Norman Finkelstein slams BDS, ISM movements

Norman Finkelstein is a legendarily anti-Israel professor. He has made a name for himself by disparaging what he calls the "Holocaust industry" and his research methods for his anti-Israel writings are sloppy and often deceptive. Benny Morris describes him "a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian." I showed some of his own dishonesty in an essay that helped make him famous.

In other words, Finkelstein is no poster child for truth and fairness about Israel.

But in this remarkable video, Finkelstein rips apart the people to his left - the BDS and "Palestine Solidatity" movements. He exposes their obvious goal of destroying Israel as they try to pretend that they are only fighting for "rights;" he accurately accuses  them of belonging to a "cult" whose arguments cannot possibly survive the real world; he shows that they are not nearly as influential as they pretend to be; and he effectively tells them that they are a big waste of time that accomplish nothing towards their stated goals of providing any justice or peace for Palestinian Arabs. These groups play games to hide their goals, Finkelstein  wants no part of it.

Finkelstein is completely wrong about international law and about Israel, quoting General Assembly resolutions and an advisory opinion of the ICJ as if they are international law. But it is worthwhile to watch him expose the pure hate and deceptiveness of those who are even more extreme than he is. The interviewer - a BDS proponent and hardcore hater of Israel - cringes under Finkelstein's assault as he tries to defend the indefensible.

If only Finkelstein had said this at PennBDS, where every attendee and speaker had bought into the myth of their own importance, a few hundred people would have actually learned something about their own movement.

The video is a half-hour long but worth watching. Finkelstein is relentless in attacking the BDS and "solidarity" movements.



(h/t HuffPo Monitor & Zach N)
(This is a shortened version of the original video' full video can be seen here)