Finkelstein Faces the Facts? Not a chance.

We have made mention before of Norman Finkelstein's false claim that there is a "scholarly consensus" that Israel "ethnically cleansed" the Palestinian-Arabs in 1948. Apparently he has now backtracked a little - claiming that "scholars widely agree" on this. This is still false, of course, but a far cry from his earlier strident statements.

Unfortunately, there is even more evidence that Finkelstein will always remain a rabble-rousing propagandist. One of the first rules of thumb for actual historians is that you must never accept sources uncritically. It is always important to view everything with a sceptical eye, lest you be duped into accepting fairy tales as fact. This is especially true with regard to the Arab-Israel conflict, where almost everything, from architecture to archaeology is politicized by at least one of the sides.

Finkelstein is apparently unaware of this fact. For instance, he seems to think that human-rights organizations are all apolitical and neutral sources, and can be consulted without checking other sources. This is, of course, baloney. Anyone who lives in Israel could tell you that B'Tselem is a highly politicized organization. Benny Morris recently charged (free reg' reqd) Human Rights Watch for using a one-sided (Palestinian) version of events in Jenin in 2002, and Gerald Steinberg has shown that they did the same with regard to IDF operations in Rafah in 2004. Obviously, this does not mean that reports from Human Rights NGOs are worthless, just that they need to be viewed critically.

Someone examining said reports needs to ask themselves questions such as - Did the organization get both sides of the story? Is their report based on facts and proper context? etc. Finkelstein, apparently, can not be bothered with this. His response on his site (NO, I will NOT link to him) to the Israeli findings that it was not responsible for the Gaza family incident is simply to post Human Rights Watch's response. Never mind that the "expert" testimony is problematic. For Finkelstein, the HRW report is correct simply because it is stated by them. No legitamite scholar (that I know of) would use such methods.

Though I have not read, and don't intend to read, Finkelstein's screed on alleged Israeli human rights violations, I can't help but wonder whether he uses the same type of ipse dixit ("because I say so") argumentation in that work as well. If this is indeed the case, then there really is no need to "refute" the book as one commentator has asked me to do. There is no reason to grant scholarly legitamacy to such sophistry.