Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair
Encyclopedia
The Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair was a public controversy involving academics Alan Dershowitz
and Norman Finkelstein
and their scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
in 2005.
Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel
, by Alan Dershowitz
, Norman Finkelstein
alleged that it was "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense." Finkelstein further derided the book, remarking, "If Dershowitz's book were made of cloth, I wouldn't even use it as a schmatta...his book is such garbage." Finkelstein charged that Dershowitz had engaged in plagiarism
in his use of Joan Peters
' book From Time Immemorial
. Finkelstein expanded his claims in a book entitled Beyond Chutzpah and has received support from some other academics. Dershowitz has denied the charges. Former Harvard
president Derek Bok, following a review requested by Harvard Law School
Dean Elena Kagan
, determined that no plagiarism had occurred. However, Frank Menetrez investigated and corresponded with both Harvard and Dershowitz and "neither Dershowitz nor Harvard, however, has identified the specific issues or arguments that Harvard allegedly investigated and rejected. In particular, neither of them has ever said whether Harvard investigated the identical errors issue."
In Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, published by University of California Press
on August 28, 2005, Norman Finkelstein aimed to debunk The Case for Israel. Dershowitz had written letters to both the New Press and to the University of California Press, to prevent its publication, claiming it contained massive libel and stating that the book should not be published. Dershowitz also asked California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to intervene in order to prevent the University of California Press from publishing the book. Schwarzenegger's legal advisor responded, however, that the governor would not intervene in issues of academic freedom. Dershowitz responded in his book The Case for Peace
and alleged a politically motivated campaign of vilification spearheaded by Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky
, and Alexander Cockburn
against several pro-Israel academics.
and Amnesty International
, asserting that Dershowitz had lied, misrepresented and fabricated many of his points in order to protect Israel and hide its record of alleged human rights violations.. Finkelstein has maintained that "the real issue is Israel's human rights record".
In addition, Finkelstein provided what he claimed is evidence of plagiarism in instances where Dershowitz reproduced the exact errors found in Peters's citation of original sources, and thus argues that Dershowitz did not check the original sources he cited, a claim that Dershowitz adamantly denied.
Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's used some of the same words from the same sources that Joan Peters
used, largely in the same order. Several paragraph-long quotations that the two books share have ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out; in one instance, he claimed, Dershowitz refers to the same page number as Peters, although he is citing a different (1996) edition of the same source, in which the words appear on a different page.
Finkelstein stated: "It is left to readers to decide whether Dershowitz committed plagiarism as defined by Harvard University -- 'passing off a source's information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them.' According to a book review of Beyond Chutzpah, written by Prof. Michael C. Desch in The American Conservative
, "Finkelstein does not accuse Dershowitz of the wholesale lifting of someone else's words, but he does make a very strong case that Dershowitz has violated the spirit, if not the exact letter, of Harvard's prohibitions of the first three forms of plagiarism." Several supporters of Finkelstein, however, demanded that Dershowitz be fired from his professorship at Harvard Law School.
Noting his perception of Dershowitz's lack of knowledge about specific contents of his own book during an interview of the two men by Amy Goodman
broadcast on Democracy Now!
, Finkelstein also charged that Dershowitz could not have written the book and may not have even read it. Later, he cited such allegedly "unserious" references as the Sony Pictures website for Kevin Macdonald's documentary film One Day in September
and an online high-school syllabus from Teaching the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Unit for High School Students, by Professor Ronald Stockton, in his criticism of the book.
in response to the charges in Finkelstein's book. Dershowitz claims to have written every word of "The Case for Israel" by hand and to have sent UCP his handwritten manuscript. He says there is not a single phrase or sentence in it that was "plagiarized" and accuses Finkelstein of knowing this, making the charges in order to garner publicity. Dershowitz offered to produce his handwritten drafts (he does not type) to debunk the claim that The Case for Israel was ghostwritten and claims Finkelstein has not asked to see them. Finkelstein claims to have asked for the drafts and that Dershowitz has not produced them.
As a result, when the book was published, it no longer used the word "plagiarize" in its argument that Dershowitz inappropriately borrowed from another work, nor did it include the claim that Dershowitz did not write The Case for Israel, because, the publisher said, "he couldn’t document that." "Dershowitz has said he cited sources properly, attempting to check all primary sources and citing Peters when she was his only source."
James O. Freedman
, the former president of Dartmouth College
, the University of Iowa
, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, has defended Dershowitz: "I do not understand [Finkelstein’s] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources." He noted that this practice is recommended by the authoritative Chicago Manual of Style, (rule 17.274), and "is simply not plagiarism, under any reasonable definition of that word."
Dershowitz said that Finkelstein has invented false charges in order to discredit supporters of Israel: "The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn’t actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud," noting that Finkelstein has leveled the same kind of charges against many others, calling at least 10 "distinguished Jews 'hucksters,' 'hoaxters,' 'thieves,' 'extortionists,' and worse."
Dershowitz's recent book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Case for Peace
, contains a chapter rebutting Finkelstein's charges, which Dershowitz has made available on his web site.
published on October 3, 2003, that Dershowitz reproduced exactly two of Peters' mistakes, and made one relevant mistake of his own. In quoting Mark Twain
, Finkelstein argued, "Dershowitz cites two paragraphs from Twain as continuous text, just as Peters cites them as continuous text, but in Twain’s book the two paragraphs are separated by 87 pages." While still quoting Twain, although Dershowitz cited a different edition of Twain's Innocents Abroad
than Joan Peters cites, Finkelstein continues, "the relevant quotes do not appear on these pages in the edition of Twain’s book that Dershowitz cites." Finkelstein points out that these quotations do, however, appear on the pages that Joan Peters cites for her edition of Innocents Abroad
. Finkelstein asserted: "Quoting a statement depicting the miserable fate of Jews in mid-19th century Jerusalem, Peters cites a British consular letter from 'Wm. T. Young to Viscount Canning.' Dershowitz cites the same statement as Peters, reporting that Young 'attributed the plight of the Jew in Jerusalem' to pervasive anti-Semitism
. Turning to the original, however, we find that the relevant statement did not come from Young but, as is unmistakably clear to anyone who actually consulted the original, from an enclosed memorandum written by an 'A. Benisch' that Young was forwarding to Canning." He concluded: "It would be impossible for anyone who checked the original source[s] to make th[ese] error[s]."
In response to the general charge of plagiarism, Dershowitz had characterized the excerpts as quotations that historians and scholars of the region cite routinely, such as Mark Twain
and the reports of government commissions.
Finkelstein's conclusion from the passages that he cited is that Dershowitz did not research his sources directly, but instead in twenty instances had used Peters' book without crediting her.
Finkelstein argued that he has found a mis-attribution that he says supports his conclusion. He asserted that, in his book, Dershowitz attributes an Orwellian neologism to Orwell
himself, when actually Peters coined it in her book in an allusion to Orwell, in which she mentioned him by name: her neologism "turnspeak" alluded to Orwell's famous Newspeak
in his novel 1984
. This alleged mistake by Dershowitz, Finkelstein argued, fits a pattern of cribbing from Peters while not crediting her. Academic propriety demands that she be credited, he argued.
In "Statement of Alan M. Dershowitz" featured on a faculty webpage at Harvard Law School
,
Dershowitz writes:
Dershowitz strenuously denied that he did not credit Peters' book adequately in his own book, and Harvard University
supported him in that position in exonerating him against Finkelstein's charges that he committed "plagiarism
".
In their joint interview aired on Amy Goodman's radio program Democracy Now!
, Dershowitz responded to Finkelstein's various arguments.
Political Science department voted 9 to 3, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee 5 to 0, in favor of giving Finkelstein tenure
. The three opposing faculty members subsequently filed a minority report opposing tenure, supported by the Dean of the College, Chuck Suchar. Suchar stated he opposed tenure because Finkelstein’s "personal and reputation demeaning attacks on Alan Dershowitz, Benny Morris, and the holocaust authors Eli Wiesel and Jerzy Kosinski" were inconsistent with DePaul’s “Vincentian” values. In June 2007 a 4-3 vote by DePaul University's Board on Promotion and Tenure (a faculty board), affirmed by the university's president, the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, denied Finkelstein tenure. Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007-2008 academic year (the remainder of his contract with DePaul), his sole course having been cancelled.
In September 2006, Dershowitz had sent members of DePaul's law and political science faculties what he described as “a dossier of Norman Finkelstein’s most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions”, and in April 2007 the De Paul University Liberal Arts and Sciences' Faculty Governance Council had voted unanimously to send a letter to Harvard University expressing "the council's dismay at Professor Dershowitz's interference in Finkelstein's tenure and promotion case."
However, in announcing his decision, Holtschneider said the outside attention "was unwelcome and inappropriate and had no impact on either the process or the outcome of this case." On September 5, 2007, Finkelstein resigned after he and the university reached a settlement; they released a joint statement on the resolution of the conflict.
observed:
Desch concluded with an important caveat then qualified it by emphasizing his own point of view:
On the basis of Finkelstein's comparisons of Dershowitz's sources, Alexander Cockburn
supported Finkelstein's conclusions that Dershowitz was guilty of "wholesale, unacknowledged looting of Peters' research" and mocked Dershowitz's intellectual integrity. Noting a footnote in which Dershowitz referred to the controversial status of Peters' book and stated that he did not "rely" on it for "conclusions or data," Cockburn charges that Dershowitz was in effect—if not intention—lying. In echoing Finkelstein's charge of plagiarism, Cockburn called on Harvard to take action against their professor, Dershowitz.
Oxford academic Avi Shlaim
had also been critical of Dershowitz, saying he believed that the charge of plagiarism "is proved in a manner that would stand up in court."
See the independent analysis of the Dershowitz Dossier of allegations against Finkelstein, by Dr Frank J Menetrez Phd, JD (UCLA): http://counterpunch.org/menetrez04302007.html and the email correspondence between Menetrez, Finkelstein and Dershowitz during Menetrez's study: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=999 In a longer follow-up analysis Menetrez concluded that he can find 'no way of avoiding the inference that Dershowitz copied the quotation from Twain from Peters' From Time Immemorial, and not from the original source', as Dershowitz claimed. Dershowitz has replied briefly to this charge, in an exchange with Menetrez.
In Desch's review of Beyond Chutzpah, summarizing Finkelstein's case against Dershowitz for "torturing the evidence", particularly Finkelstein's argument relating to Dershowitz's citations of Morris, Desch observed:
and Charles Ogletree
, former Harvard President Derek Bok conducted an investigation—the details of which were not made public—that...vindicated Dershowitz" (32, col. 3).
Several student research assistants who worked for Dershowitz at Harvard University
criticized Jon Wiener
's review, supporting their professor:
a liar for claiming to have read Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason
in Yiddish: according to Finkelstein, no translation of the work existed in Yiddish at the time. Dershowitz responded that this was not so: he alleged that one had been published in Warsaw
in 1929, and claimed that he had seen a copy at the Harvard Library
.
Finkelstein described this latter claim as false and inept, writing that the only work by Kant in Yiddish owned by the library was a partial translation of the Critique of Practical Reason
, a completely different work than the one referred to by Wiesel and Dershowitz.
During a clash with members of J Street
at the 2010 AIPAC conference, Dershowitz chastised J Street
for pandering to anti-Israel activists and asked, "Why are you so popular with Norman Finkelstein?" Both J Street and Finkelstein rebuffed Dershowitz's claim.
, the host Amy Goodman
alluded to an appearance on MSNBC
's Scarborough Country
in which Dershowitz made a challenge to "give $10,000 to the PLO," playing a clip from the other program. In the headnote to the transcript, Goodman wrote:
The segment of Democracy Now! appears in the included transcript of the program:
On Democracy Now! Finkelstein replied to that specific challenge for errors found in his book overall, and Dershowitz upped it to $25,000 for another particular "issue" that they disputed.
Finkelstein referred to "concrete facts which are not particularly controversial," stating that in The Case for Israel Dershowitz attributes to Israeli historian Benny Morris
the figure of between 2,000 and 3,000 Palestinian Arabs who fled their homes from April to June, 1948, when, he said, the range in the figures presented by Morris is 200,000 to 300,000.
Dershowitz responded to Finkelstein's reply by stating that such a mistake could not have been intentional, as it harmed his own side of the debate: "Obviously, the phrase '2,000 to 3,000 Arabs' refers either to a sub-phase [of the flight] or is a typographical error."
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
and Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
and their scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
in 2005.
Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel
The Case for Israel
The Case for Israel is a New York Times bestseller by Alan Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard University. The book responds to common criticisms of Israel....
, by Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
, Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
alleged that it was "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense." Finkelstein further derided the book, remarking, "If Dershowitz's book were made of cloth, I wouldn't even use it as a schmatta...his book is such garbage." Finkelstein charged that Dershowitz had engaged in plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
in his use of Joan Peters
Joan Peters
Joan Peters is a former CBS news producer of otherwise unnamed documentaries, and the author best known for a number of theses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, put forward in her book From Time Immemorial, published in 1984 in which she claims that the Palestinians are largely not indigenous...
' book From Time Immemorial
From Time Immemorial
From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a 1984 book by Joan Peters about the demographics of the Arab population of Palestine and of the Jewish population of the Arab world before and after the formation of the State of Israel.According to the book a large...
. Finkelstein expanded his claims in a book entitled Beyond Chutzpah and has received support from some other academics. Dershowitz has denied the charges. Former Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
president Derek Bok, following a review requested by Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
Dean Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 7, 2010. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice....
, determined that no plagiarism had occurred. However, Frank Menetrez investigated and corresponded with both Harvard and Dershowitz and "neither Dershowitz nor Harvard, however, has identified the specific issues or arguments that Harvard allegedly investigated and rejected. In particular, neither of them has ever said whether Harvard investigated the identical errors issue."
In Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, published by University of California Press
University of California Press
University of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
on August 28, 2005, Norman Finkelstein aimed to debunk The Case for Israel. Dershowitz had written letters to both the New Press and to the University of California Press, to prevent its publication, claiming it contained massive libel and stating that the book should not be published. Dershowitz also asked California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to intervene in order to prevent the University of California Press from publishing the book. Schwarzenegger's legal advisor responded, however, that the governor would not intervene in issues of academic freedom. Dershowitz responded in his book The Case for Peace
The Case for Peace
The Case for Peace: How The Arab–Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved is the sequel to The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz.-Summary:Dershowitz was originally planning to write The Case Against Israel's Enemies, however, after the death of Yasser Arafat the author chose to focus on more positive and...
and alleged a politically motivated campaign of vilification spearheaded by Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, and Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
against several pro-Israel academics.
Finkelstein's criticisms of Dershowitz
The bulk of Beyond Chutzpah consisted of an essay critiquing the "new antisemitism" and longer chapters contrasting Dershowitz's arguments in The Case for Israel with the findings of mainstream human rights organisations, such as Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
and Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, asserting that Dershowitz had lied, misrepresented and fabricated many of his points in order to protect Israel and hide its record of alleged human rights violations.. Finkelstein has maintained that "the real issue is Israel's human rights record".
In addition, Finkelstein provided what he claimed is evidence of plagiarism in instances where Dershowitz reproduced the exact errors found in Peters's citation of original sources, and thus argues that Dershowitz did not check the original sources he cited, a claim that Dershowitz adamantly denied.
Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's used some of the same words from the same sources that Joan Peters
Joan Peters
Joan Peters is a former CBS news producer of otherwise unnamed documentaries, and the author best known for a number of theses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, put forward in her book From Time Immemorial, published in 1984 in which she claims that the Palestinians are largely not indigenous...
used, largely in the same order. Several paragraph-long quotations that the two books share have ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out; in one instance, he claimed, Dershowitz refers to the same page number as Peters, although he is citing a different (1996) edition of the same source, in which the words appear on a different page.
Finkelstein stated: "It is left to readers to decide whether Dershowitz committed plagiarism as defined by Harvard University -- 'passing off a source's information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them.' According to a book review of Beyond Chutzpah, written by Prof. Michael C. Desch in The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
, "Finkelstein does not accuse Dershowitz of the wholesale lifting of someone else's words, but he does make a very strong case that Dershowitz has violated the spirit, if not the exact letter, of Harvard's prohibitions of the first three forms of plagiarism." Several supporters of Finkelstein, however, demanded that Dershowitz be fired from his professorship at Harvard Law School.
Noting his perception of Dershowitz's lack of knowledge about specific contents of his own book during an interview of the two men by Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
broadcast on Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
, Finkelstein also charged that Dershowitz could not have written the book and may not have even read it. Later, he cited such allegedly "unserious" references as the Sony Pictures website for Kevin Macdonald's documentary film One Day in September
One Day in September
One Day in September is a 1999 documentary film directed by Kevin Macdonald examining the 5 September 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany...
and an online high-school syllabus from Teaching the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Unit for High School Students, by Professor Ronald Stockton, in his criticism of the book.
Dershowitz's response
Dershowitz threatened to bring a legal action against the University of California PressUniversity of California Press
University of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
in response to the charges in Finkelstein's book. Dershowitz claims to have written every word of "The Case for Israel" by hand and to have sent UCP his handwritten manuscript. He says there is not a single phrase or sentence in it that was "plagiarized" and accuses Finkelstein of knowing this, making the charges in order to garner publicity. Dershowitz offered to produce his handwritten drafts (he does not type) to debunk the claim that The Case for Israel was ghostwritten and claims Finkelstein has not asked to see them. Finkelstein claims to have asked for the drafts and that Dershowitz has not produced them.
As a result, when the book was published, it no longer used the word "plagiarize" in its argument that Dershowitz inappropriately borrowed from another work, nor did it include the claim that Dershowitz did not write The Case for Israel, because, the publisher said, "he couldn’t document that." "Dershowitz has said he cited sources properly, attempting to check all primary sources and citing Peters when she was his only source."
James O. Freedman
James O. Freedman
James Oliver Freedman was a university president. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, he served briefly as Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School; as the sixteenth president of the University of Iowa from 1982 to 1987; and as the fifteenth president of Dartmouth College,...
, the former president of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, has defended Dershowitz: "I do not understand [Finkelstein’s] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources." He noted that this practice is recommended by the authoritative Chicago Manual of Style, (rule 17.274), and "is simply not plagiarism, under any reasonable definition of that word."
Dershowitz said that Finkelstein has invented false charges in order to discredit supporters of Israel: "The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn’t actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud," noting that Finkelstein has leveled the same kind of charges against many others, calling at least 10 "distinguished Jews 'hucksters,' 'hoaxters,' 'thieves,' 'extortionists,' and worse."
Dershowitz's recent book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Case for Peace
The Case for Peace
The Case for Peace: How The Arab–Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved is the sequel to The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz.-Summary:Dershowitz was originally planning to write The Case Against Israel's Enemies, however, after the death of Yasser Arafat the author chose to focus on more positive and...
, contains a chapter rebutting Finkelstein's charges, which Dershowitz has made available on his web site.
Additional responses by Finkelstein and Dershowitz
Finkelstein argued in a letter to the Harvard CrimsonHarvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson are the athletic teams of Harvard University. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2006, there were 41 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country...
published on October 3, 2003, that Dershowitz reproduced exactly two of Peters' mistakes, and made one relevant mistake of his own. In quoting Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Finkelstein argued, "Dershowitz cites two paragraphs from Twain as continuous text, just as Peters cites them as continuous text, but in Twain’s book the two paragraphs are separated by 87 pages." While still quoting Twain, although Dershowitz cited a different edition of Twain's Innocents Abroad
Innocents Abroad
The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain published in 1869 which humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American...
than Joan Peters cites, Finkelstein continues, "the relevant quotes do not appear on these pages in the edition of Twain’s book that Dershowitz cites." Finkelstein points out that these quotations do, however, appear on the pages that Joan Peters cites for her edition of Innocents Abroad
Innocents Abroad
The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain published in 1869 which humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American...
. Finkelstein asserted: "Quoting a statement depicting the miserable fate of Jews in mid-19th century Jerusalem, Peters cites a British consular letter from 'Wm. T. Young to Viscount Canning.' Dershowitz cites the same statement as Peters, reporting that Young 'attributed the plight of the Jew in Jerusalem' to pervasive anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
. Turning to the original, however, we find that the relevant statement did not come from Young but, as is unmistakably clear to anyone who actually consulted the original, from an enclosed memorandum written by an 'A. Benisch' that Young was forwarding to Canning." He concluded: "It would be impossible for anyone who checked the original source[s] to make th[ese] error[s]."
In response to the general charge of plagiarism, Dershowitz had characterized the excerpts as quotations that historians and scholars of the region cite routinely, such as Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
and the reports of government commissions.
Finkelstein's conclusion from the passages that he cited is that Dershowitz did not research his sources directly, but instead in twenty instances had used Peters' book without crediting her.
Finkelstein argued that he has found a mis-attribution that he says supports his conclusion. He asserted that, in his book, Dershowitz attributes an Orwellian neologism to Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
himself, when actually Peters coined it in her book in an allusion to Orwell, in which she mentioned him by name: her neologism "turnspeak" alluded to Orwell's famous Newspeak
Newspeak
Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the language are explained...
in his novel 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
. This alleged mistake by Dershowitz, Finkelstein argued, fits a pattern of cribbing from Peters while not crediting her. Academic propriety demands that she be credited, he argued.
In "Statement of Alan M. Dershowitz" featured on a faculty webpage at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
,
Dershowitz writes:
I will no longer participate in this transparent ploy to gather media attention for Finkelstein and his publisher. I answer all of his charges fully in Chapter 16 of my forthcoming book The Case For Peace, to be published by Wiley in August. My book deals with important and current issues, such as the prospects for peace in the immediate future. Finkelstein’s deals with the irrelevant past that both Israelis and Palestinians are trying to put behind them. Let the marketplace judge our books. As far as I’m concerned, the public controversy is over and I will comment no further on the false charges leveled by Finkelstein and the UCP. Let them henceforth pay for their own publicity, instead of trying to get it on the cheap by launching phony attacks against me.
I will not debate Finkelstein. I have a longstanding policy against debating Holocaust deniers, revisionists, trivializers or minimizers. Nor is a serious debate about IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
possible with someone who acknowledges that he knows “very little” about that country. I will be happy to debate any legitimate experts from Amnesty InternationalAmnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
or any other human rights organization. Indeed, I have a debate scheduled with Noam ChomskyNoam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
about these issues in the fall [2005].
Dershowitz strenuously denied that he did not credit Peters' book adequately in his own book, and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
supported him in that position in exonerating him against Finkelstein's charges that he committed "plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
".
In their joint interview aired on Amy Goodman's radio program Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
, Dershowitz responded to Finkelstein's various arguments.
Dershowitz's involvement in Finkelstein's denial of tenure
In early 2007 the DePaul UniversityDePaul University
DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...
Political Science department voted 9 to 3, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee 5 to 0, in favor of giving Finkelstein tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
. The three opposing faculty members subsequently filed a minority report opposing tenure, supported by the Dean of the College, Chuck Suchar. Suchar stated he opposed tenure because Finkelstein’s "personal and reputation demeaning attacks on Alan Dershowitz, Benny Morris, and the holocaust authors Eli Wiesel and Jerzy Kosinski" were inconsistent with DePaul’s “Vincentian” values. In June 2007 a 4-3 vote by DePaul University's Board on Promotion and Tenure (a faculty board), affirmed by the university's president, the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, denied Finkelstein tenure. Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007-2008 academic year (the remainder of his contract with DePaul), his sole course having been cancelled.
In September 2006, Dershowitz had sent members of DePaul's law and political science faculties what he described as “a dossier of Norman Finkelstein’s most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions”, and in April 2007 the De Paul University Liberal Arts and Sciences' Faculty Governance Council had voted unanimously to send a letter to Harvard University expressing "the council's dismay at Professor Dershowitz's interference in Finkelstein's tenure and promotion case."
However, in announcing his decision, Holtschneider said the outside attention "was unwelcome and inappropriate and had no impact on either the process or the outcome of this case." On September 5, 2007, Finkelstein resigned after he and the university reached a settlement; they released a joint statement on the resolution of the conflict.
Support for Finkelstein
In his book review of Beyond Chutzpah, echoing Finkelstein's criticisms, Michael Desch, political science professor at University of Notre DameUniversity of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
observed:
Not only did Dershowitz improperly present Peters's ideas, he may not even have bothered to read the original sources she used to come up with them. Finkelstein somehow managed to get uncorrected page proofs of The Case for Israel in which Dershowitz appears to direct his research assistant to go to certain pages and notes in Peters's book and place them in his footnotes directly (32, col. 3).
Desch concluded with an important caveat then qualified it by emphasizing his own point of view:
Even if Finkelstein's most serious charges are not true, it is nonetheless a scandal that Dershowitz's sloppy book was widely and favorably reviewed in many prominent places, including the New York Times, and became a national bestseller. (Its bestseller status probably should include an asterisk because, as Finkelstein notes, some American Jewish organizations and the Israeli government bought bulk orders of the book to use as part of their efforts to advance Israel's case.) Nothing could be better evidence, in my opinion, of the corrosive influence of the Israel lobby on the intellectual climate of our country than how the nation's leading university allowed such a book to pollute our national discourse on one of the most important issues facing American foreign policy.
This is not to say that Finkelstein is always the best advocate for his case. As with his previous books, it is clear that his muse is his spleen. Outrage drips from nearly every page of Beyond Chutzpah when facts alone would have made a more effective case. Indeed, I had a similar reaction when I heard Finkelstein speak at Harvard about the GoldhagenDaniel GoldhagenDaniel Jonah Goldhagen is an American author and former Associate Professor of Political Science and Social Studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controversial books about the Holocaust, Hitler's Willing Executioners and...
book [Hitler's Willing ExecutionersHitler's Willing ExecutionersHitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen that argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were as the title indicates "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism"...
]: the facts were clearly in his corner but his strident presentation undermined his case.
Still, I hesitate to be too critical of Finkelstein. Much of his outrage is justified. Moreover, he has been on the frontline of a brutal war with the Israel lobby, which gives no quarter to its enemies, and so it may be unreasonable to. ..expect him to write on this topic with clinical detachment.
The story Finkelstein tells in Beyond Chutzpah is hard to believe, but it needs to be told. My hat is off to him for having the courage to tell it.
On the basis of Finkelstein's comparisons of Dershowitz's sources, Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
supported Finkelstein's conclusions that Dershowitz was guilty of "wholesale, unacknowledged looting of Peters' research" and mocked Dershowitz's intellectual integrity. Noting a footnote in which Dershowitz referred to the controversial status of Peters' book and stated that he did not "rely" on it for "conclusions or data," Cockburn charges that Dershowitz was in effect—if not intention—lying. In echoing Finkelstein's charge of plagiarism, Cockburn called on Harvard to take action against their professor, Dershowitz.
Oxford academic Avi Shlaim
Avi Shlaim
Avi Shlaim FBA is a British/Israeli historian. He is a professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the British Academy.Shlaim is especially well known as a historian of the Arab-Israeli conflict...
had also been critical of Dershowitz, saying he believed that the charge of plagiarism "is proved in a manner that would stand up in court."
See the independent analysis of the Dershowitz Dossier of allegations against Finkelstein, by Dr Frank J Menetrez Phd, JD (UCLA): http://counterpunch.org/menetrez04302007.html and the email correspondence between Menetrez, Finkelstein and Dershowitz during Menetrez's study: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=999 In a longer follow-up analysis Menetrez concluded that he can find 'no way of avoiding the inference that Dershowitz copied the quotation from Twain from Peters' From Time Immemorial, and not from the original source', as Dershowitz claimed. Dershowitz has replied briefly to this charge, in an exchange with Menetrez.
In Desch's review of Beyond Chutzpah, summarizing Finkelstein's case against Dershowitz for "torturing the evidence", particularly Finkelstein's argument relating to Dershowitz's citations of Morris, Desch observed:
There are two problems with Dershowitz's heavy reliance on Morris. The first is that Morris is hardly the left-wing peacenik that Dershowitz makes him out to be, which means that calling him as a witness in Israel's defense is not very helpful to the case. The more important problem is that many of the points Dershowitz cites Morris as supporting—that the early Zionists wanted peaceful coexistence with the Arabs, that the Arabs began the 1948 War to destroy Israel, that the Arabs were guilty of many massacres while the Israelis were scrupulous about protecting human rights, and that the Arabs fled at the behest of their leaders rather than being ethnically cleansed by the Israel Defense Forces—turn out to be based on a partial reading or misreading of Morris's books. Finkelstein documents these charges in exhaustive detail in Appendix II of his book and the preponderance of evidence he provides is conclusive." (30-31)
Support for Dershowitz
As Desch acknowledges in his book review of Beyond Chutzpah, "In the wake of a number of similar complaints against Dershowitz and two of his Harvard Law School colleagues Laurence TribeLaurence Tribe
Laurence Henry Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. He also works with the firm Massey & Gail LLP on a variety of matters....
and Charles Ogletree
Charles Ogletree
Charles J. Ogletree is Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School, the founder of the school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and the author of numerous books on legal topics....
, former Harvard President Derek Bok conducted an investigation—the details of which were not made public—that...vindicated Dershowitz" (32, col. 3).
Several student research assistants who worked for Dershowitz at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
criticized Jon Wiener
Jon Wiener
Jon Wiener is an American professor of history at the University of California Irvine, a contributing editor to The Nation magazine, and a Los Angeles radio host. He was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its files on John Lennon.-...
's review, supporting their professor:
It is one thing for Jon Wiener to launch a tendentious attack against Alan Dershowitz.... It is another matter altogether for Wiener to insinuate—without any substantiation at all—that Professor Dershowitz's research assistants are guilty of academic dishonestyAcademic dishonestyAcademic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. It can include* Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author without due acknowledgment.* Fabrication: The...
. We are deeply offended by Wiener's implications that we would not check the original sources cited in Professor Dershowitz's books. For as long as any of us can remember, the standard operating procedure in Professor Dershowitz's office has always been for us to check out or request the original sources from the Harvard libraries.
It was journalistically inappropriate for Wiener not to interview any of Professor Dershowitz's research assistants, who would have firsthand knowledge of what his instructions to "cite" a source actually mean.
Additional points of dispute between Finkelstein and Dershowitz
In The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein called Elie WieselElie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
a liar for claiming to have read Kant's
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
Critique of Pure Reason
Critique of Pure Reason
The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement...
in Yiddish: according to Finkelstein, no translation of the work existed in Yiddish at the time. Dershowitz responded that this was not so: he alleged that one had been published in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
in 1929, and claimed that he had seen a copy at the Harvard Library
Harvard University Library
The Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...
.
Finkelstein described this latter claim as false and inept, writing that the only work by Kant in Yiddish owned by the library was a partial translation of the Critique of Practical Reason
Critique of Practical Reason
The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, first published in 1788. It follows on from his Critique of Pure Reason and deals with his moral philosophy....
, a completely different work than the one referred to by Wiesel and Dershowitz.
During a clash with members of J Street
J Street
J Street is a nonprofit liberal advocacy group based in the United States whose stated aim is to promote American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. It was founded in April 2008....
at the 2010 AIPAC conference, Dershowitz chastised J Street
J Street
J Street is a nonprofit liberal advocacy group based in the United States whose stated aim is to promote American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. It was founded in April 2008....
for pandering to anti-Israel activists and asked, "Why are you so popular with Norman Finkelstein?" Both J Street and Finkelstein rebuffed Dershowitz's claim.
$10,000 challenge
During the joint interview of Dershowitz and Finkelstein broadcast on Democracy Now!Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
, the host Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
alluded to an appearance on MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
's Scarborough Country
Scarborough Country
Scarborough Country was an opinion/analysis show broadcast on MSNBC Monday - Thursday at 9 P.M. ET. It was hosted by former congressman Joe Scarborough....
in which Dershowitz made a challenge to "give $10,000 to the PLO," playing a clip from the other program. In the headnote to the transcript, Goodman wrote:
On MSNBC’s Scarborough Country on September 8, 2003, renowned appellate lawyer, Harvard Law professor and author Alan Dershowitz says: “I will give $10,000 to the PLO...if you can find a historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false.” The book Dershowitz refers to is his latest work The Case For Israel.
Today author and professor Norman Finkelstein takes him on and charges that Dershowitz makes numerous factual errors in his book. Dershowitz denies the charges. Finkelstein teaches at DePaul University and is the author of four books including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.
The segment of Democracy Now! appears in the included transcript of the program:
Amy Goodman: ...we were intrigued on watching Scarborough CountryScarborough CountryScarborough Country was an opinion/analysis show broadcast on MSNBC Monday - Thursday at 9 P.M. ET. It was hosted by former congressman Joe Scarborough....
when you debated, the offer that you made[....] just play it for a moment.
Alan Dershowitz: Tell you what, I will give $10,000 to the P.L.O.Palestine Liberation OrganizationThe Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
in your name if you can find historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false. I issue that challenge, I issue it to you, I issue it to the Palestinian Authority, I issue it to Noam ChomskyNoam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
to Edward SaidEdward SaidEdward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
, every word in my book is accurate and you can't just simply say it's false without documenting it. Tell me one thing in the book now that is false?
Amy Goodman: Okay. Let's go to the book. The Case for Israel $10,000.
On Democracy Now! Finkelstein replied to that specific challenge for errors found in his book overall, and Dershowitz upped it to $25,000 for another particular "issue" that they disputed.
Finkelstein referred to "concrete facts which are not particularly controversial," stating that in The Case for Israel Dershowitz attributes to Israeli historian Benny Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
the figure of between 2,000 and 3,000 Palestinian Arabs who fled their homes from April to June, 1948, when, he said, the range in the figures presented by Morris is 200,000 to 300,000.
Dershowitz responded to Finkelstein's reply by stating that such a mistake could not have been intentional, as it harmed his own side of the debate: "Obviously, the phrase '2,000 to 3,000 Arabs' refers either to a sub-phase [of the flight] or is a typographical error."
Other references
- Arkes, Hadley. "The Rights and Wrongs of Alan Dershowitz." Claremont Review of BooksClaremont Review of BooksThe Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
4 November 2005. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Chrucky, Andrew "Norman Finkelstein, DePaul, and U.S. Academia: Reductio Ad Absurdum of Centralized Universities", July 23, 2007.
- Cockburn, AlexanderAlexander CockburnAlexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
. "Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist." CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
26 September 2003. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Commentary on Dershowitz's book The Case for Israel.) [Reproduces comparisons of passages from the book and its alleged sources as examples of "plagiarism" which may come from Finkelstein, as well as others, but without attribution to Finkelstein.] - –––. "CounterPunch Diary:...Dershowitz Flaps Broken Wings: Dershowitz: The Case of the Plagiarist Prof (continued)." CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
11–13 October 2003. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Presents "rebuttal" by Alan DershowitzAlan DershowitzAlan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
of Cockburn's commentary on The Case for Israel (listed above) and Cockburn's subsequent response.) - Dershowitz, Alan M.Alan DershowitzAlan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
"The Hazards of Making The Case for Israel." jbooks.com. n.d. Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––. "The Lerner-Finkelstein Duet." The Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
16 October 2006. Accessed February 11, 2007. - –––. "Neve Gordon Can't Take Criticism." The Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
8 November 2006. Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––. "Plagiarism Accusations Political, Unfounded." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
23 September 2003. Accessed 11 February 2006. - –––. "Plagiarism Accusations Unfairly Characterized." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
5 May 2006, Letter to the Editors dated 1 May 2006 (appended correction). Accessed 12 February 2007. - –––. "Professor Dershowitz 'Rests His Case'." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
3 October 2003, Letter to the Editors (Opinion). Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––. "Tsuris Over Chutzpah." The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
29 August 2005. Rpt. in normanfinkelstein.com n.d. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Comment on Wiener; see below.) [This article is followed by a letter from Dershowitz's research assistants: Holly Beth Billington (2002–2004), Alexander J. Blenkinsopp (2004–2005), Eric Citron (2003–2004), C. Wallace DeWitt (2004–2005), Aaron Voloj Dessauer (2004–2005), and Mitch Webber (2005); a reply by Jon WienerJon WienerJon Wiener is an American professor of history at the University of California Irvine, a contributing editor to The Nation magazine, and a Los Angeles radio host. He was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its files on John Lennon.-...
; and a comment by Finkelstein.] - –––. "Why Is the University of California Press Publishing Bigotry?" FrontPage Magazine 5 July 2005. Accessed 12 February 2007. (Linked in Dershowitz's list of publications included in his Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
bibliography.) - "Dershowitz v. Desch." The American ConservativeThe American ConservativeThe American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
16 January 2006, Forum. Rpt. normanfinkelstein.com n.d. Accessed 12 February 2007. (Incl. detailed reply by Alan DershowitzAlan DershowitzAlan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
to book review of Beyond Chutzpah by Desch (see below) and reply by Desch (with pdf link), and a response added to his own site's presentation of this material by Finkelstein.) - Desch, Michael C. "The Chutzpah of Alan Dershowitz." The American ConservativeThe American ConservativeThe American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
5 December 2005. Rpt. in normanfinkelstein.com. Accessed February 11, 2007. (PDF version accessible.) - Eichner, Itamar, and Tova Tzimuki: "Simpson's Attorney Advises: "Acquittal" of Israel." Yedioth AhronothYedioth AhronothYedioth Ahronoth is a daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel. Since the 1970s, it has been the most widely circulated paper in Israel. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Yedioth Ahronoth retained the title of most widely read newspaper in Israel...
18 November 2003: 11. Rpt. in normanfinkelstein.com n.d. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Incl. English translation & scan of Hebrew original.) - Finkelstein, NormanNorman FinkelsteinNorman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
. "Dershowitz Was To Meet With Israeli Officials." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
8 November 2005, Letter to the Editors (Opinion). Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––. Finkelstein Proclaims 'The Glove Does Fit'." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
3 October 2003, Letter to the Editors (Opinion). Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––."Finkelstein at Yale: Beyond Chutzpah. Video prod. by Leitrim Productions of lecture and discussion. Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, New HavenNew Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. 20 October 2005. Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––. "Little Prissy Al." normanfinkelstein.com 17 October 2006. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Response to Dershowitz, "The Lerner-Finkelstein Duet.")
- –––. "Moment of Truth -- Will Dershowitz Release the Letters?" normanfinkelstein.com 9 November 2006. Accessed February 11, 2007.
- –––. "Never Before Aired: Watch Part II of the Debate between Finkelstein and Dershowitz." Online posting. normanfinkelstein.com n.d. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Incl. link to Part I of the debate.) (See Goodman.)
- –––. Video of Finkelstein Speech at Vancouver Public Library. Link to Part 7. Webcasts posted at workingtv.com. n.d. Accessed 11 February 2007.
- Francois, Wendy. "Politics Rip through Columbia." Columbia Daily SpectatorColumbia Daily SpectatorColumbia Daily Spectator is the daily student newspaper of Columbia University. It is published at 112th and Broadway in New York, New York. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after The Harvard Crimson, and has been legally independent of the...
28 March 2006. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Goodman, AmyAmy GoodmanAmy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
. "Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz's New Book On Israel a 'Hoax'." Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
24 September 2003. Accessed 11 February 2007. (Incl. links to audio clip, MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, and full "Rush Transcript.") - Gordon, NeveNeve GordonNeve Gordon is a doctor of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who writes on issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and human rights. A third-generation Israeli, Gordon did his military service in an IDF Paratrooper unit, and suffered severe injuries in...
. "Dershowitz's Smear: Anti-Semitism? You Just Don't Like What I Say!" CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
8 November 2006. Accessed February 11, 2007. (Response to Dershowitz; see reply by Dershowitz, "Neve Gordon Can't Take Criticism," as listed above.) - Human Rights WatchHuman Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
. "Human Rights Watch Responds to Dershowitz." The Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
7 September 2006. Accessed February 11, 2007. - Maizel, Lindsay A. "At Talk, Finkelstein Calls Dershowitz Book a Fraud." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
4 November 2005. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Schuker, Daniel J. T. "Accusations Fly in Academic Feud: Harvard Law Prof Tries to Prevent Publication of Book about Israel." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
8 July 2005. Accessed 12 February 2007. - Schuker, Lauren A. E. "Dershowitz Accused Of Plagiarism: Law School Professor Denies He Relied on Another’s Work." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
29 September 2003. Accessed 11 February 2007. - –––. "Dershowitz Defends Book. Professor Calls Plagiarism Accusation 'funny'." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
2 October 2003. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Segev, Tom. "Sharon Recommends a Book." Ha'aretz 24 October 2005. Accessed 11 February 2007.
- Seiderman, Ian. "Right of Reply: Biased against Israel? Not at all Amnesty International responds to Dershowitz." The Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
11 September 2006. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Tetley, William. "Another Dershowitz Diatribe." National PostNational PostThe National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
24 July 2006, letter to the editor. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Troianovski, Anton S. Crimson Cuts Columnist for Lifting Material: Online Magazine Slate Says It Won't Pursue Action Against Paper." The Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard CrimsonThe Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
27 October 2006. Accessed February 11, 2007. - Wiener, JonJon WienerJon Wiener is an American professor of history at the University of California Irvine, a contributing editor to The Nation magazine, and a Los Angeles radio host. He was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its files on John Lennon.-...
. "Giving Chutzpah New Meaning." The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
11 July 2005. Accessed 11 February 2007. - Younge, Gary. "J'accuse." The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
10 August 2005. Accessed 11 February 2007.