It is time for me to move on and hopefully find new ways to fulfill my own mission in life of making the world a slightly better place on leaving it than when I entered it.
– Norman G. Finkelstein on 9/5/07

When Norman Finkelstein announced last Wednesday that he and DePaul University had reached a negotiated settlement, ending his nearly year-long battle to gain tenure in the face of the highly unusual set of circumstances created by the extramural campaign of hate and intimidation launched by Alan Dershowitz, the Israel Lobby, and its numerous affiliates, one could have almost have felt as if the whole controversy had come to an anti-climactic end. It was a sad moment for many who had defended Finkelstein throughout the year, in the hope the administration could be brought to its senses about the deadly blow that had been delivered against academic freedom and this world-class intellectual, who brought a determination to his work few will be able to match.

In exchange for his immediate resignation from DePaul’s faculty, DePaul would essentially admit that Finkelstein had met the University’s tenure and promotion requirements (“Professor Finkelstein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher”), while also providing Finkelstein with a backhanded acknowledgment of the public outrage that had been generated in response to the tenure denial (“We understand that Professor Finkelstein and his supporters disagree with the University Board on Promotion and Tenure’s conclusion that he did not meet the requirements for tenure.”) Well, the obvious reason Finkelstein and many of his supporters disagreed with the University Board on Promotion and Tenure’s conclusions is because Finkelstein consistently earned among the highest, if not the highest, teaching evaluations in the political science department for six years in a row. Couple that with the five books which he has published to international acclaim, the most recent being his Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History with the University of California Press, which Dershowitz’s campaign of abuse and vilification could not censor, one might naturally understand why Finkelstein and his supporters have drawn the logical inference that something else—other than the usual DePaul standards—might have been in play.

Given that the University has now settled with Finkelstein under confidential terms, the logical inference, that outside political interference was the real reason Finkelstein was denied tenure, is most certainly correct. The administration’s repeated rejoinder that Finkelstein just did not measure up to the institution’s standards is clearly absurd. To recap: The tenure members of Finkelstein’s own department voted 9-3 supporting his tenure bid; The five members of the Liberal Arts and Science’s College Personnel Committee voted 5-0 to support Finkelstein’s tenure and promotion to full professor; two outside reviewers, of international acclaim, enthusiastically endorsed Finkelstein’s application. In late March, an administrative intervention, in the form of Dean Chuck Suchar, took place because the faculty, if left to its own devices, was going to give Finkelstein tenure. Suchar alleged that he could not support Finkelstein’s tenure bid because his scholarship was at odds with DePaul’s institutional mission, which apparently requires DePaul professors to respect the God-given dignity of political opponents such as Alan Dershowitz. In brief, according to Suchar, tenuring Finkelstein would be problematic since the latter engages in ad hominem and reputation-demeaning attacks.

All of this discussion about whether or not Finkelstein engages in ad hominem attacks, and whether or not his doing so should be legitimate grounds for denying him tenure, seems to completely miss the larger point: Finkelstein’s colleagues within his department and College overwhelmingly supported his tenure bid. The tenured members of his department, the people who worked with him on a daily basis, voted to support his tenure and promotion to associate professor. The three members of the department who voted against him filed a minority report, arguing that Finkelstein was uncollegial to them personally. The College Personnel Committee voted unanimously to support the Department’s majority recommendation. Surely, no one is going to claim that the nine people who voted for Finkelstein in his own department, and the five people who supported him on the College Personnel Committee, did so because they are anti-Semites or self-hating Jews, right?

Realizing that faculty support for Finkelstein would pose a huge problem for the administration’s long-ago hatched plan to deny him tenure, the Dean intervened and claimed that Finkelstein’s scholarship–which has been published to international acclaim and praised by the likes of the leading experts on the Israel Palestine conflict [Avi Shlaim (Oxford), Sara Roy (Harvard), the late Baruch Kimmerling (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem), William Quandt, and Beshara Doumani (Berkeley)] and the Nazi Holocaust (the late Raul Hilberg, the founder of Holocaust Studies who was actually doing serious work on the Holocaust long before it became politically convenient and ideologically serviceable to do so, Joachim Fest, Arno Mayer, Christopher Browning, and Ian Kershaw)–just did not comport with what it means to embody Vincentian personalism. Finkelstein’s five books have undergone forty-six different translations—more than the entire faculty within DePaul’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences combined. That doesn’t sound very controversial to me.

In his report, the Dean bases his argument that Finkelstein’s scholarship doesn’t meet DePaul’s standards on a single chapter from The Holocaust Industry. As it turns out, the Dean, in the course of advancing his argument, reveals he hasn’t read any of Finkelstein’s books, much less the one he is referencing. Suchar got so confused in his borrowings from another text, which was perhaps provided to him by Dershowitz or some other third party, that he misspelled the word “huckster” as “huxter”—just as Dershowitz misspelled it in his propaganda package, [see p. 5 of 21], which he sent Finkelstein’s former department chair. In addition, note that Suchar places the Israeli historian Benny Morris in the same company as Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel, and Daniel Goldhagen. As anyone who has read Finkelstein’s work surely knows, Morris is someone Finkelstein holds in high regard and is not someone he would mention in the same breath as Dershowitz, Wiesel, and Goldhagen–all of whom he has referrred to as “hoaxers” and “hucksters”; not, as Suchar (and Dershowitz) would have it, “hoaxters and huxters”. After Suchar’s memo withholding support for Finkelstein’s tenure came out in late March, fourteen members of the political science department, including all the junior faculty members, refuted what was alleged about Finkelstein’s supposed incivility, stating they found him to be a great colleague who made a tremendous contribution to the department.

The University Board, which voted 4-3 against tenure, embraced the minority report written by the three people in Finkelstein’s department who voted against him, none of whom are experts on the Middle East or the Nazi Holocaust, while ignoring the majority vote from Finkelstein’s department, the unanimous vote of the College Personnel Committee, and the enthusiastic endorsements of two distinguished outside reviewers, whose views and opinions about Finkelstein’s record were solicited by DePaul’s political science department. This year’s university committee consisted of faculty members from Psychology, Law, Theatre Arts, Management, Mathematics, Communications, and Education. Is one to understand that these faculty members were in a better position to judge Finkelstein’s record than his own department, his College, and the distinguished reviewers? Note that President Holtscheider, in summarizing the University Board’s reasoning, doesn’t even offer one example of the ad hominem attacks in Finkelstein’s work, which apparently necessitated the tenure denial.

In examining the evidence at hand, it’s fairly clear that Finkelstein was not denied tenure because of his supposed ad hominem attacks or his lack of collegiality. He was denied tenure at DePaul because tremendous outside pressure was placed on the university to remove an effective critic of U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East from its precincts. I wish the administration would stop repeating the bald-face lie that Finkelstein’s scholarship did not meet DePaul’s tenure and promotion standards. It’s embarrassing and an insult to the intelligence. Apparently, Rubinstein and Associates, the PR firm DePaul hired to help it with its public relations image, thought the repeated invocation of this lie would pass muster; it clearly did not.

Private giving to DePaul doubled between 2006 and 2007. I have no doubt that DePaul receiving that money was dependent upon the administration ensuring that Finkelstein be denied tenure. It’s to DePaul’s credit that it hired and retained Finkelstein for six years. There was plenty of pressure placed on the university during that time period to get rid of him because he was writing and speaking, with great effectiveness, about Israel’s terrible human rights record against the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which is sustained by the United States’ crucial material, military, and diplomatic support. Indeed, it’s often difficult for U.S. intellectuals to hear that they might be contributing to a cultural milieu that condones and turns its eyes away from U.S.-supported war crimes. When Finkelstein exposed Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel, in his Beyond Chutzpah, to be a “hoax concocted from another hoax,” Finkelstein in fact exposed how our own elite intellectual culture works. How else does one explain that Henry Louis Gates praised The Case for Israel as a great book? Maybe he didn’t read it before he wrote a positive blurb for it?

In October of 2004, I had the distinct honor of interviewing Professor Finkelstein for an online discussion of his books. Although he became impatient with the participant’s seemingly, complete lack of comprehension of his work, which were supposed to be the basis of participant questions, he tried to provide some comic relief. His dismissal of Derrida and his work, the day after Derrida’s passing, was meant to force discussion participants to think about why Derrida’s thinking had come to dominate so much contemporary discussion within the humanities; that’s what iconoclasts are supposed to do. They force us to question why we embrace certain figures, theories, and approaches, attacking them when they become all too sacred.

Below, I’ve pasted in Finkelstein’s final post to the discussion list, which struck me as ironic and insightful. I’d prefer tenure to be an honor we bestow upon people who are saying provocative and timely things about the important issues of the day, rather than an accolade with which we buy people’s silence and good behavior. All too often that’s unfortunately how tenure operates. Robert Jensen wrote a powerful essay about this problem a few months ago, considering what it would mean for the U.S. academy if Finkelstein were denied tenure. I’m afraid Jensen’s words were prescient.

If there are those in the public sphere who have actually read Finkelstein’s books and grappled with his arguments who wish to offer up some examples of Finkelstein’s supposed ad hominem attacks, I’m sure they could be analyzed and discussed. For example, are Finklestein’s charts documenting Dershowitz’s reliance upon Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial in his The Case for Israel ad hominem?

For someone to state that they’ve heard that Finkelstein is a nasty piece of work, a self-hating Jew, and an anti-Semite based on third parties, who have a vested interest in silencing him, seems inconsistent with what responsible public intellectualism is all about. Let’s not forget that Finkelstein is Jewish, the son of Holocaust survivors, and had much of his family exterminated during the holocaust. The dedication of his Image and Reality in the Israel-Palestine Conflict reads as follows:

To my beloved parents,

May I never forget or forgive what was done to them

Thanks, Norm, for all you have done for your colleagues and students at DePaul. In the end, you proved to have had far more integrity, intelligence, and determination than those who were in a position to judge you. As you helped humanity climb Jacob’s ladder, one rung at a time, you have inspired all of us to make this world a better and more humane place.

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:11:02 -0500
Reply-To: Scholarly Book Review List < PRETEXT@LISTSERV.UTA.EDU>
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From: “Vitanza, Victor” <sophist@uta.edu>
Subject: nf (PRE/TEXT)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

Date Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 01:21 AM
From: Norman Finkelstein <normangf@hotmail.com>
To: mabraha2 <mabraha2@utk.edu >
Cc: NormanGF <NormanGF@hotmail.com>

One reason for the right-wing’s ascendancy in the United States is that, at any rate, in some departments, and especially those where I can lay reasonable claim to personal and professional knowledge, what reactionaries have to say, however painful it might be to confess, contains a grain, and then some, of truth. It is frequently alleged in these right-wing quarters that universities have been effectively hijacked by semi-literate, politically correct blowhards
spouting an incomprehensible and vacuous jargon, not to mention one with the tonal aesthetic of a tin can, which, rather than be a badge or shame, is for these post-whatevers a point of preening and, what’s yet more a matter commanding consternation among those still preserving a jot of rationality, for them a signifier of superiority to the common herd who, God forbid, make themselves generally understood. I am old enough to have passed through multiple of these epochs in non-thought. When I was coming of age politically, Althusser and his acolytes like Poulantzas were all the rage. Who can forget that prose that induced the same aesthetic effect as it was chewed over in the mind as tin foil does when chewed over in a mouth filled with cavities? This fashion passed expeditiously enough when Poulantzas jumped off a towering edifice (showing enough consideration for humanity by, reportedly, carrying his books with him as he plunged to eternity), quickly to be followed by Althusser strangling his wife to death, all in the fateful academic year 1979. (On a personal note, having been a student in Paris at the time, I still vividly recall these untimely deaths, attended by the almost simultaneous passings of Sartre and Roland Barthes, the latter run down by a car.) This lunatic craze however was almost immediately superseded by the Foucault cult, when every half-baked, ill-educated dimwit imagined him or herself a philosopher after having dabbed in (excerpts from, if even that much) Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Paris master-thinker himself. Shortly thereafter began the Derrida fad with a fresh wagon-load of cliché and jargon unloaded at navel-contemplating conferences, pawned off as radical and cutting edge whereas it possessed all the intellectual and political content of marsh mellow topped with Redi-Whip; and – will the Lord ever forgive them for this sin- unloaded on unsuspecting students. I have on occasion, mostly for light amusement after a hard day’s work, picked up some of these texts, and wonder how poor, unsuspecting, innocent, naive young people have borne such utter rubbish. To inflict it on them is – and here I write as a committed, if atheistic, educator – truly a sin beyond redemption. Fortunately adults such as myself, and not bound by the constraints, whether of political correctness or academic fashion, still preserve the liberty – which I, at any rate, do not intend to abdicate – of calling this what it is. For all I know he might have been the most decent fellow going, but as an influence on academic life Derrida was an abomination – or, more exactly, a too-long running joke. I do not in the least lament his passing, except in the sense of the truism that for those who knew him personally, his loss, like the loss of human life generally, must be source of sorrow. Beyond that, good riddens.
The reactions to my posting on this listserv have fallen into three main categories: 1) studied disgust at my lack of academic couth – which is a useful pretext (if I might appropriate that word) for avoiding discussion of substantive issues; 2) incomprehensible gibberish about my “rhetoric,” “representations,” intermixed with words I’ve never heard of like “aporia” and “irenic” – or, to be precise, words I have heard of, but don’t think it’s worth the trouble of learning their definition, although I love dictionaries – my last great hope is that if reincarnation is yet a transcendental and temporal truth, I come back as a Webster’s unabridged; and although reveling in the exquisite delights of learning new words: yet as a point of principle I refuse to invest the energy requisite for such lexicological investigation simply to satisfy the pitifully deformed ego of a pedant; and 3) factual points of difference. Almost none of the postings fit under the last head. I will limit my remarks here to two interrelated point.

I asserted that one evidence that Holocaust studies is a non-field is the sorts of questions it ponders: e.g. the fanatical insistence on proving the “uniqueness” of the Nazi holocaust. It was then asserted in response by one listserv member that this concern is hardly peculiar to Holocaust studies. Let’s then, put forth a simple challenge. Consider this illustrative rendering from a leading light of this purported field. Professor Steven T. Katz has published the first of a projected three volume study (Oxford University Press) harnessing over 5,000 titles the purpose of which is to prove that “the Holocaust is phenomenologically unique by virtue of the fact that never before has a state set out, as a matter of intentional principle and actualized policy, to annihilate physically every man, woman and child belonging to a specific people.”
Clarifying his thesis, Katz explains: “”? is uniquely C. “? may share A, B, D,…X with ?£ but not C. And again “may share A,B,D,…X with all £ but not C…”| lacking C is not “….By definition, no exceptions to this rule are allowed. ?£ sharing A,B,D,…X with “? may be like “? in these and other respects…but as regards our definition of uniqueness any or all ?£ sharing A,B,D,…X with “? may be like “? in these and other respect…but as regards our definition of uniqueness any or all ?£ lacking C are not “?….Of course, in its totality “? is more than C, but it is never “? without C.” avoid any confusion, Katz further elucidates that he uses the term phenomenological “in a non-Husserlian, non-Shutzean, non-Schelerian, non-Heideggerian, non-Merleau-Pontyian sense.” Translation: the Katz enterprise, like Holocaust studies generally, is phenomenal non-sense. Now here’s my question: Please cite even a single article in the vast output of scholarship on American slavery that even remotely echoes such insane preoccupations. Or, point to me a single article in the scholarly literature on American slavery making the claim that it “leads into darkness,” “negates all answers,” “lies outside, if not beyond, history,” “defies both knowledge and description,” “cannot be explained nor visualized,” is “never to be comprehended or transmitted,” marks a “destruction of history” and a “mutation on a cosmic scale,” is “non-communicable ” – “we cannot even talk about it.” I am, or course, quoting here the high-priest of Holocaust studies, Elie Wiesel. Does this sound to anyone on the listserv like rational inquiry or is it, as I’ve suggested, a highly lucrative and politically useful mystery religion?

By capitulating to the threats, antics, and pressures of Alan Dershowitz, the Israel Lobby, and its numerous affiliates, DePaul has compromised something so integral to an educational institution’s mission, that once so compromised, it is impossible to regain. That something is institutional autonomy. An institution’s ability to withstand outside pressure, and economic coercion — which can often be tantamount to blackmail — is a must in an age of corporate scandal, sleazy deal making, and political cover-ups. The general public used to look to the academy for leadership, vision, and most importantly, uncorrupted knowledge. Not anymore. DePaul is now even more vulnerable than it was before President Dennis Holtschneider signed Norman G. Finkelstein’s tenure denial letter on June 8th. Despite the legalistic obfuscations about the how the Finkelstein denial is not about academic freedom, but about professional conduct, the denunciation of so-called “conspiracy theories” which have cropped up over the summer, and the holier-than-thou pronouncements about how this past year’s tenure and promotion decisions were the result of a “clean process,” DePaul University is more vulnerable than ever to the next assault upon its integrity and autonomy — no matter how many millions of dollars have poured into its coffers because of the Finkelstein tenure denial, we are vulnerable.

Today, Wednesday (September 5th, 2007), is the biggest day in DePaul University’s history as Norman G. Finkelstein returns to campus to begin his terminal year after being denied tenure on June 8th. Finkelstein has been placed on “administrative leave” because of his supposed behavior on June 13th and June 14th, when he confronted faculty in the Political Science Department, individuals who voted against his tenure, and Dean Charles Suchar, who recommended against tenure in a memo dated March 22nd to the University Board on Tenure and Promotion. Because of these confrontations and because of a recommendation made by a special committee within the Political Science Department, according to a memo written by Provost Helmut Epp, Finkelstein has been removed from the classroom and will not be allowed to teach the courses that were assigned to him as late as ten days ago.

Over the last few months I have been forced to ask some hard questions about DePaul’s institutional mission, its commitment to preserving tenure as a special accolade for the best and the brightest in the academy, and its defense of academic freedom in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which so often is subject to institutional surveillance, censorship, and silencing. Most importantly, I have come to question DePaul’s administration and faculty’s commitment to upholding academic freedom, as a serious institutional value, which enables critical thinking and meaningful dissent around important, albeit, taboo subjects such as Israel’s human rights record in the Occupied Territories and the special role that U.S. taxpayers fill in contributing to that record. Indeed, the silence of many tenured faculty here at DePaul, in the face of egregious violations of academic freedom and due process in the Finkelstein case, is in many ways the same silence that plagues the American public when it comes to speaking out about the sixty-year Israeli occupation of Palestine. This faculty silence is perhaps the hardest thing for me, as a new faculty member, to understand and reconcile with DePaul’s Vincentian heritage and mission. If there was ever a time for Vincentian personalism to manifest itself, it is now, in this moment, when Norman Finkelstein steps onto campus this morning. If faculty find themselves unable to rally around him, too busy with the usual duties that attend preparing for the beginning of the academic year, perhaps DePaul faculty should ask themselves why they are in this business of opening young minds to new ideas, when they are incapable of seeing that our campus is on the brink of devolving into something reminiscent of the Red Scare of the McCarthy Era. Will those faculty associated with, and standing in support of Finkelstein, be the next targets of DePaul’s administration? If so, I would certainly be a likely target. I am ready to accept that challenge.

Faculty and administrators that I respect, people to whom I have turned to for advice and guidance in the short time I have been at DePaul, have repeatedly cowered in the face of various pressures within and external to the university around the political persecution of Norman G. Finkelstein. Most DePaul faculty have preferred to simply stay out of the way, justifying their inaction with statements such as “Perhaps the administration has information that we don’t” or “We don’t know what happened in that room when Finkelstein met with the University Board.” “Finkelstein is difficult” I’ve heard people say or “He’s not collegial and is a polemicist” someone else dismissively points out. “He’s saying things, which might be true, but people aren’t ready to hear such things as yet” another announces. These are excuses, I know, that well-meaning people generate to justify their decision to remain silent, realizing perhaps the fight for this dissident is not going to yield anything for them personally or professionally.

DePaul’s decision to deny Norman G. Finkelstein tenure in such a clumsy and blatantly foolish way, really beggars the imagination. The administration maintains that Finkelstein does not show adequate respect for the views of his political opponents in his scholarship, which is a transparent admission that, since it could not find serious flaws in his teaching or scholarship, the administration had to concoct a reason to deny Finkelstein tenure. That which Suchar called “Vincentian personalism”and what Holtschneider referenced as “a tendency to simplify and polarize debates which require subtle and layered consideration,” are admissions that DePaul, under no circumstances, was to make a positive recommendation on the Finkelstein tenure case. Indeed, that is more likely than not what key members on DePaul’s Board of Trustees told the administration over a year ago — “Find a way to do this. We don’t care how.” Perhaps realizing that most DePaul faculty would prefer to hold on to their academic privilege, instead of rocking the boat and making noise about the persecution of a dissenting colleague, the administration made a cynical calculation — “No one will care if Finkelstein is denied tenure. We can pull this off with minimum cost.” Therein lay a miscalculation: There are a group of people who care about the political persecution of Norman G. Finkelstein — DePaul’s heroic students, who are at this moment standing by their favorite professor as he prepares for the fight of his life. Regardless of whether or not the faculty joins these students in this day’s heroic struggle is of little consequence. A mighty victory has been won for the idealism of the young. With them and Finkelstein I will stand firm.

See also the related article: “Resisting Tyranny in Academia: The Deepening Bathos at DePaul University”

Dear Alan,

You have long been known as a rancid defender of Israeli fascism toward its Arab neighbors but this summer you wrote an article rationalizing Israeli attacks on civilians while Israel was visiting a mini-holocaust on Lebanon. When Human Rights Watch published evidence of war crimes, you stitched together a set of lies suggesting otherwise, which lies you did not retract (of course) when they were shown to be falsehoods.

Now you try to block from tenure someone who has the courage and integrity to expose your history of lies and your resemblance this summer to classic nazi-apologists. This after earlier attempting to block publication of his work and even sliming the memory of his mother. Norman Finkelstein has integrity and intellectual quality you will never experience first-hand.

Regarding your rationalization of Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians, let me just say that if there is a repeat of Israeli butchery toward Lebanon and if you decide once again to rationalize it publicly, look forward to a visit from me. Nazis — and nazi-like apologists such as yourself — need to be confronted directly.

Robert Trivers

As part of his never-ending campaign of vilification against Norman Finkelstein’s tenure bid at DePaul University, Dershowitz wrote in his May 4th op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “Finkelstein’s Bigotry”:

“Like the character in the ‘Groves of Academe,’ Mr. Finkelstein generated protests by students and outsiders. He has encouraged radical goons to email threatening messages; “Look forward to a visit from me,” reads one. “Nazis like [you] need to be confronted directly.” He has threatened to sue if he loses — while complaining about outside interference. No university should be afraid of truth — regardless of its source — especially when truth consists of Mr. Finkelstein’s own words.” (emphasis mine)

In his May 14th Cambridge Diarist article in The New Republic, entitled “Taking the Bait”, where he asserted that he was invited into DePaul’s tenure and promotion process by the former chair of DePaul’s political science department and that Finklestein was crying “outside interference” to justify his lack of scholarship, Dershowitz wrote:

“In the past months, I have received threatening calls and letters. The Rutgers biologist Robert Trivers, for one, has warned, “Nazi-like apologists as [you] need to be confronted directly.” Suddenly I’m the Nazi? And a masturbating one to boot! I’m not shy about entering arguments, but I can’t help feeling like I walked into a trap. How could I not argue against Finkelstein? But, when I raise my voice, I know that I’m supplying essential ammunition. I guess when you’ve got no scholarship to make your tenure case, you need all the outside interference you can get. ” (emphasis mine)

As Trivers pointed out in his May 23rd letter to the Wall Street Journal:

What I Said to Dershowitz
Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2007; Page A15

In regard to Alan Dershowitz’s commentary “Finkelstein’s Bigotry” (editorial page, May 4): In it he asserts that “He [Norman Finkelstein] has encouraged radical goons to email threatening messages; ‘Look forward to a visit from me,’ reads one. ‘Nazis like [you] need to be confronted directly.’”

But all of this is untrue. I wrote the letter in question (April 15, 2007), but without Prof. Finkelstein’s knowledge, interest or approval. The key sentences had nothing to do with Prof. Finkelstein: “Regarding your rationalization of Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians, let me just say that if there is a repeat of Israeli butchery toward Lebanon and if you decide once again to rationalize it publicly, look forward to a visit from me. Nazis — and Nazi-like apologists such as yourself — need to be confronted directly.”

As for being an academic goon: I am late responding because I was in Europe lecturing after receiving the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Robert Trivers
Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences
Rutgers University

Norman Finkelstein is quoted in Christine Flow’s June 16th, 2007 Harvard Crimson article, “Dershowitz Foes Face Scrutiny”, confirming Trivers’ account: “I wish I could claim people of that stature as my friends,” Finkelstein said. “But…how could we be friends? I have no idea what he’s talking about [in his work]. We might as well be talking from Earth to Mars.” So much for Dershowitz’s assertion that Finkelstein “encouraged radical goons to email threatening messages” to him. Also, notice how Dershowitz recasts what Trivers actually wrote: he removes the crucial qualifying portion of the sentence, “….if there is a repeat of Israeli butchery toward Lebanon and if you decide once again to rationalize it publicly,” leaving the reader to believe that Trivers wrote “Look forward from a visit from me. Nazis like [you] need to be confronted directly,” which he clearly did not.

Trivers was scheduled to speak at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics on Friday, May 25 th. About an hour before his talk, Trivers was informed by Michael Nowak, PED’s director and a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard, who had pleaded with Trivers for several months to commit to the engagement at Harvard, that the talk, as well as the reception to be held in Trivers’ honor, had been cancelled because Trivers had supposedly called a Harvard professor a Nazi, as reported in the Boston Globe. In an email to InsideHigherEd, Dershowitz confirmed that his “…office routinely sends letters that can be construed as threatening to the Harvard police…” “The Trivers letter fit into that category. I am and always have been opposed to the cancellation of speeches of any kind, whether it be of David Duke, Norman Finkelstein, or Robert Trivers. I do favor counter speech such as leafleting,” Dershowitz wrote. Indeed, as reported in Flow’s Harvard Crimson article, Dershowitz, upon learning that PED would be holding a celebration for Trivers after his talk, decided he would not attend, but would instead stand outside the hall where the celebration was scheduled, handing out copies of Trivers’ April 15th letter to Dershowitz to those entering. As it turns out, Dershowitz sits as a faculty affiliate on PED and was retained as a defense lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein, who was indicted for soliciting prostitution and donated 6.5 millions dollars to PED. “I don’t think you should have a party at which a Harvard faculty doesn’t feel comfortable,” Dershowitz wrote to InsideHigherEd. “I have a right to go anywhere at Harvard without feeling a risk to my bodily integrity.” Trivers has insisted that he, at no point, intended for the letter to be read as promising to deliver on a physical threat.

As one can see, by reading Trivers April 15th letter in its entirety, that Trivers did not label Dershowitz a Nazi, but instead noted the resemblance between Dershowitz’s apologetics for Israel’s bombing of South Lebanon last summer and the performances of classic Nazi-apologists. Similarly, in the last line of his letter, Trivers notes that “Nazis — and nazi-like apologists such as yourself — need to be confronted directly,” which clearly suggests that he was calling Dershowitz a “nazi-like” apologist not a Nazi or Nazi-apologist. The difference between a “nazi-like apologist” and a “classic Nazi-apologist” should be wholly clear to those who are familiar with the operations of the English language. The appellation “nazi-like apologist” would apply to someone who provided rationalizations for indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas that resembled the apologetics provided by those in pay to the Nazi regime.

There can be little doubt that the Israeli air force engaged in indiscriminate bombing last summer throughout South Lebanon. Similarly, there can be little doubt that Alan Dershowitz sought to justify these bombings under various arguments, including that Hezbollah was using the civilian population as a human shield to protect its soldiers and armaments from Israeli attack. Dershowitz’s most egregious claim, and the one that probably inspired Trivers’s letter, is that all Lebanese were legitimate targets because an overwhelming majority supported resistance to the Israeli invasion. Trivers, without naming Dershowitz or drawing a comparison between Dershowitz and Nazis, states that Nazis should be confronted directly. Who could disagree? Trivers then clearly designates that Dershowitz is a nazi-like apologist, i.e. someone who intellectualizes about and provides rationalizations for state violence against civilians. That’s precisely what Alan Dershowitz did do last summer during Israel’s thirty-three days of bombing in South Lebanon .

Finally, we must consider whether or not Trivers’ letter constituted a legitimate physical threat against Dershowitz’s bodily integrity in its promise to make good on “a visit” if Dershowitz decided to publicly rationalize a future Israeli butchery in Lebanon. Trivers did not write “expect me to come up to Cambridge and punch your lights out” in the event of another Israeli air strike in Lebanon and another Dershowitzian rationalization of that action, nor did he write to Dershowitz that “I will kill you if you rationalize future Israeli air strikes in South Lebanon.” All Trivers promised to do was to pay Dershowitz a visit “…if there is a repeat of Israeli butchery toward Lebanon and if you decide once again to rationalize it publicly..”

Given that Dershowitz cannot, or at least pretends not to be able to, distinguish between a “Nazi apologist” and a “Nazi-like apologist,” why should he be given the benefit of the doubt in his attempts to make Trivers’ promise of a “visit”, in the event of another Israeli butchery in south Lebanon, tantamount to a physical threat? The answer is simple for those familiar with Dershowitz’s favorite tactic: when he has no defense for his attempts to justify U.S. and Israeli war crimes, he attempts to shift the focus of the debate, poses as the victim, and vilifies those who have exposed him. It’s a familiar tactic, especially for one practiced in the Stalin-like school of vilification. Below, one can see my many attempts to get some clarification from Dershowitz on the exact contents of Trivers’ letter, before Trivers himself sent it to me, and how — yet once again — Dershowitz misrepresents what Trivers actually wrote.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Alan Dershowitz < dersh@law.harvard.edu>
Date: May 26, 2007 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: letter
To: Matthew Abraham < matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com>

The correspondence is over. Any frther emails from you will be harassment.
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

—–Original Message—–
From: “Matthew Abraham” < matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 17:48:15
To:dersh@law.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: letter

What should one conclude if the WSJ doesn’t publish the Trivers’ letter, which you have now apparently sent to the WSJ editors? Is there a way to independently verify that you sent them the letter?

I’m afraid I don’t understand why you are now telling me not to email you any further. What fantasy world am I living in exactly? Please be specific.

Thanks, MA

On 5/26/07, Alan Dershowitz < dersh@law.harvard.edu : > wrote: Our correspondence is over. I sent the trivers letter the wsj.If they publish it you will learn the truth. Otherwise you can continue to live in your fantesy world but leave me out of it. Do not emal me any further.
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

—–Original Message—–
From: “Matthew Abraham” < matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com

Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 13:45:11
To:dersh@law.harvard.edu:

Subject: Re: letter

Dear Professor Dershowitz:

The fact of the matter is is that yesterday you said "Ask him [ Trivers].Or send me your fax #," under the pretense that you were going to send me Trivers' letter if I sent you my fax # (as you know, I sent it to you immediately (yesterday) and I did again just a few minutes ago). When I didn't receive the letter yesterday, I began to get a little skeptical if what you claimed the letter said in the "middle paragraph" about Trivers' reference to you as a "Nazi apologist" in the context of the Finkelstein case was true. As you know, Trivers maintains that Finkelstein was never mentioned in the letter.

In one of your messages to me today, you mentioned that intended to fax me Trivers' letter after you get back to Cambridge, but now will not because I doubted your word without having actually seen the letter Trivers sent to you. Given your record of truth-telling on various matters pertaining to the Holy State and its dealings with the Palestinians, and your own record of deceit and apologetics on the matter, which have been repeatedly exposed by Professors Chomsky and Finkelstein over the last several years, you might imagine why I was taken aback by your moral outrage at my proclivity to believe that you *might" be (yet, once again) misrepresenting someone's correspondence to you, i.e. Trivers' letter. I replied that you could have Mitch Webber, your research assistant, send Trivers' letter to me right away by writing to or calling him (with your Blackberry) and telling him to fax Trivers' letter to me. Presumably that's what research assistants are around for, right? To be at the beck and call of famous Harvard Law Professors such as yourself. I also wrote that it was a perfect opportunity through which to prove me wrong in expressing skepticism about what you *claim* the letters states, and to show that Trivers lied in the letters pages of the WSJ. In addition, I also think it would provide you with a perfect opportunity to blast the WSJ editors for publishing a letter containing a gross mischaracterization about the context within which the "Nazi and Nazi-apologist" allegation was made ( Trivers' April 15thletter to you). As Trivers wrote in his WSJ letter, his letter to you doesn't even mention Finkelstein and that he sent it to you without requesting the permission of or consulting with Finkelstein. Since the letter was written to you, one can reasonably presume that you received it, read it, and are still in possession of it. Therefore, I would kindly request that you fax me the letter since I provided you with my fax # (personal information) when you asked for it.. Now, you have made a new demand because I've expressed skepticism about whether or not you're telling the truth about the Trivers' letter:"Will you agree to publicly appologize and admit you made up a defamatory accusation if I quoted the letter correctly?" The evidentiary burden, as you know, for proving that a public figure like yourself has been subjected toa "defamatory accusation" is quite high. I would also imagine in your case--given your history of misrepresenting matters that are of public record such as your claim from 1973 that Shahak was legitimately ousted as the chair of the Israeli League of Human Rights, which Chomsky has decisively documented was a lie (available on the internet, as I understand it)--the evidentiary burden would be considerably higher than for most human beings. Since you're a lawyer, I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong. You also know that truth is a defense to the allegation that one has been defamed or slandered. So, before I answer your most recent question, may I ask who will evaluate whether I "made up a defamatory accusation if [you] quoted [Trivers'] letter correctly." A reasonable person? You? Webber? Derek Bok? Elena Kagan? Larry Summers? Your wife? A third-party agreed upon beforehand by the two of us? I'm interested in pursuing the exercise, I just need some more information before going forward. If I don't receive a response from you, or you evade the question, I'll be sure to place this most recent correspondence with you in my "Dershowitz-didn't-answer-the-question file," which has grown quite large in light of some of your recent public statements.

Thanks, MA

On 5/26/07, Alan Dershowitz < dersh@law.harvard.edu wrote: Will you agree to publicly appologize and admit you made up a defamatory accusation if I quoted the letter correctly? If not don't bother to reply
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

-----Original Message-----
From: "Matthew Abraham" < matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com :
Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 12:27:37
To:dersh@law.harvard.edu :

Subject: Re: Fwd: letter to D.

Why not prove me wrong, and convince me that I'm wrong, in questioning your word by faxing me Trivers' letter? It would seem, if given what you say about the language in Trivers ' letter, which apparently*now*describes you as a "classic nazi apologist" "in [Trivers'] paragraph explicitely [sic] referencing finkelstein," that you would be eager to demonstrate that Trivers' is a liar and that I was wrong to doubt you. Just write to Webber and have him fax me the letter at 773-325-7328. Seems to me like a moment of truth for you, your entourage, and the agitprop you produce.

Thanks, MA

On 5/26/07, Alan Dershowitz < dersh@law.harvard.edu: < wrote: . I was going to fax u the t letter when I got back to cambridge. It would show that he used the precise words "classic nazi appologists" in his paragraph explicitely referencing finkelstein. But since u question my word without even checking I will have no further correspondence with you
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

-----Original Message-----
From: "Matthew Abraham" < matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com:

To:"Alan M. Dershowitz" < dersh@law.harvard.edu

Subject: Fwd: letter to D.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Matthew Abraham <
matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com :

To: <: dersh@law.harvard.edu>

Dear Professor Dershowitz:

There’s a huge difference between a “Nazi apologist” and a “Nazi-like apologist.” The phrase “Nazi apologist” does not appear in Trivers’ letter, which is why I presume you have not faxed me the letter. In addition, I’m left to wonder if Finkelstein is mentioned at all in Trivers’ letter of April 15th, 2007,as you claim he is in “the middle paragraph.” Here is what Trivers wrote: “Regarding your rationalization of Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians, let me just say that if there is a repeat of Israeli butchery toward Lebanon and if you decide once again to rationalize it publicly, look forward to a visit from me. Nazis — and Nazi-like apologists such as yourself — need to be confronted directly.”

Thanks, MA

On 5/25/07, Alan Dershowitz <dersh@law.harvard.edu : wrote:

Ask him. Or send me your fax #
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

-----Original Message-----
From: "Matthew Abraham" <:

: > >
Subject: Re: Trivers

Could you kindly reproduce the middle paragraph of Trivers’ letter?

On 5/25/07, Alan Dershowitz < dersh@law.harvard.edu
: wrote: Middlle paragraph
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

-----Original Message-----
From: "Matthew Abraham" <

> > > >
Subject: Re: Trivers

Dear Professor Dershowitz:

Could you kindly point me to the potions of Trivers’ letter, where he “refer explictely to f and in that very calls [you] a nazi apologist”? I trust, from what you claim below, that you have actually seen the entire letter.

Thanks, MA

On 5/23/07, Alan Dershowitz < dersh@law.harvard.edu: <> > > > > > > wrote: Ask him for his entire letter and you will see he is lying. He refer explicitely to f and in that very sentence calls me a nazi appologist. By the way do you agree with that characterization? No evasion. A direct answer please.
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

—–Original Message—–
From: “Matthew Abraham” <

Subject: Trivers

Dear Profesor Dershowitz:

In today’s WSJ, Rutgers professor Robert Trivers responded to your recent “Finkelstein’s Bigotry,” and by extension your recent “Taking the Bait,” which appeared in TNR. Do you have a response to his charge that you misrepresented the context of his remarks, i.e., that they had nothing to do with the Finkelstein case, as you suggested? I trust that you would never deliberately misrepresent someone’s remarks on such a highly charged topic as the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Thanks, MA

Norman Finkelstein has written passionately about the plight of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, indicting powerful elites who capitalize upon the moral capital of the Holocaust for financial gain while demonstrating indifference toward the suffering of those on the receiving end of US high-tech weaponry in the Palestinian occupied territories and South Lebanon. Larudee, the sister of International Solidarity Movement leader Paul Larudee who was jailed in Israel for a brief time, is a specialist on international organizations and developing countries. During their time at DePaul, Finkelstein and Larudee have inspired numerous students to create a better world, sparked vigorous debate on the issues of our age, and dared to speak truth to power, which is an era of clichés and political correctness is the minimum intellectual responsibility requires.

As an untenured assistant professor on this campus, who thought serious scholarship would find a site of articulation within the university named after St. Vincent de Paul, I have questioned not only my DePaul colleagues’ commitment to academic freedom, but the motivations and rationalizations of many of my colleagues who remain silent in the wake of the grave injustice that took place on June 8 th, 2007, when Finkelstein and Larudee received their denial letters from President Dennis Holtschneider.

Outside the student center at the Lincoln Park campus stands a giant statue of the famous 20th century priest, Monsieur John Egan, who asks “What are you doing for justice?” At DePaul these days, it seems the students are doing more by way of affirmatively answering Egan’s question than the faculty. Students have staged protests of some sort every day since the tenure denials were made official. At this moment, a handful of these students are staging a hunger protest outside the Lincoln Park student center. DePaul’s students are standing on principle, and as one protester’s rally sign declared, “You can silence our professors, but you can’t silence their ideas.”

Professional decorum dictates that administrative decisions, whatever they may be and regardless of whether or not they make sense, should be accepted with grace and without undue skepticism, and certainly without resistance, by the faculty. This situation, however, demands fierce resistance. I am calling on all of my DePaul colleagues to launch an intellectual revolt against the suppression of academic freedom on our campus. Although President Holtschneider maintains that academic freedom is alive and well at DePaul, and Provost Epp’s insists that the denial of tenure to Larudee and Finelstein were “faculty decisions,” it is high time to call out these PR strategies for what they are: convenient smokescreens designed to appease, obfuscate, and confuse.

Over the last three months, I have provoked, teased, begged, and cajoled tenured faculty at DePaul to be vigilant about the Finkelstein case, stating quite clearly that it was a test case that would have wide ranging implications for the future of academic freedom and academic freedom protections in the United States. Regrettably, only about four faculty members at DePaul took this warning seriously, with most believing the tenure processes at DePaul have essentially been fair and would, over time, weed out any early expressions of bias and unfairness. Indeed, some faculty members stated unequivocally that they would lead the charge if the University Board denied Finkelstein tenure. As one senior faculty member proudly proclaimed, “The faculty will revolt if Finkelstein is denied.”

Now, that the results are final and Finkelstein and Larudee have been the victims of egregious violations of academic freedom and due process per the faculty handbook, faculty members at DePaul must stand up, speak out, and not settle for a summer of fun, relaxation, and a convenient amnesia. It is high time for the faculty to identify and mobilize against the forces within DePaul university that conspired to deny Finkelstein and Larudee what they rightfully earned; organize in support of academic freedom by creating a solid lobbying effort against illegitimate external influences in DePaul’s tenure and promotion processes; and perhaps most importantly, insist upon a thorough investigation of what happened at the University Promotion and Tenure Board hearings in May that led to majority votes against Finkelstein and Larudee’s tenure and promotion to associate professor.

If a task force were formed to interrogate the faculty members who served on this year’s committee, there is the possibility that someone would emerge to tell the truth about what influence, if any, was placed on the faculty members who served to vote in a particular way. This needs to happen not just to answer the questions that have emerged over the last two weeks about how the UPTB arrived at its decisions, but to prove that DePaul’s administration has absolutely nothing to hide. If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason why those who served on the UPTB would object to being interviewed by the task force. The administration’s insistence that there is no appeals process only contributes to an already tense situation filled with suspicion about the UPTB’s deliberations from last April and May.

That Finkelstein and Larudee received overwhelming support from their respective departments and unanimous support from the LA&S College personnel committee that heard their cases, only to have the UPTB reach entirely different conclusions about their scholarship than the lower levels in what essentially amounts to a retrying each case, suggests that the seven voting members of the UPTB either learned a great deal about the US-Israel-Palestine conflict and international studies in a month’s time, were denied crucial pieces of information, or were coerced to vote a certain way to produce a desired outcome. In any event, all three scenarios are extremely troubling.

One thing is clear: US supporters of Israel, who have not hesitated in the past to use psych-op smear tactics against individuals committed to upholding international law and the international consensus on the Israel-Palestine conflict, may very well have successfully corrupted DePaul University’s tenure and promotion processes through DePaul’s Board of Trustees in a blatant attempt to remove political opponents from the largest Catholic university in the United States.

Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, has been relentless in exposing what he calls “The Holocaust Industry”: the institutions and organizations that have used the holocaust (the actual historical event) to justify Israel’s criminal assault upon the Palestinian population and international law. Among these organisations, he includes the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and a host of other fellow travellers. There is no doubt that Finkelstein’s work has stoked controversy. But that shouldn’t detract from what makes his tenure treatment so worrying: Finkelstein is undoubtedly a path-breaking and serious scholar.

Raul Hilberg, the leading scholar on the Nazi holocaust, has called Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry “a breakthrough” and states that Finkelstein “was on the right track” in his documentation of how the World Jewish Congress, with the aid of the Clinton administration, extorted billions of dollars from Swiss banks in the name of Holocaust survivors, only to pocket the money for Jewish organisations. And, although The Holocaust Industry is Finkelstein’s most frequently cited book in defamatory attempts to cast him as a “Holocaust denier” and a “denier of justice to Holocaust survivors,” Image and Reality in the Israel-Palestine Conflict — a through criticism of the central political and philosophical tenets informing Zionism — is his most scholarly and substantial work. But Finkelstein’s detractors avoid discussion of Image and Reality for exactly that reason: it is considered a first-rate piece of scholarship.

Finkelstein argues that most US commentators obscure or avoid the clear historical and diplomatic record in examining the Israel-Palestine conflict by ignoring or downplaying international law, fooling the US public into believing that Israel’s occupation is just, necessary, and lawful. One such example is the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks — a failure that has been attributed, at least in elite circles within the United States , to Yasir Arafat’s intransigence. Clinton negotiator, Dennis Ross, in The Missing Peace, blames the failure of Camp David on Arafat’s refusal to accept a deal of a lifetime: a Palestinian state on 80% of the West Bank. In actuality, what Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak offered Arafat was something no Palestinian leader could accept: a Bantustan state reminiscent of the African national territories.

Finkelstein’s latest exposure of US and Israeli apologetics for state violence was of famed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was at the center of Finkelstein’s analysis in Beyond Chutzpah: The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. In August 2003, Dershowitz published The Case for Israel, which Finkelstein uses as a foil in Beyond Chutzpah, demonstrating that Dershowitz misrepresents key diplomatic, legal and historical aspects of the conflict. Dershowitz attempted to block, or at least throw up major obstacles to, the publication of Beyond Chutzpah by inundating the University of California Press with threatening letters from the major New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore throughout the spring and summer of 2005, stating he would sue the press if it did not ensure that every claim Finkelstein made about Dershowitz was factually correct. Beyond Chutzpah was vetted by six experts of the Israel-Palestine conflict and several libel attorneys. When he could not prevail upon the press or the University of California’s Board of Reagents, Dershowitz asked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to intervene. Schwarzenegger refused to do so on grounds of academic freedom. Finkelstein wasn’t so lucky at DePaul.

But, by all accounts, Finkelstein far exceeds DePaul’s teaching and publication requirements; indeed, he has the teaching and publication record for full professorship. His tenured colleagues in the political science department voted 9-3 in favour of his tenure and promotion to associate professor. (And the three professors who voted against Finkelstein’s tenure are not experts on the Israel-Palestine conflict or the holocaust.) The college’s personnel committee unanimously upheld the department’s recommendation in a 5-0 vote.

In a memo dated March 22, Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences Charles Suchar withheld support of Finkelstein’s tenure application and agreed with the authors of the minority report, arguing that Finkelstein’s tendency to engage in demeaning and reputation-damaging attacks compromised the quality of his scholarship. The dean contended that Finkelstein’s manner of dealing with political opponents posed a threat to civil discourse within the university, invoking “Vincentian Personalism” as a tenure criterion — a criterion that places Finkelstein’s scholarship beyond the pale. Surprisingly, these concerns had never been raised about Finkelstein’s work previously by DePaul’s administration. In his report to the University Board, the Dean wrote: “My reading of Dr. Finkelstein’s work, especially The Holocaust Industry, where in one chapter alone Goldhagen, Morris, Wiesel, Kosinski and many others are collectively attacked as ‘hoaxters and huxsters,’ typifies his apparent penchant of reducing an argument and oppositional views to the inevitable personal and reputation damaging attack, demeaning those with whom he disagrees.” Professor Dershowitz circulated a package of materials to several faculty members at DePaul last fall, which included a list of “the 10 cruelest things Norman Finkelstein has ever said,” “the 10 silliest things Finkelstein has said,” and “the most devastating critiques against Finkelstein.” The exact contents of the package can be viewed here. Simply replace the “1” within the url with a “2” or a “3” for the remainder of the materials Dershowitz emailed to DePaul faculty. In this “information packet,”which might be more accurately described as an “agit prop packet,” Dershowitz spelled “hucksters” as “huxsters,” just as Suchar did in his report. How Suchar placed the New Historian Benny Morris in the same company as Daniel Goldhagen (Hilter’s Willing Executioners), Elie Wiesel (Silence), and Jerzy Kosinski (The Painted Bird) is anyone’s guess. Although it is true that Finkelstein mentions Morris at the conclusion of his chapter in the Holocaust Industry entitled “Hoaxers, Hucksters, and History,” in a brief discussion about the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C, Morris hardly fits with the group of writers categorized under the rubric “hoaxers and hucksters.” For an extended treatment and refutation of Dershowitz’s allegations against Finkelstein, see Frank Menetrez’s Counterpunch article, “Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong?”

Throughout the months of April and May, Dershowitz availed himself of the pages of The New Republic, FrontPage magazine and even the Wall Street Journal to attack a world-renowned scholar and one of DePaul University’s most accomplished teachers. Dershowitz has maintained that the Finkelstein case is not about academic freedom but about academic standards. DePaul administrators have rationalized the tenure denial along similar lines. That Finkelstein’s opponents have succeeded should give pause to anyone concerned about academic freedom in the United States.