This is an important article and Steven Plaut is a good man (and btw, does Finkelstein claim that his own parents were the
only Holocaust survivors in the world?). However (I know . . . I'm always popping up with a "however!"), I am somewhat mystified by his need to frame the whole issue in such a way as to make the pro-Israel position the radical, leftwing, unorthodox heresy which is under attack by reactionaries. He does this by referring to the business as a "witch hunt" (as in rightwing persecution of Communists)and an
auto da fe, to his opponents as "inquisitors," and even manages to dredge the image of Galileo (who taught us that the Bible doesn't necessarily mean what it says, thus throwing the whole Zionist project into disrepute) under attack by the staid, conservative old fogies who enforced piety and orthodoxy.
If G-d spoke at Sinai, then the Jewish/Israeli position is the staid, orthodox, fogey position from which everyone else has deviated. Why then this continuing need of so many to present the Jewish claim to Israel as something radical, daring, "dangerous," and inherently opposed by . . . well, for the lack of a better word . . . the sane?
You're a good man, Mr. Plaut, but please . . . enough with constant invocation of the Jews as "the Canaanites of chr*stendom." It's time for the Jews to be the Israelites of Israel!!!