It used to be said that I had a steel trap memory. But, much to my frustration and grief, it once failed me. In response to a question after a talk I gave on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I noted that the notion of “tough Jews” was pervasive in Zionist discourse, citing Professor Paul Breines’ book Tough Jews: Political Fantasies and the Moral Dilemma of American Jewry. I then went on to note that the character named Ari Ben Canaan in Leon Uris’ novel Exodus gestured to this appeal of Aryan physical types. I was immediately assailed on this point by Alan Dershowitz, who ran with it in order to discredit my academic bona fides. For example, during my tenure case at DePaul University, Dershowitz sent every member of DePaul’s faculty and administration a sixty (60) page dossier (half of it single-spaced, half double-spaced) in order to persuade DePaul that I was a crackpot. Among the allegations was this item, which I am quoting in full:
— source normanfinkelstein.com | Norman Finkelstein | Feb 2, 2023
