Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Norman Finkelstein is no stranger to controversy. The American Jewish scholar is one of the world’s leading experts on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the political legacy of the Nazi holocaust. Apart from his parents, every member of Finkelstein’s family, on both sides, was exterminated in the Nazi holocaust. His 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, which was serialised in the Guardian, became an international best-seller and touched off a firestorm of debate. But Finkelstein’s most recent political intervention came about by accident.

Last month, Naz Shah MP became one of the most high-profile cases to date in the ‘antisemitism’ scandal still shaking the Labour leadership. Shah was suspended from the Labour party for, among other things, reposting an image on Facebook that was alleged to be antisemitic. The image depicted a map of the United States with Israel superimposed, and suggested resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict by relocating Israel into the United States. It has been reported that Shah got the image from Finkelstein’s website. I spoke with Finkelstein about why he posted the image, and what he thinks of allegations that the Labour party has a ‘Jewish problem’.

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Did you create the controversial image that Naz Shah reposted?
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-stern-weiner-norman-finkelstein/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda

Jonathan Freedland (My plea to the left, 30 April) asks us to imagine if a country far away was created for black people and asks if the left would treat it as it does Israel. As a Palestinian I want to tell him that if, instead of a country for Jews, a country for black people or any other group had been created in our homeland without our consent, we would have objected and resisted as Palestinians with the same vigour.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44580.htm

UK councils face anti-Semitism claim over settlements goods ban

A group is taking legal action against three UK councils at the High Court on Wednesday in an attempt to strike down their decisions to support boycotts on Israeli goods manufactured in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Jewish Human Rights Watch (JHRW), which describes itself as an anti-racism campaign group, has won a judicial review against three authorities - Leicester, Swansea and Gwynedd – on the basis that a boycott of settlement goods is “anti-Semitic”, illegal and violates the Local Government Act 1988 and the Equality Act 2010.

In court, JHRW representatives argued that its aim was not to silence criticism of Israel but to stop local councils abusing their powers and failing to have "due regard to the impact of their actions upon the Jewish community".
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-councils-taken-court-over-anti-semitic-support-bds-339603008