned in story]
On Friday, Israeli security forces, ****n Bet, detained Norman
Finkelstein when he tried to enter Israel, kept him in an air****t
holding cell for 24 hours, ordered him de****ted from the country, and
then imposed a 10-year ban on his entry. Finkelstein, the son of a
Holocaust survivor, is a Jewish-American author and academic who has
frequently criticized the Israeli Government and provoked extreme
animosity among right-wing factions in the U.S. He had flown to Israel
15 times previously without incident and was never charged with, let
alone convicted of, any crime.
This morning, I interviewed Finkelstein regarding this episode and
related issues (the audio for which is here). I also interviewed
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, whose animosity towards
Finkelstein is intense and long-standing. Dershowitz, to his credit
(and, given the below-described events, somewhat ironically) was quite
critical of Israel's exclusion of Finkelstein. The full interview with
Dershowitz can be heard here.
This morning, the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, published an
Editorial emphatically criticizing the government's exclusion of
Finkelstein, rejecting the notion that Finkelstein posed any remote
security threat and noting: "Considering his unusual and extremely
critical views, one cannot avoid the suspicion that refusing to allow
him to enter Israel was a punishment rather than a precaution."
Haaretz further highlighted the danger of allowing the Government to
suppress viewpoints it dislikes:
"[T]he right of Israeli citizens to hear unusual views is one that
should be fought for. It is not for the government to decide which
views should be heard here and which ones should not.
"The decision to ban Finkelstein hurts us more than it hurts him."
Beyond the obvious significance of the story itself (one which has
been written about extensively in the foreign press, including Europe,
but which is missing almost completely from the American media), this
episode is part of a very disturbing trend whereby advocates of right-
wing Israeli policies try to suppress viewpoints that deviate from
their orthodoxies.
Finkelstein -- a Ph.D from Princeton and the author of numerous books
-- was himself the subject of an extraordinary (and ultimately
successful) campaign (with the enthusiastic leader****p of "free speech
advocate" Dershowitz, people like Marty Peretz and other neocons who
dislike his views) to have him denied tenure by DePaul University,
where he had taught for seven years. He was denied tenure even though
the Political Science Department (by a 9-3 vote) and the Personnel
Committee (unanimously) recommended him for tenure.
As The Chicago Tribune re****ted: "The American Association of
University Professors had previously complained to the university that
Finkelstein's summary discharge violated standards of academic
freedom." Since then, no other university has been willing to risk the
controversy that would be inevitably provoked if it hired Finkelstein,
who has therefore been unemployed since leaving DePaul.
That campaign against Finkelstein was similar to the (also successful)
one spearheaded by various American neoconservatives to block Yale
University from extending a tenure position to University of Michigan
Professor (and critic of Israeli policies) Juan Cole -- who stood
accused (falsely) of harboring a "deep and abiding hatred of Israel";
that "if it were up to Mr. Cole, the country wouldn't exist at all";
and being "best known for disparaging the participation of prominent
American Jews in government." Despite being approved for tenure by the
Yale departments he was to join, Professor Cole's appointment was
rejected by a Yale appointments committee in the wake of the
neoconservative campaign against him. As Inside Higher Ed re****ted at
the time, in an article entitled "Blackballed at Yale":
"[NYU Professor of Middle East Studies Zachary] Lockman said that Cole
is "one of the preeminent historians of the modern Middle East and
he's been attacked on political grounds -- because he's critical of
the Bush administration and Israel." Given Cole's reputation and the
departmental backing for his appointment, Lockman said of the decision
to reject Cole: "Universities seem to be willing to kowtow to pressure
from outside interest groups" . . . .
"These vicious attacks on my character and my views were riddled with
with wild inaccuracies," [Cole] said, adding that the criticism was
"motivated by a desire to punish me for daring to stand up for
Palestinian rights, criticize Israeli policy, criticize Bush
administration policies and, in general being a liberal Democrat."
Over the past several years, the U.S. has itself refused entry to
those espousing views on Israel disagreeable to neocons. In 2004,
Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim scholar from Switzerland who was to
teach a course at the University of Notre Dame, was granted an
entrance visa only to have it revoked by Homeland Security based on
vague accusations that he posed a security threat. As The Guardian's
Richard Silverstein noted, the visa revocation occurred after Ramadan
was continuously attacked by neocons like Daniel Pipes with "false
claims about Ramadan's sympathy for terrorism." Independent of Israel-
related issues, there are numerous other cases of journalists, authors
and others being refused entrance to the U.S. on the most dubious
grounds that simply do not exist anywhere else in the free world.
In fact, the problem of right-wing attacks on free speech when it
comes to Israel is -- as Finkelstein himself in my interview with him
noted -- far worse in the U.S. than it is in Israel. As the Haaretz
Editorial reflects, Israel is a pluralistic society that tolerates a
much broader range of debate over Israeli actions than is permissible
in the U.S. Indeed, just yesterday, Marty Peretz lamented that
Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are lecturing this month
at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on "The Israel Lobby." While
suggestions of negotiations with Hamas is a taboo topic for American
politicians, a majority of Israelis sup****t that option. Views that
are routinely castigated by neocons in the U.S. as "anti-Israeli" and
even "anti-Semitic" are freely expressed in Israel, by Israelis, with
regularity.
Still, Israel's 10-year exclusion of Finkelstein is disturbing and
warrants real criticism. As Finkelstein noted in my interview with
him, he was not intending to stay in Israel, but rather, to visit
friends in the Occupied Territory. Thus, the issue extends beyond
Israel's attempt to bar those with dissenting views from entering that
country to Israel's attempt to deny Palestinians the ability to meet
with those who are critical of Israel's occupation. Right-wing, Israel-
centric factions in the U.S. have conclusively demonstrated that they
oppose free debate and don't believe in free expression. It can't be
good for Israel -- and, either way, it's certainly not justifiable --
for Israel to follow in their pernicious footsteps.
UPDATE: The interview with Finkelstein can be heard here. It's roughly
20 minutes. The interview with Dershowitz (roughly 6 minutes) can be
heard here.
UPDATE II: The Jerusalem Post re****ts that Finkelstein's exclusion
was, in fact, based on the government's dislike of his political
views:
"American political scientist and fierce critic of Israel, Prof.
Norman Finkelstein, was denied entry to Israel and de****ted from the
country early Saturday morning. Officials said that the decision to
de****t Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and
fierce public criticism of Israel around the world. . . .
"Prof. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard was active in campaigning against
Finkelstein. His most recent book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of
Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is largely an attack on
Dershowitz's The Case for Israel. In his book, Finkelstein argues that
Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to
stifle criticism."
It's unclear what "anti-Zionist" in that context is supposed to mean,
since Finkelstein has long advocated for a two-state solution based on
Israel's 1967 borders -- the position that can, more or less, be
described as an international consensus -- but what matters here is
the acknowledgment that the exclusion was viewpoint-based. Some in
comments had baselessly speculated that the exclusion was due to
Finkelstein's having met with Hezbollah officials -- a fact which even
the extremely anti-Hezbollah Dershowitz (as well as the Haaretz
Editorial) agreed would not be a basis for exclusion, but clearly, not
even Israeli government officials are invoking that pretext.
UPDATE III: Philip Weiss points to this article in The Telegraph, in
which former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski complained
that "the slur of anti-Semitism was too readily used" against critics
of the Israeli government and its right-wing sup****ters in the U.S.:
"Mr. Brzezinski has been accused of being "anti-Israel" by some Jewish
academics, writers and bloggers after criticising Israel for excessive
use of force and unwillingness to compromise. . . .
"Mr Brzezinski said "it's not unique to the Jewish community -- but
there is a McCarthyite tendency among some people in the Jewish
community", referring to the Republican senator who led the anti-
Communist witch hunt in the 1950s.
"They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising.
They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of
paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a
compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel."
These sorts of debate-suppressive tactics -- aside from being
inherently wrong -- never advance the cause on behalf of which they're
invoked. Coincidentally, Brzezinksi has a superb Op-Ed in today's
Wa****ngton Post, co-authored with the equally superb retired Gen.
William Odom, on creating a sensible American policy towards Iran.
UPDATE IV: One of the points which the Haaretz Editorial made in
opposing the exclusion of Finkelstein is that right-wing Jewish-
American extremists who, unlike Finkelstein, do pose a real security
threat, are regularly allowed entry into Israel:
"the decision is all the more surprising when one recalls the ease
with which right-wing activists from the Meir Kahane camp -- the kind
whose activities pose a security threat that no longer requires
further proof -- are able to enter the country."
At Open Left, Paul Rosenberg examines an analogous inequity: while
even the mildest critics of Israel on the Left are routinely demonized
by neocons as "anti-Israeli" or "anti-Semitic," truly extreme
hatemongers on the Right -- such as John Hagee -- are not only
tolerated but embraced. Thus, Joe Lieberman, who previously compared
Hagee to "Moses" in the midst of bathing Hagee with lavish praise,
still refuses to repudiate Hagee or cancel his scheduled appearance at
a Hagee event even in the wake of Hagee's comments that Hitler and the
Holocaust were "God's will" to drive Jews back to Israel. Few things
are more destructive than those like Lieberman who transparently
exploit "anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitism" accusations to silence
debate and for their own political gain.
[Glenn Greenwald was a constitutional lawyer in New York City, first
at the Manhattan firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and then at the
litigation firm he founded, Greenwald, Christoph. Greenwald litigated
numerous high-profile and significant constitutional cases in federal
and state courts around the country, including multiple First
Amendment challenges. He has a J.D. from New York University School of
Law (1994) and a B.A. from George Wa****ngton University (1990). In
October of 2005, Greenwald started a political and legal blog,
Unclaimed Territory, which quickly became one of the most popular and
highest-trafficked in the blogosphere.]
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