Alan Dershowitz and his at least equally
fraudulent campaign associates
I got the following unexpected e-mail:
Subject: Signature Confirmation - No Tenure for Dr. Norman Finkelstein - 3207 - SWU1234
From: <petitions@petitiononline.com> (PetitionOnline)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 05:55:32 -0700 (PDT)
To: <George.Salzman@petitiononline.com>, <PhD@petitiononline.com>, <Prof.Emeritus@petitiononline.com>, <Physics.Dept@petitiononline.com>, "Univ of Massachusetts at Boston - george.salzman@umb.edu" <george.salzman@umb.edu>
Dear George Salzman, PhD, Prof Emeritus, Physics Dept, Univ of Massachusetts at Boston - george.salzman@umb.edu,
This email message is sent to you from PetitionOnline.com to confirm your signature as "George Salzman, PhD, Prof Emeritus, Physics Dept, Univ of Massachusetts at Boston - george.salzman@umb.edu" on the online petition:
"No Tenure for Dr. Norman Finkelstein"
hosted on the web by our free online petition service, at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SWU1234/
Your signature on the petition is already complete, and there is no need
to reply to this message.
Your signature number for this petition is 3207.
At PetitionOnline.com, we host the petition you've signed, but we didn't
create it. If you would like to comment on the petition, or otherwise
communicate directly with the petition author, you can contact the author at:
Roz Rothstein, info@standwithus.com
I wrote to Rosalyn Rothstein and Petition Online (and Blind CC'd to various correspondents) a note that said, in part:
Subject: FRAUD BY ANTI-FINKELSTEIN FORCES!!!
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:45:09 -0500
To: Rosalyn Rothstein <info@standwithus.com>, Petition Online <petitions@petitiononline.com>
I received an announcement that I signed a "No Tenure for Dr. Norman
Finkelstein" petition. It is totally fraudulent,
i.e. based on falsehood. The e-mail [with the announcement was reproduced here].
The entry of my forged signature appears in a page headed:
No Tenure for Dr. Norman Finkelstein
We endorse the No Tenure for Dr. Norman Finkelstein Petition to DePaul
University Faculty and Leadership.
Read the No Tenure for Dr. Norman Finkelstein Petition
as follows:
3207 Name: George Salzman, PhD, Prof Emeritus, Physics Dept, Univ of
Massachusetts at Boston - george.salzman@umb.edu
Comments: Write directly to the President of DePaul, Dennis H.
Holtschneider (president@depaul.edu)
Whoever is responsible for forging my adherence to this shameful
petition ought to be identified. In my opinion it invalidates the
entire dishonest effort to circulate lies and to smear Finkelstein with
the intention of pressuring the DePaul University administration to
deny his tenure.
Rosalyn Rothstein should either
1) carry out a thorough search for other forged
signatures taken from the petition, We Support A
Fair Tenure Process for Dr. Norman Finkelstein, which is at
http://www.petitiononline.com/nf200704/petition.html , and remove each forged signature,
or
2) arrange with Petition Online to have her entire
petition removed.
I hope, Rosalyn, that, if you did not initiate the forgery, you
will have enough common decency to respond to this e-mail from me, and
not to take the position that even though you didn't do it, you welcome
such forgeries as a windfall. And I hope that each of you who has
signed the petition calling for a fair tenure process for Finkelstein
will check to see if you have been fraudulently added to the 'no
tenure' petition, and, if so, take appropriate action.
By the night of 18 April there are at least five confirmed fradulent signatures, i.e individuals whose views are contrary to those of the petition, and probably a sixth. In a note today, part of which follows, I summarized the current status of the fraud.
Subject: Fraud to dump Finkelstein and the Israel Über Alles (aka Stand With Us) campaign
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:13:45 -0500
I just this morning checked the "Dump Finkelstein" petition and
found that none of the names that appear to be fraudulent in the block
copied here have been removed.
| 3212. |
Charlie Pottins |
|
| 3211. |
Paula Abrams-Hourani |
|
| 3210. |
Miriam M. Reik, PhD |
|
| 3209. |
Kevin Murray |
|
| 3208. |
Kevin Murray |
|
| 3207. |
George Salzman, PhD, Prof Emeritus, Physics Dept, Univ of
Massachusetts at Boston - george.salzman@umb.edu |
Write directly to the President of DePaul, Dennis H.
Holtschneider (president@depaul.edu) |
I've had a lot of mail, which I can't answer individually. I got
a totally unsatisfactory response from Rosalyn Rothstein. Here it is:
From: Roz Rothstein <info@standwithus.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:57:44 -0700
Hello Dr. Saltzman,
Per your note below, please be advised that
we are not forging signatures.
I have no idea who would do such a thing.... because obviously
something is wrong.
We are in the business of playing fairly, but playing.
We entered the debate about this because there was a "pro" tenure
petition going around.
Certainly, we have not been monitoring the petition to see if there is
a misuse of your petition, and certainly there may or may not be....
You believe that Dr. Finkelstein deserves tenure, and my "camp" does
not. That is really about the extent of it.
That does not mean that we would ever deliberately sign on academics
that have not signed the petition.
As a child of Holocaust Survivors, I must tell you that I am deeply
concerned with the messages that Norman Finkelstein brings to the
Israel/Palestinian debate. That being said, I am not in favor of
"cheating" on a petition.
Any names that you have identified that are unlikely to have signed,
please do let me know, and we will request that they be immediately
removed. We will also take a moment to review the signatures posted at
this time.
All the best,
Roz Rothstein, National Director,
StandWithUs
I have not yet answered her, but she is being totally
irresponsible -- saying "We will ... take a moment to review the
signatures posted at this time." A moment -- correcting
fraud is not high on her agenda, as is evident from even a cursory
glance at her Stand With Us website. And of course her ultimate
paragraph also suggests that it is (or should be) our responsibility
to identify likely fraudulent signatures.
The most recent note I got was ... in response to my assurance that my name on the "Dump
Finkelstein" petition was a fraud. It follows:
From: Ellen Cantarow <ecantarow@comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:48:24 -0400
I am quite relieved to hear that you did NOT sign the petition.
When Miriam Reik's and Paula Abrams-Hourani's names (they are two
excellent people on the al-awda-universalist list serve in which I'm
also a participant) appeared, I and my husband took the entire
petition, bloc by bloc, and transferred it to a spread sheet for the
use of people like you. I attach it here. Do take a look at it to see
whether you can find others you know whose names were fraudulently
added.
I think those of us who feel as strongly as we do should contact the
president of De Paul to tell him that at least three names were
fraudulently added.
One other that I spot as a likely fraud is Itzhak Shamir (who has a
satirical comment very much in his vein of writing) I doubt he would
ever sign this petition. ...
The level of invective, ignorance, profanity, is stupefying. Does the
woman who initiated this petition have any clue about the effect of
this idiocy on the petition's recipients?
The lies/slander are equally stupefying. At one point Dershowitz signs,
remarking cheerfully that he's happy so many people are looking at his
website. I'd bet dimes to dollars that most of these signers got their
information from Dershowitz and other flaks for the US Israel lobby,
and that almost none of them has read anything Finkelstein has written.
Those paltry few who may have looked at his writing have done so in the
most profound state of ideological blindness.
I have not had any response from Petition Online <petitions@petitiononline.com>. Of course I do not know whether
Rosalyn Rothstein or anyone in her outfit made any attempt to contact
them to ask for removal of the fraudulent names. But in any case, my
original letter went to both of those addresses (Stand With Us and
Petition Online), so that Petition Online is at fault.
I got the following item. Some excerpts are probably of general interest:
From: Vicki Johnson <vlj@vickijohnson.org>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:48:47 -0700 (PDT)
I created the fair-tenure-process petition for Finkelstein.
Chris [Leadbeater] <charliechimp1@aol.com> sent me your email about the
fraudulent entry on the anti-Finkelstein petition ...
Thank you for the alert. The opposition to Finkelstein as expressed
in much of the anti-NF-petition is pathetic, and forging names taken
from the fair-process-petition is despicable. If you look at
http://www.standwithuscampus.com/
they have an article against Finkelstein, with a graphic that says
"anti-israel events"
And then I found this article by Rothstein
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=15967
What a learning experience this has been for me! I have received hate
mail, and I have spent quite a bit of time trying to maintain the
integrity of the fair-process petition, weeding out entries from
Hitler, Himmler, Julius Streicher, etc. People like Chris have been
very helpful.
If you hear back from the anti-NF-petition creator, please let us know.
My impression, from a brief look at the Israel Über Alles (aka
Stand With Us) website is that it represents total, unprincipled
support for the government of Israel, i.e. for the Jewish Nazis who are
in charge. The following is from their site:
|
Action #3
|
|
General letters to President Bush NOW:
A. Write to the President frequently, use your fax and call the comment
line. The message must be: Please support Israel's fight against
terrorism. There cannot be a double standard between the war being
fought by the US on terrorism, and Israel's same war. TERRORISM MUST
NEVER BE SUPPORTED OR REWARDED. Include: I appreciate all that you have
done in this war against terrorism.
B. Kids letters to President Bush: Apparently President Bush
likes to read children's mail. Talk to the kids in your life. Get them
writing, and send snail mail. Keep those letters flowing. Do letters at
gatherings. The letters should be personal, no "form" letters. Give
your kids a few brief facts, and let them write.
|
So there's Rosalyn Rothstein curling up with one of history's greatest
terrorists and mass murderers, her way of "supporting" the state of
Israel. Oi! Oi! Oi! as we groan (in Yiddish).
Sincerely,
George
P.S. I think Ellen's suggestion that it's important to write
individual letters to the president [and dean, I would add] of DePaul
University is well taken.
All comments and criticisms are welcome. george.salzman@umb.edu>
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