| Re: Re: Finkelstein accuses Israel of exploiting Holocaust, by Amy Steele, News, April 8 – April 14, 2004.
Norman Finkelstein was brought to the University of Calgary by the Palestinian Canadian Students Association. This organization apparently does not put much emphasis on substantiating its point of view with facts, witness the film it presented not long ago supposedly documenting a "massacre" at the Jenin refugee camp, notwithstanding the fact that independent international investigators determined no such massacre occurred.
What facts support the allegation you attribute to Finklestein that, "Israel’s justification for actions against Palestinians is that ‘nobody in the history of humanity had suffered as the Jews had’ and therefore Israel should be entitled to ‘special moral dispensation’ to protect its interests?" It may be that some Israeli politicians and others have held this point of view; however, clearly it is not a view held by Israelis, Jews and supporters of Israel in general. Nor is such a point of view a prerequisite to supporting Israel’s right to protect itself from terrorists who have vowed to destroy it and who teach children to hate all Jews.
Interestingly, there are also Israelis, Jews and others who feel that Israel is judged by the world at large by a higher moral standard than that which other nations are generally held to, and that this double standard is used to vilify Israel. Israel is far from being above criticism historically or at present; at the same time, it is the only democracy in the Middle East and has Arab members in its parliament. Good luck even finding a Jew free to express a point of view in the surrounding Arab countries. We don’t deny Canada the right to exist even though it has in the past and continues in the present to make grievous mistakes. Nor would most Canadians exonerate native Indian people if they chose to address past and present wrongs by bombing buses and cafés.
Let’s not ignore wrongs no matter who may be responsible. But, as the incidence of anti-Semitic actions increases worldwide, including in Canada, let’s not scapegoat Israel as for hundreds of years the Jews were scapegoated – in fact Arab racist propaganda doesn’t even bother to distinguish. Let’s also take a moment to question why we hear relatively little about the abuse of Arab children through the institutionalized teaching of hate, or the violence and denial of human rights committed by Palestinians against other Palestinians and by the governments of the Arab countries which surround Israel against their own citizens.
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