Wednesday, September 13, 2006

FINKELSTEIN SMELLS A RAT

True to form, Chomsky's chum Norman Finkelstein reacts in predictable fashion to the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism in the UK.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm snowed under at the moment so don't have time to give the article the thorough fisking it deserves. Perhaps one of the heavyweights over here could do the honours?

Here's my two-penneth for starters.

Disclaimer: Muscular Liberals is not responsible for any damage to any computer equipment as a result of visitors reading the following - you have been warned...

He begins:
A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism.
So.

An All Party Parliamentary Report that was started last year was published to deliberately coincide with the ending of hostilities of a war begun by Hezbollah and finished by international pressure, to draw attention away from the results of Israel's actions in Lebanon? This Zionist Lobby is more powerful than I thought.

Quite how the All Party group knew in advance when the war would end is a mystery, unless Finkelstein is suggesting that the Zionist Lobby told the group to hold off and wait for a nod and a wink before publishing.

As Malachi who tipped me off on the article writes:
On this basis it sounds like MacShane and his committee were better informed than the Israeli cabinet!
Quite.

In summary, Finkelstein appears to be saying
  • End of Israel's war with Hezbollah
  • Report on antisemitism in the UK
  • What are the odds of those two things occurring in the same month?
  • It's a conspiracy!!!
No doubt he'd have said the same had the Report been published during the war or even before it. That's the beauty of conspiracy theories - one size fits all.

The man is beyond parody.

More on conspiracy theory loons here, courtesy of David T at HP.

posted by Dan @ 11:46 am