Finkelstein on that "antisemitism" report

Norman Finkelstein notes the witness list appended to the "antisemitism" report. I should say here that the only reports I am seeing on this stupid report are reports saying how stupid it is. A friend of mine told me that it got a positive report from some "Anglicans for Israel" hack at the Times but I can't be bothered to look.

Download the Word doc original here.

A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism (Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism, September 2006). To judge by the witnesses (David Cesarani, Lord Janner, Oona King, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Melanie Phillips) and sources (MEMRI, Holocaust Education Trust) cited in the body of the report, much time and money could have been saved had it just been contracted out to the Israel Foreign Ministry.[1]

1. The report's statement that "we received no evidence of the accusation of anti-Semitism being misused by mainstream British Jewish community organizations and leaders" (para. 79) perhaps speaks more to the selection of the witnesses than the reality.

Thanks to bimsherman in the comments for drawing my attention to this.