Norman Finkelstein's German Tour cancelled under Pressure

 Norman Finkelstein's German Tour cancelled under Pressure   

The Federal Republic of Germany is not known for democratic traditions and things are not getting any better. A German friend talks about the "potatoe republic" (Kartoffelrepublik) when he describes his country. During the Nazi era there was an enforced political conformity (Gleichschaltung) and modern Germany has far to go before it can overcome this heritage. This is demonstrated by the very effective efforts to silence voices critical of Israel, and define them a-priori as "anti-Semitic" (Judeophobe).


In the Nazi era the state doctrine was to blindly hate Jews, and the present raison d'état is to blindly love a certain group of Jews, namely Israeli government and its followers.

The latest victim of the "Gleichschaltung" efforts is Prof. Norman Finkelstein who decided to cancel his lecture tour in Berlin and Munich in the wake of a campaign of opposition to his visit.

His capitulation means that he cannot take advantage of the free publicity his opponents gave him.

Notwithstanding his mistake it is really very alarming that even a leftist organization like the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, against the heritage of Luxemburg herself, cowardly gave in to pressure from "pro"-Israel groups and revised its original agreement to host Finkelstein.

Of course Finkelstein is neither anti-Zionist nor Judeophobe as claimed by his "pro"-Israel opponents. He is a supporter of the so called Two-States Solution and as such cannot be called an anti-Zionist. And because he criticized the restitution organization Jewish Claims Conference for being corrupt and working against the interests of Shoa survivors, he cannot be described as a Judeophobe. Actually this well-grounded and justified critique was formulated several years before Finkelstein's book (2001) by the Israeli financial newspaper "Globes" and the weekly "Jerusalem Report". Actually Finkelstein did not expose new facts and in the meantime this critique is widely -accepted in Israel. This was demonstrated by a very sharp documentary broadcasted in prime time in an Israeli TV channel last year.

His critique against Israel cannot be considered the most radical one and of course cannot be defined as Judeophobic, because a) The Israeli government and military leadership do not represent all Jews b) There is nothing a-priori anti-Jewish in criticizing these bodies.

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Enclosed are an inflammatory and libelous article against Finkelstein in the Jerusalem Post and Finkelstein's announcement about his cancellation of the planned visit to Germany.