US college rejects Jewish professor over anti-Israel stance | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
One of the most rancorous disputes in American academia has ended with a prominent political scientist, with controversial views on Israel and anti-semitism, being denied tenure at one of the country's top-10 private universities.
Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry, now has less than a year remaining on his contract with the political sciences department of DePaul university in Chicago. He lost his bid for a lifelong post following a 4-3 vote of the university's promotions and tenure board. ... Mr Finkelstein has argued in his books that claims of anti-semitism are used to dampen down criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and that the Holocaust is exploited by some Jewish institutions for their own gain.His outspoken position as a Jewish intellectual critical of Israel and of some elites within the Jewish community has prompted passionate debate on both sides of the argument.
Prominent intellectuals such as the prolific writer, Noam Chomsky, and the Oxford historian, Avi Schlaim, have spoken out in Mr Finkelstein's favour, but others have decried him in equal measure as giving succour to anti-semitism.
His most bitter opponent is Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, who campaigned heavily to prevent tenure being granted. Soon after Mr Finkelstein applied for it, Mr Dershowitz sent DePaul faculty members a dossier of what he categorised as the “most egregious academic sins, outright lies, misquotations, and distortions” of the political scientist.
The dispute has roots that go deeper still, with Mr Finkelstein devoting much of his most recent book,
to an attack on Mr Dershowitz's own work, the Case for Israel. Mr Dershowitz threatened to sue.
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History
Mr Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, has responded to the decision in essence to sack him from his job at DePaul by condemning the vote as an act of political aggression.
“I met the standards of tenure DePaul required, but it wasn't enough to overcome the political opposition to my speaking out on the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
Tags: Chicago, /free_speech, /Israel
