those so many years. some prisoners. are still a lot. because. those so many years. some are hoping. for just. those so many years of. memory. as well. as.

left. behind and now heading towards a closer working relationship. it's

our top story tonight also. ensuring influence abroad under the flag of spreading democracy the money from the u.s. taxpayers pockets ends up funding america friendly politicians overseas the so-called promotion of democracy is being implemented through a network of organizations that officially denying any political affiliation. and one hundred years after the death of one of the world's greatest ever writers we are told stories works and philosophical ideas or is alive and popular as ever the author of celebrated novels war and peace and the commitment is being remembered from russia and the world. this is r.t. from moscow the first part of our close up portrait of norman finkelstein the outspoken critic of israel and jewish son of a holocaust survivor is coming right up. you know the famous joke. a journalist goes around them asks

a russian of oh and it's really the same question he first goes to the russian excuse me what's your opinion of the meat shortage the russian says what's in the pinion. the reporter then goes to the pope excuse me what's your opinion of the meat shortage the pogos what sneaks. you gave goes to the israeli excuse me what's your opinion of the meat shortage is really replies what's excuse me. norman finkelstein speaks for no one but himself and a handful of people who have such hatred for america. came is in this recent credit card shit that if a person walking the streets of london going to treat people he could probably be killed before he made. it

through fear every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated both of my parents who i know who i look i know i thrive. at it for five and exactly the price of the food my parents are missing and might simply and i will not be fighting with israel commits its crimes against the palestinians . norman finkelstein is a professor of political science he's been at the center of numerous heated academic and political disputes you can.

who has ever managed to. look at you there's a plethora of books the rise and fall of. the exploitation of jewish suffering. to look time has a way in some dusty room learning able to speak. today a debate and a new book called the case for israel it's by alan dershowitz who is one of the

nation's foremost appellate lawyers felix frankfurter professor of law at harvard law school and why don't we start with you laying out the thesis of your latest book the case for israel well i want to write a progressive liberal case for the two state solution which i think that most israelis favor and have favored for a long time i argue in the book that no country in history faced with comparable threats both external and internal has ever tried so hard to comply with the rule of law i compare israel favorably to the united states in this regard norman finkelstein your response i was asked to comment in the sky whose new book i went home purchased one copy in fact i purchased two copies i read the book very carefully i did with what someone serious does. with the book. i read the text i went through the footnotes i went through it very carefully and there's only one

conclusion one can reach having read the book and this is a scholarly judgment it's not an ad hominum attack mr dershowitz has concocted a fraud. my parents were survivors of knobs in concentrating. sometimes i was. because. i thought it was going to be like. opening up this new skates everything is going to come out and i wouldn't be able to handle it. the one. my first involvement publicly in the israel palestine conflict was the israeli

invasion of love between ninety two. and the estimates or somewhere around twenty thousand palestinians. all the womanly civilians the killed. and so i started to read for a shit sleep on the israeli post. so now i have both the event and the scholarly commitment and then obviously i'm jewish so i have a personal commitment and the three came together. i saw one back from the occupied territories chairing the first intifada one to live with a couple calls to the families. to fill up enduring relationships.

norman was always a very political person even in tenth grade eleventh grade he was always very political he was probably more political than anybody that i knew with the time and we were many of us very political beings being against the war in vietnam was very was that was involved that was the thing to do but norman was truly was truly against it. you know i could understand why you weren't torn apart by what the u.s. was doing in the. ninety's seeing some to help you see the room girls at least in my shoes being in searing heat from my parents i got the moral commitment but when i got from professor chomsky was

a way to articulate it intellectually without losing the passion and commitment it was a way to do both well and i met him. the time he was a graduate student he was a graduate student at princeton. in the middle east department working on the history of zionism and at that time a book appeared to draw on peter's book from time immemorial which was receiving an enormous praises everywhere under it's a lot of reviews the greatest thing let's check with ice cream. the full force completely preposterous and worthless the book said that there were no palestinians in palestine until the zionists came along and made the desert bloom and then the palestinians began to arrive to palestine it was the

book that was a no value whatsoever it simply recycled very old and stale israeli propaganda but it was the book that american jews want to have because it completely whitewashed israel. and the book was a huge success and received every accolade in america until norman finkelstein wrote a longer view article in which he exposed the spurious scholarship behind that book and i send out my findings to like twenty five people tied them up. and then one side of a morning i got a quote from professor chomsky you know this is noam chomsky and he said i read your findings and they saw on the right to me i mean is going to be controversial

in a generally it isn't but there are certain issues in certain subjects where debate can be difficult. this book is the holocaust industry and moment think the author of welcome to you thank you for having me controversial and i can't not use words mean over you have my. moment because i don't i don't even know so throw at us i remain faithful. to the horrendous suffering of my parents yet then i see how the

course has a long ceased to be a source of morrow or his sorrow in my opinion and it has become a straight out extortion racket i have full of american jews have a fact of holy hijack the nazi holocaust for the last may oh europe. these how one tough have you on the main phone or. an adhesive that isn't in europe as well as the main perpetrators of

a holocaust denial i do slightly disagree with the told opus was what it discusses these betters because i do feel that i remember a specially organized broome's is costly it doesn't just happen it isn't just done by volunteer. there is no avoid something like that organization that we call the dentist. this is not about some construction of memory this is about people using history for their political purposes there is no new anti semitism this is pure fabrication. there is a creation of a new anti semitism to serve the same purpose as was used

for the past twenty years the holocaust industry to divert attention from what's being done to the palestinians so everybody's talking about the new anti semitism instead of what's being done to the palestinians and the wonderful inversion to her israel and its supporters and to the victims and her and the palestinians and their supporters into the victimizers turning reality wholly on its head. my grandmother could not by the way because. she was afraid. and she was very cold. she felt. i was frankenstein's monster in this case finkelstein's and. i had taken her to literally. taken it too

much to heart. and. she felt i was destroying my sort of. son. and david wrote a book called the holocaust industry the whole point of the parish council to trivialise i am not blocking the whole point of the book was to trivialize to minimalize jewish suffering that took place in the holocaust that is not. i think to do with the conflicts going on in the middle east the only thing that it dies is it adds to the tension on campus he made his entire career is based on

was me like. they. were told to respect i'm an old timer i know how deeply frustrating it can be when you're sitting in the audience and somebody goes on for an hour and a half saying things that you find i believe utterly loathe some repulsive and also you think factually incorrect and. i think thanking people should have more than sixty seconds as i said i'll leave it to the patience of the audience when you feel it's going on too long you know how they express your disapproval otherwise they should be allowed to go on. sharing your

speech you made a lot of references to jewish people as well as certain people in your audience not just people in general but certain people especially in your audience to nazis you know that is extremely offensive when certain people. and they're also extremely offensive to people who actually suffered under nazi world i don't respect that anymore i really don't i don't like and i don't respect the crocodile tears to come to their crocodile theory. was. i loudly to finish and i live only here on my i made it very necessary. allow me to finish. i love. oh mike well i don't like to play before an audience the hi-lo course card but since now i feel ok now i was serious compelled to write farmer welcome to our.

mary mary. shylock one thank you for our work well for our. my mate my bro where from mike i'm not i'm from french repaired. every single member of my family and my father right. when i was trying. to. get the father was at auschwitz concentration krav my my brother was in my prime concentration camp every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated both of my parents wonder why of course i know our rising. profile family and exactly crust of the west food for my parents taught me and my proof simply that i will not be silent when israel commits its crimes against the

palestinians i consider nothing more openness. to use various suffering and rather. they're trying to justify not work you're not brutal was very human become a member of the mushroom opposed to what is really fairly clear it's ok to be and so i reply no i do longer to be in him a day or browbeaten by my peers if you had you know you would be crying for the palestinians yes. norman finkelstein is a classic anti-semite. invokes the oldest stereotypes against the jews if he were not a jew that is she i don't think he is a jew he is as someone once put it he's jewish only on his parents' side. if he

were not a jewish person or a person of jewish heritage with a name like finkelstein nobody would have any doubt that he was an anti-semite it's only because he's jewish sometimes i feel that it's a self-feeding to the secular jew hating you good to be critical of israel. many israelis are critical of israeli policies many israelis are. anti zionist even i have no problem with people challenging and critiquing zionism israel israeli policy i would never call a person merely did that anti-semitic what does goes well beyond the. thank. you israel question whatever you feel about the justice or injustice of the

establishment of the state of israel whatever you think about that that's a historical question there is now a current political question all of the palestinians are the palestinians and hobbled to their self their prime or nation there are two people living in doubt when one people have the full rights of statehood in any percent of the land and the people who occupied out land for several thousand years consecutively are being there not their right to self-determination in twenty percent of their homeland thank you thank you. i don't entirely agree with the previous speaker. this is the israeli palestinian called. you see israeli palestinians.

all the out of this whole conflict the wall street journal general scroll down the hill goes to pakistan. it was a story of islamic extremists i guess kidnapped now they kidnapped him because he was an american journalist of that whole overview sleep like all american journalists you must be a cia agent. but also kidnapped him they discovered they would school who's a jew. and as a matter of fact technically speaking it was really. a go so so i did about it. but i made him confess on camera. speaking to video camera cops on them like this one forced him to to fess up the camera i found the jew the son of a jew us. and then they slit his throat. the people who did

that have not been stopped it is really check for people do the problem have a soul in israel. no matter what all the roots of this call for it all we've evolved into a situation today in which a large segments of the world. it's hollywood in the western world and semitism is almost savage in its classical sense large sections of the world and fit in fact it is something that's almost indistinguishable from to satisfy the entire world community say between one in six states depending on the vote the entire world community believes that the palestinians should have their right to self-determination in twenty percent of their homeland yes real and united states are denying them that right it's as simple as that and you can drag in that conservatism the holocaust daniel pearl and everything else but it can't change the fundamental facts the fundamental facts are these the entire world community

supports a two state settlement along the june one thousand nine hundred sixty seven borders israel in the united states the chief rejectionists in the world are opposed to it . many issues with mr finkelstein's position chief among them is his notion that really this cut this situation which has persisted in the middle east for decades really comes down to something very simple it's all the fault to be israelis but i think there are a number of reasons that could explain this for instance popularity with those individuals who support palestinian side of the middle east question first is with . a well read and their take to it spokesperson of their cause second of all and i have to really be quite candid here the fact of the matter is that norman finkelstein is a member of the jewish community and have a member of the jewish community speak out against the state of israel gives his words a certain cachet that no one jew or

a palestinian spokesperson. would simply would not have. to say of course were about israel. let's be clear about one thing in my view as a release have the right to be there they have the right to exercise self-determination in. what's his star palestine i have no question in my mind about that and i have many friends who live there many people who i deeply respect i have no interest whatsoever in playing this game of bashing israel that's not my thing but but. allow me to buy for those of you who are snickering but just as it would be shameful shameful for any german during world

war two to give a lecture singing the praises of germany and just as during the us war in vietnam for me to sing the praises of the us. amid the horror and amid the suffering i'm not going to sing the praises of israel when the war is over when palestinians have equal rights when there is justice there are very happy to join along with everybody in seeing israel's accomplishments and criticizing its faults but not while and when it's torturing the palestinian thing. i question. this is my question here is.

the way. out of state here. we do have the problem every time and effort is may on the palestinian or the europeans to negotiate an end to the violent attacks against israel which i have no fear at all calling terrorist so long as you have no fear calling the leader of the state of israel one of the main terrorists in the world very thing. they say still this is not a problem but war and. that we should just everybody is sure to support victory because they have no idea about the hardships they believe face. they wanted to say i'll get to these things. in the army the life of abusing them is the most precious

thing in the world. uses of self-sacrifice and terrorism but those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from would be. victory nineteen forty five don't call.