Controversial scholar speaks at Palestine Awareness Week event
By: Sarah Markenson
Posted: 2/2/07
As part of Palestine Awareness Week, Saint Louis University Solidarity with Palestine invited controversial academic Norman Finkelstein, Ph.D., to speak on Tuesday, Jan. 30, about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Finkelstein is a professor of political theory at DePaul University in Chicago, and has written several books, including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.
Some have criticized him for presenting false information, yet others have praised him for his originality and courage to tell the truth behind the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Finkelstein's audience included students, faculty, rabbis and members of Veterans for Peace. Fabrication of the Israel-Palestine conflict is Finkelstein's main point surrounding the controversy.
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Rabbi Hershey Novack, with Chabad on Campus, an organization that serves local Jewish college students, disagrees with Finkelstein.
"His views are extreme and border on the absurd. Israel only targets terrorists. Sadly, many armed terrorists deliberately hide among the civilian population, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention," he said.
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Novack said, "It is ironic that, the day before Finkelstein's speech, three innocent Israeli civilians were blown up by a suicide bomber while [they were] purchasing bread at a bakery."
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Novack said, "Any human being should be deeply troubled by Finkelstein's trivialization of the Holocaust. His statements about the Gaza strip are outrageous-especially after Israel completely withdrew from every inch."
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