Norman Finkelstein, American-Jewish academic and author of The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah, has had two speaking appearances cancelled in Germany:
Finkelstein was due to speak at two meetings in Berlin on the current situation in the Middle East. The title of both meetings, which were advertised at the end of January, was “Israel, Palestine and the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War” (The Goldstone report was commissioned by the United Nations and concluded that Israel was guilty of war crimes in its assault on Gaza during the winter of 2008-2009)…
…The first organization to announce that it had canceled Finkelstein’s appearance was the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Just a few days ago, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation also announced it was withdrawing its offer of facilities for Finkelstein to speak.
One member of the RLS executive, Heinz Vietze, justified his organization’s cancellation of the meeting by arguing that the foundation “had underestimated the political explosiveness” of a lecture by Finkelstein.
Another representative of the RLS, Erhard Crome, was more explicit. Crome had supported Finkelstein’s right to speak in Berlin. In a contribution published in the newspaper Junge Welt, Crome explained that the meeting was canceled after the organizers learned that pro-Israel Left Party supporters were planning to lobby the meeting in protest. In the face of this internal opposition, the RLS immediately canceled the meeting
Read the full story here.
Further information on:
De Paul University’s denial of Finkelstein’s tenure here.
The withdrawal of Finkelstein’s invitation to speak at the Oxford Union here.
Finkelstein’s deportation from Israel in 2009 here.
Norman Finkelstein is an independent scholar and the author of numerous books including The Holocaust Industry, Beyond Chutzpah and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. A documentary about him – American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein – was released in 2010.
[...] huge fan of. But I feel a duty to promote his book given the attempts to silence him and he having two talks cancelled in Germany due to protests by pro-Israeli groups. The book in typical Finkelstien style goes right for the [...]