HNN did Steven Plaut the enormous and unwarranted favor of republishing his anti-Finkelstein bilge from Frontpagemagazine. I was rather shocked that a serious history website would provide a forum for a smearmeister like Plaut who, after all has no academic credentials to judge Finkelstein’s work. However, I was pleased that HNN published a defense of Finkelstein by Mark Levine.
What was passing strange about the comment thread for Plaut’s HNN piece was the appearance of a figure who clearly is a sockpuppet for Plaut himself. You’ll notice the shill ‘haim itzhak.’ If you read his comments carefully you’ll notice that he knows things about Plaut that pretty much only Plaut himself can know. He knows, for example, the fine points of his conviction (as twisted and distorted through Plaut’s filter) for libel by an Israeli appeals court. He knows the precise value of the Israeli shekel compared to the dollar on the date of the lower court ruling against him and the value on the date of the appeals court ruling. He knows that Plaut is a “professor” at the University of Haifa, rather than an adjunct as I claimed. Who other than Plaut (and Neve Gordon) would know that he’s appealed his case to the Israeli Supreme Court? One of his sock puppets claims Plaut to be “one of Israel’s leading academics.” Who, other than Plaut would make such a laughable claim? Finally, no one other than Plaut would use the typically Jewish brownshirt rhetoric of calling me a “kapo.” He’s a serial smearmonger against people like Neve Gordon and many others. It practically is his calling card.
But the sock puppetry that was the most hilarious was when ‘haim-itzhak-Plaut’ urged the real Plaut to sue me for libel. I replied, of course, that I’m ready and waiting to defend such a suit, my lawyers having developed a certain expertise in defending against frivolous libel suits.
I’ve alerted HNN’s editors of Plaut’s devious behavior and hopefully they’ll take some action against him since he’s clearly violated the site’s commenting policy:
In order to post comments on HNN’s discussion boards, readers must register their email address and provide their real name. Pseudonyms may be used but only with prior permission from HNN…The real, verifiable name of the poster must be made known to HNN, which will hold that information in strict confidence. Once a pseudonym has been assigned, the user must continue using only that pseudonym…
Though the fact that they published his piece to begin with makes you wonder at their editorial judgment.
Plaut is also known for circulating a celebratory “jingle” on the death of Prof. Tanya Reinhardt. When she died tragically of cancer he distributed a mock song “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” to the Alef list. He or someone in cahoots with him in turn deviously appropriated the e mail addresses of the Alef list to disseminate his “tribute.”
He is also strongly suspected of vandalizing the Wikipedia articles of multiple ideological adversaries. He is even suspecting of vandalizing his own article by removing factual information added there by others.
A stellar example of the human species.
UPDATE: in an earlier version of this post I claimed that a second commenter in the HNN thread, ‘art eckstein’ was also a sockpuppet for Plaut. Art Eckstein is actually a real person who teaches at the University of Maryland. I apologize for this error. However, my claim about ‘haim itzhak’ stands rock solid and I am firmly convinced of its accuracy.
HNN has closed the comments section to the Plaut article. This is disgraceful, because Plaut’s piece contains the following–
” Finkelstein is a crackpot and an open admirer of Holocaust denier David Irving. Finkelstein claims that all Holocaust survivors are liars, hoaxsters, and thieves, extorting Germany. Finkelstein was fired last year from DePaul University in Chicago because he had no academic publications or achievements at all; he has yet to publish his first academic paper. He is regarded to be a Holocaust denier by the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. ”
Anyone reading this who was unfamiliar with Finkelstein would think that he is a Holocaust denier. It’s a funny sort of Holocaust denier who was friends with Raul Hilberg and received his approval and who constantly refers to his Holocaust surviving parents. Is HNN actually going to leave these vicious lies on their website, without even giving readers a chance to rebut him?
Actually, even if they did give readers a chance to rebut, they still shouldn’t have this garbage on their site. They’re so concerned with civility, yet they are willing to allow this.
@Donald:
I’m sorry the editor chose to close comments. I thought he had merely removed the existing comments. I guess he realized there would be continual bloodletting if he didn’t close comments. Both I and another contributor, Peter Kirstein, have let the editor know about Plaut’s reputation & provided some of the background that you mention below. I can’t say for sure whether the editor will ever again publish something by him, but I hope, given our warnings about Plaut’s low character & non-existent credentials with which to judge Finkelstein’s work, that this wouldn’t be the case.
Plaut disgusts me so much I couldn’t even read what he actually wrote. Now that I read the quotation which you provided I’m even sicker to my stomach than I was previously. Every single claim is a outright lie. This Plaut is pure intellectual poison.
Despite of the bad reputation of Plaut, Finkelstein is still a misguided rebel.
The Palestinians need a new guard that can look at the advances of the European culture, justice, and philosophy wth an open mind, to bring the Palestinian society into the age of Enlightenment.
The Palestinian people are not served well by Finkelstein, or by the PLO, HAMAS, and other reactionary leaders.
I hoped that Edward Said would make the correct moves, but he could not.
By giving any support to those Palestinians who declared an eternal war on Israel, we are harming the decent Palestinians.
Since the previous comments are removed and none can be added, it seems to me that HNN owes its readers a big fat retraction and an apology to Finkelstein for the slanders they’ve published. One would hope they’d understand that false accusations of Holocaust denial are just about the lowest thing you can say about anyone.
@Donald:
I agree. You should write (politely) to Rick Shenkman at editor at hnn dot com outlining yr feelings.
Steven Plaut died earlier this year. Coincidentally, the “Runtshit vandal” who had harassed Roland Rance on Wikipedia for years suddenly ceased activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long-term_abuse#Remove_Runtshit.3F
@ CD: My God. I had no idea. And to think that he wrote “Ding dong the witch is dead” all over the internet on Tanya Reinhardt’s death. And he too died of cancer. There is a gruesome justice in that.