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| October 26, 2005 |
REVIEW: Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History
 Don't expect Finkelstein's latest book to be very popular with the AIPAC set. Formerly infamous for The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein indicted those who have wielded the Holocaust as a billy club for their own political and financial interests. More recently he has been feuding with Alan Dershowitz over the Harvard legal scholar's pro-Israel polemic The Case for Israel. It was only a matter of time before the idol-smashing political science professor came out with a book of his own.
That book is Beyond Chutzpah, a reference to yet another Dershowitz tome entitled simply Chutzpah. Considering their long feud and ideological differences, it isn't surprising that their arguments would turn into a point-counterpoint publishing bonanza. Indeed, Finkelstein devotes the latter (and longer) half of his book to refuting The Case for Israel almost point-by-point. Likening Dershowitz's writing to apologetics for Soviet abuses, Finkelstein refutes the image of Israel as upstanding supporters of human rights, citing numerous examples courtesy of a horde of human rights groups to bolster his case.
Dershowitz, for his part, didn't exactly strengthen his case by appealing to the California governor, asking that he use his influence over the University of California system to keep the book from being published. Thankfully, he failed.
Not that the book is an entirely calm and measured approach itself. In a subject as emotionally charged as the Arab-Israeli conflict, it doesn't take long for Finkelstein to drag out the pejoratives. He accuses his opponents of everything from fraud to a lack of "ordinary moral values," which is perhaps harder to argue than the more convincing conclusion, that ideological blinders steeped in ethnic politics keeps many supporters of Israel from seeing its complicity in serious abuses.
All of which is why, as interesting a sideshow as the Finkelstein-Dershowitz pissing match is, the better half of the book is its first half. Here, Finkelstein carries his claims from The Holocaust Industry forward, arguing that supporters of Israel are too quick to use anti-Semitism as a deflection from serious discussion of the conflict. Once again, Finkelstein is bold enough to speak plainly about how the serious threat of anti-Semitism is devalued by its politically-motivated overuse.
Now if only the scholarly warriors on both sides of this divide could lay down their own overused sneering, we might be able to come to some consensus.
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