Hey guys check out this article by Ori Ben-Zeev which concerns the Norman Finkelstein lecture 2 weeks ago. This highly controversial man still has tongues wagging so take this opportunity to respond to Ori's article and wag yours!
Before I begin discussing what I felt about the lecture of Norman Finkelstein at Wits last week, let me point out that this discussion has nothing to do with anything he said, and that I’m not going to even go near that. In fact, my discussion here could suffice on what I saw outside the seminar room. This is hardly a new issue at all, and is the same one that upset me at the beginning of the year. Before the issues of right and wrong, of truth and lies, and of justice and injustice, comes the question of how we wish to approach a matter. Never have I seen a better predictor of actions and statements than the immediate position along a categorical divide that the Israel-Palestine conflict has created.
Outside the Finkelstein lecture stood two men holding placards that read “Norman Finkelstein does not represent the Jewish view” (or something closely to that effect – I’ll admit I can’t remember the words verbatim). What was frightening was by no means their presence or the resentment on their faces, but the wording of the placards: the Jewish view. One could interpret this in a number of ways. It could mean that there is such an independent view in the conflict, and that Finkelstein was not part of this. At the very best, it could mean that he portrayed himself as being the delegate of this “Jewish view”, when he was not, and I do not think this view could hold. More sinister, is that Finkelstein should hold this view (being Jewish himself), but does not. The placards could only have served to give me one of two warnings: either that I should not consider him to portray a Jewish perspective, or that I should not listen to his perspective because it was not the Jewish one. I will not delve into how best to interpret this. Even if I grant the two men the benefit of the doubt, the problem I wish to raise is still visible: that there is a clear distinction of two sides, and an insistence that these fit into either of these: the Jewish side, or not the Jewish side.
Even before I arrived at the building I came across the problem in a much clearer light. Sitting with two friends, I announced that I was going to this lecture. When I explained that it was on the Israel-Palestine issue, one friend asked which side Finkelstein represented. The other responded that it was probably the Israeli side. I felt awkward to answer that he actually supported the Palestinian side. Again, clear was the distinction, and Finkelstein had to fall to either side. In the same way as a woman is either pregnant or not, Finkelstein had to support Israel or Palestine.
And even though I promised not to delve into Finkelstein’s lecture, it does not hurt to peek through the door to the seminar room and scan the crowd and listen to their questions. While sitting in the room I clearly felt two powerful groups around me: a group of ardent supporters of Palestine, and de facto, Finkelstein, and a group of ardent supporters of Israel who were vehemently against him, and were aggressive in their questions. Few were those who were neutral, and probably invisible. Certainly Finkelstein himself was obviously not neutral, but that is beyond my analysis for the time being.
My only question is this: why are there no speakers who are clearly neutral and objective on this issue? I saw this last year when an expert on Darfur came to speak, and gave us the material facts without adamantly picking a side. Perhaps it is because we do not allow people to be neutral: we insist on them taking one side or another – certainly I myself have been subject to such pressure, although, interestingly, only when people have considered me not on their side. But even with major politicians and key stakeholders, we demand to see a clear position. That is why we cannot accept ambivalence from Barack Obama: there appears to be an undertone that either he must choose a side unequivocally, or we will do so for him, if we have not done so already. Even Justice Goldstone, a Jew, it is argued, was appointed in order to allay Israeli concerns about international structures being on the other side.
My concerns are self-evident. If we insist on defeating the objective stance, the position from outside, then we cannot expect this conflict to ever be resolved. Both sides claim to be for peace and justice, but neither side is willing to recognise the other side as a necessary counterpart in this. As Prilleltensky points out, there cannot be any sense of justice without looking at the what is due to one party and what is due to the other as relational, and not as isolated fragments. So I’m not advocating the infamous ‘view from nowhere’, but rather that we do not divide the Israel-Palestine conflict along a single deep fault line and insist on picking sides.
Upon my friends’ discussion when I left for the lecture I could not help but feel like they were speaking of a soccer match. Either he supported Israel, or he supported Palestine, in the same way that one either supports Pirates or one supports Chiefs: you categorically can’t support both. If this appears to boil down the Israel-Palestine conflict to a riot of opposing soccer hooligans, then perhaps this is a critique that must be taken. And on this I am not laughing. Indeed the Middle East conflict is serious, but if we insist on childishly picking sides, then we cannot consider ourselves as more than that.
