Ten biggest Lies Finkelstein has been caught telling

10. The Lie: “I had an excellent teaching record, yes I had an excellent publication record.” (Interview with Norman Finkelstein, conducted by Don Atapattu, CounterPunch, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”)



The Truth: He has been fired by Brooklyn College, N.Y.U., and several other schools for “incompetence,” “mental instability” and “abuse” of students with politics different from his own, according to a high-ranking official at one of the schools.



His writings have been universally condemned by objective reviewers as “an ideological fanatic’s view,” “crackpot ideas,” and “pure inventions.”



9. The Lie: “[Dershowitz’s] book—well we have to put that in quotes, ‘his book,’ because the likelihood of him having written the book is roughly equal to the likelihood of me performing in the Bolshoi ballet or as a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall…” (Catalyst Radio Interview With Dr. Finkelstein)



The Truth: Dershowitz wrote every book by hand. His manuscripts are preserved in an archive.



8. The Lie: “One third of it [The Case for Israel] is simply plagiarized… [Dershowitz] plagiarized another hoax. [referring to Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial]” (Chicago, February 12, 2004)



The Truth: That is impossible, since 90% of Dershowitz’ book deals with current issues, occurring after the publication of the Peters book. Moreover, there is not a single word or phrase in Dershowitz’ book that is copied from anyone without attribution.



7. The Lie: “And in the proofs, it says in the footnotes before the footnotes are actually entered. It says: copy from Joan Peters.” (Calgary, April 3, 2004)



The Truth: The instruction says exactly the opposite. In the advanced proofs, footnote 20, Dershowitz instructed his research assistant to cite to the original sources, as mandated by the Chicago Manual of Style.





6. The Lie: “[I]f you look at the footnotes for the book, he never once—I mean literally, not once—mentions any mainstream human rights organization. Never a mention of Amnesty’s findings, never a mention of Human Rights Watch’s findings, never a mention of B’Tselem findings, Public Committee Against Torture, Physicians for Human Rights—none.” (Chicago, March 18, 2004)



The Truth: Dershowitz cites Amnesty on at least five occasions, B’Tselem on three occasions and numerous other human rights groups. Amnesty and B’Tselem even appear in the index. Indeed much of the book is a critique of the double standard employed by these very organizations with regard to Israel.



5. The Lie: “If you open up [Dershowitz’s] book, Chutzpah, he says that, well as far as I’m concerned, he says, ethnic cleansings are, quote, a fifth-rate moral issue, and no different – he says, and they’re analogous—I’m now quoting him—they’re now, ethnic cleansings are analogous to massive urban renewal.” (Vancouver, May 15, 2004)



The Truth: This quotation is totally made up. Dershowitz was writing about an entirely different matter: the movement of people as part of a post-conflict “political solution,” such as what occurred after World War II when “approximately fifteen million ethnic Germans” were moved from Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European nations to Germany as part of an international effort to produce increased stability. This is not ethnic cleansing, but, as Dershowitz wrote, it “may constitute a human rights violation” as may the movement of Palestinians following the Arab attack on Israel in 1947-48. (see Chutzpah, p. 215)





4. The Lie: [I]f you look at the latest book of that raving maniac, Alan Dershowitz, he actually says at the very beginning that he only became actively involved supporting Israel after June 1967.” (October 2003)



The Truth: Dershowitz says no such thing. In fact, Dershowitz began to make that case in early 1967 before the war began. He was among the leaders of the student and faculty campaign at Harvard in support of Israel during weeks leading up to the Six Day War. He was an active Zionist from the age of 10 when he attended a Hebrew speaking Zionist camp. Dershowitz went to a Zionist high school and belonged to a Zionist house plan in college.





3. The Lie: “There was a famous case in 1995 of a Palestinian who was shaken to death while in detention. And nobody disputed the facts—the Israeli pathologist’s office, the forensic pathologists who were brought into the case, eventually it went to the Israeli High Court of Justice—they all agreed. And I’m quoting now from the High Court of Justice Judgment: “All agree that Harizad died from the shaking.”



The Truth: Finkelstein made up the quotation. The Supreme Court actually said that “the suspect expired after being shaken.” The difference between “died from the shaking” and “expired after being shaken” is considerable, especially since the sentence that follows in the decision attributes the death to an extremely rare complication, and the sentence before summarizes the literature as having no examples of anyone dying from shaking.”





2. The Lie: “Several times, … I kept saying [to Dershowitz] things like: ‘The book you claim that you have written.’ And I was expecting him sort of implode. If you tell somebody a book you claim to have written, there is no bigger insult. But he was actually quite calm about it. It is if he would say, ‘That is interesting. How do you know?’”

(Calgary, April 3, 2004)



The Truth: As the transcript of the debate shows, Dershowitz immediately interrupted him and replied: “I proudly wrote it.”





1. The Lie: Finkelstein has called Elie Wiesel a “liar” because “[i]n his memoir Wiesel had written that ‘I read The Critique of Pure Reason—don’t laugh!—in Yiddish.” Finkelstein claims that The Critique of Pure Reason was never translated into Yiddish.”



The Truth: Former Oxford professor Dovid Katz, one of the world’s most distinguished scholars of Yiddish literature, attests to the fact that the Critique of Pure Reason was translated into Yiddish and that he has seen a copy. Moreover, its substance was included in a popular Yiddish philosophy compendium by Chaim Zhitlovsky. Finally, a Yiddish translation of the Critique of Practical Reason is available in the Harvard Library.