Prof. Norman Finkelstein is a prominent and well-respected scholar of the Israel/Palestine conflict. He has written several books on the topic, most notably The Rise and Fall of Palestine and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. His most recent work, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is a devastating rebuttal of both Alan Dershowitz’ The Case For Israel and defenders of Israel’s human rights record more generally.
For some reason, Prof. Finkelstein’s views are often referred to as “controversial” or even “radical”. 
In fact, the position he articulates is supported by international law and such “radical” organisations as the World Court and Amnesty International. Several of Prof. Finkelstein’s talks, and much else besides, can be viewed on his website.
I asked him a few questions about the current state of the conflict (embedded links added by me, obviously).
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert recently declared that “I’ll never accept a solution that is based on their [the Palestinian refugees] return to Israel, any number”, and “I will not agree to accept any kind of Israeli responsibility for the refugees. Full stop.”, on the grounds that the refugee problem was created when Arab countries attacked the newly-formed State of Israel (hence, one presumes, he places the responsibility on the aggressor Arab states). What do you think of this view?
The refugee question is a red herring. It serves the same purpose now as the Palestinian Covenant did in the 1970s-1980s; to divert attention from Israel’s refusal to fully withdraw. Israel knows that the international community will be sympathetic to its stand regarding the refugees but not sympathetic on borders/settlements, so it’s trying to divert attention from the latter, and towards the former.
Israel and its apologists consistently justify such policies as the annexation wall and, indeed, the occupation in general on security grounds. To what extent do you feel they are actually about security, and to what extent do you feel they would be justified even if they were?
There isn’t a scratch of evidence that the occupation has anything to do with security. It’s already widely admitted (Shlomo Ben-Ami, Zeev Maoz, even Dennis Ross) that keeping the Jordan Valley for security reasons is a myth. And the wall could be built on Israel’s border and provide the same security (even more) to Israeli citizens. It’s a land-grab disguised in the language of security. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels (Johnson), then security is the last refuge of scoundrel states.
It seems to me that if the Israeli leadership’s underlying objective is to maintain (and possibly expand) the occupation permanently, it would make sense for Israel to welcome a Hamas government, since such a government gives Israel an excuse to avoid negotiating. Instead, it appears that Israel has worked consistently to engineer the toppling of Hamas ever since it was elected. How do you explain this apparent contradiction?
Israel thinks it has a bantustan leadership in place with which it can negotiate a final settlement (Abbas-Dahlan). In fact, that was the purpose of Oslo, and contrary to popular opinion, Oslo was almost a complete success. They got the Palestinian “leadership” they were grooming, but Hamas spoiled it for them.
Do you feel the Geneva Accord offers a good basis for a final settlement?
It’s something, but the fundamental basis of any settlement must be UN Resolution 242 and subsequent UN resolutions calling for full Israeli withdrawal, the dismantling of the settlements and a resolution of the refugee question based on 194.
What do you make of the Israeli government’s apparent sudden engagement with the Saudi peace plan? It seems odd, seeing as they’ve virtually ignored it for years.
It’s another diversion; they can’t very well say they reject it (they do want peace, you know, and it’s the Arabs who are the problem), so they focus on the elements (like the refugees) bound to elicit a rejection.
Prof. Ilan Pappe advocates a boycott of and perhaps sanctions on Israel to pressure it to change its behaviour. Do you agree that this is the best way to force it to respect the law?
I have no opinion on this subject.
Cross-posted at The Heathlander
Great opportunity to interview Finkelstein who does not appear to mince words, when really, all he is doing is telling the truth. Simple obvious truths seem so powerful, yet the lies still seem to carry the day. Telling the truth used to be the job of the press, the so-called fourth branch of government in the US. Today it seems to be the purveyor of government propaganda.
If I recall correctly, he’s been experiencing some difficulties in getting tenure – apparently due to the controversial nature of his research. He’s just not PC enough for his dean.
Yeh, so I hear. Dershowitz has apparently been constantly writing in protesting against a renewal of Finkelstein’s tenure. It’s all completely outrageous – this is the price Finekstein pays, I guess, for speaking the truth.
It was like this right from the beginning. In his book ‘Understanding Power’, Noam Chomsky describes how after he wrote his doctoral thesis debunking Joan Peters’ fraud (‘From Time Immemorial’), he just couldn’t get it published. No one was willing to publish an essay showing in meticulous detail that the book being praised by everyone who mattered was a total fraud. It’s says a lot, I think, about the integrity of the intellectual culture in America.
By ‘he’, incidentally, I mean Norman Finkelstein (Chomsky wrote about how Finkelstein couldn’t get his doctoral thesis published).
I can’t comment much on Finkelstein’s work, as I haven’t read it (nor was aware of it before a few weeks ago), but he caused a fairly big ruckus here on campus when Penn’s political science department co-sponsored a presentation of his on campus back in March. The general impression I got from the protests is that there was a lot of hot air but not much substance behind them – by that, I get the impression that those protesting his appearance hadn’t actually read any of his material and were instead solely basing their opposition based on whatever image of him there is out in the public.