quote:

---

“I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn’t much more to say for myself: alas, no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations. I’ve always supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I’m not an enemy of Israel.”

Finkelstein is one of several scholars rejected by Israel in the increasingly bitter divide in academic circles, between those who support and those who criticise its treatment of Palestinians.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aka Mycroft:
Oddly, Finkelstein has the right to instantly become an Israeli citizen and then reside in the country but he doesn't have the right to visit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
Well I figure that if they wont let Finkelstein into Israel, they can't really bitch anymore about the academic and cultural boycott of Israeli intellectuals on the grounds of supporting intellectual freedom.

---

Babblers were pretty slow to condemn the anti-democratic efforts to ban Shaykh Ul Haq from entering Canada on a speaking engagement. To their lasting shame, the Muslim Canadian Congress, Canadian Jewish Congress, Hindu Dharma society and Egale Canada all joined hands to demand he be excluded, even though he was guilty of no crime, and the only evidence against his speech came from the neo-fascist Canadian Coalition for Democracies.

Ul Haq ultimately cancelled his visit, after failing to receive assurances from the Canadian authorities that he would not be deported immediately upon arrival.

I wrote to Egale Canada at the time questioning their anti-democratic stand (no point writing to the others). They confessed to knowing nothing personally about Ul Haq, but went on and on about how important it was to build bridges with "faith communities". It was rather shameful.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stargazer:
I'm pretty sure most of us are capable of being critical of a shit load of things at one time unionist. If you don't think this is a big deal, simply don't bother with the thread.

---

I guess the many posts of unionists wherein he speaks of only certain Jews being the voice of all Jews doesn't hold here (see any thread on the CJC)

As I stated before, if your sole intention is to come in and state "hey this is not news" then stay the hell out of the thread.

Babble sure is full of snarky, ill-mannered people today. And now I can be one of them.

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: Stargazer ]

I look forward to reading your posts in threads on other "more horrendous crimes." I've noticed lots of threads on the "more horrendous crimes" unionist mentioned die before they reach 10 or 20 posts (while discussions like why Jack didn't condemn a specific comment from Ambassador Baker get over 300 posts!). Since you've clearly got the time and aren't busy, I guess I can assume your silence in those other threads is just because you don't care; or you can give me another reason?

ETA: This post is hard on you, which is unfair; you do better practicing what you preach than many and I have read some valuable contributions of yours to discussions on what I'd deem "more horrendous crimes" then this. But the argument that "I always have time" conflicts with the choices many appear to make in not using the time they do have wisely.

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]

Anyways, whatever, post, don't post...I don't care.

BTW, I have been a member of this board for 5 years now and I have posted on many many topics. I do not need to defend myself.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stargazer:
Babble sure is full of snarky, ill-mannered people today.

---

What's with people today? The compliment to criticism ration is very poor I must say!

quote:

---

What a horrid place Babble is today.

---

quote:

---

to see some underused threads check out activism

---

It also has an awful lot of threads at 0 posts!

But even in "environmental justice" which does see some lively discussion these are in fact devoted to news and politics topics with environmental content as opposed to the much more ambitious discussions on serious issues (not generated from the daily news or legislative drama) such as:

Are livable cities just a dream?

Ecosocialism II

quote:

---

Originally posted by It's Me D:
I think unionist has a point. It seems to be the opposite of the approach he took to the lack of NDP criticism of the Israeli Ambassador to Canada's recent statement, but I agree that both are relative non-issues when considered in the wider context of Israel's real (as opposed to symbolic) horrendous crimes and the need to oppose such.

---

Actually, Baker's comments were an attack on Canadian sovereignty and an invitation to Canada to adopt a racist immigration policy [we still are allowed to call anti-Muslim hatemongering "racist", aren't we?]. It required condemnation by all Canadians.

Israel bans hundreds of thousands of ex-residents and their descendants from immigrating, from reclaiming their land and homes, from even visiting. That is a crime against international law, against humanity, and an abomination.

But banning a foreign professor from visiting is actually a sovereign right of every country. It's probably one of the few legal things Israel has done this decade.

ETA: I and many others support academic boycotts of apartheid Israel. How exactly do you do that and still complain that "they won't let us in"? Am I missing something here??

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

quote:

---

When the U.S. bans Finkelstein from practising his career by denying him tenure, and when Canada bans controversial speakers from entering here, then Israel banning its admitted enemy from visiting is kind of a non-event. It deserves to be placed in perspective.

---

Sigh.

1. Denial of tenure is not the same as being unable to "practise his career".

2. "The US" did not "ban" Finkelstein from anything.

3. Israel has no right to ban "an admitted enemy" unless that enemy has undertaken specific acts in violation of Israeli law.

4. While Israel has claimed that Finkelstein was banned for meeting with Hezbollah, civil libertarians will not accept that argument unless there is evidence that it was for an unlawful purpose.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

3. Israel has no right to ban "an admitted enemy" unless that enemy has undertaken specific acts in violation of Israeli law.

---

Are you seriously suggesting that a sovereign country (even one with blood on its hands) has "no right" to deny entry at its borders to any visitor that it feels like rejecting - without even bothering to state a reason?

You'd better explain that slowly to the Canadian border security services. They foolishly believe that Canada decides, unilaterally, whom to admit or not.

quote:

---

Are you seriously suggesting that a sovereign country (even one with blood on its hands) has "no right" to deny entry at its borders to any visitor that it feels like rejecting - without even bothering to state a reason?

---

Sovereignty allows a state to decide who is admissible to its territory.

States pass LAWS which EXPRESS this sovereignty.

States which deserve respect are those which do not exclude ANYONE unless the person is described in law as excludable.

Canada Border Services is required to operate within the parameters of law. If it does not, an aggrieved person may appeal a decision to exclude.

quote:

---

Israel bans hundreds of thousands of ex-residents and their descendants from immigrating, from reclaiming their land and homes, from even visiting. That is a crime against international law, against humanity, and an abomination.

But banning a foreign professor from visiting is actually a sovereign right of every country. It's probably one of the few legal things Israel has done this decade.

---

Agreed.

quote:

---

I and many others support academic boycotts of apartheid Israel.

---

I am not certain I'd support this strategy. Visiting Israel only if allowed complete academic freedom as to the content of any material presented there and being banned as a consequence seems better then a boycott; it provides more opportunity. Unless you mean to suggest a blockade as opposed to a voluntary boycott, that might be a good option.

quote:

---

It [the Ambassador's statement] required condemnation by all Canadians.

---

I agree and its [the Ambassador's statement is] right there at #7326 on my list of things requiring condemnation by all Canadians; I think you'd agree that comdemning the actual destruction and suffering wrought upon Muslims rates much higher.

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
I hope Finkelstein appeals.

---

I hope Finkelstein appeals, in my capacity as someone who believes that the decision to exclude him was improper.

I do know Israeli lawyers, and will help him find good counsel if he wishes.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
But in the interim, go ahead! Post a link to the relevant Israeli statute.

---

Jeff, remember which side you're on here.

You said Israel has "no right" to exclude him. You did relent, however, and admitted that Israel has every right to exclude him, though it may have some laws of its own (which you are not familiar with) that may condition that right. You then want him to appeal. And you want me to find the law for you?

No.

The only law of racist expansionist Israel that interests me is the one that says that I have the right to land there and become an instant citizen because I'm Jewish, while those whose ancestors resided there for centuries will be stopped at a checkpoint if not shot on sight if they try to enter.

Next to that, Finkelstein's efforts to enter Israel seem trivial and diversionary to me.

Anyway, no progressive person should visit Israel IMO. Israel should be isolated and shunned as the pariah state that it is. I support the boycott movement:

The Case for a Boycott of Israel

quote:

---

It is finally time. After years of internal arguments, confusion, and dithering, the time has come for a full-fledged international boycott of Israel. Good cause for a boycott has, of course, been in place for decades, as a raft of initiatives already attests. But Israel's war crimes are now so shocking, its extremism so clear, the suffering so great, the UN so helpless, and the international community's need to contain Israel's behavior so urgent and compelling, that the time for global action has matured. A coordinated movement of divestment, sanctions, and boycotts against Israel must convene to contain not only Israel's aggressive acts and crimes against humanitarian law but also, as in South Africa, its founding racist logics that inspired and still drive the entire Palestinian problem.

---

quote:

---

Sfard met with Finkelstein and told him he could appeal the ban; however, Finkelstein said he has been to Israel at least 15 times and declined to appeal.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Well, it turns out that Finkelstein's own lawyer thinks that he has a right to appeal this exclusion from Israel.

---

Of course a country like Iran, or Cuba, just declare people 'persona non grata" and let it go at that.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:
Well, that's true. But it is important to insist that countries with serious legal systems obey their own laws.

Of course a country like Iran, or Cuba, just declare people 'persona non grata" and let it go at that.

But then they should be exposed as lawless.

---

Isn't is more a matter of the "rule of law"?

Though I don't think those states, singled out by the US, are the only culpable ones.

Right now I'm utterly freaked out about Italy, having lived there after all. Yet ANOTHER pogrom against immigrants of colour, after the anti-Roma pogrom.

It may be hypocrtical to condemn such in the face of the same kind of treatment of intellectuals here, and if that is his point, good enough, but another to support the prinicple of it.

In anycase, the Israeli ambassador has this to say about academic freedom:

quote:

---

Ron Prosor, Israeli ambassador to the UK, said: “Any call to an academic boycott on Israel is an act of folly since boycott stands as a contradiction of what academy symbolizes and represents.

---

Glenn Greenwald has a good piece in Salon which quotes the Jerusalem Post and then comments:

from the JPost:
"American political scientist and fierce critic of Israel, Prof. Norman Finkelstein, was denied entry to Israel and deported from the country early Saturday morning. Officials said that the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world. . . . "

Greenwald:
"It's unclear what "anti-Zionist" in that context is supposed to mean, since Finkelstein has long advocated for a two-state solution based on Israel's 1967 borders -- the position that can, more or less, be described as an international consensus -- but what matters here is the acknowledgment that the exclusion was viewpoint-based.