As leading Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein resigns from De Paul University – in a case that proves academic freedom in the US is an endangered beast – Haaretz journalist Danny Rubinstein responds to his critics who prefer to avert their gaze:
Ha’aretz columnist Danny Rubinstein had the unrepentant last word after being dropped by a British Zionist organization that objected to his calling Israel an “apartheid” state at a U.N. Palestinian rights conference in Brussels.
“I am not apologizing for what I said,” Rubinstein told a crowd of about 100 Monday evening at the New North London Synagogue, according to several people in attendance. “People do use the word apartheid in my circles. My newspaper increasingly uses that word. This is nothing new.”
“I only started using the word apartheid recently after Jimmy Carter’s book, though I didn’t like the book,” Rubinstein said, referring to “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” He also noted that “even Ariel Sharon used the word ‘occupation,’ which was a word never used before.”