Controversial Jewish American scholar Norman Finkelstein does not feel like a pariah anymore.

Visiting Canada again this week on a tour of campuses to deliver lectures and answer questions about the seemingly intractable situation in the Middle East, he reports receiving more invitations to speak than ever these days.

"It is much more difficult in public life to defend Israel than to criticize it," Finkelstein explains in a telephone interview with rabble.ca. "I've gotten more invitations from more mainstream places."

Information received through a freedom of information (FOI) request has revealed that Conservative MP David Sweet intervened in February 2011 to help obstruct a lecture by Israel-Palestine expert Dr. Norman Finkelstein. Finkelstein, author of numerous books on the Palestine-Israel conflict -- and often critical of Israel -- was scheduled to speak at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario at an event organized by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME.) Although the room booking had already been confirmed and paid, within days of a meeting organized by Sweet with college officials, Mohawk College quadrupled the price of the room booking by applying an additional $1500 in security fees.

On April 1, the Washington Post ran an op-ed piece by Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who chaired the UN fact-finding mission on the 2008-2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza. In it he suggested he'd gotten things wrong, writing, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document." The op-ed led to an immediate flurry of articles and commentary suggesting the entire report -- and by implication the very notion that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza -- was suspect.

American academic and critic of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, Dr. Norman Finkelstein, is due to speak at Mohawk College in Hamilton on Saturday. The college has requested $1,500 for security on top of other fees paid, putting the event in jeopardy. For more information, click here.

In response, Edward C. Corrigan, a lawyer specializing in citizenship and immigration law and immigration and refugee protection, has written an open letter to Mohawk College:

Admission: $15, $7 for students with ID

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is delighted to announce it is hosting a five-city speaking tour by American scholar Norman Finkelstein. Finkelstein was awarded his doctorate by Princeton University in 1988, and has subsequently taught at Rutgers, New York University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College and DePaul University (Chicago). His academic research has concentrated on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its representation in political discourse. He has devoted much of his adult life to the achievement of a just peace between Israel and Palestine.