Posted on 03/22/2005 6:23:21 PM PST by Alouette
Evil is so predictable, it dresses in sheeps clothing, demanding freedom of speech, and as soon as it is allowed, it attacks the freedom of others, every time.
Homosexuals complained, wanting to "come out of the closet", because practicing sodomy in their own homes privatly was not "fair". Now they send activists into church home groups and congregations to hunt down "homo-fobia" where ever it can be found. I guess Christians are not even allowed the closet...
Here's Alexander Cockburn on the Dershowitz plagiarism:
Dershowitz: The Case of the Plagiarist Prof (continued)
For those who care to follow such things, here is Prof Alan Dershowitz's effort at rebuttal of my recent excavation of his plagiarisms in his awful book The Case for Israel. Dershowitz's bluster is followed by my closing speech for the prosecution.
First Dershowitz:
Alexander Cockburn's politically motivated claim that I "plagiarized" from Joan Peters is total nonsense Let's begin with what is undisputed: Every word written by others appears with quotation marks, is cited to their original or secondary sources and is quoted accurately. This means that they are not plagiarized. James Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has concluded, after reviewing the relevant material, that what I did was "simply not plagiarism, under any reasonable definition of that word."
Cockburn's claim is that some of the quotes should not have been cited to their original sources but rather to a secondary source, where he believes I stumbled upon them. Even if he were correct that I found all these quotations in Peters's book, the preferred method of citation is to the original source, as the Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: "With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This ... helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism...To cite a source from a secondary source ('quoted in ...') is generally to be discouraged..."
It is especially cynical that Cockburn would have me cite the quotes to Peters, since Norman Finkelstein-his source-has alleged that Peters herself originally found these and other quotes in earlier books. Should I have cited those books? That is why citing the original source is preferred.
I came across the quoted material in several secondary sources. They appear frequently in discussions of nineteenth-century Palestine. The Mark Twain quote, highlighted by Cockburn, appears in many books about the subject. I came across it in 1970 while preparing a debate about Israel for The Advocates. Cockburn also points out that I quote some of the same material from the Peel Report that Peters quotes, but he fails to mention that I also use many quotes from the report that do not appear in Peters's book. I read the entire report and decided which parts to quote. I rely heavily on the Peel Report, devoting an entire chapter (six) to its findings. They are quoted directly, with proper attribution.
Cockburn refers to Finkelstein's "devastating chart," which compares several quotes from my books with quotes from Peters's book. By juxtaposing these quotes, he makes it appear that I am borrowing words from her. But these are all quotes-properly cited in my book-from third parties. Of course they are similar, or the same. One does not change a quote. And since I did find some of the quotes in Peters's book, as she found them in others, it should come as no surprise that the ellipses are sometimes similar or the same.
It is important to recall that my book is a brief for Israel. It does not purport to be a work of original demographic research, as Peters's does. A few pages are devoted to summarizing the demographic history, and these pages rely heavily on quotes from others to make my points. I found most of my quotes in secondary sources. When I was able to locate the primary source, I quoted it. When I was unable, I cited the secondary source. Contrary to Cockburn's implication that I cited Peters once, I cited her eight times in the first eighty-nine pages (Ch. 2, fn 31, 35; Ch. 5, fn 8; Ch. 12, fn 34, 37, 38, 44, 47). Of my more than 500 references, fewer than a dozen were found in Peters and cited to original sources. Although we use a few of the same sources-and we each use many sources not used by the other-I come to different conclusions from Peters about important issues. As I made clear in my book, "I do not in any way rely on" Peters's conclusions or demographic data for my arguments. Peters's basic conclusion is that only a small number of Palestinians lived in what later became Israel. She provides specific figures, which have been disputed. My very different conclusion is that:
"There have been two competing mythologies about Palestine circa 1880. The extremist Jewish mythology, long since abandoned, was that Palestine was "a land without people, for a people without a land." The extremist Palestinian mythology, which has become more embedded with time, is that in 1880 there was a Palestinian people; some even say a Palestinian nation that was displaced by the Zionist invasion.
The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in between. Palestine was certainly not a land empty of all people. It is impossible to reconstruct the demographics of the area with any degree of precision, since census data for that time period are not reliable, and most attempts at reconstruction-by both Palestinian and Israeli sources-seem to have a political agenda.
I offer very different and rougher estimates, which Cockburn and Finkelstein do not challenge, as they do Peters's. How then can I be accused of plagiarizing ideas or conclusions with which I disagree, from a book that I cite eight times, using the preferred form of citation?
Why then would Cockburn attack me so viciously? The answer is in his sentence bemoaning the fact that a pro-Israel book is "slithering into the upper tier of Amazon's sales charts." He disapproves of my message and of the fact that it is reaching a wide audience. Instead of debating me on the merits, he has tried to destroy my credibility with a false accusation. (This is not the first time he and Finkelstein have gotten together and employed this tactic against people with whom they disagree.)
Let people read The Case for Israel and judge it for themselves against Cockburn's charges. I have sent his attack and my response to President Summers. I have nothing to fear from false charges.
Alan M. Dershowitz
Alexander Cockburn replies
Every time he tries to leap to firmer ground,defending the rotten standards of scholarship in his rotten book Dershowitz simply sinks in deeper. Start with his defiant declaration from the dock that he did not commit plagiarism because "Every word written by others appears with quotation marks, is cited to their original or secondary sources and is quoted accurately." This skates (rather clumsily, I have to say) round the question of what source Dershowitz actually did use for his citation and whether or not he acknowledged it. Often he used Peters and pretended he didn't, which would get him into very hot water at Harvard if he was a student and not the Felix Frankfurter professor.
Here are Harvard's own rules, as set forth in "Writing with Sources A Guide for Harvard Students Copyright 1995 The President and Fellows of Harvard University":
"Plagiarism is passing off a source's information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them." And also: "When quoting or citing a passage you found quoted or cited by another scholar, and you haven't actually read the original source, cite the passage as 'quoted in' or 'cited in' that scholar both to credit that person for finding the quoted passage or cited text, and to protect yourself in case he or she has misquoted or misrepresented"
I discussed only Dershowitz's first two chapters, as dissected by Norman Finkelstein, Dershowitz's nemesis in this whole affair, who points out that 22 of the 52 footnotes to these chapters are lifted from Peters without attribution. Finkelstein recently laid waste Dershowitz's attempts at self-exculpation in the Harvard Crimson. As Finkelstein points out, One problem for the beleaguered prof comes in the form of ellipses. Dershowitz echoes Peters' ellipses. Another problem identified by Finkelstein: When it comes to Twain, Dershowitz cites from one edition and Peters from another, but the page numbers he cites are from Peters' edition, not his. So Peters' text is where he got the quote from.
Yet another problem goes to the concluding sentence from the Harvard guidelines quoted above. Dershowitz echoes Peters' mistakes. From Twain she cites as one continuous paragraph what are in fact two separate paragraphs separated by 87pp. Dershowitz follows suit. He's handcuffed to Peters in a more serious breach of scholarship when he plagiarizes her erroneous citation of a British consular official's supposedly first-person description to Lord Canning of an instance of anti-Semitism in Jerusalem. The description was not Young's, but a memorandum by one A. Benisch, which Young was forwarding.
Another bloodied glove, as it were, comes with Dershowitz's attribution of the admittedly unlovely neologism "turnspeak" to George Orwell. This was a coinage by Peters, who cited Orwell as having inspired it. Glazed with literary pillage, and ever eager to suppress the fact that he was relying heavily on one of the most notorious laughing stocks of Middle Eastern scholarship, Dershowitz seized on Orwell as the source, once again cutting out Peters out.
Quoting the Chicago Manual Dershowitz artfully implies that he followed the rules by citing "the original" as opposed to the secondary source, Peters. Of course we know he didn't but, aside from that, he misrepresents the Manual here, where "the original" means merely the origin of the borrowed material which is, in this instance, Peters.
Now look at the second bit of the quote from the Manual, separated from the preceding sentence by a demure, 3-point ellipse. As my associate Kate Levin has discovered, this passage ("To cite a source from a secondary source...") occurs on page 727 which is no less than 590 pages later than the material before the ellipse, in the section titled "Citations Taken from Secondary Sources." Here's the full quote, with what Dedrshowitz left out set in boldface: "'Quoted in.' To cite a source from a secondary source ("quoted in..") is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed."
So Chicago is clearly insisting that unless Dershowitz went to the originals, he was obliged to cite Peters. Finkelstein has conclusively demonstrated that he didn't go to the originals. Plagiarism, Q.E.D., plus added time for willful distortion of the language of Chicago's guidelines, cobbling together two separate discussions.
Some time ago three judges on a Florida appeals court overturned a $145 million landmark judgment against tobacco companies. In their decision the judges appropriated without acknowledgement extensive swaths of the brief put forward by the tobacco companies' well-paid lawyers. The judges were sued for judicial plagiarism and as so often Dershowitz had a pithy quote: "If a student ever did what this judge did, he'd be tossed out on his rear end from Harvard Law School. We teach our students as a matter of ethics that when you borrow, you attribute."
Professor Sayres Ruby of Amherst, who tells us his credentials are "from the ground up", meaning they are drawn from practices actually used in colleges whose Honor Codes he either enforced (Davidson College) or in that position examined elsewhere (UVA, Citadel) has studied the Dershowitz/Peters case file and writes that "I can say unequivocally that under Davidson College's and other schools' honor codes Dershowitz's quotations constitute plagiarism, with clear attempt to deceive as to (A) his research and (B) his findings. Thus his plagiarism is serious and unambiguous, and if it were a student in question, the debate would regard levels of punishment. Maximum punishments would be considered without any doubt, including at UVA expulsion, at Davidson two-term suspension, and at military schools such as West Point or the Citadel a discharge."
But then, Dershowitz isn't a student. He's the Felix Frankfurter professor at Hasrvard Law School, meaning presumably that he's beyond reform. Two-tier justice for all!
Can you make your point without doing document dumps. Your replies are much longer than the texts of most primary texts of threads.
Simple -- I enjoyed the deft and convincing manner in which he skewered Dershowitz's sloppy, egotistical academic work.
His performance in the debate was devastating. He's a much more effective cross-examiner (as a layman) than Dershowitz (as a professional), which is interesting, to say he least.
Normally, I dislike long reples like you posted above, but in this case...
ROTFLMAO, I've never seen anything like that! Finkelstein ground Dershowitz into dog food! The politics of both of them aside, Finkelstein proved himself to be a master debater and completely dominated that exchange from start to finish. He deftly handled Dershowitz's digressions, interruptions, absurdities and every manner of obfuscation with ease and still managed to drive his point home without ever becoming unpleasant.
That transcript is a classic and should be used as a primary text for a course in the art of cross examination or an undergrad course in communications. What a pleasure it was to read that, thanks for posting it.
--Boot Hill
""Paleo Conservative wrote: "I wonder what causes Jews like Finkelstein and Bobby Fischer to become antisemites?" It's based on fear and hatred of G-d. ... Both of them hate any possibility of American and Israel being secure, both of them hate all Jews and Christians who maintain a semblance of traditional worship of G-d."
Yehuda, you hit the nail right on the head! Amen, brother!
All he did was claim that he read it six times and accused Dershowitz of plagiarizing from Joan Peters. The plagiarism charge is bogus if he included footnotes giving Peters as the source.
He claimed that Peters' book was a lie, but did not provide any examples of any falsehoods it contained. He just dismissed it. How is that "deft and convincing"?
As far as plagiarism, you may have committed that on this thread by cutting and pasting an entire transcript from another source without obtaining permission or giving credit.
There is no jury in this country that would convict an airline of negligence for restraining a drunken passenger on a rampage.
At my alma mater, under the honor code, that would mean immediate expulsion.
Dershowitz used Peters as his primary source, and hid the fact by citing HER primary sources as his sources -- which Finkelstein devastatingly proved.
He was able to prove it because Peters had also, in some cases, cited those sources incorrectly (or obliquely), and Dershowitz had the IDENTICAL "incorrections" in his work.
So it's obvious what Dershowitz did -- he tried to gin up the "original research" credibility of his tome, when in fact he did no original research, and just piggy-backed on her's, and in addition failed to give her research (including faulty research) due credit as the real source.
That is NOT permitted in academic work. The charge is therefore valid.
At my alma mater, under the honor code, that would mean immediate expulsion.
Dershowitz used Peters as his primary source, and hid the fact by citing HER primary sources as his sources -- which Finkelstein devastatingly proved.
He was able to prove it because Peters had also, in some cases, cited those sources incorrectly (or obliquely), and Dershowitz had the IDENTICAL "incorrections" in his work.
So it's obvious what Dershowitz did -- he tried to gin up the "original research" credibility of his tome, when in fact he did no original research, and just piggy-backed on her's, and in addition failed to give her research (including faulty research) due credit as the real source.
That is NOT permitted in academic work. The charge is therefore valid.
I take it you did not attend the University of Colorado.
I was involved in a plagiarism case about eight years ago against a graduate student who copied an article I wrote and passed it off as her own work. So I understand what is "plagiarism" and what is "fair use."
All of this hairsplitting begs the question that Finklestein slammed Peters' work as "all lies" on his own authority, without bothering to go to the trouble of following up on her research.
When I was a law student there, a student was expelled for claiming, as his reason for missing a mandatory class session, that he was sick, when in fact he was out of town. It was harsh, but no quarter was given -- he was expelled.
Per our discussion here, there are obviously 2 different levels; one, whether Dershowitz plagiarized, and two; whether Peters' work is a "fraud", as alleged.
I was not commenting on the second level as a substantive charge, as I hope I made clear. In all the cites I provided, all I saw from Finkelstein himself was a misattribution of a quote ("He's handcuffed to Peters in a more serious breach of scholarship when he plagiarizes her erroneous citation of a British consular official's supposedly first-person description to Lord Canning of an instance of anti-Semitism in Jerusalem. The description was not Young's, but a memorandum by one A. Benisch, which Young was forwarding.")
It was a big deal for Finkelstein, but I'm not knowledgeable about its importance or whether it by itself proves his charge that Peters' work is a fraud.
That's trivial, may just be an honest mistake and in no way disqualifies the entire work.
If Dershowitz copied from Peters in excess of fair use then it's a matter of copyright infringement and intellectual property theft which does not involve Mr. Finklestein. It is a matter for Ms. Peters to pursue with Dershowitz's publishers and their attorneys. Again, this in no way invalidates Peters' original work.
All your massive cut and pastes have done nothing to prove that Norman Finklestein is a gentleman or a scholar, or anything else than a hateful, angry, bitter, vindictive son of a bitch.
No, you're absolutely wrong on this point of the cuts and pastes. It is PLAGIARISM as well as coyright infringement. Copyright Infringement is the cause of action, and copyright is the basis of intellectual property right, with respect to any action that Peters would make, if she so elected.
But PLAGIARISM is based on the duties that Dershowitz has, implicitly, to the academic community as a whole, and expressly to his University in particular.
Finkelstein DEFINITELY proved the plagiarism, even if Harvard elected to take no action.
So? He DID NOT PROVE that Peters' work was "full of lies" as he claimed. It was a diversion to attack Dershowitz.
If Joan Peters wants to follow up on the accusations of plagiarism that's her business, not Finklestein's.
If Finklestein claims that Joan Peters' work has no credibility, let him prove it instead of throwing out red herrings.
Ping
Well, I'm not going to argue the point with you any further, but you're fundamentally wrong about the point -- which I addressed in my previous post -- that it's "Peters" primary duty or right to pursue or not-to-pursue the charge of plagiarism.
You couldn't be more wrong on this point. Plagiarism is an offense AGAINST the academic community, not against the person who's work is plagiarized. That person may be the first, in may cases, to notice, but that's irrelevant. You can plagiarize a dead person's work -- since they're dead and can't complain, does that make it OK? Of course not.
And Finkelstein -- as a scholar in that area -- is PRECISELY the type of person who has a right to bring the charge.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.