Norman Finkelstein and Disputation, and: Be That As It May
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Norman Finkelstein
Welcome to Tribal World! We're killingeverybody, of course, killing those likeus and those unlike us too. We're hi-
jacking the tragedies, denying history,denying the deniers, denying that itwill all become history. We're calling [End Page 96]
in the lawyers. We're nominatingbankers. We're writing books becausethe spirit is in us. Sir, you cannot
buy a finer book for all the hummus inPalestine, the beer in Germany, thepork in the U. S. of A. A little
treyf goes a long way, so here inour gift shop we have baubles foryour wives, your concubines, your
sons to whom you will give yourkingdom, and may they not squabbleover it, God forbid. May they
have a lot of nerve, a word trans-lated from our old and venerabletongue, a word which they will
inscribe and place upon the altar,securing the bounty of the administration,tenure, client states, and the deep
structure of every language they haveever spoken and disgraced.
"Norman Finkelstein" is an object, not a subject.
Disputation
Let it be gathered, let it be folded. What dothe doves say? I don't know;I don't speak the language. All I do
is listen. It's all I've ever done.Con artists and magicians, rabbis,saints, beggars, and all the little [End Page 97]
contraptions found on the stairs.No fixed address. Yes, because it'sbroken and cannot be mended. Schuster,
it speaks but not to you. Schuster,this is a tree, this is a house, this isthe wind. Thump, thump. He speaks
Yiddish but with an Italian accent, orvice versa efsher. What do thestars say? This I know, they say
we're not speaking to you, we neverreally liked you. They say forget it,we are at bloody war, the welkin
is weeping and will keep on weeping.Tom said so, and he's one of yours,whether you like it or not. You do?
You think you can handle it? Then hereis the score. Not that messiah—this one.
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I was thinking of the Borscht Belt joke about thenearsighted Indian—how, if told by the right personin the right auditorium, it would lead to extensivetheoretical speculation, a dissertation or two
written at some large midwestern institutionof higher learning. And you think this comes fromelsewhere? Frankly, yes, because where elsecould it come from, given what some would [End Page 98]
call a style and others a track record? Don't eventhink about sending it away. Keep it for your own,cherish it, dress it all in white. The level of disorder,ratio of noise to musical truth, continues to increase,
but no one is sure if this is a good thing. Still,you've got to love it, especially the flights, threeounces each, when the nine o'clock bird beginsto sing. My chutzpadik muse, when I hear the rustle
of your travelwear after a long day, I wouldn'texchange my mimetic desire for all the visitingprofessorships in China. What is extinction,what is escape, compared to this?
Nothing again nothing.
Norman Finkelstein is the author of four books of criticism and five books of poetry, including, most recently, Passing Over (Marsh Hawk Press, 2007). On Mt. Vision: Forms of the Sacred in Contemporary American Poetry is forthcoming from the University of Iowa Press. He is a Professor of English at Xavier University.
