{Note: The typos and mispellings are all their own.}

Detroit News Editor Denounces Free Speech

Detroit, Sept. 29 – The Michigan office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) expressed deep dismay at a column in today’s Detroit News by editorial page editor Nolan Finley, expressing opposition to a student-organized national conference on Palestine due to be held of the University of Michigan next month.  Finely, who as a professional journalist ought to have more regard for the principles of free speech and academic freedom, systematically distorts the purposes of the conference and suggests that it should not be allowed to take place.

Finely’s objections to the conference are based on two main points: that any discussion of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their original homes, or about divestment from Israel are, by definition, “anti-Semitism.”  Finley seems either not to know or care that the right of refugees to return to their homes is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 4^th Geneva Convention, and was explicitly applied to Palestinian refugees by UN Resolution 194.  Finely also forgets that the United States waged a war in 1999 against Yugoslavia based entirely on the right of Kosovo refugees to return to their homes.  Moreover, the UN Security Council has recently reiterated the “inalienable right of refugees to return” in the context of the conflict in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.  In spite of the clarity with which international law and norms uphold refugee return as a fundamental human right, Finely argues that any discussion of the issue with regard to Palestinians is not only “anti-Semitism” but constitutes a plot aimed at “the destruction of Israel,” and implies that the topic should never be discussed at a university.

Much the same applies to his view that any discussion of divestment from Israel is also “anti-Semitic.”  Finely again either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that the system of ethnic discrimination enforced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories – East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip – is at least as oppressive and objectionable as the depredations of apartheid-era South Africa.  This point has been made by numerous South Africans themselves, both black and white, including Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu.  Nonetheless, in Finely’s blind and blinkered “Israel can do no wrong” mentality, any discussion of such an obvious comparison and the implications for investments, especially for institutions which have rules against investing in states that practice apartheid, is unacceptable.

ADC Michigan Director Imad Hamad said “we are very disappointed that an editor with the Detroit News would take such a strong stance in opposition to free speech and academic freedom.  Mr. Finely seems to feel that if he doesn’t agree with some aspects of an academic conference, or the views of some of the invited speakers, it is therefore appropriate for him to ask that it be canceled.  This totalitarian attitude is not only antithetical to the basic values of his profession, it is also profoundly un-American.  Students and others at the University of Michigan have every right to debate the right of return as it applies to Palestinian refugees and the idea of divestment from Israel.  The fact that such issues make Mr. Finely uncomfortable because of his passionate devotion to the Israeli state is completely irrelevant.  Their right to hold such a conference is as legitimate as his right to publish such a ridiculous column.  That is one of the shinning glories of our great nation: the quintessentially American values of freedom of expression and of conscience.”

Imad Hamad concluded, “Maybe Mr. Finely, rather than judging it beforehand based on his own narrow prejudices and demanding it be cancelled, should consider attending the conference and trying to learn a thing or two about Palestinian human rights.”