Last Thursday, Dr. Norman G. Finkelstein visited U of T and gave two lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Organized by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, the event was titled “Israel and Palestine: Past, Present and Future” and focused on Gaza, the events surrounding the seized aid flotilla in May.
Finkelstein was born in 1953 and grew up in New York as a son of Holocaust concentration camp survivors. He has instructed at numerous universities in the New York City area and was an assistant professor at DePaul University before being denied tenure and placed on academic leave in 2007. He has since parted with the university and is an independent political scientist.
Finkelstein has authored seven books. His most recent ones, including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering claim that Israel and Jewish-American organizations have exploited the Holocaust to deflect criticism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and extort large sums of money allocated to survivors.
Finkelstein spoke at UTM in January 2009 as part of the campus’ Expression Against Oppression week. The academic is often criticised by prominent Jewish organizations, some of whom he openly accuses of corruption. The Varsity spoke with the controversial scholar a few minutes before his sold-out speech in the Bahen Centre.
The Varsity: What is your talk about tonight?
Norman Finkelstein: I’ll be speaking on what happened in Gaza 2008–9. I’ll be speaking about what happened in the Mavi Marmara [the aid flotilla] and I’ll speculate on where we’re headed.
TV: And where do you think we’re headed?
NF: I’m thinking it’s quite likely, judging from reports, that Israel will be going to attack Lebanon in the next year, year and a half. It’s going to be possibly really catastrophic.
TV: What motivates you to do the work you do?
NF: I’m 57 already and I first got involved when I was 29. I don’t really think much about motivation anymore. I’m much more on the matter-of-fact. That’s about a choice in life, and that’s what I do.
TV: Israeli Apartheid Week takes place every year on campus and tends to be quite divisive. U of T President David Naylor once described it as “the consistently worst week of a president’s life.” What are your thoughts on IAW?
NF: I think that the expression “Israeli Apartheid Week” is unnecessarily ambiguous. Because there is a broad body of authorities, experts, knowledgeable people, who say that Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian territories constitute a version of apartheid.
There are certain similarities. On the other hand there isn’t a lot of that broad consensus within, that within Israel itself there is an apartheid-like system. [It’s] discriminatory, there’s no doubt about that, but whether it rises to apartheid, I haven’t seen any convincing argument made.
It’s legitimate to characterize Israeli policies in the occupied territories as a form of apartheid. [Finkelstein lists Israeli scholars and politicians who have deemed Israeli policy as apartheid]. I wish that there were more clarity. Because when you say “Israeli Apartheid Week” there is an element of ambiguity of whether [you are] referring to Israeli policies toward the occupied territories, or [you are] referring to the whole of Israel as well. It’s ambiguous, what they’re referring to.
TV: What are your thoughts on the Gaza aid flotilla?
NF: I think that, first of all we have to start in the beginning. The blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law. The aim of the flotilla has been to breach the illegal blockade. I completely support it.
That blockade started in 2007, and for three years the international community was silent. And it was only because of the flotilla, and the nine martyrs on the flotilla, that the international community finally took notice of what everybody agrees is an illegal blockade.
TV: The Canadian Boat to Gaza is a similar flotilla project aiming to sail next spring. What’s your take on it?
NF: I support it. But I don’t have a lot of details on it.
TV: Two weeks ago, Canada lost its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Some suggest this was because of the Conservative government’s support for Israel.
NF: I don’t think that’s correct. That was one element. But there’s been a whole list of policies [where] Canada is out of sync with nearly the whole of humanity: its opposition to the Kyoto agreement, it voted against the [motion in July to declare a human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation”], it voted against the rights of indigenous people.
There’s a list and it’s kind of just, astonishing. The Israel issue, it has some salience. But apart from Israel… Canada’s record is just like Bush in Canada, but Bush is out. So now it’s just Harper.
TV: How do you think the international community can reach a peaceful solution to the conflict in Israel?
NF: The only way we can achieve a just settlement is to insist that all parties in the conflict respect international law. International law constitutes the best matrix for trying to find the right principles to resolve the conflict.
It’s everyone’s job, not just students’ job, to insist Israel obeys international law. And I think we’ll be well on our way to achieving a reasonable resolution to the conflict.
