Robert Fisk praises extremist who called Zionists “Nazis with beards and black hats”.

Here’s what The Independent’s ‘award winning’ Middle East analyst Robert Fisk wrote about Jewish writer Norman Finkelstein in his May 5th op-ed, in the context of praising the putatively pro-Palestinian sympathies of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Again, it was a Jewish academic – Norman Finkelstein, another noble soul like Gideon Levy – who has been pointing out that Sanders, the first Jewish presidential candidate in US history, has been “sweeping the Arab vote” in all the primaries and “forged a principled alliance with Arabs and Muslims”. 

A “noble soul”?

You might recognize the following image that Finkelstein shared on his blog on August 4, 2014 suggesting the ‘Jewish problem’ in the Middle East can be solved “transporting” Israel’s Jews to America.

naz

As you also likely recall, a day later, it was shared on Facebook by one of the more high profile Labour Party members embroiled in the current antisemitism scandal, Naz Shah.

naz fb

 

Shah was then suspended by the party. 

But, that’s not all.

Finkelstein is on record supporting Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement, suggested that the U.S. deserved the attacks on 9/11 and that “the U.S. qualifies as the main terrorist government in the world today.”  Even more disturbingly, in his book ‘The Holocaust Industry’, he characterized the Holocaust as an “extortion racket” and wrote the following about Zionism: 

“The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.”

To those who would respond by suggesting that Fisk may be a general fan of Finkelstein, though innocently unaware of the quotes cited above, an op-ed he published at the Indy in 2000 would suggest otherwise.  His column, curiously devoted to questioning why the Holocaust is given a capital “H”, specifically refers to a claim made in Finkelstein’s book to back up his complaint that the Holocaust can be used to “diminish the genocide committed against other ethnic groups”.

Whilst Fisk’s penchant for fabrications and wild, unsubstantiated allegations against Israel are widely known and well-documented, lionizing a figure with such extremist views takes his crusade against the Jewish state to whole other level.  

 

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