Beyond Chutzpah in bullet points

Matthew Abraham has very helpfully reduce Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah to bullet points here:

these elements in the Holocaust Industry’s juggling act are identified...:

* The Holocaust uniqueness thesis, which states that Nazi genocide and the death of six million Jews cannot be compared to other mass slaughters. This sacralization of the Holocaust, with the “never again” mantra morphing into “if ever again; not us alone” mentality, allows Israel to function as a “crazy state” (a term of art within the international relations literature suggesting how Israel can blackmail the international community with promises of cataclysmic violence if crossed or denied military or diplomatic support) as the only country in the region possessing the nuclear weapons capable of destroying the region and most of the world;

* Zionism equal Judaism. In fact, Zionism suppressed diversity of expression among Jews in the wake of the Holocaust;

* Anti-Semitism is irrational and eternal—consequently there can never be a justifiable expression of animus toward Zionist Jews, no matter how reprehensible are Israeli actions;

* Zionist Jews can not be condemned because everything Jews do, according to philo-Semitic doctrine, is beyond reproach;

* To reproach Zionist Jews in their support of Israel is to traffic in anti-Semitic stereotypes;

* Israel, as the homeland of the Jewish people (although many Jews refuse to allow Israel to speak in their name), is always justified in what it does—no matter how horrific the consequences may be for others;

* Israel is a democracy even though its right of return only applies to Jews and is governed by racist landholding laws;

* Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and until recently, Gaza, were justified by security measures and apparent biblical warrant—despite being in contravention of international law, particularly U.N. Resolution 242, which requires Israel to withdraw to the June 1967 Green Line, along with minor territorial adjustments;

* Despite the uniform judgments of human rights organizations that Israel employs torture against Palestinian detainees, uses illegal detention, and the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes in occupied territory, Israel’s apologists undermine international law because it does not conform to Israel’s or the United States’ wishes for the Middle East region;

* Israel can be described as a model democracy because it maintains respect for the rule of law which no other country facing similar threats has.

The book's still worth reading in full.