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CounterPunch
December
4, 2002
Finkelstein,
Sharabi and Barakat
by MARK HAND
A couple of weeks ago I praised Washington Post
columnist Marc Fisher for providing some of the least objectionable
commentary in the newspaper. I noted at the time, however, that
he tries my patience when he tackles topics outside the D.C.
metro region.
Fisher's column in the Dec. 3 issue of
the Post is a perfect illustration of why he should stick with
local issues. The column is a hatchet job on Norman Finkelstein,
Hisham Sharabi and Halim Barakat.
He describes Finkelstein, who recently
spoke at a Georgetown University event sponsored by the university's
Young Arab Leadership Association and Arab studies center, as
a writer "celebrated by neo-Nazi groups for his Holocaust
revisionism and comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany." Fisher
didn't include a response by Finkelstein to these claims and
declined to say whether he had attempted to contact Finkelstein
for comment.
Fisher normally invites responses from
local officials whom he targets. So, why did Fisher apparently
rely solely on articles from the Georgetown University student
newspaper and intelligence collected by the Campus Watch website
in branding Finkelstein a hero of neo-Nazis and Holocaust revisionist?
Finkelstein tells Press Action that he
has asked Fisher both in writing and over the telephone to supply
the evidence to support the "disgusting" and "libelous"
claim that he is a Holocaust Revisionist. "If he cannot
provide any evidence, and I'm certain he can't, either he must
print a retraction or I will take legal action," Finkelstein
said.
Here's what Finkelstein wrote in a letter
to Fisher dated Dec. 3:
"In your article, 'Campus Should
Cultivate Its Seeds of Debate' (3 December 2002) you state that
"Norman Finkelstein [is] a writer celebrated by neo-Nazi
groups for his Holocaust revisionism and comparisons of Israel
to Nazi Germany.
"You are certainly aware that labeling
someone a 'Holocaust revisionist' is a serious charge. You are
certainly also aware that to label the son of survivors of the
Nazi death camps a 'Holocaust revisionist' is a doubly serious
charge. I therefore ask you to explicitly cite even one phrase
of mine that, in your opinion, merits the label 'Holocaust revisionism.'"
Sincerely, Norman G. Finkelstein
Finkelstein said he will wait two days
for Fisher's response "explicitly documenting the charge
of 'Holocaust revisionism.'"
Allowing Finkelstein to defend himself
likely would have taken column inches away from quotes by those
who lament the common practice of professors and writers saying
bad things about Israeli government policy.
"These academic arms of the university
are constantly denigrating Israel and exploiting students and
sponsoring programs denigrating to the university," Rabbi
Harold White, Georgetown University Jewish chaplain, told Fisher,
as reported in his column.
What about the academic departments and
professors across the country who are constantly denigrating
Iraq? Denigrating Cuba? What about the professors who denigrated
South Africa under Apartheid or the Soviet Union before its demise?
Were they denigrating their universities when they spoke ill
of these nations? Of course not.
As he did with Finkelstein, Fisher denigrates
Sharabi, the Palestinian-American and long-time professor at
Georgetown University, without offering Sharabi an opportunity
to defend himself. "Jewish students and faculty are outraged
by the comments of Hisham Sharabi," Fisher writes. Could
they be outraged because Sharabi holds an unfavorable opinion
of Israeli government policies?
Fisher also notes that Sharabi had been
quoted in Beirut's Daily Star [the link to the article has been
removed from the Daily Star website] newspaper as saying, "Jews
are getting ready to take control of us, and the Americans have
entered the region to possess the oil resources and redraw the
geopolitical map."
For this comment, Fisher labels Sharabi
an "extremist professor." Is not Israel a Jewish state?
Did not Israel confiscate Palestinian property to build a Jewish
presence in Israel? Should not Palestinians be concerned by the
aggressive policies of the Israeli government during the past
50-plus years? Did not the Israelis take away Palestinian autonomy
a long time ago? Evidently not, according to Fisher. Why else
for the disdain for Sharabi's views?
Because he reportedly used "Jews"
and "control" in the same sentence, Sharabi is accused
of "provoking anti-Semitism." In this same vein, then,
shouldn't we condemn those who highlight the fact that the Taliban
were mostly non-Afghan Muslims who sought to take control of
Afghanistan? Are we also not permitted to recognize the fact
that nations in which Muslims predominate tend to be ugly dictatorships
that seek to control the lives of their residents and those in
surrounding nations? Does this recognition make us anti-Islam?
Sharabi certainly could not be faulted
for still feeling rage over what happened in the wake of the
creation of Israel. Here's what was written about Sharabi in
a 1982 issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:
"While Hisham Sharabi was doing
graduate work at the University of Chicago in 1948, he had to
face, almost overnight, a stunning realization: he might never
again be able to go home. For home was Jaffa, a Palestinian city
which had just been absorbed into the newly established state
of Israel. This event, as was the case for a multitude of other
Palestinians in similar circumstances, was to change his life.
"The student has now become a professor
at Washington's Georgetown University, and has emerged over the
years as one of the most active, persistent and articulate advocates
of the rights of the Palestinians. He has never returned to Jaffa.
"Having become a U.S. citizen in
1962, Professor Sharabi could now go back to visit his birthplace
as an American tourist if he wanted to-but declines the opportunity.
'Until there is a just settlement of the Arab-Israeli problem
which gives the Palestinians their rights, I will not set foot
in Jaffa again,' he says."
Sharabi actually did step foot in Jaffa
again, in 1993 on a trip there with Israeli writer Amos Oz as
part of a documentary by the BBC. An act of a raving extremist,
indeed.
Fisher notes that Barakat, also a Palestinian
and a professor of sociology at Georgetown University, has described
Zionism as "a wild, destructive beast," and for this,
Barakat also is labeled an "extremist professor."
At the end of the column, Fisher admits
that he couldn't help "bemoaning" the Georgetown students'
"hypersensitivity" over the comments of Finkelstein,
Sharabi and Barakat. And yet he still finds it easy to label
those who disagree with his stance on Israel as extremists.
Mark Hand
is editor of PressAction.com.
He can be reached at mark@pressaction.com.
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