Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History | 
 enlarge | Author: Norman G. Finkelstein
Publisher: University of California Press
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  72 reviews
Sales Rank: 35370
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 488
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.4
ISBN: 0520249895
Dewey Decimal Number: 956
EAN: 9780520249899
ASIN: 0520249895
Publication Date: June 2, 2008
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Product Description
Meticulously researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Norman G. Finkelstein exposes the corruption of scholarship and the contrivance of controversy shrouding human rights abuses, and interrogates the new anti-Semitism. This paperback edition adds a preface analyzing recent developments in the conflict, and a new afterword on Israel's construction of a wall in the West Bank.
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In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched expose of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein's answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted. Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's bestseller, The Case for Israel. The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz's assertions on Israel's human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B'Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts. Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 67 more reviews...
meticulously documented June 13, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Norman Finkelstein can be accussed of many things: being a pedant, using strident sarcasm in his writing, having a large ego. One thing, however, that no serious scholar would accuse him of is sloppy scholarship. Finkelstein does not go half way; he goes all the way. The products of his obsessive, "forensic" scholarhsip are highly informative, moarlistic, hard to read books.
Beyond Chutzpah is more of the same. The only difference in this book is that the reader can feel more Chomsky in the acrid, dry humour of Finkelstein. At least the guy is blunt and pulls no punches. The book focuses on two things: part 1 debunks the idea that their is a new antisemitism in the air. According to Finkelstein, this idea serves as a distracting technique to keep serious citizens from questioning Israeli policy. On this score, he is right on. Their is no doubt that this is the case. Part 2 uses the meretricious book, The Case For Israel, by Alan D. as a prop to set straight Israel's human rights record. Along the way Dershowitz is ground into the dust like grain under a milstone. More importantly, after reading this section the reader will hardly be able to believe that Israel's human rights record should serve as a beacon to other nations. If anything, it is a blight on the massive page of the follies, crimes, and misfortunes of mankind.
Beyond Chutzpah ends with technical appendices challenging the veracity of Dershowitz's scholarship. I won't get into this here (see my review of The Case For Israel if you are interested) since it would spoil the most entertaining chapters of Finkelstein's book.
Overall, this book is a meticulously documented, scrupulously honest account of Israel's record and the cynical nature of Israel's "friends." As a reader deeply involved in the issue of Israel/Palestine, I deeply respect the scholarhsip of Finkelstein. Yes, one can regret his pugilistic tone, but, more important than such quirks are his virtues. After this book, you will never take anything Alan Dershowitz says seriously, and this is a good thing.
 Pure propaganda June 11, 2008
0 out of 14 found this review helpful
Another Jewish American tries to catch our attention by making a scandal. I thought puberty ends at the age of 17-18. It is also worth noticing that it is beyond chutzpah that we don't find the authors name if there is no addition - the son/child of the Holocaust survivor. SO, who makes industry of it after all?
 An essay about the truth October 31, 2007
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
The book is a classic and I will not discuss it further. I will add that Finkelstein is a martyr for the truth. His courageous exposure of Zionist and Israeli attempts to manipulate the truth and deny it has cost him dear. He got fired from his academic position courtesy of pressure on his univeristy by the Zionist Lobby and was recently disinvited to appear before the Oxford Union again due to pressure from the Zionist Lobby that fears a truth-teller like Finkelstein and wants to silence him.
Jewish soul-searching and anti-Semitism. October 11, 2007
3 out of 22 found this review helpful
As one can see from the enthusiastic celebrations around this book, it is indeed a long waited for delicacy for all those who are uneasy with the idea that the Jewish People are also entitled to their national sovereignty in their ancient-new homeland. These celebrating people do not like to consider themselves anti-Semites (today it is not considered bon-ton), and are deeply offended when somebody dares to suggest that they are, but nevertheless they are convinced that the rebuilding of the Jewish State in our times is an intolerable outrage. They are passionately trying to prove that the Jewish State is illegitimate, or at least its struggle to defend itself from its sworn deadly enemies is.
And now here comes this Jewish Guru who in his new book "scholarly and methodically" analyses and proves how right they are and gives them his stamp of approval, his certificate of Kosherness. They couldn't have asked for more, "the right thing at the right time" and hence this enthusiastic welcome.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind everybody a well known idiosyncrasy of the Jewish people, which may help to bring this whole issue in the right perspective. The Jews have a singular tendency to soul-searching which characterizes them since ancient times (remember the Prophets?). We have a strong tendency to demanding from ourselves uncompromising high standards of conduct which we are not always succeeding to live up to, and this leads to very harsh and very frequently unfair self-criticism. You can find it in articles written by Jewish reporters in Israeli newspapers as well as abroad. You can find it also in books like the subject one. Sometimes this self-criticism becomes unreasonably harsh and unfair, bordering with insanity, and sometimes it is outright insane. Even though the motives are diametrically opposite, this insanity is very similar to another soul pathology called anti-Semitism.
In a way, this insane level of the characteristic Jewish soul-searching and the anti-Semitic pathology are related, and feeding each other. On one side the anti-Semite is more than happy to concur with the Jewish self criticism, especially when it is sufficiently insane. On the other side, the insane Jewish leftist is convinced that as soon as we become angels, the anti-Semites will suddenly realize how nice people we are, and will instantly fall in love with the Jews.
This is in a nutshell my explanation to this biased, tendentious, one-sided and unfair anti-Semitic hate-pamphlet written by a deranged self-hating Jewish intellectual, and the enthusiastic way it is welcome by anti-Semites worldwide, Jewish and non-Jewish.
 an attempt at analysis September 18, 2007
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
this is an attempt at honest analysis of this issue.
however,the various author are so angry at each other that often are more
attent at respond to each other and the objectivity suffers.
this does not mean to imply that this particular book is misleading. it tries very hard to be impartial and it almost often succeeds
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