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Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair

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Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz, of what Finkelstein called "fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense." Specifically, he noted that in twenty instances Dershowitz's book excerpts the same sentences from the same sources that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, the scholarship of which has been prominently challenged by several writers, including Finkelstein. Many of the excerpts that the books share in common even have their ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out. Dershowitz has responded that all of the excerpts were at least compared to, if not directly drawn from, authoritative texts and that they are accurate. He has also described them as quotations that historians and scholars of the region cite routinely.

In a dispute on the Democracy Now program, Dershowitz offered to donate $10,000 to the PLO if anyone could find any factual errors in the book. Finkelstein showed that Dershowitz had changed a figure of '2,000 and 3,000 Arabs' to '200,000 to 300,000 Arabs'. Dershowitz responded by saying, "Obviously, the phrase 2,000 to 3,000 Arabs refers either to a sub-phase or is a typographical error."

Concluding that Dershowitz drew his excerpts directly from Peters' book while claiming not to have relied on it (in a footnote Dershowitz states that he did not "rely" on the other book for "conclusions or data"), writer Alexander Cockburn has called Dershowitz unscholarly and false, and has proposed that Harvard fire him as a professor. As a staunch defender of Israel, Dershowitz is a popular target of criticism for advocates of Palestinians. He has also proposed that in defense against terrorism the United States consider a warrant system for the use of what some call "strong interrogation methods" and others call "torture," thus drawing fire from civil rights defenders. Meanwhile, Finkelstein has been labelled a Holocaust denier by the Anti-Defamation League.


Example of Similarity in the two books

A. Report followed depressing report, as the economist-historian Professor Fred Gottheil pointed out: […] "wretched desolation and neglect"; "almost abandoned now"; "unoccupied"; "uninhabited"; "thinly populated." (p. 160, Peters)

B. Other historians, demographers, and travelers described the Arab population as "decreasing," and the land as "thinly populated," "unoccupied," "uninhabited," and "almost abandoned now." (pp. 26-7, Dershowitz)

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