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Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 168... (talk | contribs) at 07:05, 8 December 2003 (label Cockburn a polemicist, which I think is a matter of interpretation but I think indisputable; perhaps now we don't need the (i think excessive) "of which Cockburn has written" clause. removing). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz, of what Finkelstein called "plagiarism." Specifically, Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's book excerpts the same words from the same sources that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, a book about the history of Israel that several critics have accused of distortion, and which Finkelstein has labelled a "monumental hoax." Several paragraph-long excerpts that the two books share in common have ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out; and in one instance Dershowitz referenced the same page number as Peters, although he was citing a different edition of the source, in which the words appear on a different page.

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; a claim that Finkelstein has chosen not to dispute. Dershowitz has characterized the excerpts as quotations that historians and scholars of the region cite routinely, such as Mark Twain and the reports of government commissions.

On the basis of Finkelstein's comparisons, the political polemicist Alexander Cockburn concluded that Dershowitz had drawn his excerpts directly from Peters' book, an act that he called unscholarly. Noting a footnote in which Dershowitz referred to the controversial status of Peters' book and said that he did not "rely" on it for "conclusions or data," Cockburn assessed Dershowitz furthermore as having more or less lied about what Cockburn concluded he did. Cockburn has called on Harvard to fire Dershowitz as a professor. As a staunch defender of Israel, Dershowitz is a popular target of criticism by advocates for Palestinian statehood.

In another related dispute, Finkelstein rose to a challenge that Dershowitz had issued previously, where in defending his book Dershowtiz had offered to donate $10,000 to the PLO in the name of anyone who could find a factual error anywhere within its 264 pages. In a confrontation that was broadcasted on the radio, Finkelstein showed that a reference Deshowitz had cited for a count of between 2,000 and 3,000 emigrant Arabs actually gave the range as between 200,000 to 300,000. Dershowitz replied that the mistake could not have been intentional on his part, because he had used these numbers to counter a claim that no Arabs at all had emigrated during the interval he had been addressing, and because it would only have served his argument better to have gotten the numbers right. "Obviously, the phrase '2,000 to 3,000 Arabs' refers either to a sub-phase [of the emigration] or is a typographical error," Dershowitz said. Finkelstein was not persuaded.

An example of similarity between the two books

Examples from [1]

The Case for Israel p.17

  • In the sixteenth century, according to British reports, "as many as 15,000 Jews" lived in Safad, which was a "center of rabbinical learning."
Source cited: Palestine Royal Commission Report, pp. 11-12.

From Time Immemorial p.178

  • Safad at that time, according to the British investigation by Lord Peel's committee, "contained as many as 15,000 Jews in the 16th century," and was "a centre of Rabbinical learning."
Source cited: Palestine Royal Commission Report, pp. 11-12.

From the original text

Safad, which according to Jewish tradition contained as many as 15,000 Jews in the sixteenth century, became a centre of Rabbinical learning..."
Palestine Royal Commission Report, page 11 (not 11-12).

The Case for Israel p.20

  • Several years later, the same consul attributed the plight of the Jew in Jerusalem to "the blind hatred and ignorant prejudice of a fanatical populace," coupled with an inability of the poverty-stricken Jewish community to defend itself either politically or physically.
Source cited: Wm. T. Young to Viscount Canning, January 13, 1842.


From Time Immemorial p.188

  • In Palestine, [it] was reported: "It is a fact that the Jewish Subjects?do not enjoy the privileges granted to them. This Evil may in general be traced...: I. To the absence of an adequate protection whereby they are more exposed to cruel and tyrannical treatment. II. To the blind hatred and ignorant prejudices of a fanatical populace....IV. To the starving state of numerous Jewish population." (Peters's emphasis)
Source cited: Wm. T. Young to Viscount Canning, January 13, 1842.

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