The Dersh and the Don

If you've managed to avoid the Alan Dershowitz-Norman Finkelstein contretemps, congratulations: You live a full enough life not to notice when two grown men get into the academic equivilent of an Ain't It Cool News talkback thread. Short version: Finkelstein claimed that Dershowitz plagiarized a few passages in his book on Israel, Dershowitz called Finkelstein a Holocaust denier, Finkelstein commissioned a cartoon of Dershowitz masturbating to news footage of the Israel-Hezbollah war, Dershowitz lobbied aginst Finkelstein's application for tenure. Dershowitz's wrap-up in The New Republic includes this hilarity:

I've been a leading villain of this effort. Chomsky has accused me of launching a "jihad." (I am not alone, it should be noted, in opposing Finkelstein's tenure: The president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights argues, "Finkelstein lacked the requisites associated with academic excellence.")

Yes, the Catholic League and Bill Donohue - the artillery you need when you're trying to blast an alleged anti-semite.

Tim Cavanaugh on Donohue and the rest of the outrage industry here.