As reported by Campus Reform, Princeton’s
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) recently hosted a “Conversation on the
Gaza Genocide with Norman Finkelstein & Chris Hedges.” I personally couldn’t
pick either Norman or Chris out in a crowd of two, but Campus Reform noted that
“Finkelstein is a
controversial anti-Israel speaker and the author of ‘The Holocaust Industry,’ a
book asserting that Zionists ‘exploited the
Holocaust’ for their own ends.” I’m sorry, say again?
CR also
noted that Finkelstein took to X this past December to state: “Make no mistake
about it. In order to stifle dissent from Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the
Jewish billionaire class has launched the most concerted assault on academic
freedom in the history of our country.” He added, “If the presidents at Ivy
League universities are not safe from the wrath of these Jewish supremacists,
then no one is, and academic freedom is dead.”
Wow,
where to start?! First of all, I’m not sure anyone has ever used the words “Jewish” and “supremacists” together
before. And I didn’t know there was
a designated “Jewish billionaire class.” If there is, it certainly hasn’t
launched any assault, concerted or otherwise, on academic freedom. Those who
despise Israel and support Hamas, on the other hand, certainly have. On
campuses across the fruited plain, pro-Hamas types have terrorized Jewish
students, staged sit-ins, threatened college presidents, chased off and/or
shouted down Jewish speakers, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Also, the
Jews have been the victims of actual genocide, and are not engaged in
that behavior themselves. In fact, the IDF has gone to such great pains to
avoid civilian casualties (even though most Palestinians would like to see them
wiped off the face of the planet) that it has achieved the lowest civilian to soldier
casualty ratio in the history of urban warfare.
But the
kicker, perhaps the most preposterous assertion in recorded history, is
Finkelstein’s claim that Zionists have “exploited the Holocaust.”
Those dirty Zionist exploiters! It’s just
like them to take advantage of 6 million of their own being exterminated! Two-thirds
of them were wiped off the face of the Earth and suddenly they get all
defensive and uppity! I mean, the unmitigated gall!
Apparently Finkelstein and Hedges are
unclear on the concept of “exploitation.” If the Jews/Zionists “exploited” the
Holocaust, the U.S. “exploited” Pearl Harbor and the Baltic states exploited
being forcefully occupied by the Soviet Union.
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