[Peace-discuss] Zionist Tactics

[David Green]

Jewish community lines up to blunt message of
anti-Zionist author
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
By Caitlin Cleary, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh's Jewish community turned out in force last
night for Norman G. Finkelstein's lecture at Carnegie
Mellon University. People lined up by the dozen more
than an hour before the speech began, anxious to claim
a seat in McConomy Auditorium. 
Normally, this is not Finkelstein's crowd. The scholar
and author of books like the international best-seller
"The Holocaust Industry" and the forthcoming "Beyond
Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse
of History," Finkelstein argues that American Jewry
has "played the Holocaust card," exploiting the
suffering of Jews as a political tool to generate
sympathy for Israeli policy and further the aims of
Zionism. 
Finkelstein also spoke of human rights abuses Israel
has inflicted on Arabs. 
Many in the crowd spoke of betrayal and outrage that
Finkelstein, whose parents both survived the ghettos
and concentration camps of Europe, would draw
analogies between Nazi and Israeli policies. So why
wait in line to hear the man speak for two hours? 
It was part of a carefully planned effort by the
United Jewish Federation to minimize the impact of
Finkelstein's appearance by quietly filling the seats
of the lecture hall with Jews already inured to his
"ridiculous and vile distortions," said Jeffrey Cohan,
spokesman for the UJF. 
Given several weeks' notice of Finkelstein's
appearance, the UJF, which represents all Jewish
organizations in the Pittsburgh area, deployed a
"rapid response team" to e-mail more than 400 people,
asking them to show up, and early. Hillel Jewish
University Center of Pittsburgh conceived of the
seat-filling strategy; the United Jewish Federation
helped to execute it. 
Cohan characterized Finkelstein's support in the
Jewish community as "minuscule" and "very extreme
fringe." 
Ken Boas is one of those supporters. Boas teaches
English at the University of Pittsburgh, and came to
hear Finkelstein speak about his support of the
Palestinian struggle and Israel's "abhorrent and
criminal policies" against Palestinians. 
"The sense is that if you're Jewish, you need to be
supportive of Israel and the Zionist position," Boas
said. "It makes it very difficult for Jews to dissent
without being branded as anti-Semitic or self-hating."

"Just so you know, Ken is wrong," said David Shtulman,
executive director of the American Jewish Committee's
Pittsburgh chapter, standing next to Boas. "All one
has to do is take a look at Israeli newspapers [to
know that Jews can dissent]. There are those that
argue Israeli policies are too harsh and help produce
suicide bombers -- that's a legitimate point of
debate. But to use terms like 'Nazi' policies, 'ethnic
cleansing,' that goes beyond the pale. One has to
wonder if his point is simply to demonize." 
The atmosphere was tense. CMU administrator Indira
Nair spoke first, laying out the rules: no questions,
no loud remarks, "no noises that your mothers wouldn't
approve of." Finkelstein began his remarks with
apologies to those who had come "hoping for a circus."

"I'm not going to be providing one," he said.