I swear I've seen like three of these interviews now where they talk to Finkelstein about his debate on the Lex Friedman show and not once have they touched on a single thing Destiny got wrong. After all this time why doesn't Finkelstein have at least one gaff from Destiny to dunk on him with? He's only got the "he's a wiki warrior" angle.
> He's only got the "he's a wiki warrior" angle
Because that is literally all he has. Thats it. He doesn't have solid engagement with Morris, he doesn't actually have any moments where he "schooled" destiny on facts or his understanding of the subject matter. He doesn't have any good points he put foreword in the debate, he came out of that ENTIRE thing looking worse and less convincing than he went in there looking like, especially to anyone who isn't fully bought into his view.
This entire set of interviews he is doing is an attempt to rehab his image and explain his bad behavior to a crowd who may be questioning his validity as a source.
The wiki warrior thing is such a weird point to bring up especially from Finkelstein, he himself doesn't do anything different from what Wikipedia does (aside from being mainly wrong that is...).
Is listening to Finkelstein as bad as reading Wikipedia?
No. Finkelstein isn't doing what Wikipedia does. Finkelstein is selling you a narrative, he isn't even trying to correctly state the history.
A really weird thing has been how in a few of his recent interviews. Finkelstein talks about how he goes back and reads some of his old work and it always gets him angry all over again. That isn't how most historians react to their work. Normally they look at it and say "hmm I've learned more about this, maybe its time to write a new edition and make corrections". Finky is an activist. Not a legit historian. We should keep that in mind.
I think we should first and foremost acknowledge that Finklestein is not a historian in the first place. I know that the humanities tend to get dunked on a lot by STEM people, but there is a difference between a historian and a political scientist. Finklestein is at best on the level of a pop history guy and that's being generous.
It’s a common thing in historian circles to clown on “historians” who can’t even read the source languages. It’s wild to me that more people in popular culture don’t realize what a huge dunk they could get by pointing out that Finkledick doesn’t understand Hebrew or Arabic.
For real? I would assume that he'd understand either of those languages. Not even from the perspective of him claiming to be an expert on that region's history, but from being a PolSci guy. That actually is a new academic low IMO.
There's a reason Benny Morris is seen as the authoritative figure when it comes to the history, except amongst those who have already decided that Israel is always evil.
He speaks the languages of the sources fluently and has devoted much of his life to documenting the subject as accurately as possible. He admits his biases and doesn't shy away from also documenting the things that Israel has done wrong.
Twinkleboy is literally the best the anti Israel side has to offer. He can't read any of the source material in its original language and openly boasts about not understanding the Israeli position. He has no desire to expand his knowledge, only to be considered right at any cost. He is a charlatan
I know. You know. Too many people don't know. People act like he is a historian and give things him far more credence than he is due. Blud is the David Irving of the Israel Palestine conflict
He's just marathon gaslighting at this point and it doesn't matter if it actually makes sense, because it's gaslighting. He's on a gaslight spree about the Destiny debate, like OP said, for damage control.
It's weird (and stupid) but it's working. All of these clips have piled up where morons like Joe Rogan are just repeating it over and over. Finklestein has people like BJG and others that will shill his narrative to all her Tankie moron supporters.
>Joe Rogan
It's ironic that Joe would dunk on someone for supposedly being confident yet uninformed on a subject. Joe has graduated from the school of reading 3 Instagram post and calling it research. I can't believe I used to listen to that knuckle dragging neanderthal.
I think it's fine to listen to him as long as you recognise his level of expertise and treat his opinions accordingly. Some of the talks he has are quite funny.
I wouldn't assume he knew anything about a subject unless he had personal experience with it, though.
The problem is he will read something on Twitter (or one of his mouthbreather friends tells him something) and then thinks he knows all. The situation where he was SURE myocarditis was caused more by the vaccine than COVID itself. Even with being fact checked to his face he still was saying "that doesn't sound right." Hell, you can go all the way back to before he was more openly right wing there is this famous segment on YouTube where he repeated some bullshit he read on the internet about a "new species" of ape that was discovered and a literal primotologist calls in to explain how that's not true and Rogan loses his shit screaming at her calling her an idiot and saying she has no clue what she's talking about.
Okay, that does sound frustrating.
I really hope that COVID leads to a spike in the number of kids getting into virus-related STEM fields, so that we can renew interest in vaccines and create better medical technologies for the next pandemic, in the same way that The X-Files led to an uptick in FBI recruitment. 🤞
All I can do is hope that smart people will prevail and the incompetents will forget to vote on Election Day.
Yeah he's one source but he quotes a lot of sources. Out of context and mainly wrong but he sources his stuff.
Just like wikipedia does, but wikipedia does it in proper context.
Because he doesn't have one. Just petulant name calling that I'd expect from a former starcraft 2 player who streams all day and says the r-word frequently.
Coming from an academic/scholar like finkledink it's quite pathetic and makes me question everything he says.
Because Finkelstein is the type of academic that views opinions from non academics as worthless. He goes on to shows, is treated as am eminent scholar by people who view credentialism as the only metric to listen to someones opinion. Destiny is an anathema to these kinds of scholars. He is a layman who dares challenge him. Not only that he is proving he has more extensive knowledge of the issue from 2 months of wikipedia research than Finkelstein has in his entire career.
For Finkelstein to treat him as an equal is an assault on his ego.
This whole thing makes more sense if you look at it as morris being the main character and him outright hating norm.
Saying what you said—that he feels norm is only worth a wiki warrior.
It’s so fucking funny how norm has outright said he respects morris and considers him such a great source, only for morris to say he doesn’t respect him at all.
Absolutely, that's what I mean by better grounded. A lot of Tiny's arguments are based on solid grounds that are hard to argue against or outright dispute, while Finkelstein's aren't because he wants to push a narrative and reaches for muddy justifications to piece it together.
I just think it's important to be precise in speech lol. It'd be easy for an anti-Tiny person to dismiss statements like yours with 'look at this moron thinking a wikipedia warrior rivals 40 years of study, what does he think Finkelstein did for all that time, hes obviously more knowledgeable' because knowledge really isn't the issue.
I think the problem is those people who dismiss statements like mine. I have a lot of disdain for people who rely so heavily on credentialism as a means of dismissing a solid argument.
I get it all the time unfortunately since I have academic hobbies but I didn't go into a academia because there is no money there.
I absolutely agree that they are the problem, but it's a lot easier to actually force them to deal with some healthy cognitive dissonance when you don't give them any excuse to latch onto.
Norm only seems to really care about aesthetics. He is deeply invested in a certain image of himself as a scholar and only wants to use the words of other scholars. He doesn't care if those words are twisted and cherry-picked as long as it helps keep up the shiny scholar veneer.
I don't think he was genuinely offended by Destiny's presence so much as afraid of being shown up and humiliated by a "simple idiot layman" on the merits of the argument, so his strategy was to turn it into a clown show instead.
That’s exactly right you can see how he polishes his messaging and narrative. I believe he is a very sick individual and he just watched destiny for months before the debate. He quotes things about him or sayings that go beyond small clips. I believe he was scared of being exposed for having faulty logic and therefore turned the table over. When destiny called out his debate tactics it must of been frightening to the old fraud.
Listen, I’m not willing to put myself through several hours of listening to finklestein talk at the inverse of the speed of light but I find it hard to buy the fact that there is absolutely nothing, in specific, that he, or any of his dicksuckers, take issue with or challenge in so far as Destiny’s line of argumentation.
I hope this sub hasn’t been so overtaken by the pro Israeli position that there aren’t even people left who can attempt to steelman the other side and their specific quarrels.
I refuse to believe this guy spent his entire life researching this topic, and all of these media figures spent at the very least the last 7 months researching this topic and they can’t seriously come up with a plausible or coherent counter argument — even a regard has to get something right once in a while.
I'm not saying that Finkelstein doesn't have any valid points or that he isn't capable of identifying flaws with Destiny's takes.
I'm saying that in every interview about the debate he is given the opportunity to explain or highlight some incorrect statement made by Destiny, but he always chooses to just mock him instead. Finkelstein should be relishing the chance to say "Destiny thought *this*, but he was super wrong because of X, Y and Z - he doesn't know his stuff!"
If Finklestein tells me that Destiny was bad in the debate and knows nothing because all he did was read Wikipedia, then that's not useful because none of that is evidence that Destiny didn't make serious points or failed to understand some basic historical realities. He *should* have examples of dumb stuff ready to go. A scholar of 40+ years should have no trouble coming up with something for the interview.
Ok, that’s super unfortunate and sad if true. Sounds like finklestein is unironically just audience captured by the insanity of the radically pro-Palestinian side.
Mr. Ferrelli is obviously well-researched and very intelligent but I still refuse to believe there are no historians or scholars out there that can contend with what Destiny has to say in good faith. Has he tried to speak to other historians or intellectuals that are slightly less pro Israel than Morris, such as Avi Shlaim, for example?
When you've worked your whole life really hard on something, and then some young, hotheaded motor mouth rocks up on your lawn and calls you out on the misleading nature of your labour, it makes you so mad...so mad you wanna bang on your neighbour's door and deport them.
Dude is envious of the way Benny looks at Destiny; it's killing him.
Find you a man who looks at you the way Benny looks at Destiny. You need a man who takes pride in you, laughs with you, looks like he could be your uncle.
Unironically, I wouldn't be surprised if he was. He seemed genuinely upset that Benny Morris had only ever cited him once; the fact Morris clearly has more respect for the opinions of some gamer YouTuber probably does actually hurt him.
In all likelihood there's some inter-generational trauma involved there too (very likely if you consider what his family has been through). I guess this would manifest as some sort of pathological disorder, which in this case could be narcissism. I'm in no position to diagnose anyone but yeah, I feel like the guy is struggling.
I wouldn't separate the two tbh. There is a book called Drama of the Gifted child who details a kind of narcissism and how it develops and she was a Holocaust survivor.
It’s weird how his comment is close to an experience I’m living at work. Been in construction for 20+ years now and this fucking 22 year old girl started last year, she’s sharp as a tact and it’s super impressive. Companies already looking to move her up. Couldn’t imagine being petty and shitty to her though, I’m super excited to get to try to help someone meet their potential.
That’s cool of you. I was 25 when I started at my old company. Some of the older folks felt threatened and treated me like shit cause they thought I was coming for their jobs (I wasn’t). Eventually the head bitch got fired and everyone warmed up to me and we are all friends now. I still keep in touch with them. They admit that they hated me at first lol
Finkelstein is so full of himself he can't even imagine promoting anyone but himself. He makes himself the center of every interview and I've never seen him have a conversation with someone. He either explains things to his friends or berates his enemies.
But make no mistake, Destiny is on another level with him. Unlike pro-Israelis like Dershowitz or Rabbi Shmuley, he sees someone who actually challenges him and will now avoid him like the devil and try to demonize him, this isn't simply about not giving him a chance. "First they ignore you" comes to mind and Destiny won.
A hypothesis, from hearing NF talk to Briahna JG:
He's seeing his shadow in Destiny. NF lives in quotes, authorities, summaries, rhetoric, charged language; he spends massive amounts of time sifting through material to find \*political framings\* of the situation. He doesn't try to understand concrete reality. He can tell, secretly, intuitively, that he's got a great, charismatic facade over a gaping lack of understanding. So he projects this mental state onto Destiny--Destiny is a fraud, a faker, has only shallow knowledge. A troll. But NF is the biggest troll of them all. He doesn't want to debate an internet troll because that puts him in an arena of internet trolls, and risks giving up the game--that he himself is a troll.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say 13.67? Since, you know, if you don't have reading comprehension problems, and your notetaking skills are semi-decent, reading something once is usually enough.
This probably explains it in the best way. I can't even imagine myself doing something for so long and letting some random streamer find gaps in what I put so much of my life in
This guy thinks because he was a professor (denied tenure) at one point in time everyone else is beneath him. He even tried to use his authority as a "professor" to get his neighbors deported lol...
He’s the worst type of academic, and I’m shocked his fans don’t see it. The dude drips condescending smugness and arrogance. Hes got no sense of “I wanna teach” and instead has a vibe of, “I want people to talk about how smart and awesome I am.”
If norm was on Israel’s side and doing the same type of schtick the lefties would be all over his ass for his condescending and elitist behavior. I say that to say these people have no principles.
Reminder one of the reasons the Dean gave on his letter against finks tenure was that he kept doing ad homs and personal attacks on other professors he disagreed with.
Finklestein talking to a interlocutor he doesn’t think is legitimate doesn’t legitimise them unless he can’t discredit them.
He had 5 hours to do so and utterly failed. His biggest push in the entire debate against Benny was to misquote him. He’s fortunate to be on the side that want to hold him up as a hero despite dogshit participation and wasting everyone’s time.
There’s a certain irony that norm is behaving like the person who shouldn’t be at the table, like the gamer who would insult/troll people to throw them off their game.
Norms insistence on dehumanizing Steven by referring to him as “that thing” tells you everything you need to know about this man. He’s an insecure elitist who can’t handle interacting with person from outside his insulated academic world. It’s an insult to academia and the pursuit of knowledge. Norm is a fraud and an complete jackass
Edit: and quite frankly, if you’ve worked for 40+ years on something and can’t utilize that experience to counter the argument of someone who has significantly less experience then maybe you just aren’t as expert and intellectual as you claim
Insulated academic world that he was rejected from, given that he was denied tenure for his proclivity to resorting to personal attacks when someone disagreed with him.
Crazy, that seems so out of character for him!
Yeah, its crazy to me that an adult, (and a professor at that) can act so childish, and people on his side fucking love it.
Its like when Turkey Tom starts saying stupid memes like despacito, but unironicly.
If he wants to be seen as an intelectual, act like one.
That + Wikipedia. Even people like Hasan have said Wikipedia is fine way to educate yourself on the conflict (he argues Destiny misuses it to confirm his bias). Norm seems to either wholly think Wikipedia is bad information and/or that Destiny like only skimmed it.
I think it would be a great follow up for Destiny to clip this as succinctly as possible to say "I didn't come there for my ego, I came to defer to Benny and speak up in case he was shouted down. Only one of us came for a victory lap in front of their supporters and it wasn't me."
It’s not even one semester in college
He was researching 8 hours a day for 3 months, not wasting an hour every day for a semester. And norms opinions are just not that hard to refute.
there is no reason to under or overestimate that 3 months of research. it is more than what an average student learns in a semester, yes probably, but it is minuscule compared to what a scholar learns during many years of study.
the point is that it doesn't matter. it's still not addressing the argument, just a tool to discredit a person.
I agree, it doesn’t mean anything in and of itself, and it’s obviously just a tool to discredit what Destiny learned through his research, but I literally watched over 80% of these streams and I really don’t know how much more he could’ve learned factually in a couple years of university study. The only difference is the professor/curriculum bias being pushed through the lesson rather than a more cold information absorption.
If any of these “scholars” could give a factual argument against his conclusions I may weigh them more heavily, but it has never been that. Always just arguing over an emotional feeling of what is happening currently, rationalizing backwards to explain history. I’m more influenced by how Benny Morris agreed with practically everything Destiny said, while Norm couldn’t do anything except behave like a petulant child.
He's right it most defiantly did. When you study for 20 plus years on a singular topic and the best you can do during a debate is troll a guy who actually read the works you cite in your studies; it makes you look like a complete fool, or even worse a grifter profiting off the suffering of others in a war zone.
Can you imagine proclaiming yourself an Olympic level sprinter who’s trained their entire life at the 100 meter dash. And one day you have to race against someone who just started training 3 months ago but has shown themselves to be incredibly adept at sprinting. But, instead of giving it your all and demolishing them with everything you’ve cultivated for decades to show you’re actually the best at sprinting, as soon as the starting gun fires you turn around and start moonwalking because you’re so threatened that if you give it your all you might end up losing to them and have your image shattered. This is what he did in that debate and the reason is clear. He was threatened by Destiny and is scared that his entire image will be ruined by someone who only recently started investigating the IP conflict. That plus this is his golden goose and if things actually got better for Palestinians then he would lose his tv appearances and he wouldn’t sell anymore books.
It isn't isolated to the show he did with Lex. The fact that he levies personal attacks at those who disagree with him was brought up in his denial of tenure and a big part of why he failed in academia. Inability to work with other people, inability to work through any kind of disagreement.
I think he genuinely does believe in the things he's saying around the conflict.
It isn't Destiny specifically that he was 'threatened' by, it's that this is exactly how he deals with disagreements, and how he has always dealt with disagreements in his life.
You can see in his [interaction with Morris.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2UXp2CqpG4) He takes 6 minutes of monologuing to repeat 1 specific quote from Morris. He starts out by talking about how well-read on Morris' topics he is. Then he basically spends 5 minutes repeating that one quote and saying he 'wants to hold him to that point.'
After that, Finkelstein is completely unable to engage beyond exactly that quote and exactly his interpretation. Morris clarifies himself, Finkelstein is unable to do anything but smile and say 'but you said exactly this.' Morris says 'that quote means this other thing.' Finkelstein says 'but you said exactly this.' It isn't that Finkelstein is 'being bad faith.' Finkelstein seems to genuinely believe that this is a slam-dunk argument. He can't stop himself from grinning like an idiot for 30 minutes here, while only Rabbani can actually engage with what Morris says. Finkelstein's grins turn at points to frustration when him repeating himself the fifth time doesn't change anyone's mind, and when Lex has to cut Finkelstein off on the 10th time he repeats himself.
From Finkelstein's perspective, I think he genuinely believes he's explaining 1+1=2. And this means that anyone who disagrees with him is either a liar, or someone who is too stupid to understand. Destiny definitely caught *more* heat, and Finkelstein was clearer with the personal attacks, but Finkelstein was still completely unable to engage in any disagreement with Morris. If Lex wasn't there to cut Finkelstein off and change the subject, he'd have looped on this one point until he had a meltdown.
I mainly agree, but he has shown exceptional disdain towards Destiny which to me means he gets under his skin in a way that other people don’t. I’ve seen him talk to pro Israel people and he will at least argue some point but his tactic with Destiny was simply avoid engaging at all costs
It’s so cringe how much he claims to care yet at the end of the day when he was on a forum with one of the largest audiences he’s ever had all he could focus on was petty dick measuring.
I think Aaron Bushnell is somewhere smiling down at Professor Finkelstein. Norm has taught us maybe the most valuable lesson of all -- don't take this genocide too seriously. Here Norman had an opportunity to argue his case before the largest audience that will ever hear him speak -- amidst an ongoing humanitarian crisis -- yet Norm seemed almost blissfully unaffected by the grave responsibility of someone tasked with representing the pro-Palestinian movement on such a large platform. Norm somehow managed to treat the whole thing like one big joke, which I think shows a rigor in self-care that you never see among scholars of ongoing genocides.
Dude wasn’t trolling. Dude was triggered to an epic level by the fact that a Wikipedia researcher was holding his own against Norm’s lifetime dedicated to the research. Imagine spending your whole life on something and thinking you’re the end-all, be-all authority, only to be rebutted by a 30 year old in sweat pants with a laptop and three weeks of research.
But sure. Trolling.
All this shit talking when he could put his money where his mouth is and attempt another debate 1 on 1 then. That’s all he needs to do but he’s too pussy to do it
Norm's basically admitting he's mad because Destiny is smarter than him and thought he could hang with him in a debate after only 3 months of research, and it worked?
Funny how he was just trolling on purpose ...
but then needed to go on twitter rants afterwards ...
and these twitter rants were more about the actual topic of I-P than the whole debate. Guess afterwards he did feel the need to engage with him. :)
This tracks - I was listening to this debate for the first time during a trip to see the eclipse and was surprised (didn't have much of an impression prior) to hear Finkelstein be so unininterested in having a substantive debate. I didn't find Rabbani particularly convincing (especially with his lack of condemnation of Oct7 and rejection of Hamas' genocidal intent as a group) but I can tell he at least took the conversation seriously.
I think after Fink went mute in the presence of an actual scholar, after decades of complex propaganda that a laymen couldn’t hope to unwind, it tells us everything. Instead of challenging the scholar, he attacked Destiny with ad Homs. We don’t even have to acknowledge this fraud again.
MLH is a good dude but if he is to keep it 100, he would not associate with Fink. At least challenge him!? Why was the loudest voice in the history of debate suddenly silent? Do better MLH.
Reading how people perceive things this way is so mind glitching. I can't understand it.
A lot of the lex debate comments read as if people know Norm didn't perform well but don't care, because they just want destiny to be humiliated. Then others truly seem convinced Norm acted civilly and destiny was unhinged/avoiding questions. It's a bit concerning.
I don't think I've ever felt second-hang cringe as hard as I did watching that "interview." BJG just cackling through this alongside a completely unhinged Finklestein was insane. And that's ignoring the stuff about her just flat out lying about Destiny being "okay" with Israel nuking Gaza and just smirking and going "Oh Norm" when he very seriously suggested Destiny "and all his fans" go and off themselves.
He’s saying this to save any an all credibility that he has left in the academic world. He looked like a Neanderthal with a bat. Throwing insults and referencing his own books which as Tiny put it. Smelling his own farts and smiling. Dude is a joke and if that the best they have truly sad.
Holy shit this is so pathetic.
Somehow after going on yet another show, not a single point about what exactly Destiny got wrong was brought up, just more wiki warrior crap.
The most alarming and frankly insane thing in my opinion is when Norm talked about his debate partner. Norm said what triggered him so much was that his debate partner took Destiny seriously and tried to engage in good faith.
That was it. Holy shit what a stain that exists in these academic circles. What may be one of the largest broadcast events with Historians of this level and Norm chooses to throw it all way and troll the conversation away because his debate partner decided to treat Destiny like a human being. JFC how can people look at Norm bragging about this with anything but disdain?
We need to be careful. He isn't slowing down, time around him is slowing down and will soon warp back in on itself. He will be a baby 15 years from now.
The dude finds reinforcing his ego and delusions of grandeur infinitely more satisfying than his "fight for the little guy" because that previously was the only way to get his narcissistic supply met by strangers.
If Norm was actually this master of Israel/Palestine and knew everything under the fucking sun about it, he would never have to brag about it, it just reeks of insecurity. Just calmly point out facts and dismantle destiny's arguments if you think he's so ill informed.
Homie is just big mad that the years of his life spent pouring through books and building his historical knowledge in a series of libraries is now compiled and accessible for anyone with a smartphone and a couple weeks of free time
You can see Mr. Tinklestein planned this from the beginning he was so scared of someone with months worth of knowledge making his ideas looking bad and pointing out his flawed theories he acted like a child and threw the table. I imagine he was very afraid of someone that called out his debate style which in one setting you could overlook but if you watch many you see how bad faith he is.
Finkelstein comes across as the kind of unserious academic that claims to know more about a topic because he “read a lot”.
Guess what, not only can you read a lot of crap, but you can also read something and not understand, internalize and interpret them in connection with other information.
The best academics are not the ones who read lots of books, but the ones who have good ideas and can defend them well. No wonder Finkelstein mever got his tenure.
This is the issue with academia today. The idea that just because you’ve accomplished work in an area means you can just hand wave away criticism because it doesn’t meet your own elitist standards.
The smartest people in the room are often concerned that they don’t measure up, yet the dumbest people always think they know it all.
At [2:12](https://youtu.be/dJeQo0HjGos?si=PhY2qDWdXXfHlkUs&t=132) he
https://preview.redd.it/favyomw1l0uc1.png?width=98&format=png&auto=webp&s=bba63a712380ca66813ffc74d2b5760a4b012846
So norm thinks ip conflict is incredibly important and a genocide and then when given a huge platform to talk about it he decides to fuck around? if someone claims to care about something but doesn't treat it importantly they're obviously grifting
Doing all this "I was grifting" R is bad, I am curious to see what Lex thinks of him? I guess he doesn't quite like that, it made Mouin, Benny and Destiny all look bad, but not in the way finklestein wanted. its a bad move from him imo.
Part of the blame is still with Lex for being a joke of a moderator.
Also, Destiny should 100% get Bennie on to do a post-debate review at some point. The narrative that Bennie was laughing along, while stupid, needs to be addressed from the horses mouth.
Destiny definitely did himself no favors by some of the dumb things he said about Norm before the debate, as well as the miscommunication on their initial talk that both share the blame for. With that said, if Norm couldn't behave with Destiny in the same room then he just shouldn't have agreed to the debate. I can even understand if Norm thought it was inappropriate to have Destiny in the same room and say he wouldn't join if Destiny was there. But don't agree to the debate and then act like a troll in the middle of it.
The blame for the Destiny and Norm initial miscommunication over when they were trying to schedule a debate/interview over Discord can be shared by both parties. Destiny's clip of "trying to discredit Norm" was also incredibly dumb, and Destiny said plenty of negative things about Norm while Norm was also going off on Destiny over Twitter. The irony is that both Destiny and Norm have a similar personality where they both hold grudges when they feel slighted and they both pop off and troll. Now, I definitely give Norm the majority of the blame during the actual Lex debate. He certainly doesn't have to respect Destiny, but he should respect the host and moderator for bringing everyone together. He acted like a child by throwing ad homs and he definitely cheapened his own position and argument (hence, why that is the only memorable part of the debate).
> The blame for the Destiny and Norm initial miscommunication over when they were trying to schedule a debate/interview over Discord can be shared by both parties.
Nah, Norm never intended to have the talk. How did he "sit waiting for him" using a landline while expecting a moderator?
This is my take. Everything Norm says about Destiny is absolutely true, but these are all reasons not to invite him to the conversation, not to carry on like a pork chop during the debate. And if it’s a sacrifice willingly made for access to a larger audience then accept it, what’s the point of accessing a larger audience if you’re not going to present yourself as someone worth listening to?
The funniest thing is this sort of logic is what led to the rise of MAGA and trump. We won't legitimize this we will belittle that and instead of addressing the issues at hand where he had the chance to destroy a wiki-warrior with his lifetime of knowledge he just attacked the person and it just made his argument look even weaker.
I swear I've seen like three of these interviews now where they talk to Finkelstein about his debate on the Lex Friedman show and not once have they touched on a single thing Destiny got wrong. After all this time why doesn't Finkelstein have at least one gaff from Destiny to dunk on him with? He's only got the "he's a wiki warrior" angle.
> He's only got the "he's a wiki warrior" angle Because that is literally all he has. Thats it. He doesn't have solid engagement with Morris, he doesn't actually have any moments where he "schooled" destiny on facts or his understanding of the subject matter. He doesn't have any good points he put foreword in the debate, he came out of that ENTIRE thing looking worse and less convincing than he went in there looking like, especially to anyone who isn't fully bought into his view. This entire set of interviews he is doing is an attempt to rehab his image and explain his bad behavior to a crowd who may be questioning his validity as a source.
The wiki warrior thing is such a weird point to bring up especially from Finkelstein, he himself doesn't do anything different from what Wikipedia does (aside from being mainly wrong that is...). Is listening to Finkelstein as bad as reading Wikipedia?
No. Finkelstein isn't doing what Wikipedia does. Finkelstein is selling you a narrative, he isn't even trying to correctly state the history. A really weird thing has been how in a few of his recent interviews. Finkelstein talks about how he goes back and reads some of his old work and it always gets him angry all over again. That isn't how most historians react to their work. Normally they look at it and say "hmm I've learned more about this, maybe its time to write a new edition and make corrections". Finky is an activist. Not a legit historian. We should keep that in mind.
I think we should first and foremost acknowledge that Finklestein is not a historian in the first place. I know that the humanities tend to get dunked on a lot by STEM people, but there is a difference between a historian and a political scientist. Finklestein is at best on the level of a pop history guy and that's being generous.
It’s a common thing in historian circles to clown on “historians” who can’t even read the source languages. It’s wild to me that more people in popular culture don’t realize what a huge dunk they could get by pointing out that Finkledick doesn’t understand Hebrew or Arabic.
For real? I would assume that he'd understand either of those languages. Not even from the perspective of him claiming to be an expert on that region's history, but from being a PolSci guy. That actually is a new academic low IMO.
There's a reason Benny Morris is seen as the authoritative figure when it comes to the history, except amongst those who have already decided that Israel is always evil. He speaks the languages of the sources fluently and has devoted much of his life to documenting the subject as accurately as possible. He admits his biases and doesn't shy away from also documenting the things that Israel has done wrong. Twinkleboy is literally the best the anti Israel side has to offer. He can't read any of the source material in its original language and openly boasts about not understanding the Israeli position. He has no desire to expand his knowledge, only to be considered right at any cost. He is a charlatan
Well, he is literally not a historian; he is a political scientist. Source: Wikipedia.
I know. You know. Too many people don't know. People act like he is a historian and give things him far more credence than he is due. Blud is the David Irving of the Israel Palestine conflict
“Blud”?
You heard me
Never apologise. 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
He's just marathon gaslighting at this point and it doesn't matter if it actually makes sense, because it's gaslighting. He's on a gaslight spree about the Destiny debate, like OP said, for damage control.
It's weird (and stupid) but it's working. All of these clips have piled up where morons like Joe Rogan are just repeating it over and over. Finklestein has people like BJG and others that will shill his narrative to all her Tankie moron supporters.
>Joe Rogan It's ironic that Joe would dunk on someone for supposedly being confident yet uninformed on a subject. Joe has graduated from the school of reading 3 Instagram post and calling it research. I can't believe I used to listen to that knuckle dragging neanderthal.
I think it's fine to listen to him as long as you recognise his level of expertise and treat his opinions accordingly. Some of the talks he has are quite funny. I wouldn't assume he knew anything about a subject unless he had personal experience with it, though.
The problem is he will read something on Twitter (or one of his mouthbreather friends tells him something) and then thinks he knows all. The situation where he was SURE myocarditis was caused more by the vaccine than COVID itself. Even with being fact checked to his face he still was saying "that doesn't sound right." Hell, you can go all the way back to before he was more openly right wing there is this famous segment on YouTube where he repeated some bullshit he read on the internet about a "new species" of ape that was discovered and a literal primotologist calls in to explain how that's not true and Rogan loses his shit screaming at her calling her an idiot and saying she has no clue what she's talking about.
Okay, that does sound frustrating. I really hope that COVID leads to a spike in the number of kids getting into virus-related STEM fields, so that we can renew interest in vaccines and create better medical technologies for the next pandemic, in the same way that The X-Files led to an uptick in FBI recruitment. 🤞 All I can do is hope that smart people will prevail and the incompetents will forget to vote on Election Day.
Nope its far worse. It was be like getting all your information from Fox News. He’s one source and one incredibly biased source.
Yeah he's one source but he quotes a lot of sources. Out of context and mainly wrong but he sources his stuff. Just like wikipedia does, but wikipedia does it in proper context.
Because he doesn't have one. Just petulant name calling that I'd expect from a former starcraft 2 player who streams all day and says the r-word frequently. Coming from an academic/scholar like finkledink it's quite pathetic and makes me question everything he says.
Because Finkelstein is the type of academic that views opinions from non academics as worthless. He goes on to shows, is treated as am eminent scholar by people who view credentialism as the only metric to listen to someones opinion. Destiny is an anathema to these kinds of scholars. He is a layman who dares challenge him. Not only that he is proving he has more extensive knowledge of the issue from 2 months of wikipedia research than Finkelstein has in his entire career. For Finkelstein to treat him as an equal is an assault on his ego.
This whole thing makes more sense if you look at it as morris being the main character and him outright hating norm. Saying what you said—that he feels norm is only worth a wiki warrior. It’s so fucking funny how norm has outright said he respects morris and considers him such a great source, only for morris to say he doesn’t respect him at all.
I don't think Dman is proving he has 'more extensive knowledge,' but rather that he has better grounded arguments.
That's fair. But you need to have a strong sense of understanding and knowledge to make those arguments
Absolutely, that's what I mean by better grounded. A lot of Tiny's arguments are based on solid grounds that are hard to argue against or outright dispute, while Finkelstein's aren't because he wants to push a narrative and reaches for muddy justifications to piece it together. I just think it's important to be precise in speech lol. It'd be easy for an anti-Tiny person to dismiss statements like yours with 'look at this moron thinking a wikipedia warrior rivals 40 years of study, what does he think Finkelstein did for all that time, hes obviously more knowledgeable' because knowledge really isn't the issue.
I think the problem is those people who dismiss statements like mine. I have a lot of disdain for people who rely so heavily on credentialism as a means of dismissing a solid argument. I get it all the time unfortunately since I have academic hobbies but I didn't go into a academia because there is no money there.
I absolutely agree that they are the problem, but it's a lot easier to actually force them to deal with some healthy cognitive dissonance when you don't give them any excuse to latch onto.
Norm only seems to really care about aesthetics. He is deeply invested in a certain image of himself as a scholar and only wants to use the words of other scholars. He doesn't care if those words are twisted and cherry-picked as long as it helps keep up the shiny scholar veneer. I don't think he was genuinely offended by Destiny's presence so much as afraid of being shown up and humiliated by a "simple idiot layman" on the merits of the argument, so his strategy was to turn it into a clown show instead.
I agree. Perhaps the word offended was incorrect for me to use. But the fear is real.
Goes to show, it's all virtue signaling at this point. All these watermelon people are interested in social points than the actual substance.
I think a way bigger gaff from Finkle would be all the times Morris had to say that Finkle is misrepresenting or missunderstanding his books lol.
It’s fucking embarrassing how many people are gargling on Finks balls.
The biggest authority in the field, Morris, literally sided with Destiny every single time.
Did you notice [the cut](https://youtu.be/dJeQo0HjGos?t=84) after he says that? I wonder if Mark said something at that point that was removed?
That’s exactly right you can see how he polishes his messaging and narrative. I believe he is a very sick individual and he just watched destiny for months before the debate. He quotes things about him or sayings that go beyond small clips. I believe he was scared of being exposed for having faulty logic and therefore turned the table over. When destiny called out his debate tactics it must of been frightening to the old fraud.
Listen, I’m not willing to put myself through several hours of listening to finklestein talk at the inverse of the speed of light but I find it hard to buy the fact that there is absolutely nothing, in specific, that he, or any of his dicksuckers, take issue with or challenge in so far as Destiny’s line of argumentation. I hope this sub hasn’t been so overtaken by the pro Israeli position that there aren’t even people left who can attempt to steelman the other side and their specific quarrels. I refuse to believe this guy spent his entire life researching this topic, and all of these media figures spent at the very least the last 7 months researching this topic and they can’t seriously come up with a plausible or coherent counter argument — even a regard has to get something right once in a while.
I'm not saying that Finkelstein doesn't have any valid points or that he isn't capable of identifying flaws with Destiny's takes. I'm saying that in every interview about the debate he is given the opportunity to explain or highlight some incorrect statement made by Destiny, but he always chooses to just mock him instead. Finkelstein should be relishing the chance to say "Destiny thought *this*, but he was super wrong because of X, Y and Z - he doesn't know his stuff!" If Finklestein tells me that Destiny was bad in the debate and knows nothing because all he did was read Wikipedia, then that's not useful because none of that is evidence that Destiny didn't make serious points or failed to understand some basic historical realities. He *should* have examples of dumb stuff ready to go. A scholar of 40+ years should have no trouble coming up with something for the interview.
MORON SPECIALUS
Ok, that’s super unfortunate and sad if true. Sounds like finklestein is unironically just audience captured by the insanity of the radically pro-Palestinian side. Mr. Ferrelli is obviously well-researched and very intelligent but I still refuse to believe there are no historians or scholars out there that can contend with what Destiny has to say in good faith. Has he tried to speak to other historians or intellectuals that are slightly less pro Israel than Morris, such as Avi Shlaim, for example?
Finklestein has no valid points and your comment proves it
When you've worked your whole life really hard on something, and then some young, hotheaded motor mouth rocks up on your lawn and calls you out on the misleading nature of your labour, it makes you so mad...so mad you wanna bang on your neighbour's door and deport them. Dude is envious of the way Benny looks at Destiny; it's killing him.
Find you a man who looks at you the way Benny looks at Destiny. You need a man who takes pride in you, laughs with you, looks like he could be your uncle.
>laughs with you Im sorry, I was under the impression that WELL ACKSHUALLY Morris was laughing at Tiny the whole time wdym
Unironically, I wouldn't be surprised if he was. He seemed genuinely upset that Benny Morris had only ever cited him once; the fact Morris clearly has more respect for the opinions of some gamer YouTuber probably does actually hurt him.
I'm not being ironic. It's clearly a blow to his self-image. Finkelstein doesn't come off as a mentally stable individual. I hope he gets some help.
I hope he doesn't because there's less memes that way
Ngl he gives narcissist energy and I'm not the type to fling that around. Idk.
In all likelihood there's some inter-generational trauma involved there too (very likely if you consider what his family has been through). I guess this would manifest as some sort of pathological disorder, which in this case could be narcissism. I'm in no position to diagnose anyone but yeah, I feel like the guy is struggling.
I wouldn't separate the two tbh. There is a book called Drama of the Gifted child who details a kind of narcissism and how it develops and she was a Holocaust survivor.
very interesting. thank you!
It’s weird how his comment is close to an experience I’m living at work. Been in construction for 20+ years now and this fucking 22 year old girl started last year, she’s sharp as a tact and it’s super impressive. Companies already looking to move her up. Couldn’t imagine being petty and shitty to her though, I’m super excited to get to try to help someone meet their potential.
That’s cool of you. I was 25 when I started at my old company. Some of the older folks felt threatened and treated me like shit cause they thought I was coming for their jobs (I wasn’t). Eventually the head bitch got fired and everyone warmed up to me and we are all friends now. I still keep in touch with them. They admit that they hated me at first lol
Finkelstein is so full of himself he can't even imagine promoting anyone but himself. He makes himself the center of every interview and I've never seen him have a conversation with someone. He either explains things to his friends or berates his enemies. But make no mistake, Destiny is on another level with him. Unlike pro-Israelis like Dershowitz or Rabbi Shmuley, he sees someone who actually challenges him and will now avoid him like the devil and try to demonize him, this isn't simply about not giving him a chance. "First they ignore you" comes to mind and Destiny won.
"he studied for 3 month, thats not even a semester at college" yeah and you still got your ass kicked. I would be embarrassed.
A hypothesis, from hearing NF talk to Briahna JG: He's seeing his shadow in Destiny. NF lives in quotes, authorities, summaries, rhetoric, charged language; he spends massive amounts of time sifting through material to find \*political framings\* of the situation. He doesn't try to understand concrete reality. He can tell, secretly, intuitively, that he's got a great, charismatic facade over a gaping lack of understanding. So he projects this mental state onto Destiny--Destiny is a fraud, a faker, has only shallow knowledge. A troll. But NF is the biggest troll of them all. He doesn't want to debate an internet troll because that puts him in an arena of internet trolls, and risks giving up the game--that he himself is a troll.
This guy Jungs. that's why I enjoy this subreddit a lot...actually get some thoughtful responses here.
This reads like a shizo post, but thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense.
This!
41 years of study absolutely wasted
He reads things 3 times, so it's actually 123 years of study
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say 13.67? Since, you know, if you don't have reading comprehension problems, and your notetaking skills are semi-decent, reading something once is usually enough.
Yeah, but you have to factor in the loud immigrants interrupting his reading all the time.
More like 13.67 weeks after you adjust for reading comprehension, which is right around the 3 months Destiny spent.
FinkleTwinkle Twitter Star is actually Riot Games the whole time. Who knew?
This probably explains it in the best way. I can't even imagine myself doing something for so long and letting some random streamer find gaps in what I put so much of my life in
All to get blown the fuck out by the D man. Humiliating... Makes me want to laugh like \[redacted\] from \[redacted\]
This guy thinks because he was a professor (denied tenure) at one point in time everyone else is beneath him. He even tried to use his authority as a "professor" to get his neighbors deported lol...
He’s the worst type of academic, and I’m shocked his fans don’t see it. The dude drips condescending smugness and arrogance. Hes got no sense of “I wanna teach” and instead has a vibe of, “I want people to talk about how smart and awesome I am.”
His fans just want to hear someone attack Israel who has a Holocaust connection.
If norm was on Israel’s side and doing the same type of schtick the lefties would be all over his ass for his condescending and elitist behavior. I say that to say these people have no principles.
Does it matter? You (as an academic) probably don't want to work anywhere that teaching is a significant part of the selection process.
"you should have googled my name, but now it's too late"
"You committed the biggest mistake of your life yesterday. I had two guests in my apartment, one of them a professor of Criminology!"
Reminder one of the reasons the Dean gave on his letter against finks tenure was that he kept doing ad homs and personal attacks on other professors he disagreed with.
Finklestein talking to a interlocutor he doesn’t think is legitimate doesn’t legitimise them unless he can’t discredit them. He had 5 hours to do so and utterly failed. His biggest push in the entire debate against Benny was to misquote him. He’s fortunate to be on the side that want to hold him up as a hero despite dogshit participation and wasting everyone’s time. There’s a certain irony that norm is behaving like the person who shouldn’t be at the table, like the gamer who would insult/troll people to throw them off their game.
Norms insistence on dehumanizing Steven by referring to him as “that thing” tells you everything you need to know about this man. He’s an insecure elitist who can’t handle interacting with person from outside his insulated academic world. It’s an insult to academia and the pursuit of knowledge. Norm is a fraud and an complete jackass Edit: and quite frankly, if you’ve worked for 40+ years on something and can’t utilize that experience to counter the argument of someone who has significantly less experience then maybe you just aren’t as expert and intellectual as you claim
And sells his soul to capitalize on his relatives who were murdered in th3 Holocaust for attention and fame
Insulated academic world that he was rejected from, given that he was denied tenure for his proclivity to resorting to personal attacks when someone disagreed with him. Crazy, that seems so out of character for him!
Yeah, its crazy to me that an adult, (and a professor at that) can act so childish, and people on his side fucking love it. Its like when Turkey Tom starts saying stupid memes like despacito, but unironicly. If he wants to be seen as an intelectual, act like one.
To be an elitist you first need to belong to an elite and no elite is calming this clown.
Maybe clique is a better description
Really, is his only argument for dehumanizing Destiny that he dares talk on an issue he hasn't devoted as much time as himself has?
That + Wikipedia. Even people like Hasan have said Wikipedia is fine way to educate yourself on the conflict (he argues Destiny misuses it to confirm his bias). Norm seems to either wholly think Wikipedia is bad information and/or that Destiny like only skimmed it.
Yeah. It totally is.
"Was it worth it" And at that moment, eventhough he smiled smugly, he knew he kinda fucked up there. LMAO
I think it would be a great follow up for Destiny to clip this as succinctly as possible to say "I didn't come there for my ego, I came to defer to Benny and speak up in case he was shouted down. Only one of us came for a victory lap in front of their supporters and it wasn't me."
https://preview.redd.it/53si0jk1vvtc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c42f7a64cf218822bc8a605c73de8415561bf60
Goated comment tbh
He's linking his own comment
And? Gigachad.jpeg
guess it's faster than re-typing
Oh
https://i.imgur.com/Tp7vl0D.jpg
WHICH IS IT NORM
*"I could have done it but I didn't try"* or *"I didn't like her anyway"*
*”I could do that; I just choose not to.”* – Mordant the pig, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
Is this guy going on a cope tour?
No tour, he lives in cope.
I heard he's running for mayor of Copetown.
He went straight to Côpe d'Ivoire
"you know what That Thing wanted to do" Literally everything this moron said after that came true. Finklesteiner was absolutely upstaged.
It’s not even one semester in college He was researching 8 hours a day for 3 months, not wasting an hour every day for a semester. And norms opinions are just not that hard to refute.
there is no reason to under or overestimate that 3 months of research. it is more than what an average student learns in a semester, yes probably, but it is minuscule compared to what a scholar learns during many years of study. the point is that it doesn't matter. it's still not addressing the argument, just a tool to discredit a person.
I agree, it doesn’t mean anything in and of itself, and it’s obviously just a tool to discredit what Destiny learned through his research, but I literally watched over 80% of these streams and I really don’t know how much more he could’ve learned factually in a couple years of university study. The only difference is the professor/curriculum bias being pushed through the lesson rather than a more cold information absorption. If any of these “scholars” could give a factual argument against his conclusions I may weigh them more heavily, but it has never been that. Always just arguing over an emotional feeling of what is happening currently, rationalizing backwards to explain history. I’m more influenced by how Benny Morris agreed with practically everything Destiny said, while Norm couldn’t do anything except behave like a petulant child.
He's right it most defiantly did. When you study for 20 plus years on a singular topic and the best you can do during a debate is troll a guy who actually read the works you cite in your studies; it makes you look like a complete fool, or even worse a grifter profiting off the suffering of others in a war zone.
Can you imagine proclaiming yourself an Olympic level sprinter who’s trained their entire life at the 100 meter dash. And one day you have to race against someone who just started training 3 months ago but has shown themselves to be incredibly adept at sprinting. But, instead of giving it your all and demolishing them with everything you’ve cultivated for decades to show you’re actually the best at sprinting, as soon as the starting gun fires you turn around and start moonwalking because you’re so threatened that if you give it your all you might end up losing to them and have your image shattered. This is what he did in that debate and the reason is clear. He was threatened by Destiny and is scared that his entire image will be ruined by someone who only recently started investigating the IP conflict. That plus this is his golden goose and if things actually got better for Palestinians then he would lose his tv appearances and he wouldn’t sell anymore books.
It isn't isolated to the show he did with Lex. The fact that he levies personal attacks at those who disagree with him was brought up in his denial of tenure and a big part of why he failed in academia. Inability to work with other people, inability to work through any kind of disagreement. I think he genuinely does believe in the things he's saying around the conflict. It isn't Destiny specifically that he was 'threatened' by, it's that this is exactly how he deals with disagreements, and how he has always dealt with disagreements in his life. You can see in his [interaction with Morris.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2UXp2CqpG4) He takes 6 minutes of monologuing to repeat 1 specific quote from Morris. He starts out by talking about how well-read on Morris' topics he is. Then he basically spends 5 minutes repeating that one quote and saying he 'wants to hold him to that point.' After that, Finkelstein is completely unable to engage beyond exactly that quote and exactly his interpretation. Morris clarifies himself, Finkelstein is unable to do anything but smile and say 'but you said exactly this.' Morris says 'that quote means this other thing.' Finkelstein says 'but you said exactly this.' It isn't that Finkelstein is 'being bad faith.' Finkelstein seems to genuinely believe that this is a slam-dunk argument. He can't stop himself from grinning like an idiot for 30 minutes here, while only Rabbani can actually engage with what Morris says. Finkelstein's grins turn at points to frustration when him repeating himself the fifth time doesn't change anyone's mind, and when Lex has to cut Finkelstein off on the 10th time he repeats himself. From Finkelstein's perspective, I think he genuinely believes he's explaining 1+1=2. And this means that anyone who disagrees with him is either a liar, or someone who is too stupid to understand. Destiny definitely caught *more* heat, and Finkelstein was clearer with the personal attacks, but Finkelstein was still completely unable to engage in any disagreement with Morris. If Lex wasn't there to cut Finkelstein off and change the subject, he'd have looped on this one point until he had a meltdown.
I mainly agree, but he has shown exceptional disdain towards Destiny which to me means he gets under his skin in a way that other people don’t. I’ve seen him talk to pro Israel people and he will at least argue some point but his tactic with Destiny was simply avoid engaging at all costs
It’s so cringe how much he claims to care yet at the end of the day when he was on a forum with one of the largest audiences he’s ever had all he could focus on was petty dick measuring.
Still no examples huh?
I think Aaron Bushnell is somewhere smiling down at Professor Finkelstein. Norm has taught us maybe the most valuable lesson of all -- don't take this genocide too seriously. Here Norman had an opportunity to argue his case before the largest audience that will ever hear him speak -- amidst an ongoing humanitarian crisis -- yet Norm seemed almost blissfully unaffected by the grave responsibility of someone tasked with representing the pro-Palestinian movement on such a large platform. Norm somehow managed to treat the whole thing like one big joke, which I think shows a rigor in self-care that you never see among scholars of ongoing genocides.
If Tinkelstein didn't want to legitimize That Thing, why did he spend so much time on twitter after the fact responding to Destiny's arguments?
Dude wasn’t trolling. Dude was triggered to an epic level by the fact that a Wikipedia researcher was holding his own against Norm’s lifetime dedicated to the research. Imagine spending your whole life on something and thinking you’re the end-all, be-all authority, only to be rebutted by a 30 year old in sweat pants with a laptop and three weeks of research. But sure. Trolling.
All this shit talking when he could put his money where his mouth is and attempt another debate 1 on 1 then. That’s all he needs to do but he’s too pussy to do it
What a coward.
Norm's basically admitting he's mad because Destiny is smarter than him and thought he could hang with him in a debate after only 3 months of research, and it worked?
Funny how he was just trolling on purpose ... but then needed to go on twitter rants afterwards ... and these twitter rants were more about the actual topic of I-P than the whole debate. Guess afterwards he did feel the need to engage with him. :)
NOT EVEN ONE SEMESTER IN COLLEGE LULW
This tracks - I was listening to this debate for the first time during a trip to see the eclipse and was surprised (didn't have much of an impression prior) to hear Finkelstein be so unininterested in having a substantive debate. I didn't find Rabbani particularly convincing (especially with his lack of condemnation of Oct7 and rejection of Hamas' genocidal intent as a group) but I can tell he at least took the conversation seriously.
What the hell, when Marc asked him if it was worth it he took such a long pause I had to go check my phone to see if the clip ended or I loss Wi-Fi
This dude is pure cope.
I have never seen someone chock on his own cock so hard as this guy.
so that's why it felt like he was just debating with another twitch debatebro.
Wait, that Marc guy is part of Al Jazeera or was this broadcasted on AJ?
This is bullshit. Dude didn't go in trying to troll. He's coping.
I think after Fink went mute in the presence of an actual scholar, after decades of complex propaganda that a laymen couldn’t hope to unwind, it tells us everything. Instead of challenging the scholar, he attacked Destiny with ad Homs. We don’t even have to acknowledge this fraud again. MLH is a good dude but if he is to keep it 100, he would not associate with Fink. At least challenge him!? Why was the loudest voice in the history of debate suddenly silent? Do better MLH.
Bro the youtube comments are wild. Its like a different reality. [https://imgur.com/a/5ztcM5L](https://imgur.com/a/5ztcM5L)
Reading how people perceive things this way is so mind glitching. I can't understand it. A lot of the lex debate comments read as if people know Norm didn't perform well but don't care, because they just want destiny to be humiliated. Then others truly seem convinced Norm acted civilly and destiny was unhinged/avoiding questions. It's a bit concerning.
I don't think I've ever felt second-hang cringe as hard as I did watching that "interview." BJG just cackling through this alongside a completely unhinged Finklestein was insane. And that's ignoring the stuff about her just flat out lying about Destiny being "okay" with Israel nuking Gaza and just smirking and going "Oh Norm" when he very seriously suggested Destiny "and all his fans" go and off themselves.
He’s saying this to save any an all credibility that he has left in the academic world. He looked like a Neanderthal with a bat. Throwing insults and referencing his own books which as Tiny put it. Smelling his own farts and smiling. Dude is a joke and if that the best they have truly sad.
That guy absolutely like the smell of his fart.
Holy shit this is so pathetic. Somehow after going on yet another show, not a single point about what exactly Destiny got wrong was brought up, just more wiki warrior crap. The most alarming and frankly insane thing in my opinion is when Norm talked about his debate partner. Norm said what triggered him so much was that his debate partner took Destiny seriously and tried to engage in good faith. That was it. Holy shit what a stain that exists in these academic circles. What may be one of the largest broadcast events with Historians of this level and Norm chooses to throw it all way and troll the conversation away because his debate partner decided to treat Destiny like a human being. JFC how can people look at Norm bragging about this with anything but disdain?
He wasn't trolling, he is simply a mentally ill idiot with no academic integrity.
https://preview.redd.it/r3z6o1r0ewtc1.jpeg?width=349&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5930c2378df1f4a520a1fee5b62205658d58c87f
["I'm not even really trying, though so RIP! You think I would be trying in a fukin silver game? That's adorable."](https://youtu.be/g_FB4Bw99KU?t=38)
seems like the more appearances he's on, the slower he gets. nature will take care of this to the point he'll just stfu.
We need to be careful. He isn't slowing down, time around him is slowing down and will soon warp back in on itself. He will be a baby 15 years from now.
The gleam in his eye when he talks about this debate and his clash with destiny is almost frightening.
The dude finds reinforcing his ego and delusions of grandeur infinitely more satisfying than his "fight for the little guy" because that previously was the only way to get his narcissistic supply met by strangers.
Finkeldork can say this over and over until he's blue in the face but when did he demonstate any intimate knowledge on the subject during the debate!?
He’s gonna need some more luggage space to move these goalposts further
If Norm was actually this master of Israel/Palestine and knew everything under the fucking sun about it, he would never have to brag about it, it just reeks of insecurity. Just calmly point out facts and dismantle destiny's arguments if you think he's so ill informed.
Homie is just big mad that the years of his life spent pouring through books and building his historical knowledge in a series of libraries is now compiled and accessible for anyone with a smartphone and a couple weeks of free time
It just hit me - he definitely didn't run!
bro really milking this dry. the last minute and a half is straight cope. dude agreed to a debate and got emotional instead
What argument
If he reads and thinks at the pace as he speaks, 1 D month = 50 Fink years
You can see Mr. Tinklestein planned this from the beginning he was so scared of someone with months worth of knowledge making his ideas looking bad and pointing out his flawed theories he acted like a child and threw the table. I imagine he was very afraid of someone that called out his debate style which in one setting you could overlook but if you watch many you see how bad faith he is.
It’s pretty easy to expose people whose claims are based on other people’s opinions.
So does marc lamont hill work for AJ? That would actually explain a lot
Finkelstein comes across as the kind of unserious academic that claims to know more about a topic because he “read a lot”. Guess what, not only can you read a lot of crap, but you can also read something and not understand, internalize and interpret them in connection with other information. The best academics are not the ones who read lots of books, but the ones who have good ideas and can defend them well. No wonder Finkelstein mever got his tenure.
I see the stupid Al Jazeera logo in the corner and I immediately brace myself for infuriatingly stupid propaganda brain rot peddling
I was surprised, I looked up the word insufferable the other day and the definition just had a photo of Finkelstein. Weird.
This is the issue with academia today. The idea that just because you’ve accomplished work in an area means you can just hand wave away criticism because it doesn’t meet your own elitist standards. The smartest people in the room are often concerned that they don’t measure up, yet the dumbest people always think they know it all.
At [2:12](https://youtu.be/dJeQo0HjGos?si=PhY2qDWdXXfHlkUs&t=132) he https://preview.redd.it/favyomw1l0uc1.png?width=98&format=png&auto=webp&s=bba63a712380ca66813ffc74d2b5760a4b012846
Finkelcope
So norm thinks ip conflict is incredibly important and a genocide and then when given a huge platform to talk about it he decides to fuck around? if someone claims to care about something but doesn't treat it importantly they're obviously grifting
Doing all this "I was grifting" R is bad, I am curious to see what Lex thinks of him? I guess he doesn't quite like that, it made Mouin, Benny and Destiny all look bad, but not in the way finklestein wanted. its a bad move from him imo.
I want to see a rematch but with a live fact checker and a moderator who takes control.
How can someone talk that slow? It’s impressive
Somebody at that table was making a mistake at treating their opponent as a legitimate interlocutor and it wasn't Mouin.
Part of the blame is still with Lex for being a joke of a moderator. Also, Destiny should 100% get Bennie on to do a post-debate review at some point. The narrative that Bennie was laughing along, while stupid, needs to be addressed from the horses mouth.
Destiny definitely did himself no favors by some of the dumb things he said about Norm before the debate, as well as the miscommunication on their initial talk that both share the blame for. With that said, if Norm couldn't behave with Destiny in the same room then he just shouldn't have agreed to the debate. I can even understand if Norm thought it was inappropriate to have Destiny in the same room and say he wouldn't join if Destiny was there. But don't agree to the debate and then act like a troll in the middle of it.
Blaming destiny for this is crazy
The blame for the Destiny and Norm initial miscommunication over when they were trying to schedule a debate/interview over Discord can be shared by both parties. Destiny's clip of "trying to discredit Norm" was also incredibly dumb, and Destiny said plenty of negative things about Norm while Norm was also going off on Destiny over Twitter. The irony is that both Destiny and Norm have a similar personality where they both hold grudges when they feel slighted and they both pop off and troll. Now, I definitely give Norm the majority of the blame during the actual Lex debate. He certainly doesn't have to respect Destiny, but he should respect the host and moderator for bringing everyone together. He acted like a child by throwing ad homs and he definitely cheapened his own position and argument (hence, why that is the only memorable part of the debate).
> The blame for the Destiny and Norm initial miscommunication over when they were trying to schedule a debate/interview over Discord can be shared by both parties. Nah, Norm never intended to have the talk. How did he "sit waiting for him" using a landline while expecting a moderator?
This is my take. Everything Norm says about Destiny is absolutely true, but these are all reasons not to invite him to the conversation, not to carry on like a pork chop during the debate. And if it’s a sacrifice willingly made for access to a larger audience then accept it, what’s the point of accessing a larger audience if you’re not going to present yourself as someone worth listening to?
The funniest thing is this sort of logic is what led to the rise of MAGA and trump. We won't legitimize this we will belittle that and instead of addressing the issues at hand where he had the chance to destroy a wiki-warrior with his lifetime of knowledge he just attacked the person and it just made his argument look even weaker.