Pro-Palestinian Jew lobbies for PCUSA’s divestment resolution
The Layman Online, June 1, 2006
Norman G. Finkelstein, who invariably introduces himself as the Jewish son of survivors of Nazi concentration camps, has joined the lobbying effort to get the Presbyterian Church (USA) to begin its one-sided policy of “phased selective divestment” of its holdings in corporations that do business with Israel.
Finkelstein posted on his Web site a copy of a letter he sent to commissioners and delegates to the 217th General Assembly and thumbnail photographs of a group of Presbyterians packaging and mailing the letter, along with one of his books, Beyond Chutzbah. (Click the photos and they enlarge.) 
Frankelstein’s Web site pictures volunteer preparing mailing to commissioners.
He said “generous contributors and activists” – some included in a collection of 16 photographs of unidentified people participating in a “book party” – handled and paid for the pre-General Assembly mailings to 700 commissioners and delegates and alternates. At the list price of $22.50, 700 copies of Beyond Chutzbah would cost $15,750.
Finkelstein, who teaches political theory at DePaul University in Chicago, has been a long-time activist against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians in their ongoing conflict. In his writings and lectures, he has argued that Israel has misused the holocaust for political purposes and that its outcries against anti-Semitism are exaggerated to get undeserved sympathy.
In his letter to General Assembly commissioners and delegates, he said he was “moved and elated” by the divestment resolution approved by the 216th General Assembly. The resolution “can clearly be justified on moral grounds,” he said.
His letter included a list of what Finkelstein described as Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians. None of the letter condemned Palestinian terrorism, including the random murder of civilians – adults and children – by Palestinian terrorists and the commitment by Hamas, the ruling party in Palestine, to destroy Israel.
Finkelstein is probably best known for his clashes with Alan Dershowitz, a pro-Israel Harvard law professor. In the first drafts of Beyond Chutzbah, he accused Dershowitz of plagiarism, but removed that accusation after Dershowitz threatened a libel suit.