Originally Posted by
The Shrink
How are we defining "cancel culture" here?
I'm curious whether you think Norman Finkelstein was "cancelled".
Serious question. I assume that as a conservative Jewish person you don't share Dr. Finkelstein's views on Israel-Palestine relations. I'll be honest, I'm really uninformed about it.
What are your thoughts on Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz' smear campaign that drove Finkelstein out of academia? Was it an example of "cancel culture"?
This was a very rare case where the right canceled the left at the university level. As you well know, American universities are almost all very left politically, and any ideological censorship/persecution comes against those on the right.
The Finklestein case, which occurred from 2004-2007, was an unusual situation where Dershowitz was able to convince some administrators to take his side and deny Finklestein tenure. It is likely that Dershowitz's fame played a large part in this.
It does appear Finklestein was denied tenure here unfairly, and I don't support that. However, as you well know as someone in academia, there is a MUCH greater issue surrounding conservative professors being unable to advance through the system (or even get hired in the first place), and ideological censorship at the university level goes back a few decades. Only now are mainstream Democrats starting to catch up and are warming to the idea of suppression of right-wing politicians and speech.
I will say that Finklestein was wrong. In that video you posted (which was from 2009), Finklestein claimed several times that there "is no new anti-Semitism" from the left, and that it's "pure fabrication." He said that some were "turning Israel and supporters into the victims", and that there's basically no such thing as left-wing anti-Semitism.
Again, this was in 2009. Now, 12 years later, we can see that indeed a left-wing anti-Semitism has risen in the US, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is being used as an excuse to created hatred for Israel and Jews. The new anti-Semitism excuses secular left-wing Jews from such hatred, but pretty much every other type of Jew is vilified, especially ones who like Israel. The BDS movement is borne from anti-Semitism. The rise of open anti-Semitic major politicians such as Rashida Tlaib and Ilham Omar shows that the left is no longer concerned with anti-Semitism, and in fact welcomes it. Ever since 9/11, Arabs have far eclipsed Jews on the left-wing victim totem pole.
You may or may not have seen this, but in December 2019, Trump made an executive order to force universities to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism the same way it would other forms of claimed discrimination.
This was opposed by the left, because they knew that modern anti-Semitism on college campuses typically came from left-wing types -- those who hid behind "opposition to Israeli policy" to harass Jews. However, not wanting to admit this being the real reason they opposed it, there were laughable editorials claiming that Trumps' executive order itself was anti-Semitic. Why? Because they claimed it would validate white supremacist's belief that Jews weren't really white, and their inclusion in Title VI anti-discrimination law would simply increase white supremacist activity against them. LOL!!! How many white supremacists do you see roaming the halls of academia?
It was also at that moment when I lost respect for a lot of secular left-wing Jews. Shortly after this order, I read column after column from ethnic Jews who had long abandoned Judaism, swearing that this order was proof that Trump was an anti-Semite. These were Jews actually writing columns that it's a bad thing to require universities to protect Jews from anti-Semitism. Oy vey! Reminded me all too much of the Jewish collaborators during WWII. Their allegiance to the extreme left was so strong that they were actually selling out their own people.