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{{Short description|American political scientist (born 1953)}}
{{For|the poet|Norman Finkelstein (poet)}} {{For|the poet|Norman Finkelstein (poet)}}
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{{Infobox person {{Infobox person
|birthname = Norman Gary Finkelstein | birthname = Norman Gary Finkelstein
|image = Norman finkelstein suffolk.jpg | name = Norman Finkelstein
| image = Norman finkelstein suffolk (cropped).jpg
|image_size = 250px
|caption = Finkelstein giving a talk at ] in 2005 | caption = Finkelstein in 2005
|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1953|12|8}} | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1953|12|8}}
|birth_place= | birth_place = ], U.S.
|death_date = | death_date =
|death_place= | death_place =
| education = {{plainlist|
|education =] <small>(])</small><br />] <small>(])</small> <br />] <small>(])</small>
* ] (])
|spouse =
* ]
|parents = Mother: Maryla Husyt Finkelstein <br />Father: Zacharias Finkelstein
* {{nowrap|] (], ])}}}}
|children =
| occupation = Professor, author
|nationality= American
| notable_works = '']'' (2000)<br>
|ethnicity = Jewish
|website = | website =
}} }}
'''Norman Gary Finkelstein''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|ɪ|ŋ|k|əl|s|t|iː|n}} {{respell|FING|kəl|steen}}; born December 8, 1953) is an American ] and ]. His primary fields of research are the politics of the ] and the ].

Finkelstein was born in ] to Jewish ] parents. He is a graduate of ] and received his ] in political science from ]. He has held faculty positions at ], ], ], ], and ], where he was an ] from 2001 to 2007. In 2006, the department and college committees at DePaul University voted to grant Finkelstein ]. For undisclosed reasons the university administration did not tenure him, and he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university.<ref name="NYT20070906">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/us/06brfs-RESIGNATIONI_BRF.html|title=Illinois: Resignation in Jewish Dispute|work=The New York Times|agency=Associated Press|date=September 6, 2007|access-date=August 9, 2020}}</ref><ref name=depaulJointStatement>{{cite web|url=http://newsroom.depaul.edu/NewsReleases/showNews.aspx?NID=1655|title=Joint statement of Norman Finkelstein and DePaul University on their tenure controversy and its resolution.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115192710/http://newsroom.depaul.edu/NewsReleases/showNews.aspx?NID=1655|archive-date=January 15, 2015|url-status=dead|date=September 5, 2007|publisher=DePaul University}}</ref>

Finkelstein rose to prominence in 2000 after publishing '']'', a book in which he writes that the memory of the Holocaust is exploited as an ideological weapon to provide Israel a degree of immunity from criticism.<ref name="NFHI"/> He is a critic of Israeli policy and its governing class. The Israeli government barred him from entry to the country for ten years in 2008.{{sfn|Friel|2013|p=179}} Finkelstein has called Israel the "Jewish supremacist state", and views it as ] against the ].<ref name="nfmw"/> Through personal accounts in one of his books, he compares the plight of the Palestinians living under ] with the horrors of the ].<ref name="hiltermann"/> Finkelstein's most recent book on Palestine and Israel, published in 2018, is '']''.

== Early life and education ==
Norman Finkelstein was born on December 8, 1953, in ], the son of Harry and Maryla (] Husyt) Finkelstein.<ref name="Gale">{{Cite book|title=Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series|date=2008|publisher=]|isbn=978-0-7876-9533-0|pages=127–129|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/finkelstein-norman-g-1953}}</ref> Finkelstein's parents were ] ]. His mother grew up in ] and survived the ] and the ]. His father was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and ].<ref name="NYT20100210" /> After the war they met in a ] in ], Austria, and then emigrated to the United States, where his father became a factory worker and his mother a homemaker and later a bookkeeper. Finkelstein's mother was an ardent ]. Both his parents died in 1995.<ref name="normanfinkelstein.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=11 |title=Ha'aretz on The Holocaust Industry |publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |access-date=November 13, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814082201/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3 |archive-date=August 14, 2012 }}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=June 2020}}

Finkelstein has said of his parents that "they saw the world through the prism of the Nazi Holocaust. They were eternally indebted to the Soviet Union (to whom they attributed the defeat of the Nazis), and so anyone who was anti-Soviet they were extremely harsh on".<ref name="RealNews2/4"> ]</ref> They supported the Soviet Union's approval of the creation of the State of Israel, as enunciated by ], who said that Jews had earned the right to a state, but thought that Israel had sold its soul to the West and "refused to have any truck with it".<ref name="RealNews2/4"/>


Finkelstein grew up in ], then ], both in ],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Harris |first=Ben |date=December 7, 2007 |title=Beached: The Coney Island exile of a scholar who would be Noam Chomsky, but isn't. (The Academic Exile of Norman Finkelstein) |url=https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/41838/ |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516072957/http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/41838/ |archive-date=May 16, 2008 |work=]}}{{cbignore}}</ref> where he attended ].{{sfn|Swaim|2015}} In his memoir he recalls strongly identifying with the outrage that his mother, who witnessed the genocidal atrocities of ], felt at the carnage the United States wrought in the ]. One childhood friend recalls his mother's "emotional investment in left-wing humanitarian causes as bordering on hysteria".<ref name="NYT20100210">{{cite news |last=Holden |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Holden |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/movies/11radical.html |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100825070731/http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/movies/11radical.html?ref=movies |archive-date=August 25, 2010 |title=Is This a Man Who Sheds Light, or Simply Sets Fires |newspaper=] |date=February 10, 2010 |access-date=September 1, 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref> He "internalized indignation", a trait that he admits rendered him "insufferable" when talking about the Vietnam War, and that imbued him with a "holier-than-thou" attitude he now regrets.<ref name=haunted/> But Finkelstein regards his absorption of his mother's outlook—the refusal to put aside a sense of moral outrage in order to get on with one's life—as a virtue. Subsequently, reading ] played a role in learning to apply the moral passions his mother bequeathed to him with intellectual rigor.<ref name=haunted>{{cite news|url=http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/finkelstein130506.html|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman G.|title=Haunted House|work=Monthly Review|date=May 13, 2006|access-date=September 1, 2020|quote=It was only many years later after reading Noam Chomsky that I learned it was possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage; that an intelligent argument didn't have to be an intellectualizing one.}}</ref>
'''Norman Gary Finkelstein''' (born December 8, 1953) is an American ], ], professor and author. His primary fields of research are the ] and the politics of the ], an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who were Jewish Holocaust survivors. He is a graduate of ] and received his ] in Political Science from ]. He has held faculty positions at ], ], ], ], and, most recently, ], where he was an ] from 2001 to 2007.


Finkelstein completed his undergraduate studies at ] in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the ] in 1979 in Paris.<ref name="Gale" /> He was an ardent ] from his teenage years on and was "totally devastated" by the news of the trial of the ] in 1976, which led him to decide he had been misled.<ref name="TNR20150707">{{cite magazine|last=Smith|first=Jordan Michael|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/122257/unpopular-man-norman-finkelstein-comes-out-against-bds-movement|title=An Unpopular Man|magazine=]|date=July 7, 2015|access-date=August 9, 2020}}</ref> He was, he says, bedridden for three weeks.<ref name="Tab20120611">{{cite news|last=Samuels|first=David|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/qa-norman-finkelstein|title=Q&A: Norman Finkelstein|work=Tablet|date=June 11, 2012|access-date=August 9, 2020}}</ref>
In 2007, after a ] between Finkelstein and a notable opponent of his, ], Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul was denied.<ref name = "disrupt"/> Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007–2008 academic year, and on September 5, 2007, he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university on generally undisclosed terms.<ref name=ChicagoTribuneEmbattled>{{cite web |url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1206
|title=DePaul, embattled professor settle dispute
|date=
|publisher=''The Chicago Tribune'', republished by normanfinkelstein.com }}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref><ref name=IHTEmbattled>{{cite web |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/05/america/NA-GEN-US-Controversial-Professor.php
|title=Embattled US professor who accused Jews of using Holocaust to stifle criticism agrees to resign
|date=September 5, 2007
|author=''The Associated Press''
|publisher=''The International Herald Tribune''
}}</ref>
An official statement from DePaul strongly defended the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure, stated that outside influence played no role in the decision.<ref name=depaulJointStatement>{{cite web
|url=http://newsroom.depaul.edu/NewsReleases/showNews.aspx?NID=1655
|title=Joint statement of Norman Finkelstein and DePaul University on their tenure controversy and its resolution.
|date=September 5, 2007
|publisher=''DePaul University''
}}</ref>


He received his ] in political science in 1980, and his ] in political studies from Princeton in 1988. He is a member of ].<ref name="Gale" /> His doctoral thesis is on ]. Before gaining academic employment, Finkelstein was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts in New York.<ref name="chomsky2002">{{cite book |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |author-link=Noam Chomsky |chapter=The Fate of an Honest Intellectual |title=Understanding Power |publisher=] |year=2002 |pages=244–248 |url=https://chomsky.info/power01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041009191833/http://www.chomsky.info/books/power01.htm |archive-date=October 9, 2004}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
==Personal background and education==
]
Finkelstein has written of his ] parents' experiences during World War II. His mother, Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, grew up in ], ], survived the ], the ], and two ]. Her first husband died in the war. She considered the day of her liberation as the most horrible day of her life, as she realized that she was alone, her parents and siblings gone. Norman's father, Zacharias Finkelstein, was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and the ].<ref name=haunted /> After the war they met in a ] in ], and then emigrated to the United States, where his father became a factory worker and his mother a homemaker and later a bookkeeper.<ref>{{cite news|last=Sheleg|first=Yair|title=The Finkelstein polemic|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=11|accessdate=20 August 2012|newspaper=Ha'aretz Magazine|date=30 March 2001}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> Finkelstein's mother was an ardent ]. Both his parents died in 1995.<ref name="normanfinkelstein.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=11 |title=Ha'aretz on The Holocaust Industry|publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref>


According to Finkelstein, his involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict began in 1982 when he and a handful of other Jews in New York protested against the ]. He held a sign saying: "This son of survivors of the ], Auschwitz, Maijdenek will not be silent: Israeli Nazis – Stop the Holocaust in Lebanon!"<ref name="od16may3">{{cite web | title=The American Jewish scholar behind Labour's 'antisemitism' scandal breaks his silence | website=openDemocracy | url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda/ | access-date=October 2, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{youTube|9R4KV9wAnsU|title=American Radical – The Trials of Norman Finkelstein|time=7m30s}}</ref>
Finkelstein grew up in ], where he attended ] and was a childhood friend of U.S. Senator ], (D-NY), who was two years ahead of him.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/i-remember-chuck-schumer-from-madison-high-school-his-father-was-an-exterminator-like-father-like-son/ |title=I remember Chuck Schumer from Madison High School. His father was an exterminator: like father, like son. |publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgB20YmqN6A |title=Norman Finkelstein Attacks The Holocaust Industry, Etc. |publisher=YouTube |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref> In his forthcoming memoir, Finkelstein recalls his strong youthful identification with the outrage that his mother, witness to the genocidal atrocities of ], felt at the carnage wrought by the United States in ]. One childhood friend recalls his mother's "emotional investment in left-wing humanitarian causes as bordering on hysteria."<ref name="nytimes.com">Is This a Man Who Sheds Light, or Simply Sets Fires? New York Times, Feb. 11, 2010 </ref> He had "internalized indignation", a trait which he admits rendered him "insufferable" when talking of the ], and which imbued him with a "holier-than-thou" attitude at the time which he now regrets.<ref name=haunted/> But Finkelstein regards his absorption of his mother's outlook — the refusal to put aside a sense of moral outrage in order to get on with one's life — as a virtue. Subsequently, his reading of ] played a seminal role in tailoring the passion bequeathed to him by his mother to the necessity of maintaining intellectual rigor in the pursuit of the truth.<ref name=haunted>{{cite web |url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=18&ar=1 |author=Norman G. Finkelstein |title=Haunted House |date=June 1, 2005 |publisher=normanfinkelstein.com |quote="It was only many years later after reading Noam Chomsky that I learned it was possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage; that an intelligent argument didn't have to be an intellectualizing one."}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref>


During the ], he spent every summer from 1988 in the ] as a guest of Palestinian families in ] and ],<ref>{{youTube|9R4KV9wAnsU|title=American Radical – The Trials of Norman Finkelstein|time=9m00s}}</ref> where he taught English at a local school. Finkelstein wrote that the fact that he was Jewish didn't bother most Palestinians: "The typical response was indifference. Word had been passed to the ''shebab'' that I was 'okay' and, generally, the matter rested there."<ref name="bayt-sahur">{{cite journal|jstor=2537413|title=Bayt Sahur in Year II of the Intifada: A Personal Account|author=Norman Finkelstein|journal=]|year=1990|volume=19|issue=2|pages=62–74|doi=10.2307/2537413| issn=0377-919X}}</ref> He recounted his experiences of the ] in his 1996 book ''The Rise and Fall of Palestine''.
He completed his undergraduate studies at ] in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the '']'' in ]. He went on to earn his ] in political science from ] in 1980, and later his ] in political studies, also from Princeton. Finkelstein wrote his doctoral thesis on ], and it was through this work that he first attracted controversy. Before gaining academic employment, Finkelstein was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts in New York. He then taught successively at ], ], ], and ] and, until recently, taught at ] in Chicago. According to '']'' he left Hunter College in 2001 "after his teaching load and salary were reduced" by the college administration.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>


== Academic career ==
Beginning with his doctoral thesis at ], Finkelstein's career has been marked by controversy. A self-described "forensic scholar", he has written sharply critical academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars whom he accuses of misrepresenting the documentary record in order to defend Israel's policies and practices. His writings have dealt with politically charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine and his allegations of the existence of a ] that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests. Citing ] and ] Noam Chomsky as an example, Finkelstein notes that it is "possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage,"<ref name="haunted" /> and supporters and detractors alike have remarked on the polemical style of Finkelstein's work.<ref name = "disrupt">{{cite book
] in 2009.]]Finkelstein first taught at ] as an adjunct lecturer in international relations (1977–78), then at ] (1988–1991), ] (1992–2001), ] (1992–2001), and ] (2001–2007).<ref name="NYT20070906" /><ref name="Gale" /> '']'' reported that Finkelstein left Hunter College in 2001 "after his teaching load and salary were reduced" by the college administration.<ref name="NYT20100210" /> He has said he enjoyed teaching at Hunter and was "unceremoniously kicked out" after begging the college to keep him on with just two courses a semester for $12,000 a year. Hunter set conditions that would have required him to spend four days a week teaching, which he thought unacceptable.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115192858/http://normanfinkelstein.com/2015/01/15/the-making-of-norman-finkelstein-reality-asserts-itself-58/|date=January 15, 2015}} Norman Finkelstein.com January 15, 2015. 11:45 minutes onward.</ref> Finkelstein taught at ] in Turkey in 2014–15.<ref name="TNR20150707" />
|author=Jennifer Howard
|title=Harvard Law Professor Seeks to Block Tenure for Adversary at DePaul U.
|publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53 Issue 32, p. A13,
|date=13 April 2007}}</ref><ref name="hilberg">{{cite web
|author=Goodman, Amy
|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/9/it_takes_an_enormous_amount_of
|publisher=''Democracy Now!''
|title=Interview with Raul Hilberg and Avi Schlaim
|date=9 May 2007
|accessdate=2007-12-07}}</ref> Its content has been praised by eminent historians such as ] and ],<ref name="hilberg" /> as well as Chomsky.


==Writings==
Finkelstein has described himself as "an old-fashioned communist," in the sense that he "see no value whatsoever in states."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bruinsma|first=Jelle|title=Are American Jews Beginning to Distance Themselves from Israel? Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands|journal=Counterpunch|date=January 5–6, 2008|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/bruinsma01052008.html|accessdate=24 July 2010}}</ref> Before moving his shift to libertarian socialism, Finkelstein spent several years as a dedicated ].<ref>{{Cite web|author=Norman Finkelstein|date=4 October 2013|title=Misadventures in the Class Struggle|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2013/finkelstein-misadventures-in-the-class-struggle/|publisher=newleftproject.org|accessdate=5 October 2013}}</ref>
Finkelstein has described himself as a "forensic" scholar who has worked to demystify what he considers pseudo-scholarly arguments.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Shatz|first=Adam|date=April 8, 1998|title=Goldhagen's Willing Executioners|work=]|url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1998/04/goldhagen-s-willing-executioners.html|access-date=September 1, 2020}}</ref> He has written scathing academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars who he says misrepresent facts in order to defend Israel's policies and practices. His writings have dealt with politically charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine, and his allegations of the existence of a ] that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli political interests.<ref name="Gale" /> He has also described himself as "an old-fashioned communist", in the sense that he "see no value whatsoever in states."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bruinsma|first=Jelle|date=January 5–6, 2008|title=Are American Jews Beginning to Distance Themselves from Israel? Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/bruinsma01052008.html|url-status=dead|journal=Counterpunch|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100909132035/http://www.counterpunch.org/bruinsma01052008.html|archive-date=September 9, 2010|access-date=July 24, 2010}}</ref>


Finkelstein's work has been praised by scholars such as ],<ref name="W&D2009">{{cite journal |last=Klein |first=David |title=Why Is Norman Finkelstein Not Allowed to Teach? |journal=Works and Days |date=2009 |volume=26 & 27 |issue=Special issue: Academic Freedom and Intellectual Activism in the Post-9/11 University |pages=307–322 |url=http://www.worksanddays.net/2008-9/File14.Klein_011309_FINAL.pdf |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120329112449/http://www.worksanddays.net/2008-9/File14.Klein_011309_FINAL.pdf |archive-date=March 29, 2012 |access-date=February 29, 2024}}{{cbignore}}</ref> the political scientist ], and historian ],<ref name="hilberg" /> and his advocates and detractors have remarked on his polemical style.<ref name="disrupt">{{cite journal|last=Howard|first=Jennifer|date=April 13, 2007|title=Harvard Law Professor Seeks to Block Tenure for Adversary at DePaul U.|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Law-Professor-Seeks-to/4384|volume=53|issue=32|page=A13|access-date=April 6, 2019|journal=Chronicle of Higher Education}}</ref><ref name="hilberg">{{cite web|last=Goodman|first=Amy|date=May 9, 2007|title=Interview with Raul Hilberg and Avi Schlaim|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/9/it_takes_an_enormous_amount_of|access-date=December 7, 2007|website=]}}</ref>
==Academic career==
].]]


===On ''From Time Immemorial''=== ===On ''From Time Immemorial''===
Finkelstein's doctoral thesis formed the basis for his interest in examining the claims made in ]'s '']'', a best-selling book at the time.<ref>{{cite web |title=Guide to the Norman Finkelstein Collection |url=https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/cbh/bcms_0067/all/ |website=Center for Brooklyn History |publisher=New York University |access-date=July 30, 2024}}</ref> Peters's "history and defense" of Israel deals with the demographic history of ]. Demographic studies had tended to assert that the ] population of ]-controlled Palestine, a 94% majority at the turn of the century, had dwindled toward parity due to massive ] immigration. Peters radically challenged this view by arguing that a substantial portion of the Palestinians were descended from immigrants from other Arab countries from the early 19th century onward. It followed, for Peters and many of her readers, that the picture of a native Palestinian population overwhelmed by Jewish immigration was little more than propaganda, and that in actuality two almost simultaneous waves of immigration met in what had been a relatively unpopulated land.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}
In Finkelstein's doctoral thesis, he examined the claims made in ]'s '']'', a best-selling book at the time.


''From Time Immemorial'' was praised by figures as varied as ], ], ], and ]. ] wrote in a jacket endorsement, "Millions of people the world over, smothered by false history and propaganda, will be grateful for this clear account of the origins of the Palestinians."<ref name=blamevictim2>{{cite book|editor1-last=Said|editor1-first=Edward W.|editor1-link=Edward Said|editor2-last=Hitchens|editor2-first=Christopher|editor2-link=Christopher Hitchens|title=Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question|page=23|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wELzivMr_-cC&pg=PA23|isbn=978-1-85984-340-6|location=London & New York City|publisher=Verso|year=2001}}</ref>
Peters's "history and defense" of Israel deals with the demographic history of ]. Demographic studies had tended to assert that the ] population of ]-controlled Palestine, a 94% majority at the turn of the century, had dwindled towards parity due to massive ] immigration. Peters radically challenged this picture by arguing that a substantial part of the Palestinian people were descended from immigrants from other Arab countries from the early 19th century onwards. It followed, for Peters and many of her readers, that the picture of a native Palestinian population overwhelmed by Jewish immigration was little more than propaganda, and that in actuality two almost simultaneous waves of immigration met in what had been a relatively unpopulated land.


Finkelstein called the book a "monumental hoax".<ref>{{cite web|title=Alan Dershowitz Exposed: What if a Harvard Student Did This?|author=Norman Finkelstein|author-link=Norman Finkelstein|date=February 8, 2003 |url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/alan-dershowitz-exposed-what-if-a-harvard-student-did-this|publisher= www.normanfinkelstein.com|access-date=November 1, 2015}}</ref> He later opined that, while Peters's book received widespread interest and approval in the United States, a scholarly demonstration of its fraudulence and unreliability aroused little attention:
''From Time Immemorial'' had been effusively praised in mainstream ] media sources by figures as varied as ], ], ], and ]. ], for one, wrote in a jacket endorsement that:
{{bq|By the end of 1984, ''From Time Immemorial'' had...received some two hundred notices ... in the United States. The only "false" notes in this crescendoing chorus of praise were the '']'', which ran a highly critical review by Bill Farrell; the small Chicago-based newsweekly '']'', which published a condensed version of this writer's findings; and ], who devoted a series of columns in '']'' exposing the hoax. ... The periodicals in which ''From Time Immemorial'' had already been favorably reviewed refused to run any critical correspondence (e.g., '']'', '']'', ]). Periodicals that had yet to review the book rejected a manuscript on the subject as of little or no consequence (e.g., '']'', ], '']''). Not a single national newspaper or columnist contacted found it newsworthy that a best-selling, effusively praised "study" of the Middle East conflict was a threadbare hoax.<ref>Finkelstein, ''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict'', pp. 45–46</ref>}}
:"Millions of people the world over, smothered by false history and propaganda, will be grateful for this clear account of the origins of the Palestinians."<ref name=blamevictim2>{{cite book
|author=Edward W. Said, Christopher Hitchens, eds.
|title=''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question''
|page=23
|quote=
|date=
|publisher=
|url=http://books.google.com/?id=wELzivMr_-cC&pg=PA23
|isbn=978-1-85984-340-6
|year=2001
}}</ref>


According to Adam Shatz, "when Finkelstein showed that Peters had manipulated Ottoman demographic records to make her case, the book's supporters attacked him as an anti-Zionist. By 1986, though, Zionist scholars having published articles that bolstered Finkelstein's case, his version was the conventional wisdom."<ref name="Shatz 1998 y813">{{cite web | last=Shatz | first=Adam | title=Goldhagen's Willing Executioners | website=Slate Magazine | date=8 April 1998 | url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1998/04/goldhagen-s-willing-executioners.html | access-date=8 April 2024}}</ref>
Finkelstein asserted that the book was nothing more than what he now calls a "monumental hoax".<ref>{{cite web
|title=Alan Dershowitz Exposed: What if a Harvard Student Did This?
|author=Norman Finkelstein
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/alan-dershowitz-exposed-what-if-a-harvard-student-did-this/
|date=
|publisher= www.normanfinkelstein.com }}</ref> He later opined that, while Peters's book received widespread interest and approval in the United States, a scholarly demonstration of its fraudulence and unreliability aroused little attention:


In '']'', Noam Chomsky wrote that Finkelstein sent his preliminary findings to about 30 people interested in the topic, but no one replied, except for him, and that was how they became friends:
:"By the end of 1984, ''From Time Immemorial'' had...received some two hundred notices ... in the United States. The only 'false' notes in this crescendoing chorus of praise were the '']'', which ran a highly critical review by Bill Farrell; the small Chicago-based newsweekly '']'', which published a condensed version of this writer's findings; and ], who devoted a series of columns in '']'' exposing the hoax. ... The periodicals in which ''From Time Immemorial'' had already been favorably reviewed refused to run any critical correspondence (e.g. '']'', '']'', ]). Periodicals that had yet to review the book rejected a manuscript on the subject as of little or no consequence (e.g. '']'', ], '']''). Not a single national newspaper or columnist contacted found newsworthy that a best-selling, effusively praised 'study' of the Middle East conflict was a threadbare hoax."<ref>Finkelstein, ''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict'' 45-46</ref>
<blockquote>I told him, yeah, I think it’s an interesting topic, but I warned him, if you follow this, you’re going to get in trouble—because you're going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they're going to destroy you. So I said: if you want to do it, go ahead, but be aware of what you're getting into. It's an important issue, it makes a big difference whether you eliminate the moral basis for driving out a population—it's preparing the basis for some real horrors—so a lot of people's lives could be at stake. But your life is at stake too, I told him, because if you pursue this, your career is going to be ruined. Well, he didn't believe me. We became very close friends after this, I didn't know him before.<ref name="chomsky2002"/></blockquote>According to Chomsky, the controversy over Finkelstein's research caused a delay in his earning his Ph.D. at ]. Chomsky wrote that Finkelstein could not get the faculty to read his dissertation, and that Princeton eventually granted Finkelstein his doctorate only "out of embarrassment" and refused to give him any further professional backing.<ref name="chomsky2002"/>


]
] later reminisced:


In a 1996 '']'' review of a subsequent book, ] called Finkelstein's critique of ''From Time Immemorial'' a "landmark essay" that helped demonstrate Peters's "shoddy scholarship".<ref name="Quandt">{{cite journal|last=Quandt|first=William B.|url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19960501fabook3954/norman-g-finkelstein/image-and-reality-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict.html|title=''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict''|journal=]|issue=May/June 1996|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311022646/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19960501fabook3954/norman-g-finkelstein/image-and-reality-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict.html|archive-date=March 11, 2007|quote=Along with a few other conscientious scholars, he demonstrated that Joan Peters' book ''From Time Immemorial'', which claimed that Palestinians arrived in Palestine only recently, was based on shoddy scholarship. That landmark essay is included in this collection.}}</ref> Israeli historian ] later praised Finkelstein's thesis, saying that it had established his credentials when he was still a doctoral student. In Shlaim's view, Finkelstein had produced an "unanswerable case" with "irrefutable evidence" that Peters's book was "preposterous and worthless".<ref name="JPS-AS">{{cite journal|last=Shlaim |first=Avi |title=Confidential Peer Review of Beyond Chutzpah for the University of California Press, February 9, 2005 |journal=] |date=Winter 2006 |volume=XXXV |page=88 |url=http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/pdf/jps/6643.pdf |doi=10.1525/jps.2006.35.2.85 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101127103855/http://palestine-studies.org/files/pdf/jps/6643.pdf |archive-date=November 27, 2010 }}</ref>
:"I warned him, if you follow this, you're going to get in trouble—because you're going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they're going to destroy you."<ref name=chomskyfate>{{cite book
|author=Noam Chomsky
|chapter="The Fate of an Honest Intellectual"
|title=Understanding Power
|publisher=''The New Press''
|year=2002
|pages=244–248, p.244.
|url=http://www.chomsky.info/books/power01.htm}}</ref>


=== ''The Rise and Fall of Palestine'' ===
In 1986, the '']'' published ]'s review<ref name=porath>{{cite book
In 1996, Finkelstein published ''The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years'', which chronicled his visits to the West Bank during the First Intifada. Through personal accounts, he compares the plight of the Palestinians living under the ] with the horrors of the Nazis.<ref name="hiltermann">{{cite journal |last1=Hiltermann |first1=Joost |title=Review of The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years |journal=Middle East Journal |date=1997 |volume=51 |issue=4 |pages=610–611 |jstor=4329127 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4329127 |issn=0026-3141}}</ref>
|author=Yehoshua Porath
|title=Mrs. Peters's Palestine
|work=]
|volume=Vol. 32, Nos. 21, 22
|date=January 16, 1986}}</ref> and an exchange with critics of the review<ref name="Exchange">{{cite book
|url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5172
|title = Mrs. Peters's Palestine: An Exchange
|accessdate = 2007-12-05
|author = '''Daniel Pipes'''
|date= March 27, 1986
|volume = Volume 33, Number 5
|publisher = ''The New York Review of Books''
}}</ref> in which he criticized the assumptions and evidence on which Peters's thesis relied, thus lending independent support from an expert in Palestinian demographics to Finkelstein's doctoral critique.<ref name=chomskyfate /> In the house journal of the American ], '']'', ], the ] professor of Politics at the ] and authority on Middle Eastern politics,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://people.virginia.edu/~wbq8f/CVLONG.htm |title=Curriculum Vitae of Professor William B. Quandt |publisher=People.virginia.edu |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref> later described Finkelstein's critique of ''From Time Immemorial'' as a "landmark essay" and a "victory to his credit", in its "demonstration" of the "shoddy scholarship" of Peters's book.<ref name=Quandt>{{cite book |author=William B. Quandt|url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19960501fabook3954/norman-g-finkelstein/image-and-reality-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict.html |title=Book review of ''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict'' |publisher='']'' |edition=May/June 1996 }}</ref> Israeli historian ] later praised Finkelstein's thesis, saying that it had established his credentials when he was still a doctoral student. In Shlaim's view, Finkelstein had produced an "unanswerable case" with "irrefutable evidence", proving that Peters' book was both "preposterous and worthless".<ref name=JPS-AS>{{cite journal|last=Shlaim|first=Avi|title=AVI SHLAIM, CONFIDENTIAL PEER REVIEW OF BEYOND CHUTZPAH FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 9 FEBRUARY 2005.|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|date=Winter 2006|volume=XXXV|page=88|url=http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/pdf/jps/6643.pdf}}</ref>


The book was unfavorably reviewed by ], who objected to Finkelstein's "abrasiveness, righteous anger, hyperbole, distortions and unwarranted generalizations", and to his generalizations about West Bank Palestinians:
According to Noam Chomsky, the controversy that surrounded Finkelstein's research caused a delay in his earning his Ph.D. at ]. Chomsky wrote in '']'' that Finkelstein "literally could not get the faculty to read <nowiki></nowiki>" and that Princeton eventually granted Finkelstein his ] only "out of embarrassment " but refused to give him any further professional backing.<ref name=chomskyfate />
{{blockquote|text=Finkelstein commits the error of assuming that he saw everything there was to see during his trips to the West Bank, and that what he saw represented reality. This leads to absurd observations. He claims, for example, that "many Palestinians are fluent in English" (p. 4), that "many" homes he visited were "equipped with the latest, wide-screen, color models" of television (p. 6), and that "women wore bikinis at the beach" (p. 18).<ref name="hiltermann"/>}}
Hiltermann wrote that while "there is plenty of reason to be anguished about the terrible injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian", Finkelstein's "bludgeoning" style wouldn't reach an audience beyond those already converted.<ref name="hiltermann"/>


=== ''A Nation on Trial'' ===
Finkelstein published portions of his thesis in the following publications:
In 1996, ] historian ] published '']'', in which he argued that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture. Finkelstein's critique, “Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 'Crazy' Thesis”, was published in '']'' and excerpted in '']'' and Italy's '']''.<ref name="Shatz 1998 y813"/> In the essay, Finkelstein places the term "holocaust" in ] to "universalize events and thereby downgrade the significance of the Holocaust for Jewish history".<ref name="Brennan 2001 pp. 83–109">{{cite journal | last=Brennan | first=Michael | title=Some Sociological Contemplations on Daniel J. Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners | journal=Theory, Culture & Society | volume=18 | issue=4 | date=2001 | issn=0263-2764 | doi=10.1177/02632760122051896 | pages=83–109}}</ref><ref>Finkelstein "Goldhagen -- ein Quellenstrickser?" ''Der Spiegel'', August 11, 1997, pp. 156-158.</ref>
*"Disinformation and the Palestine Question: The Not-So-Strange Case of Joan Peters's ''From Time Immemorial''." Chapter 2 of '']'' (1988); and

*"] (Joan Peters' "Wilderness" Image)." Chapter 2 of '']'' (1995).
], an imprint of ], announced it would publish a revised version of the essay, along with that of German-born historian ] that had been published in the '']'', under the title ''A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth''. ] and the ]’s ] unsuccessfully pressured Metropolitan to cancel it. ]'s ] backed out of writing a preface but did endorse the book, along with historians ], ], ], and ].<ref name="Shatz 1998 y813"/>

The book slightly tones down the essay, with Goldhagen describing the revision as the "sanitized", "excised" and "coverup" version.<ref name="Brennan 2001 pp. 83–109"/><ref name=Goldhagen>Daniel Jonah Goldhagen , Frankfurter Rundschau (August 18, 1997)</ref> According to Adam Shatz, Finkelstein's arguments in the book are that only a minority of Germans voted for the Nazis, that antisemitism wasn't Hitler's primary appeal to the German people, that "Germans overwhelmingly condemned the Nazi anti-Semitic atrocities", and that Goldhagen's book was successful because of its Zionist agenda. Shatz suggests that these points are either exaggerated or not new: <blockquote>Israeli intellectuals such as ] and ] and the Holocaust historian ] have made similar points about the ideological subtext of Holocaust writing. But they also take pains not to dismiss the trauma the Holocaust visited and continues to visit upon Jews. By contrast, Finkelstein adopts an ugly conspiratorial tone when he attributes the book's popularity in the United States to its Zionist message.<ref name="Shatz 1998 y813"/></blockquote>


===''The Holocaust Industry''=== ===''The Holocaust Industry''===
{{Main|The Holocaust Industry}} {{Main|The Holocaust Industry}}
''The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering'' was published in 2000. Here, Finkelstein argues that ] and others exploit the memory of the Holocaust as an "ideological weapon." This is done so ], "one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, cast itself as a victim state", in order to garner "immunity to criticism."<ref>{{cite book ''The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering'' was published in 2000. In this work, Finkelstein argues that Elie Wiesel and others exploit the memory of the Holocaust as an "ideological weapon". Their purpose, he writes, is to enable ], "one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, cast itself as a victim state"; that is, to provide Israel "immunity to criticism".<ref name="NFHI">{{cite book|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman|title=''The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering''|edition=(2nd ed.)|publisher=Verso|year=2003|page=xi}}</ref> He alleges "a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters" have sought enormous legal damages and financial settlements from Germany and Switzerland, money that then goes to the lawyers and institutional actors involved in procuring them rather than actual ].<ref>{{cite book|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman|title=''The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering''|edition=(2nd ed.)|publisher=Verso|year=2003|page=xiii}}</ref> In a television interview to publicize the book, he said a "handful of American Jews have effectively hijacked the Nazi Holocaust to blackmail Europe" to "divert attention from what is being done to the Palestinians".<ref name="NYT20100210" />
|author=Finkelstein, N.
|title=''The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering''
|edition=(2nd ed.)
|publisher=Verso
|year=2003
|pages=xi
}}</ref> He also alleges what he calls a "double shakedown" by "a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters" seeking enormous legal damages and financial settlements from Germany and Switzerland, moneys which then go to the lawyers and institutional actors involved in procuring them, rather than actual Holocaust survivors.<ref>{{cite book
|author=Finkelstein, N.
|title=''The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering''
|edition=(2nd ed.)
|publisher=Verso
|year=2003
|pages=xiii
}}</ref><ref> ] October 12, 2006</ref><ref> ] February 25, 2006</ref>


The book was received negatively in many quarters, with critics charging that it was poorly researched and/or allowed others to exploit it for antisemitic purposes. The German historian ] disparaged the first edition as "a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices". Israeli Holocaust historian ] called it "a lampoon, which takes a serious subject and distorts it for improper purposes. I don't even think it should be reviewed or critiqued as a legitimate book."<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Alexander|editor1-first=Edward|editor2-last=Bogdanor|editor2-first=Paul|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cDwrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA154|title=The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders|location=Abingdon, Oxon, London & New York City|publisher=Routledge|year=2017|orig-year=2006|page=154|isbn=9781351480499}}</ref> ''The Holocaust Industry'' was also harshly criticized by ] Professor ],<ref name="bartov_review">{{cite news |last=Bartov |first=Omer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/books/a-tale-of-two-holocausts.html |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110429075449/http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/books/a-tale-of-two-holocausts.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm |archive-date=April 29, 2011 |title=A Tale of Two Holocausts |newspaper=] |date=August 6, 2000 |access-date=February 29, 2024}}{{cbignore}}</ref> ] Professor ] and other reviewers accusing Finkelstein of selective or dubious evidence and misinterpretation of history.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Landau|first1=Ronnie|title=A grubby story?|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/22nd-july-2000/31/books|work=The Spectator|pages=30|date=July 21, 2000|quote=evidence cited seems highly selective and dubious}}</ref> At the time the book was published in Germany, '']'' reported the country was "in the grip of Holocaust madness. Finkelstein is being taken seriously. What he says corresponds with what many who do not know the facts think." In an interview, Finkelstein said, "the Holocaust is a political weapon. Germans have legitimate reasons to defend themselves against this abuse".<ref>{{cite news|last=Paterson|first=Tony|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1323166/German-outrage-at-Holocaust-book.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1323166/German-outrage-at-Holocaust-book.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=German outrage at Holocaust book|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|date=February 18, 220|access-date=August 10, 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
The book met with a hostile reception in some quarters, with critics charging that it was poorly researched and/or allowed others to exploit it for antisemitic purposes. For example, German historian ] disparaged the first edition as "a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices." Israeli holocaust historian ] called the book "a lampoon," stating "this is not research; it isn't even political literature... I don't even think it should be reviewed or critiqued as a legitimate book."<ref>{{cite web
|author=Sheleg, Yair
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=11
|title=The Finkelstein Polemic.
|publisher='']'', reprinted by www.normanfinkelstein.com
|date=30 March 2001
}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> The book was also harshly criticized by Brown University Professor ]<ref>From The New York Times, Book Review Desk August 6, 2000 (archived)</ref> and University of Chicago Professor ].


In an August 2000 interview for Swiss National Radio, Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg said the book expressed views Hilberg held, in that he too found "detestable" the exploitation of the Holocaust by groups such as the ]. Asked whether Finkelstein's analysis might play into the hands of neo-Nazis for antisemitic purposes, Hilberg replied, "Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, I'm afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Antonini|first1=Roberto|last2=Hilberg|first2=Raul|title=Interview with Raul Hilberg |publisher=Swiss National Radio (SBC-SSR) |date=August 31, 2000 |url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=202 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327144638/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=202 |archive-date=March 27, 2006|quote=the methods of the World Jewish Congress and some other organizations or people allied with it in his campaign I feel are detestable. I don't subscribe to them. In sum and substance I agree with what Finkelstein says.}}</ref>
Based on his criticism of Holocaust exploitation, the ] and others branded Finkelstein as a ], despite his being the son of two Holocaust survivors, most of whose family died in the Holocaust.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/finkelstein.html |title=Why is Norman Finkelstein Not Allowed to Teach? |publisher=Csun.edu |date= |accessdate=2013-06-06}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/how-the-adl-fights-anti-semitism/ |title=How the ADL Fights Anti-Semitism &#124; Norman G. Finkelstein |publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |date= |accessdate=2013-06-06}}</ref> However, preeminent Holocaust scholar<ref>{{Citation | last = Joffe | first = Lawrence | title = Obituary: Raul Hilberg | newspaper = The Guardian | date = 2007-09-25 | url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/sep/25/guardianobituaries.obituaries | accessdate = 2012-05-19}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Wyman | first = David | author-link = David Wyman | title = Managing the Death Machine | newspaper = The New York Times | date = 1985-08-11 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/11/books/managing-the-death-machine.html | accessdate =2012-05-19}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Woo | first = Elaine | title = Raul Hilberg, 81; scholar was an authority on the Holocaust | newspaper = Los Angeles Times | date = 2007-08-07 | url = http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/07/local/me-hilberg7 | accessdate = 2012-05-19}}</ref>


In a review in the journal '']'', ] called the book "polemical and violent" but also "in many ways appropriate and convincing". Traverso expressed many reservations about Finkelstein's arguments about the Swiss banks and the reaction in Europe. Traverso agreed (with Hilberg) that the allegations Finkelstein made against a number of Jewish-American institutions are probably correct. He also referred to the favorable reception Finkelstein's book received in the '']'', calling it "welcome hyberbole". But Traverso criticized Finkelstein for ignoring the European aspect of the matter, and said Finkelstein's analysis was too simplistic and crudely materialistic. He concluded, "Finkelstein's book contains a core of truth that must be recognised, but it lends itself, due to its style and several of its main arguments, to the worst uses and instrumentalisations".<ref name="TraversoReview">{{Cite journal |last=Traverso |first=Enzo |date=July 1, 2003 |title=The Holocaust Industry. Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering NORMAN FINKELSTEIN |url=http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/156920603768311291 |journal=Historical Materialism |language=en |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=215–225 |doi=10.1163/156920603768311291 |issn=1569-206X}}</ref>
In contrast, renowned Holocaust historian ] said the book expressed views Hilberg himself subscribed to in substance, in that he too found the exploitation of the Holocaust, in the manner Finkelstein describes, "detestable." Asked on another occasion if Finkelstein's analysis might play into the hands of neo-Nazis for antisemitic purposes, Hilberg replied: "Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, I'm afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing."<ref>{{cite web

|author=Felix Kellerhoff
The historian ] criticized Finkelstein for absolving Swiss banks of serious misconduct toward Holocaust survivors and for depicting the banks as victims of Jewish terror. Cesarani said that Finkelstein based his claim on a single sentence from an annex to a report that related to some specific issues, while ignoring the report's main conclusions, which "fully justified the campaign that was necessary to wrest compensation from initially unapologetic and obdurate Swiss banks".<ref name=":0">{{cite web |last1=Cesarani |first1=David |author-link=David Cesarani |date=August 4, 2000 |title=Finkelstein's final solution |url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/finkelsteins-final-solution/155953.article |website=Times Higher Education |quote=}}</ref>
|title=Raul Hilberg und die Quellen des Holocaust
|publisher='']''
|date=25 January 2003
|url=http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article351516/Raul_Hilberg_und_die_Quellen_des_Holocaust.html
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|author=Roberto Antonini
|title=Interview with Raul Hilberg
|publisher=''Swiss National Radio (SBC-SSR)''
|date=31 August 2000
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=202}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref>


===Criticism of Alan Dershowitz's ''The Case for Israel''=== ===Criticism of Alan Dershowitz's ''The Case for Israel''===
{{Main|Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair}} {{Main|Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair}}
] lasted for years and had a negative effect on Finkelstein's academic career]] ] lasted for years and had a negative effect on Finkelstein's academic career|147x147px]]
Shortly after the publication of the book '']'' by ], Finkelstein derided it as "a collection of fraud, falsification, ], and nonsense".<ref name=Goodman>{{cite web Shortly after the 2003 publication of ]'s book '']'', Finkelstein derided it as "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism, and nonsense".<ref name=Goodman>{{cite web|author=]|url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/24/1730205&mode=thread&tid=38|title=Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz's New Book On Israel a 'Hoax'|publisher=]|date=September 24, 2003|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041223112401/http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03%2F09%2F24%2F1730205&mode=thread&tid=38|archive-date=December 23, 2004}}</ref> During a debate on '']'', Finkelstein said that Dershowitz lacked knowledge of specific contents of his own book. He also claimed that Dershowitz did not write the book and may not have even read it.<ref name=Goodman/>
|author=]
|url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/24/1730205&mode=thread&tid=38
|title=Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz's New Book On Israel a 'Hoax',
|publisher='']''
|date=24 September 2003
}}</ref> During a debate on '']'', Finkelstein asserted that Dershowitz lacked knowledge about specific contents of his own book. He also claimed that Dershowitz did not write the book, and may not have even read it.<ref name=Goodman/>
Finkelstein noted 20 instances, in as many pages, where Dershowitz's book cites the same sources and passages used by Joan Peters in her book, in largely the same sequence, with ellipses in the same places. In two instances, Dershowitz reproduces Peters's errors (see below). From this Finkelstein concluded that Dershowitz had not checked the original sources himself, contrary to the latter's claims.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1
|title=Alan Dershowitz Exposed: What if a Harvard Student Did This?
|author=Norman Finkelstein
|date=
|publisher=''www.normanfinkelstein.com''
}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas.<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar50>{{cite web
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=50
|author=Norman G. Finkelstein
|title=The Real Issue is Israel's Human Rights Record
|date=August 25, 2005
|publisher=''www.normanfinkelstein.com''
}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> Examining a copy of a proof of Dershowitz's book he managed to obtain, he found evidence that Dershowitz had his secretarial assistant, Holly Beth Billington, check in the Harvard library the sources he had read in Peters's book.<ref>{{cite book
|title=]
|pages=Appendix 1
|date=June 2008
|publisher=''University of California Press''
|author=Norman Finkelstein
|edition=2nd updated
|isbn=0-520-24989-5
}}</ref> Dershowitz answered the charge in a letter to the ]'s Press Director Lynne Withey, arguing that Finkelstein had made up the ''smoking gun'' quotation, in that he had changed its wording (from 'cite' to 'copy') in his book.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/img/features/dershletters/forwards/09-01-2005/LetterToLynneWithey.pdf
|title=Letter from Alan Dershowitz to Lynn Withey
|date=September 1, 2005
|publisher=reprinted by www.normanfinkelstein.com
|author=Alan Dershowitz
}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> In public debate he has stated that if "somebody borrowed the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that, obviously that would be a serious charge"; however, he insisted emphatically that he himself did not do that, that he had indeed checked the original source by Twain.<ref name=Goodman/>


Finkelstein said there were 20 instances, in as many pages, where Dershowitz's book cites the same sources and passages Peters used in her book, in largely the same sequence, with ] in the same places. In two instances, Dershowitz reproduces Peters's errors. From this Finkelstein concluded that Dershowitz had not checked the original sources himself, contrary to his claims.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2003/alan-dershowitz-exposed-what-if-a-harvard-student-did-this|title=Alan Dershowitz Exposed: What if a Harvard Student Did This?|author=Norman Finkelstein|date=February 8, 2003 |publisher=normanfinkelstein.com|access-date=November 1, 2015}}</ref> Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas.<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar50>{{cite web|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2005/the-real-issue-is-israels-human-rights-record|author=Norman G. Finkelstein|title=The Real Issue is Israel's Human Rights Record|date=August 25, 2005|publisher=normanfinkelstein.com}}</ref> Examining a copy of a proof of Dershowitz's book he managed to obtain, he found evidence that Dershowitz had his secretarial assistant, Holly Beth Billington, check in the Harvard library the sources he had read in Peters's book.{{sfn|Finkelstein|2008|p=287}} Dershowitz answered the charge in a letter to the ]'s Press Director Lynne Withey, arguing that Finkelstein had made up the ''smoking gun'' quotation by changing its wording (from "cite" to "copy") in his book. In public debate, he has said that if "somebody borrowed the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that, obviously that would be a serious charge", but said that he did not do that and had indeed checked the original source.<ref name=Goodman/>
Dershowitz threatened libel action over the charges in Finkelstein's book, as a consequence of which, the publisher deleted the word "plagiarism" from the text before publication.<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar32>{{cite web
|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=32
|author=Marcella Bombardieri
|publisher=''The Boston Globe'' reprinted by www.normanfinkelstein.com
|date=July 9, 2005
|title=Academic fight heads to print, authorship challenge dropped from text
}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> Finkelstein also agreed to remove the suggestion that Dershowitz was not the true author of ''The Case for Israel'' because, as the publisher said, "he couldn't document that."<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=508242
|publisher=''The Harvard Crimson''
|title=Accusations Fly in Academic Feud: Harvard law prof tries to prevent publication of book about Israel
|author=Daniel J.T. Schuker
|date=July 7, 2005
}}</ref>


Dershowitz threatened libel action over the charges in Finkelstein's book, as a consequence of which the publisher deleted the word "plagiarism" from the text before publication.<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar32>{{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=32 |author=Marcella Bombardieri |publisher=The Boston Globe reprinted by www.normanfinkelstein.com |date=July 9, 2005 |title=Academic fight heads to print, authorship challenge dropped from text |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327144248/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=32 |archive-date=March 27, 2006 }}</ref> Finkelstein agreed to remove the suggestion that Dershowitz was not the true author of ''The Case for Israel'' because, as the publisher said, "he couldn't document that".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=508242|newspaper=The Harvard Crimson|title=Accusations Fly in Academic Feud: Harvard law prof tries to prevent publication of book about Israel|author=Daniel J.T. Schuker|date=July 7, 2005}}</ref>
Asserting that he did consult the original sources, Dershowitz says that Finkelstein is simply accusing him of good scholarly practice: citing references he learned of initially from Peters's book. Dershowitz denies that he used any of Peters's ideas without citation. "Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and claiming they're your own. There are no borrowed words from anybody. There are no borrowed ideas from anybody because I fundamentally disagree with the conclusions of Peters's book."<ref>{{cite web
|author=Marx, Eric|url=http://www.forward.com/articles/dershowitz-rebuts-critics-plagiarism-charges/
|title=Dershowitz Rebuts Critics' Plagiarism Charges
|publisher='']''
|date=October 3, 2003
}}</ref> In a footnote in ''The Case for Israel'' which cites Peters's book, Dershowitz explicitly denies that he "relies" on Peters for "conclusions or data".<ref name=cockburnnation />


Asserting that he did consult the original sources, Dershowitz said Finkelstein was simply accusing him of good scholarly practice: citing references he learned of initially from Peters's book. Dershowitz denied that he used any of Peters's ideas without citation. "Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and claiming they're your own. There are no borrowed words from anybody. There are no borrowed ideas from anybody because I fundamentally disagree with the conclusions of Peters's book."<ref>{{cite web|author=Marx, Eric|url=http://www.forward.com/articles/dershowitz-rebuts-critics-plagiarism-charges|title=Dershowitz Rebuts Critics' Plagiarism Charges|publisher=]|date=October 3, 2003}}</ref> In a footnote in ''The Case for Israel'' that cites Peters's book, Dershowitz explicitly denies that he "relies" on Peters for "conclusions or data".<ref name=cockburnnation/>
In their joint interview on ''Democracy Now'', however, Finkelstein cited specific passages in Dershowitz's book in which a phrase that he says Peters coined was incorrectly attributed to George Orwell:
<blockquote>" coins the phrase, 'turnspeak', she says she's using it as a play off of George Orwell which as all listeners know used the phrase 'Newspeak.' She coined her own phrase, 'turnspeak.' You go to Mr. Dershowitz's book, he got so confused in his massive borrowings from Joan Peters that on two occasions, I'll cite them for those who have a copy of the book, on page 57 and on page 153 he uses the phrase, quote, George Orwell's 'turnspeak.' 'Turnspeak' is not Orwell, Mr. Dershowitz, you're the ] chair at Harvard, you must know that Orwell would never use such a clunky phrase as 'turnspeak'."<ref>{{cite web | title=Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz’s New Book On Israel a "Hoax" | url=http://www.democracynow.org/2003/9/24/scholar_norman_finkelstein_calls_professor_alan | work= | publisher= | date= | accessdate=2009-06-03}}</ref></blockquote>


In their joint interview on ''Democracy Now'', Finkelstein cited specific passages in Dershowitz's book in which a phrase that he said Peters coined was incorrectly attributed to George Orwell:
James O. Freedman, the former president of ], the ], and the ], has defended Dershowitz: <blockquote>I do not understand charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as '']'' emphasizes: 'Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of ], it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism.' This is precisely what Dershowitz did.<ref name=jbooksDershowitz>{{cite web
|url=http://www.jbooks.com/interviews/index/IP_Dershowitz.htm
|publisher=''Retrieved from JBooks.com''
|title=The Hazards of Making ''The Case for Israel''
|author=Alan Dershowitz
|date=
}}</ref></blockquote>


<blockquote> coins the phrase "turnspeak"; she says she's using it as a play off of George Orwell, which as all listeners know used the phrase "Newspeak." She coined her own phrase, "turnspeak". You go to Mr. Dershowitz's book, he got so confused in his massive borrowings from Joan Peters that on two occasions—I'll cite them for those who have a copy of the book, on page 57 and on page 153—he uses the phrase "George Orwell's 'turnspeak'." "Turnspeak" is not Orwell, Mr. Dershowitz".<ref>{{cite news|title=Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz's New Book On Israel a "Hoax"|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2003/9/24/scholar_norman_finkelstein_calls_professor_alan|work=Democracy Now!|date=September 24, 2003|access-date=September 1, 2020}}</ref></blockquote>
Responding to an article in '']'' by Alexander Cockburn,<ref name=cockburnnation>{{cite web
|url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031013/cockburn
|title=Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist
|author=Alexander Cockburn
|date=September 25, 2003
|publisher=''The Nation'' full version available here from Counterpunch.org
}}</ref> Dershowitz also cited '']'':<blockquote>Cockburn's claim is that some of the quotes should not have been cited to their original sources but rather to a secondary source, where he believes I stumbled upon them. Even if he were correct that I found all these quotations in Peters's book, the preferred method of citation is to the original source, as '']'' emphasizes: "With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This...helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism...To cite a source from a secondary source ('quoted in...') is generally to be discouraged...."<ref name=alandalletters>{{cite web
|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2003/dershowitz-vs-cockburn-including-exchange-of-letters/
|author=Alan Dershowitz and Alexander Cockburn
|publisher=''www.normanfinkelstein.com''
|date=October 2003
|title=Dershowitz vs. Cockburn (including exchange of letters)
}}</ref></blockquote>
...to which Cockburn responded:
<blockquote>Quoting '']'', Dershowitz artfully implies that he followed the rules by citing "the original" as opposed to the
secondary source, Peters. He misrepresents Chicago here, where "the
original" means merely the origin of the borrowed material, which is,
in this instance, Peters.


James O. Freedman, the former president of ], the ], and the ], defended Dershowitz:
Now look at the second bit of the quote from Chicago, chastely
separated from the preceding sentence by a demure three-point
ellipsis. As my associate Kate Levin has discovered, this passage
("To cite a source from a secondary source...") occurs on page 727,
which is no less than 590 pages later than the material before the
ellipsis, in a section titled "Citations Taken from Secondary
Sources." Here's the full quote, with what Dershowitz left out set in
bold: "'Quoted in.' To cite a source from a secondary source ("quoted
in") is generally to be discouraged, '''since authors are expected to'''
'''have examined the works they cite. If an original source is'''
'''unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must'''
'''be listed.'''"


<blockquote>I do not understand charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as '']'' emphasizes: 'Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of ], it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism.' This is precisely what Dershowitz did.<ref name=jbooksDershowitz>{{cite web|url=http://www.jbooks.com/interviews/index/IP_Dershowitz.htm|publisher=Retrieved from JBooks.com|title=The Hazards of Making ''The Case for Israel''|author=Alan Dershowitz}}</ref></blockquote>
So Chicago is clearly insisting that unless Dershowitz went to the
originals, he was obliged to cite Peters. Finkelstein has
conclusively demonstrated that he didn't go to the originals.
Plagiarism, QED, plus added time for willful distortion of the
language of Chicago's guidelines, cobbling together two separate
discussions.<ref name=alandalletters />
</blockquote>


Responding to an article in ''The Nation'' by Alexander Cockburn,<ref name=cockburnnation>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031013/cockburn|title=Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist|author=Alexander Cockburn|author-link=Alexander Cockburn|date=September 25, 2003|magazine=The Nation }} </ref> Dershowitz also cited ''The Chicago Manual of Style'':
On behalf of Dershowitz, ] dean ] asked former Harvard president ] to investigate the assertion of plagiarism; Bok exonerated Dershowitz of the charge.<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar32/>


<blockquote>Cockburn's claim is that some of the quotes should not have been cited to their original sources but rather to a secondary source, where he believes I stumbled upon them. Even if he were correct that I found all these quotations in Peters's book, the preferred method of citation is to the original source, as ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' emphasizes: "With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This...helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism ... To cite a source from a secondary source ('quoted in...') is generally to be discouraged"<ref name=alandalletters>{{cite web|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2003/dershowitz-vs-cockburn-including-exchange-of-letters|author1=Alan Dershowitz |author2=Alexander Cockburn |author-link2=Alexander Cockburn |name-list-style=amp |publisher=normanfinkelstein.com|date=October 2003|title=Dershowitz vs. Cockburn (including exchange of letters)}}</ref></blockquote>
In an April 3, 2007 interview with the '']'', "Dershowitz confirmed that he had sent a letter last September to ] faculty members lobbying against Finkelstein's tenure."<ref>{{cite web
|author=Zhou, Kevin
|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=518002
|title=Feud Weakens Prof's Tenure Bid
|publisher='']''
|date=April 4, 2007
}}</ref>


Cockburn responded:
In April 2007, Dr. Frank Menetrez, a former Editor-in-Chief of the ], published an analysis of the charges made against Finkelstein by Dershowitz, finding no merit in any single charge and concluding that Dershowitz had misrepresented matters.<ref name="Menetrez2008">Frank Menetrez: "Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who’s Right and Who’s Wrong?". Included as Epilogue in: {{cite book|author=Norman G. Finkelstein
|title=Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-semitism and the Abuse of History|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=qc6Tn-C2B5UC&pg=PA363|accessdate=26 May 2013|year=2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24989-9|pages=363–}}</ref><ref name="Frank J. Menetrez and others">{{cite web
|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/30/dershowitz-v-finkelstein-who-s-right-and-who-s-wrong/
|title=Dershowitz vs. Finkelstein: Who's Right and Who's Wrong?
|author=Frank J. Menetrez and others
|publisher=''www.normanfinkelstein.com'', including e-mails attributed to Alan Dershowitz and remarks additional to the original article attributed to Menetrez
|date=July 6, 2007
}}</ref> In a follow-up analysis he concluded that he could find 'no way of avoiding the inference that Dershowitz copied the quotation from Twain from Peters's ''From Time Immemorial'', and not from the original source', as Dershowitz claimed.<ref name="Menetrez2008"/><ref name="Frank J. Menetrez and others"/><ref name=menetrez1>{{cite web
|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez02122008.html
|author=Frank J. Menetrez
|title=The Case Against Alan Dershowitz
|publisher='']''
|date=February 12, 2008
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/dershowitz02262008.html
|author=Alan M. Dershowitz, Frank J. Menetrez
|title=Debating Norman Finkelstein
|publisher=]
|date=February 26, 2008
}}</ref>


<blockquote>Quoting ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', Dershowitz artfully implies that he followed the rules by citing "the original" as opposed to the secondary source, Peters. He misrepresents Chicago here, where "the original" means merely the origin of the borrowed material, which is, in this instance, Peters.
==Controversies==


Now look at the second bit of the quote from Chicago, chastely separated from the preceding sentence by a demure three-point ellipsis. As my associate Kate Levin has discovered, this passage ("To cite a source from a secondary source...") occurs on page 727, which is no less than 590 pages later than the material before the ellipsis, in a section titled "Citations Taken from Secondary Sources." Here's the full quote, with what Dershowitz left out set in bold: "'Quoted in'. To cite a source from a secondary source ("quoted in") is generally to be discouraged, '''since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed.'''"
===Tenure denial and resignation===

So Chicago is clearly insisting that unless Dershowitz went to the originals, he was obliged to cite Peters. Finkelstein has conclusively demonstrated that he didn't go to the originals. Plagiarism, QED, plus added time for willful distortion of the language of Chicago's guidelines, cobbling together two separate discussions.<ref name=alandalletters/></blockquote>

On Dershowitz's behalf, ] dean ] asked former Harvard president ] to investigate the assertion of plagiarism; Bok exonerated Dershowitz of the charge.<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar32/>

In April 2007, Frank Menetrez, a former Editor-in-Chief of the '']'', published an analysis of the charges Dershowitz made against Finkelstein and concluded that Dershowitz had misrepresented matters.<ref name="Menetrez2008">Frank Menetrez: "Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who's Right and Who's Wrong?". Included as Epilogue in: {{cite book|author=Norman G. Finkelstein|title=Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-semitism and the Abuse of History|url=https://archive.org/details/beyondchutzpahon00fink_0|url-access=registration|access-date=May 26, 2013|year=2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24989-9|pages=–}}</ref><ref name="Frank J. Menetrez and others">{{cite news|last=Menetrez|first=Frank J.|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/30/dershowitz-v-finkelstein-who-s-right-and-who-s-wrong|title=Dershowitz vs. Finkelstein: Who's Right and Who's Wrong?|work=CounterPunch|date=April 30, 2007|access-date=September 1, 2020}} Includes e-mails attributed to Alan Dershowitz and remarks additional to the original article attributed to Menetrez etal</ref> In a follow-up analysis he concluded that he could find "no way of avoiding the inference that Dershowitz copied the quotation from Twain from Peters's ''From Time Immemorial'', and not from the original source", as Dershowitz claimed.<ref name="Menetrez2008"/><ref name="Frank J. Menetrez and others"/><ref name=menetrez1>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez02122008.html |author=Frank J. Menetrez |title=The Case Against Alan Dershowitz |magazine=] |date=February 12, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218115934/http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez02122008.html |archive-date=February 18, 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/dershowitz02262008.html|author1=Alan M. Dershowitz|author2=Frank J. Menetrez|title=Debating Norman Finkelstein|magazine=]|date=February 26, 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080301223055/http://www.counterpunch.org/dershowitz02262008.html|archive-date=March 1, 2008}}</ref>

==Controversies==
===Tenure rejection and resignation===
] ]
In September 2006, Dershowitz sent members of DePaul's law and political science faculties what he described as "a dossier of Norman Finkelstein's most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions" and ] professors, alumni and administrators to deny Finkelstein tenure.<ref name="chron"> Chronicle of Higher Education Thursday, April 5, 2007</ref> Amid considerable public debate, Dershowitz campaigned to block Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul University.<ref name="disrupt"/><ref>, '']'', June 11, 2007.</ref> His campaign began in 2004 when he sent DePaul president ] a manuscript, "Literary McCarthyism," arguing that the university should fire Finkelstein. He also contacted DePaul political science department chair Patrick Callahan.{{sfn|Abraham|2014|p=85}} In 2005, Dershowitz announced his intent to block Finkelstein's tenure bid, saying, "I will come at my own expense, and I will document the case against Finkelstein" and "I'll demonstrate that he doesn't meet the academic standards of the Association of American Universities".{{sfn|Abraham|2014|p=86}} In October 2006, he sent members of DePaul's law and political science faculties what he called "a dossier of Norman Finkelstein's most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions" and lobbied DePaul's professors, alumni and administrators to deny Finkelstein tenure.<ref name="chron">{{cite news|last=Howard|first=Jennifer|url=http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Law-Professor-Works-to/122347|title=Harvard Law Professor Works to Disrupt Tenure Bid of Longtime Nemesis at DePaul U.|work=The Chronicle of Higher Education|date=April 5, 2007|access-date=September 1, 2020}}</ref> In May 2007, Dershowitz spoke at ] and claimed that Finkelstein had recently attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.{{sfn|Abraham|2014|p=86}}
<ref name="Forer"/> De Paul's political science committee investigated his accusations against Finkelstein and concluded that they were not based on legitimate criticism. The department subsequently invited ] and ], two independent academics with known expertise on the Israel/Palestine conflict to evaluate the academic merit of Finkelstein's work who came to the same conclusion.<ref name="Forer">Richard Forer ''Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion : a New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict'' ] 2010 ISBN 9780615404585 Pg 45 - 46</ref>


DePaul's political science committee investigated Dershowitz's accusations against Finkelstein and concluded that they were unsubstantiated. The department subsequently invited ] and ], two previously uninvolved academics with expertise on the Israel–Palestinian conflict, to evaluate the academic merit of Finkelstein's work; they came to the same conclusion.<ref name="Forer">Richard Forer ''Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion: a New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict'', ] 2010; {{ISBN|9780615404585}}, pp. 45–46</ref>{{clarify|reason=What conclusion? That he did not attend a Holocaust denial event in Iran?|date=November 2023}}
In early 2007 the ] Political Science department voted nine to three, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee five to zero, in favor of giving Finkelstein tenure. The three opposing faculty members subsequently filed a minority report opposing tenure, supported by the Dean of the College, ]. Suchar stated he opposed tenure because Finkelstein's "personal and reputation demeaning attacks on Dershowitz, ], and the holocaust authors ] and ]" were inconsistent with DePaul's "]" values.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/?p=680 |title=The Suchar Memorandum |author=Peter N. Kirstein |date=March 22, 2007 |publisher= }}</ref> Amidst considerable public debate, Dershowitz actively campaigned to block Finkelstein's tenure bid.<ref name = "disrupt"/> In June 2007, a 4-3 vote by DePaul University's Board on Promotion and Tenure (a faculty board), affirmed by the university's president, the Rev. ], denied Finkelstein tenure.<ref name=CNNtenure>{{cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/06/11/depaul.professor.ap/ |title=DePaul denies tenure to controversial professor |publisher=''CNN'' |date=June 11, 2007}} {{Dead link|date=September 2010|bot=RjwilmsiBot}}</ref><ref name="depaul statement">{{cite web |url=http://sherman.depaul.edu/media/webapp/mrNews.asp?NID=1630 |title=DePaul University Statement on the Tenure and Promotion Decision Concerning Professor Norman Finkelstein |publisher=''DePaul University'' |date=June 6, 2007}}</ref>


In early 2007, DePaul's political science department voted nine to three, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee five to zero, to give Finkelstein tenure.{{sfn|Abraham|2014|p=82}} The three opposing faculty members subsequently filed a minority report opposing tenure, supported by the Dean of the College, Chuck Suchar.{{sfn|Abraham|2014|pp=82–83}} In leaked memos, Suchar wrote that he opposed tenure because "the personal attacks in many of Dr. Finkelstein's published books ... border on character assassination" and his attitudes threatened "some basic tenets of discourse within an academic community". He believed they were inconsistent with DePaul's "]" values. As examples, Suchar said that Finkelstein lacked respect for "the dignity of the individual" and for "the rights of others to hold and express different intellectual positions".<ref>{{cite news|last=Jaschik|first=Scott|url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/03/finkelstein|title=Furor Over Norm Finkelstein|work=Inside Higher Education|date=April 3, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100316114014/http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/03/finkelstein|archive-date=March 16, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> In June 2007, DePaul University's Board on Promotion and Tenure, with the support of Holtschneider, denied Finkelstein tenure by a 4–3 vote.{{sfn|Abraham|2014|p=82}}<ref name="depaul statement">{{cite web|url=http://sherman.depaul.edu/media/webapp/mrNews.asp?NID=1630 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20070707083735/http://sherman.depaul.edu/media/webapp/mrNews.asp?NID=1630 |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 7, 2007 |title=DePaul University Statement on the Tenure and Promotion Decision Concerning Professor Norman Finkelstein |publisher=DePaul University |date=June 6, 2007 }}</ref>
The university denied that Dershowitz, who had been criticized for his campaign against Finkelstein's tenure, played any part in this decision.<ref name="depaul statement" /> At the same time, the university denied tenure to international studies assistant professor ], a strong supporter of Finkelstein, despite unanimous support from her department, the Personnel Committee and the Dean.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/11/finkelstein |title=DePaul Rejects Finkelstein |date=June 11, 2007 |publisher=''Inside Higher Education'' |author= }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/?p=738 |title=Exclusive: Finkelstein Supporter also Denied Tenure at DePaul |author=Peter N. Kirstein |date=June 9, 2007 |publisher= }}</ref> Finkelstein stated that he would engage in ] if attempts were made to bar him from teaching his students.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,,2158192,00.html |publisher='' The Guardian'' |title=Holocaust academic vows to fight axe of university class |date=August 29, 2007 |author=Donald MacLeod and agencies}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.campus-watch.org/weblog/id/80 |title=Norman Finkelstein Denied Tenure at DePaul |publisher=''Campus Watch'' |author=Winfield Myers |date=June 8, 2007}}</ref>


The university denied that Dershowitz's lobbying played a part in its decision.<ref name="depaul statement" /><ref>{{cite news|last=Jaschik|first=Scott|url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/11/finkelstein|title=DePaul Rejects Finkelstein|date=June 11, 2007|work=Inside Higher Education|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090130072710/http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/11/finkelstein|archive-date=January 30, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> At the same time, the university denied tenure to international studies assistant professor Mehrene Larudee, a strong supporter of Finkelstein and ] member, despite unanimous support from her department, the Personnel Committee and the dean.{{sfn|Swaim|2015|p=163}} Finkelstein said that he would engage in ] if attempts were made to bar him from teaching his students.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,,2158192,00.html|work=The Guardian|title=Holocaust academic vows to fight axe of university class|date=August 29, 2007|last=MacLeod|first=Donald|access-date=November 1, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.campus-watch.org/weblog/id/80|title=Norman Finkelstein Denied Tenure at DePaul|publisher=Campus Watch|last=Myers|first=Winfield|date=June 8, 2007|access-date=June 26, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927172231/http://www.campus-watch.org/weblog/id/80|archive-date=September 27, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref>
The Faculty Council later affirmed the right of Professors Finkelstein and Larudee to appeal, which a university lawyer said was not possible. Council President Anne Bartlett said she was "'terribly concerned' correct procedure was not followed".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/427649,CST-NWS-depaul14.article | title=Students ordered to leave chief's area | author=Dave Newbart | work=] |date=June 14, 2007 | accessdate=2007-10-06}}{{dead link|date=November 2011}}</ref> DePaul's faculty association considered taking no confidence votes in administrators, including the president, because of the tenure denials.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/14/1412253 |title=DePaul Students, Faculty Respond to Controversial Tenure Denials |author= |date=June 14, 2007 |publisher=''Democracy Now'' }}</ref> In a statement issued upon Finkelstein's resignation, DePaul called him "a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher."<ref name=depaulJointStatement/> Dershowitz expressed outrage at the compromise and this statement in particular, saying that the university had "traded truth for peace."<ref name=ChicagoTribuneEmbattled/><ref name=IHTEmbattled/>


The Faculty Council later affirmed the professors' right to appeal, which a university lawyer said was not possible. Council President Anne Bartlett said she was "terribly concerned" that a correct procedure had not been followed. DePaul's faculty association considered taking no-confidence votes on administrators, including Holtschneider, because of the tenure denials.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/14/1412253|title=DePaul Students, Faculty Respond to Controversial Tenure Denials|date=June 14, 2007|website=]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114145853/http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07%2F06%2F14%2F1412253|archive-date=November 14, 2007}}</ref>
In June 2007, after two weeks of protests, some DePaul students staged a ] and ] in support of both professors denied tenure. The Illinois Conference of the ] also sent a letter to the university's president stating: "It is entirely illegitimate for a university to deny tenure to a professor out of fear that his published research ... might hurt a college's reputation" and that the association has "explicitly rejected ] as an appropriate criterion for evaluating faculty members".<ref> The Chronicle of Higher Education June 25, 2007</ref> In a 2014 interview, professor Matthew Abraham, author of ''Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine'', described the Finkelstein tenure case as "one of the most significant academic freedom cases in the last fifty years." He believes the case demonstrates "the substantial pressure outside parties can place on a mid-tier religious institution when the perspectives advanced by a controversial scholar threaten dominant interests."<ref></ref>

In June 2007, after two weeks of protests, some DePaul students staged a ] and ] in support of both professors. The Illinois Conference of the ] also sent Holtschneider a letter reading, "It is entirely illegitimate for a university to deny tenure to a professor out of fear that his published research ... might hurt a college's reputation" and that the association has "explicitly rejected ] as an appropriate criterion for evaluating faculty members".<ref>, ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', June 25, 2007.</ref>

In a statement issued upon Finkelstein's resignation in September 2007, DePaul called him "a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher".<ref name=depaulJointStatement/> Dershowitz found the compromise and statement objectionable, saying that DePaul had "traded truth for peace" and that the claim Finkelstein "is a scholar is simply false. He's a propagandist".<ref>{{cite news|last=Grossman|first=Ron|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-09-06-0709050898-story.html|title=Finkelstein deal ends DePaul tiff|work=Chicago Tribune|date=September 6, 2007|access-date=August 9, 2020}}</ref> In a 2014 interview, Matthew Abraham, author of ''Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine'', called Finkelstein's tenure case "one of the most significant academic freedom cases in the last fifty years" and said it demonstrated "the substantial pressure outside parties can place on a mid-tier religious institution when the perspectives advanced by a controversial scholar threaten dominant interests".<ref>, academeblog.org, March 20, 2014.</ref>


===Denied entry to Israel in 2008=== ===Denied entry to Israel in 2008===
]. Attempting to enter Israel in 2008, Finkelstein was detained at that airport for 24 hours and then sent back to the United States]] ]. Attempting to enter Israel in 2008, Finkelstein was detained at that airport for 24 hours and then deported.]]

On May 23, 2008 Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel, according to unnamed ] security officials, because "of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon" and that he "did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions." Finkelstein had previously visited south Lebanon and met with Lebanese families during the ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211434094376&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull|title=American Israel critic denied entry to country|first=Yaakov|last=Katz|publisher=Jerusalem Post|date=2008-05-25}}</ref> He was ] Israel for 10 years.<ref name="IsraelBlocks"> 24 May 2008. Accessed 24 May 2008</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Israel/Lebanon: Qana Death Toll at 28|url=http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13899.htm|publisher=Human Rights Watch|date=1 August 2006}}</ref>
In May 2008, Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel, according to unnamed ] security officials, because "of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon" and because he "did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions."{{sfn|Friel|2013|p=179}} Finkelstein had visited south Lebanon and met with Lebanese families during the ].<ref name="TJP20080525">{{cite news|last=Katz|first=Yaakov|url=https://www.jpost.com/israel/american-israel-critic-denied-entry-to-country|title=American Israel critic denied entry to country|work=The Jerusalem Post|date=May 25, 2008|access-date=August 9, 2020}}</ref> He was banned from entering Israel for 10 years.{{sfn|Friel|2013|p=179}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Israel/Lebanon: Qana Death Toll at 28|url=https://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13899.htm|publisher=Human Rights Watch|date=August 1, 2006}}</ref>


Finkelstein was questioned after his arrival at ] near Tel Aviv and detained for 24 hours in a holding cell. After speaking to Israeli attorney ] he was placed on a flight back to Amsterdam, his point of origin. In an interview with '']'', Finkelstein stated "I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me. I am confident that I have nothing to hide... no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organizations."<ref name=melman>{{cite news|last=Melman|first=Yossi|title=Israel denies entry to high-profile critic Norman Finkelstein |url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/israel-denies-entry-to-high-profile-critic-norman-finkelstein-1.246487 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20111016203328/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/israel-denies-entry-to-high-profile-critic-norman-finkelstein-1.246487 |archivedate=16 October 2011 |accessdate=5 October 2011|newspaper=Haaretz|date=24 May 2008}}</ref> He had been travelling to visit friends in the West Bank and stated he had no interest in visiting Israel. Sfard said banning Finkelstein from entering the country "recalls the behavior of the Soviet bloc countries."<ref name=melman/> Finkelstein was questioned after his arrival at ] near Tel Aviv and detained for 24 hours in a holding cell. His Israeli attorney ] said he was questioned for several hours. The following day, he was deported on a flight to ], his point of origin.<ref name="Gdn20080526" >{{cite news|last1=O'Loughlin|first1=Toni|title=US academic deported and banned for criticising Israel|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/26/israelandthepalestinians.usa|access-date=May 6, 2015|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=May 26, 2008}}</ref><ref name="TJP20080525" /><ref name=melman>{{cite news|last=Melman|first=Yossi|title=Israel denies entry to high-profile critic Norman Finkelstein|url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/israel-denies-entry-to-high-profile-critic-norman-finkelstein-1.246487|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111016203328/http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/israel-denies-entry-to-high-profile-critic-norman-finkelstein-1.246487|archive-date=October 16, 2011|access-date=October 5, 2011|newspaper=Haaretz|date=May 24, 2008}}</ref> In an interview with '']'', Finkelstein said, "I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me. I am confident that I have nothing to hide... no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organizations."{{sfn|Friel|2013|p=179}} He had been traveling to visit friends in the West Bank and said he had no interest in visiting Israel.<ref name=melman/>


==Reception== ==Reception==
Finkelstein's books are an attempt to examine the works of mainstream scholarship. The authors whose work he has thus targeted, including ] and Dershowitz, along with others such as ] whose work Finkelstein has also cited in his scholarship, have in turn accused Finkelstein of grossly misrepresenting their work, and selectively quoting from their books.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=64 |author=Deborah Passner|date=October 10, 2005 |title=Norman Finkelstein's Fraudulent Scholarship |publisher=Reprinted by normanfinkelstein.com as "CAMERA's distorted lens" }}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1280 |title=Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris and '''Peace Not Apartheid'''|date=February 7, 2007 |author= |publisher=''Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America''}}</ref> Many of Finkelstein's books critically examine other authors' books. Authors of books he has criticized include Dershowitz, ], and ]. They have in turn accused Finkelstein of grossly misrepresenting their work and quoting their books selectively. In 2007, Morris said, "Finkelstein is a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1280|title=Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris and '''Peace Not Apartheid'''|date=February 7, 2007|publisher=Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America}}</ref>


Hilberg has praised Finkelstein's work: "That takes a great amount of courage. His place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost."{{sfn|Goodman|2009|p=330}} In a ] for '']'', Avi Shlaim said that Finkelstein "has a most impressive track record in exposing spurious American-Jewish scholarship on the Arab-Israeli conflict." He praised Finkelstein for "all the sterling qualities for which he has become famous: erudition, originality, spark, meticulous attention to detail, intellectual integrity, courage, and formidable forensic skills."<ref name=JPS-AS/>
Finkelstein's work has attracted a number of supporters and detractors from around the world. Notable supporters of his work include ], prominent intellectual and political critic; ], Holocaust historian; ], ], ], Palestinian jurist and analyst and ], political economist and scholar.


] said that her shared experience with Finkelstein as a child of Holocaust survivors engaged in research on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict gave her a unique position to comment. According to Roy, Finkelstein's scholarship is "exceptional both for its brilliance and rigor. In the fields of Middle Eastern studies and political science his work is considered seminal and there is no doubt that both disciplines would be intellectually weaker without it. Norman's power and value, however, do not emanate only from his scholarship but from his character. His life's work, shaped largely but not entirely by his experience as a child of survivors, has been and continues to be informed by a profound concern with human dignity and the danger of dehumanization."<ref name="W&D2009"/>
According to Hilberg, Finkelstein displays "academic courage to speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him... I would say that his place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost."<ref name="hilberg" /> In a ] for '']'', Avi Shlaim said that Finkelstein "has a most impressive track record in exposing spurious American-Jewish scholarship on the Arab-Israeli conflict." He praised Finkelstein for "all the sterling qualities for which he has become famous: erudition, originality, spark, meticulous attention to detail, intellectual integrity, courage, and formidable forensic skills."<ref name=JPS-AS/>


The Israeli newspaper ''Haaretz'' published an editorial that states it "is difficult to sympathize with Finkelstein's opinions and preferences, especially since he decided to support Hezbollah, meet with its fighters and visit the graves of some of its slain operatives." Still, it argued that he should not be banned from entering Israel, because "meetings with Hezbollah operatives do not in themselves constitute a security risk".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/who-s-afraid-of-finkelstein-1.246638|title=Who's afraid of Finkelstein?|author=Editorial|newspaper=Haaretz|date=May 27, 2008}}</ref>
Sara Roy stated that her shared experience with Finkelstein as a child of Holocaust survivors engaged in research on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict gave her a unique position to comment. According to Roy, Finkelstein's scholarship is, "exceptional both for its brilliance and rigor. In the fields of Middle Eastern studies and political science his work is considered seminal and there is no doubt that both disciplines would be intellectually weaker without it. Norman’s power and value, however, do not emanate only from his scholarship but from his character. His life’s work, shaped largely but not entirely by his experience as a child of survivors has been and continues to be informed by a profound concern with human dignity and the danger of dehumanization."<ref name=W&D2009>{{cite journal|last=Klein|first=David|title=WORKS AND DAYS 51/52, 53/54: Vols. 26 & 27, 2008-09 Why Is Norman Finkelstein Not Allowed to Teach?|journal=Works and Days|date=2009|volume=26 & 27|pages=307–322|url=http://www.worksanddays.net/2008-9/File14.Klein_011309_FINAL.pdf|accessdate=2014-05-22}}</ref>


], writing in '']'', described Finkelstein as an "anti-Israel activist".<ref name="jc">{{Cite web |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/news/norman-finkelstein-praises-shoah-denier-1.502134 |access-date=2023-11-23 |website=www.thejc.com |title=Norman Finkelstein praises Holocaust denier David Irving at pro-Corbyn group meeting }}</ref><ref name="cst">{{Cite web |title=The far left event that attacked CST and praised David Irving – Blog |url=https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2020/08/07/the-far-left-event-that-attacked-cst-and-praised-david-irving |access-date=2023-11-23 |website=cst.org.uk |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Johnson |first=Alan |title=Unity and Diversity in Contemporary Antisemitism |chapter=CHAPTER 6. Denial: Norman Finkelstein and the New Antisemitism |date=2019-10-29 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781618119674-008/html?lang=en |pages=115–136 |access-date=2023-11-23 |publisher=Academic Studies Press |language=en |doi=10.1515/9781618119674-008 |isbn=978-1-61811-967-4|s2cid=213714747 }}</ref>
The liberal '']'' newspaper stated that "t is difficult to sympathize with Finkelstein's opinions and preferences, especially since he decided to support Hezbollah, meet with its fighters and visit the graves of some of its slain operatives." Still, it continued to say that he should not be banned from entering Israel, because "meetings with Hezbollah operatives do not in themselves constitute a security risk."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/who-s-afraid-of-finkelstein-1.246638|title=Who's afraid of Finkelstein?|author=Editorial|publisher=''Haaretz''|date=May 27, 2008}}</ref>

===2009 film about Finkelstein===
'']'' is an award-winning documentary film about the life and career of Norman Finkelstein, released in 2009 and directed by ] and ]. It has been screened in Amsterdam ], in Toronto ] and in more than 40 other national and international venues, it received a freshness rating of 100% on film review aggregator ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_radical/|title=American Radical on RT|accessdate= June 2014}}</ref>


===Criticism=== ===Criticism===
Finkelstein has been heavily criticized for many aspects of his work and public commentary. ], whose book ''Hitler's Willing Executioners'' Finkelstein criticized, claimed his scholarship has "everything to do with his burning political agenda".<ref name="goldhagen">{{cite web|url=http://www.goldhagen.com/nda0.html |title=The New Discourse of Avoidance |last=Goldhagen |first=Daniel Jonah |author-link=Daniel Jonah Goldhagen |access-date=January 11, 2008 |archive-date=December 4, 2002 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021204232909/http://www.goldhagen.com/nda0.html }}</ref> According to ] in '']'', <blockquote>The accusation that Goldhagen was a Zionist ideologue surfaced in two extremely critical essays by Norman Finkelstein which, while offering substantive criticisms of Goldhagen's work, concluded with wildly polemical and unfair speculations Goldhagen's putative role as the chief representative of the (allegedly) politically driven and scholarly worthless field of "Holocaust studies". Revealingly, Finkelstein declined to identify any representatives of this scholarly field, leaving one little choice but to regard it as a straw man argument, perfectly suited for him to topple as a means of promoting his own political agenda.<ref name="Rosenfeld 1999 pp. 249–273">{{cite journal | last=Rosenfeld | first=Gavriel D. | title=The Controversy That Isn't: The Debate over Daniel J. Goldhagen's | journal=Contemporary European History | publisher=Cambridge University Press | volume=8 | issue=2 | year=1999 | issn=0960-7773 | jstor=20081704 | pages=249–273 | doi=10.1017/S0960777399002040 }}</ref></blockquote>
Criticism has been leveled against Finkelstein from several angles. The first sources are responses from those whose work Finkelstein has discussed. ], whose book ''Hitler's Willing Executioners'' Finkelstein criticized, claimed his scholarship has "everything to do with his burning political agenda."<ref name="goldhagen">{{cite web|url=http://www.goldhagen.com/nda0.html

|title=The New Discourse of Avoidance
], a history professor at the ] and historian of the Holocaust whose work Finkelstein said inspired ''The Holocaust Industry'', has strongly criticized Finkelstein's work, calling it "trash" and "a twenty-first century updating of the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion"''. He added, "No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites"''.''<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2006 |title=Academic Freedom and Palestine-Israel: The Case of Beyond Chutzpah |url=https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/attachments/jps-articles/jps.2006.35.2.85.pdf |journal=Journal of Palestine Studies |language=en |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=94 |doi=10.1525/jps.2006.35.2.85 |issn=0377-919X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Peter |last=Novick |chapter=Offene Fenster und Tueren: Ueber Norman Finkelsteins Kreuzzug |editor-first=Petra |editor-last=Steinberger |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WsoWAQAAIAAJ |title=Die Finkelstein-Debatte |trans-title=The Finkelstein Debate |location=München |publisher=Piper |year=2001 |page=159 |isbn=978-3-492-04328-1}}</ref>
|last=Goldhagen

|first=Daniel Jonah
David Cesarani wrote of ''The Holocaust Industry'': "Selective quotation such as Finkelstein's and other misuse of evidence undermine the credibility of his polemic. Any serious points it raises, and there are a few, are distorted by a venomous dislike of the 'American Jewish elites'. Memory of the Holocaust has been abused and misused, but this book is part of the problem rather than its cure".<ref name=":0" />
|authorlink=Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

|accessdate=2008-01-11
|archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20021204232909/http://www.goldhagen.com/nda0.html |archivedate = 2002-12-04}}</ref> ] has written that ], Professor of History at the ] and a noted Holocaust historian whose work Finkelstein says inspired "The Holocaust Industry," has strongly criticized the latter's work, describing it as "trash."<ref>{{cite journal |year= 2006 |title= Academic Freedom and Palestine-Israel: The Case of ''Beyond Chutzpah''|url= http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/pdf/jps/6643.pdf |journal= ] |volume= 35 |issue= 2 |pages= 86–99 |doi=10.1525/jps.2006.35.2.85}}</ref> Similarly, Dershowitz, whose book ''The Case for Israel'' and Finkelstein's response ''Beyond Chutzpah'' sparked an ongoing feud between the two, has claimed Finkelstein's complicity in a conspiracy against pro-Israel scholars: "The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn't actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud," arguing that Finkelstein has leveled charges against many academics, calling at least 10 "distinguished Jews 'hucksters', 'hoaxters' (''sic''), 'thieves,' ']', and worse."<ref name=jbooksDershowitz/> Although the back and forth between Finkelstein and Dershowitz received the most attention and attracted significant controversy, Finkelstein has maintained that "the real issue is Israel's human rights record."<ref name=finkelstein_pg11_ar50/> Similarly, ], whose book ''The Case for Israel'' and Finkelstein's response ''Beyond Chutzpah'' sparked an ] between the two, has claimed Finkelstein is complicit in a conspiracy against pro-Israel scholars: "The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn't actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud". Dershowitz added that Finkelstein has leveled charges against many academics, calling at least 10 "distinguished Jews 'hucksters', ']', 'thieves', 'extortionists', and worse".<ref name="jbooksDershowitz" /> The feud between Finkelstein and Dershowitz received the most attention in the controversy, but Finkelstein has said that "the real issue is Israel's human rights record".<ref name="finkelstein_pg11_ar50" />

Israeli historian<ref name="bartov_cv">{{cite web|url=http://research.brown.edu/pdf/1106970215.pdf|title=Omer Bartov: Curriculum Vitae|access-date=January 11, 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228174406/http://research.brown.edu/pdf/1106970215.pdf|archive-date=February 28, 2008}}</ref> ], writing for '']'', judged ''The Holocaust Industry'' to be marred by the same errors Finkelstein denounces in those who exploit the Holocaust for profit or politics:

<blockquote>It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority... Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious.<ref name="bartov_review"/></blockquote>

Finkelstein has accused journalist ] of "torturing" or "being an accessory to torture of" Palestinian prisoners during his ] service in the First Intifada, based on statements in Goldberg's book '']''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/10/06/jeffrey-goldberg-s-prison|title=Jeffrey Goldberg's Prison|date=October 6, 2007 |publisher=CounterPunch.org}}</ref> Finkelstein says Goldberg admits to personally sending prisoners to the '']'',<ref>Finkelstein gives the following quote from Goldberg: ''The zinzana was the size of a refrigerator box, into which three, four, five or six prisoners were shoveled. The prisoners were seated on a cold and hard plastic floor, limbs draped over limbs, and they shat in a bucket that was emptied once a day. After a few days in the box, prisoners could no longer stand unaided. (p. 109; cf. p. 114, where he describes four Palestinians locked "in a space fit, at most, for two small dogs")''</ref> which he says has been repeatedly condemned as torture in human rights reports. Goldberg called the allegation "ridiculous" and said he had "never laid a hand on anybody". Goldberg said his "principal role" was "making sure prisoners had fresh fruit". He called Finkelstein a "ridiculous figure" and accused him of "lying and purposely misreading my book".<ref>{{cite web |last=Greenberg |first=Brad A. |url=http://www.jewishjournal.com/thegodblog/item/torture_jews_and_finkelsteins_fact_finding |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829172325/http://www.jewishjournal.com/thegodblog/item/torture_jews_and_finkelsteins_fact_finding/ |archive-date=August 29, 2008 |title=Torture, Jews, and Finkelstein's 'fact-finding' |website=] |date=May 8, 2008 |access-date=February 29, 2024}}</ref>

=== ''American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein'' ===
'']'' is a documentary film about Finkelstein's life and career, released in 2009, and directed by David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier.<ref name="cp2010">{{cite web | title=Awards | website=cinema politica | url=https://www.cinemapolitica.org/awards | access-date=October 2, 2020}}</ref><ref name="ridgenfilm">{{cite web | title=American Radical: the trials of Norman Finkelstein | website=ridgenfilm | date=February 12, 2010 | url=https://ridgenfilm.com/2010/02/11/american-radical-the-trials-of-norman-finkelstein/ | access-date=October 2, 2020}}</ref> It has been screened at Amsterdam's IDFA,<ref name="jta09nov24">{{cite web | last=Harris | first=Ben | title=American Radical | website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency | date=November 24, 2009 | url=https://www.jta.org/2009/11/23/global/american-radical | access-date=October 2, 2020}}</ref> Toronto's Hot Docs, and many other venues.<ref name="ridgenfilm"/> It has an approval rating of 100% on ] ''],'' based on 11 critic reviews.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_radical|title=American Radical on RT|website=]|access-date=June 14, 2014}}</ref> In one scene, at ], Finkelstein takes exception to a German student's teary complaint about how he talks about the Nazis and the Holocaust, saying:<ref name="YTcroc">{{cite web | title=Crocodile Tears | website=YouTube | date=December 29, 2011 | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw7FJ9y8m4M&ab_channel=ChainedReality | access-date=October 3, 2022}}</ref>


{{blockquote|text=I don't like to play before an audience the Holocaust card but, since now I feel compelled to: my late father was in Auschwitz concentration camp. My late mother was in Majdanek concentration camp. Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians. And I consider nothing more despicable than to use their suffering and their martyrdom to try to justify the torture, the brutalization, the demolition of homes that Israel daily commits against the Palestinians. So I refuse any longer to be intimidated or browbeaten by the tears. If you have any heart in you, you would be crying for the Palestinians.<ref name="YTcroc"/>}}
Israeli historian<ref name="bartov_cv">{{cite web|url=http://research.brown.edu/pdf/1106970215.pdf
|title=Omer Bartov: Curriculum Vitae
|accessdate=2008-01-11
|format=PDF
}}</ref> ], writing for '']'', judged ''The Holocaust Industry'' to be marred by the same errors he denounces in those who exploit the Holocaust for profit or politics:
<blockquote>It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority... Like any ], it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E1DF163DF935A3575BC0A9669C8B63 |title="A Tale of Two Holocausts" a review of ''The Holocaust Industry'' |author=Omer Bartov |publisher='']'' |date=August 6, 2000 |accessdate=13 February 2007}}</ref></blockquote>


The same year, Finkelstein also appeared in ''Defamation'' (Hebrew: השמצה), a documentary by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir.<ref name="jpost11dec6">{{cite news| last=Marder | first=Rachel | title=What makes a hero? | work=The Jerusalem Post| date=December 6, 2011 | url=https://www.jpost.com/arts-and-culture/entertainment/what-makes-a-hero | access-date=October 2, 2020}}</ref>
In 2003, Finkelstein published an expanded second edition of this book, focusing especially on the Swiss Banks case. He identifies areas where people have attacked the book, and says that none of them question his actual findings.


== Views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict ==
Finkelstein has accused journalist ] of "torturing" Palestinian prisoners during his IDF service in the ]. Goldberg referred to the allegation as "ridiculous" and he had "never laid a hand on anybody." Goldberg said his "principal role" was "making sure prisoners had fresh fruit." He characterized Finkelstein as a "ridiculous figure" and accused him of "lying and purposely misreading my book."<ref>{{cite web|last=Greenberg |first=Brad A. |url=http://www.jewishjournal.com/thegodblog/item/torture_jews_and_finkelsteins_fact_finding |title=Torture, Jews, and Finkelstein's 'fact-finding' |publisher=Jewishjournal.com |date=2008-05-08 |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref>
===Comments about Israel===


==Statements on Israel and Israelis== {{See also|Criticism of Israel|Israel and apartheid}}
{{See also|Criticism of Israel}}
] ]
Finkelstein is a sharp critic of the state of Israel, which he has called the "Jewish supremacist state" and believes is committing the ] against ].<ref name="nfmw">{{cite web|url=https://mondoweiss.net/2021/01/the-jewish-supremacist-state-a-comment-on-btselems-apartheid-regime-designation-for-israel/|work=Norman Finkelstein|publisher=Mondoweiss|accessdate=25 November 2023|date=15 January 2021 |title=The Jewish supremacist state (A comment on B'Tselem's 'apartheid regime' designation for Israel) }}</ref> Discussing his book ''Beyond Chutzpah'', Israeli historian ] called Finkelstein's critique of Israel "extremely detailed, well-documented and accurate."<ref name="hilberg"/>


In a 2009 telephone interview with '']'', Finkelstein said:
Finkelstein is a sharp critic of Israel. Discussing Finkelstein's book ''Beyond Chutzpah'', Israeli Historian Avi Shlaim stated that Finkelstein's critique of Israel "is based on an amazing amount of research. He seems to have read everything. He has gone through the reports of Israeli groups, of human rights groups, ] and ] and ], all of the reports of ]. And he deploys all this evidence from Israeli and other sources in order to sustain his critique of Israeli practices, Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians, ], the ], the cutting down of trees, the building of the wall — the ], which is illegal — the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and so on and so forth. I find his critique extremely detailed, well-documented and accurate."<ref name="hilberg"/>


In a telephone interview with '']'', in 2009, Finkelstein stated:<blockquote>I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war. In the first week of the massacres, there were reports in the Israeli press that Israel did not want to put all its ground forces in Gaza because it was preparing attacks on Iran. Then there were reports it was planning attacks on Lebanon. It is a lunatic state.<ref name="todaysk">{{cite web|url=http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=164483 |title=Norman Finkelstein: Israel is committing a holocaust in Gaza |publisher=Todayszaman.com |date=2009-01-19 |accessdate=2011-11-13}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref>{{Dead Link|date=May 2014}}</blockquote> <blockquote>I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war. In the first week of the massacres, there were reports in the Israeli press that Israel did not want to put all its ground forces in Gaza because it was preparing attacks on Iran. Then there were reports it was planning attacks on Lebanon. It is a lunatic state.<ref name="todaysk">{{cite web|url=http://www.todayszaman.com/interviews_norman-finkelstein-israel-is-committing-a-holocaust-in-gaza_164483.html |title=Norman Finkelstein: Israel is committing a holocaust in Gaza |publisher=Todayszaman.com |date=2009-01-19 |access-date=2011-11-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141202160042/http://www.todayszaman.com/interviews_norman-finkelstein-israel-is-committing-a-holocaust-in-gaza_164483.html |archive-date=December 2, 2014 }}</ref></blockquote>


When asked how he, as the son of Holocaust survivors, felt about Israel's operation in Gaza, Finkelstein replied:
When asked how he, as the son of Holocaust survivors, felt about Israel’s operation in Gaza, Finkelstein replied:<blockquote>It has been a long time since I felt any emotional connection with the state of Israel, which relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars. It is a vandal state. There is a Russian writer who once described vandal states as Genghis Khan with a telegraph. Israel is ] with a computer. I feel no emotion of affinity with that state. I have some good friends and their families there, and of course I would not want any of them to be hurt. That said, sometimes I feel that Israel has come out of the boils of the ], a ]ic state<ref name="todaysk" />{{Dead Link|date=May 2014}}</blockquote>


<blockquote>It has been a long time since I felt any emotional connection with the state of Israel, which relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars. It is a vandal state. There is a Russian writer who once described vandal states as Genghis Khan with a telegraph. Israel is Genghis Khan with a computer. I feel no emotion of affinity with that state. I have some good friends and their families there, and of course I would not want any of them to be hurt. That said, sometimes I feel that Israel has come out of the ] of the '''' hell, a satanic state.<ref name=todaysk/></blockquote>
The ] has described Finkelstein as an "obsessive anti-Zionist" filled with "vitriolic hatred of Zionism and Israel."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Holocaust/20051031-JewishStandard.htm |title=Norman Finkelstein: An Obsessive Anti-Zionist Shows his Stripes |publisher=Adl.org |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref> On being called an anti-Zionist Finkelstein has said: "It's a superficial term. I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel."<ref name="normanfinkelstein.com"/>


The ] has called Finkelstein an "obsessive anti-Zionist" filled with "vitriolic hatred of Zionism and Israel."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Holocaust/20051031-JewishStandard.htm|title=Norman Finkelstein: An Obsessive Anti-Zionist Shows his Stripes|publisher=Anti-Defamation League|access-date=November 13, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111215211623/http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Holocaust/20051031-JewishStandard.htm|archive-date=December 15, 2011}}</ref> Of being called an anti-Zionist, Finkelstein has said: "It's a superficial term. I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel."<ref name="normanfinkelstein.com"/>
Finkelstein is an advocate of a ] to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<ref>{{cite web|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman|title=Reasoned rejection of one-state position|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/|work=normanfinkelstein.com|publisher=normanfinkelstein.com|accessdate=January 11, 2012}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref>

Finkelstein believes that the main reason the conflict isn't resolved is "the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community."<ref name="demnow"/>

=== Terrorism and targeting civilians ===
Finkelstein's views on terrorism and targeting civilians are ambiguous. In an interview with Emanuel Stoakes, he answered the question "Do you unequivocally condemn Palestinian attacks against innocent civilians?" as follows:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://palestinechronicle.com/old/view_article_details.php?id=16783 |title=It Was a Massacre&nbsp;– Interview with Norman Finkelstein |publisher=Palestinechronicle.com |access-date=November 13, 2011 |quote=It is impossible to justify terrorism, which is the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal. But it's also difficult to make categorical statements of the kind you suggest. I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006204354/http://palestinechronicle.com/old/view_article_details.php?id=16783 |archive-date=October 6, 2013}}</ref>{{blockquote|text=It is impossible to justify terrorism, which is the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal. But it's also difficult to make categorical statements of the kind you suggest. I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts.}}
Finkelstein has said that Hamas and ] have the right to defend their countries from what he sees as Israeli aggression,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1676.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080226110145/http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1676.htm |archive-date=February 26, 2008 |title=American Political Scientist Norman Finkelstein: "Israel Has to Suffer a Defeat" |publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |access-date=February 29, 2024 |quote=But there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question.}}</ref> and that both Israel and Hamas are guilty of targeting civilians. Israel, he claims, indiscriminately kills Palestinians, which he says is the same thing as targeting civilians.<ref>{{cite web |title=Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis, Lebanon, Hezbollah(Burlington, VT, 09.30.2006) |website=Norman G. Finkelstein |date=November 4, 2006 |url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2006/11/04/finkelstein-on-hamas-current-crisis-lebanon-hezbollahburlington-vt-09302006/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702064449/http://normanfinkelstein.com/2006/11/04/finkelstein-on-hamas-current-crisis-lebanon-hezbollahburlington-vt-09302006/ |archive-date=Jul 2, 2015 |access-date=October 4, 2020|quote=What does the record show? Once again we have quite extensive human rights reports, quite extensive documentation — the record shows that Israel has routinely targeted civilians for killing. ... So at that level, again, there seems to be, pretty much, an equivalence between the actions of Hamas and the actions of the State of Israel. It’s also true to say, and you’ll find this throughout the human rights literature, that Israel indiscriminately kills Palestinians. That is to say, it fires wildly into crowds and many Palestinians get killed.}}</ref> There is an equivalence between these groups and Israel, he argues: "If Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, if you want to make that claim, I won't argue with you so long as you say further that Israel is a terrorist organization by probably, at least, 25-fold greater."<ref name="on-hamas">{{cite web | title=Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis, Lebanon, Hezbollah(Burlington, VT, 09.30.2006) | website=Norman G. Finkelstein | date=November 4, 2006 | url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2006/11/04/finkelstein-on-hamas-current-crisis-lebanon-hezbollahburlington-vt-09302006/ |url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702064449/http://normanfinkelstein.com/2006/11/04/finkelstein-on-hamas-current-crisis-lebanon-hezbollahburlington-vt-09302006/ | archive-date=Jul 2, 2015 | access-date=October 4, 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

After the ], Finkelstein wrote:<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-07 |title=John Brown's Body–in Gaza |url=https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/john-browns-body-in-gaza/ |access-date=2023-11-18 |website=Norman Finkelstein |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/anti-israel-activists-celebrate-hamas-attacks-have-killed-hundreds-israelis |title=Anti-Israel Activists Celebrate Hamas Attacks that Have Killed Hundreds of Israelis |date=14 October 2023 |publisher=Anti-Defamation League |access-date=21 November 2023}}</ref>

{{blockquote|text=For the past 20 years the people of Gaza, half of whom are children, have been immured in a concentration camp. Today they breached the camp's walls. If we honor John Brown's armed resistance to slavery; if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza's smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled. The stars above in heaven are looking kindly down. Glory, glory, hallelujah. The souls of Gaza go marching on!}}

Finkelstein later explained that this reaction was based on initial reports that only 50 Israelis had been killed in the attack.<ref>{{Citation |title=Piers Morgan vs Norman Finkelstein On Israel and Palestine {{!}} The Full Interview | date=November 23, 2023 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Sh-ERypMA |access-date=2024-01-10 |language=en}}</ref>


===Hezbollah and Hamas=== ===Hezbollah and Hamas===
Finkelstein has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah with respect to defensive actions.<ref name = "Defence of Hiz">{{cite web |title=American Political Scientist Norman Finkelstein: "Israel Has to Suffer a Defeat" |website=] | url=https://www.memri.org/tv/american-political-scientist-norman-finkelstein-israel-has-suffer-defeat | access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref><ref name="counterpunch.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226230738/http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html|url-status=dead|title=The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza|archivedate=December 26, 2010}}</ref>
]
Finkelstein has expressed solidarity with ] and ] with respect to defensive actions, alleging that Israel had invaded Lebanon as a signal of rejection when Hamas was seeking a diplomatic settlement with Israel. He also condemned what he said was Israel's refusal "to abide by international law to abide by the opinion of the international community" to settle the conflict.<ref name = "Defence of Hiz">{{cite web|url=http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1676.htm |title=In Defense of Hezbollah |publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |date= |accessdate=2013-10-04}}</ref><ref name="counterpunch.org"></ref> <blockquote>"I was of course happy to meet the Hizbullah people, because it is a point of view that is rarely heard in the United States. I have no problem saying that I do want to express solidarity with them, and I am not going to be a coward of a hypocrite about it. I don’t care about Hizbullah as a political organization. I don’t know much about their politics, and anyhow, it’s irrelevant. I don’t live in Lebanon. It’s a choice that the Lebanese have to make: Who they want to be their leaders, who they want to represent them. But there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question."<ref name = "Defence of Hiz"/></blockquote>While condemning the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal, Finkelstein has stated he believes Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians as long as "Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20131006204354/http://palestinechronicle.com/old/view_article_details.php?id=16783 |title=It Was a Massacre&nbsp;– Interview with Norman Finkelstein |publisher=Palestinechronicle.com |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13|quote=I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts.}}</ref>


<blockquote>I was of course happy to meet the Hezbollah people, because it is a point of view that is rarely heard in the United States. I have no problem saying that I do want to express solidarity with them, and I am not going to be a coward and a hypocrite about it.<ref name="Defence of Hiz"/></blockquote>
During the ], Finkelstein stated a moral equivalence exists between ] and the state of Israel in regards to the military policy of ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?ar=646&pg=11 |title=Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis, Lebanon, Hezbollah |publisher=Normanfinkelstein.com |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}{{dead link|date=June 2013}}</ref> Finkelstein argued one of Israel’s primary motivations for launching the ] was that Hamas was “signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border.” Finkelstein believes Hamas had joined the international community in “seeking a diplomatic settlement” and describes Hamas's stance towards Israel prior to the war as a “peace offensive.”<ref name="counterpunch.org"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/8/former_amb_martin_indyk_vs_author |title=Former Amb. Martin Indyk vs. Author Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel's Assault on Gaza and the US Role in the Conflict - Finkelstein in a dual interview with former US-Israel ambassador Martin Indyk discussing the US Role in Israel’s 2008-9 Assault on Gaza |publisher='']''|date= January 8, 2009 |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref>


He has said that Hezbollah has "a serious leadership whose commitment is matched by its intelligence and its incorruptibility" and expressed admiration for its ] ]. He believes that the ] demonstrated how to defeat Israel using guerilla warfare.<ref name="on-hamas"/> Hezbollah militants' superior discipline gives them an edge against Israel's army, Finkelstein argues:
==Statements on the BDS movement==
{{See also|Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions}}
In February 2012, Finkelstein "launched a blistering attack" on the ] movement, saying it was a "hypocritical, dishonest cult", "ike the Munchkin cult in Oz," that tries to cleverly pose as human rights activists while in reality their goal is to destroy Israel. Furthermore, Finkelstein stated that the BDS movement has had very few successes, and that just like a cult, the leaders pretend that they are hugely successful when in reality the general public rejects their extreme views.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/63662/finkelstein-disowns-silly-israel-boycott |title=Finkelstein disowns 'silly' Israel boycott |work=The Jewish Chronicle |date=2012-02-16 |accessdate=2012-05-12}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASIBGSSw4lI |title=Norman Finkelstein Interview with Frank Barat: BDS Campaign |work=Imperial College London |date=2012-09-02}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author= Norman G. Finkelstein |date= October 2013 |title= How to Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory |url= http://normanfinkelstein.com/2013/the-munchkin-cult-and-palestine/ |accessdate= 22 October 2013 |publisher= normanfinkelstein.com}}</ref>


{{blockquote|text=Israel is, for better or for worse, it's a Westernized society and they don't have… they're interested in hi-tech, they're interested in a good time, they cannot fight and win against the types who embody Hezbollah values. It's just not going to happen. When they described in the newspapers how Hezbollah organizes, they said this is not an organization that you can knock on the door, can I join? No. They start from a quite young age and they learn discipline. What does discipline mean? They tell a fellow, you go over there in that barn and you wait there until we call you. And sometimes they sit in that barn for 2, 3 and 4 days, waiting to be called and until they're called, they don't leave. You know, most people in the West can't do that.<ref name="on-hamas"/>}}
==Bibliography==


Finkelstein argues that one of Israel's primary motives for the ] was that Hamas was "signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border." He believes Hamas has joined the international community in "seeking a diplomatic settlement" and has called Hamas's stance toward Israel before the war a "peace offensive".<ref name="counterpunch.org"/><ref name="demnow">{{cite news|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/8/former_amb_martin_indyk_vs_author|title=Former Amb. Martin Indyk vs. Author Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel's Assault on Gaza and the US Role in the Conflict – Finkelstein in a dual interview with former US-Israel ambassador Martin Indyk discussing the US Role in Israel's 2008-9 Assault on Gaza|work=]|date=January 8, 2009|access-date=November 13, 2011}}</ref>
===Books===
* 2014: "]", ], New York: 2014.,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/old-wine-broken-bottle/ |title=OR Books — Old Wine, Broken Bottle, Norman G. Finkelstein |publisher=Orbooks.com |date= |accessdate=2014-03-24}}</ref>
* 2012: '''', ], New York: 2012.,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/knowing-too-much/ |title=OR Books — Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End, Norman G. Finkelstein |publisher=Orbooks.com |date= |accessdate=2012-03-07}}</ref> ISBN 978-1-935928-77-5
* 2012: '''', ], New York: 2012.,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/gandhi/ |title=OR Books — What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage, Norman G. Finkelstein |publisher=Orbooks.com |date= |accessdate=2012-03-07}}</ref> ISBN 978-1-935928-79-9
* 2011: '''', ], New York: 2011.,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/goldstone-recants/ |title=OR Books — Goldstone Recants: Richard Goldstone Renews Israel’s License to Kill, Norman G. Finkelstein |publisher=Orbooks.com |date= |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref> ISBN 978-1-935928-51-5
* 2010: ''''. ], New York: 2010. , ISBN 978-1-935928-43-0
* 2005: '']''. U of California P, ISBN 0-520-24598-9. 2nd updated edition, U of Cal. P. June 2008, ISBN 0-520-24989-5, contains an appendix written by Frank J. Menetrez, ''Dershowitz vs Finkelstein. Who's Right and Who's Wrong?, p.&nbsp;363-394,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez04302007.html |title=Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who’s Right and Who’s Wrong? » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names |publisher=Counterpunch |date=2007-04-30 |accessdate=2011-11-13}}</ref>
* 2000: '']: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering'', Verso, ISBN 1-85984-488-X.
* 1998: '']'' (Co-author with ]) Henry Holt and Co., ISBN 0-8050-5872-9.
* 1996: '']''. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, ISBN 0-8166-2859-9.
* 1995: '']'', Verso, ISBN 1-85984-442-1
* 1987: ''From the Jewish Question to the Jewish State: An Essay on the Theory of Zionism'', thesis, Princeton University.


=== One-state solution, two-state solution, and the Palestinian refugees ===
===Articles and chapters===
*”Disinformation and the Palestine Question: The Not-So-Strange Case of Joan Peter's 'From Time Immemorial.'“ in '']''. Ed. Edward W. Said and ]. Verso Press, 1988. ISBN 0-86091-887-4. Chapter Two, Part One:
*”Peace process or peace panic? - The scourge of Palestinian moderation”, ''Middle East Report'', 19 (1989) 3/158, pp.&nbsp;25–26,28-30,42
*”Zionist orientations”, ''Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives'' 9 (March 1990) 1. p.&nbsp;41-69
*”Bayt Sahur in year II of the intifada. - A personal account”, ''Journal of Palestine Studies'' 19 (Winter 1990) 2/74.p.&nbsp;62-74
*”Israel and Iraq. - A double standard”, ''Journal of Palestine Studies'' 20 (1991) 2/78. p.&nbsp;43-56
*"Reflections on Palestinian attitudes during the Gulf war", '' Journal of Palestine Studies'', 21 (1992) 3/83, p.&nbsp;54-70
*”Réflexions sur la responsabilité de l´État et du citoyen dans le conflit arabo-israélien” (Reflections on the responsibility of state and citizen in the Arab-Israeli conflict), in ''L' homme et la société'', L'Harmattan 1994, 114, S. 37-50
*”Whither the `peace process'?”, ''New Left Review'', (1996) 218, p.&nbsp;138
*”Securing occupation: The real meaning of the Wye River Memorandum”, ''New Left Review'', (1998) 232, p.&nbsp;128-139
* Contributor to '']''. Ed. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. AK Press, 2001. ISBN 1-902593-77-4.<!--What is the title of the "contribution"; page numbers?-->
*”Lessons of Holocaust compensation”, in '']''. Ed. Naseer Aruri. ], 2001, S. 272-275. ISBN 0-7453-1776-6.
*”Abba Eban with Footnotes”, ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', vol 32. (2003), p.&nbsp;74-89
*”Prospects for Ending the Occupation”, ''Antipode'', 35 (2003) 5, p.&nbsp;839-845
* Contributor to ''Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel'', by Seth Farber. Common Courage Press, 2005. ISBN 1-56751-326-3.<!--What is the "contribution"; page numbers?-->
*”The Camp David II negotiations. - how Dennis Ross proved the Palestinians aborted the peace process”, ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', vol. 36 (2007), p.&nbsp;39-53
*”Dennis Ross and the peace process: subordinating Palestinian rights to Israeli ‘needs’” Institute for Palestine Studies, 2007 ISBN 0-88728-308-X


Finkelstein has said he believes that the Palestine solidarity movement should focus on a pragmatic settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict rather than a just one. In his view, the ] is the pragmatic option and the ] the idealistic one.<ref name="mw11dec23-1">{{cite web | last=Weiss | first=Philip | title=Two critiques of Norman Finkelstein – Mondoweiss | website=Mondoweiss | date=December 23, 2011 | url=https://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/two-critiques-of-norman-finkelsteins-recent-appearances/ | access-date=October 4, 2020 | quote = He stakes all of his positions on these issues, which are virtually based on the same premises, that we should a) do what is popular or ‘realistic’ b) adjust our language and positions to appeal to ‘global consensus’ for fear that c) if we don’t, we will inevitably ‘turn people off.’}}</ref> He claims that the two-state solution is deeply unjust to the Palestinians:
==Others on Finkelstein and his works==


{{blockquote|text=Of course the two-state solution is unjust. It cements Zionist usurpation of Palestinian land. It lets the perpetrators of this usurpation go scot-free, without so much as compensation for their victims. Worst of all, it perpetuates a state based on racial supremacy. Israel’s notion of Jewishness, the determinant of who should hold sovereignty, is ultimately {{sic|a biological}}. It is based on kinship. In practice, this kinship does not, as in other countries, depend on tracing family lines back to residence in the sovereign state, but simply on closeness to anyone considered "Jewish" in the racial sense of the term.<ref name="fink11dec10">{{cite web |title= Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein |website= normanfinkelstein.com |date= 10 December 2011 |url= http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111210195943/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-date= 10 December 2011 |url-status= dead |access-date=4 October 2020}}</ref>}}
===Academic reviews of books by Finkelstein===
*Massad, Joseph. Review Essay, ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', Vol. 32, No. 1. (Autumn, 2002), pp.&nbsp;78–89.
*Cole, Tim. ''The Public Historian'', Vol. 24, No. 4. (Fall, 2002), pp.&nbsp;127–131
*Hooglund, Eric. Reviewed work: ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', Vol. 33, No. 3, Special Issue in Honor of Edward W. Said. (Spring, 2004), pp.&nbsp;123–124.
*Pelham, Nicolas. Reviewed Work: ''International Affairs'', Vol. 72, No. 3, Ethnicity and International Relations. (July 1996), pp.&nbsp;627–628.
*Pappe, Ilan. "Valuable New Perspectives," Reviewed Work: ''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict''. by Norman G. Finkelstein, ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', Vol. 26, No. 4. (Summer, 1997), pp.&nbsp;113–115.
*Beinin, Joel. "The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict after Oslo," Reviewed work: ''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict'' by Norman G. Finkelstein. ''Middle East Report'', No. 201, Israel and Palestine: Two States, Bantustans or Binationalism?. (Oct. - Dec., 1996), pp.&nbsp;45–47.


According to Finkelstein, the two-state solution is achievable, and the one-state solution is not. His view of the one-state solution is "a society in which Jews and Palestinians enjoy the same democratic rights. One Jew, one vote, one Palestinian, one vote."<ref name="fink11dec10" /> This, he argues, is a society Israeli Jews will never acquiesce to because Jewish dominance cannot be guaranteed. He argues that it would be tantamount to Israel giving up "its existence, its rationale, and the security of all its Jewish citizens".<ref name="fink11dec10-1">{{cite web | title=Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein | website=normanfinkelstein.com | date=December 10, 2011 | url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111210195943/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ | archive-date=December 10, 2011 | url-status=dead | access-date=October 4, 2020 | quote = Israel is a Jewish state; it is committed to that. One-staters apparently believe that Israel will give up its reason for existence and at the same time expose itself not to the risk but to the certainty of being ‘swamped by Arabs’. ... How long is it supposed to take before Israel gives up its existence, its rationale, and the security of all its Jewish citizens?}}</ref> He similarly argues that the ] who were forced to leave their homes in the ], whom Israel prevents from returning, have the ] to what is now Israel.<ref name="alt16nov1-1">{{cite web |title= Norman Finkelstein: Prospects, Hope and Strategies for the Future in Palestine |website= Alternatives International |date=1 November 2016 |url= https://www.alterinter.org/?Norman-Finkelstein-Prospects-Hope-and-Strategies-for-the-Future-in-Palestine |access-date=4 October 2020 |quote= Under international law, Palestinian refugees have the right to return. The major human rights organizations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have both upheld the right of return; as a legal right, it’s there.}}</ref> But he believes that insisting on that right is unrealistic and doubts international public support could be found for it:
===Reviews of books by Finkelstein===
<!--needs re-formatting and alphabetization into one list of bibliographical entries.-->
<!--I suggest merge with list of Books above-->
* ]. Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah'' in '']'' 24 February 2006.
* ]. Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah''. '']'' Feb./March 2006.
* ]. Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah'' in '']'' 3 February 2006.
* ]. Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah'' in '']'' January/February 2006.
* ]. {{dead link|date=June 2013}} Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah'' in '']'' 5 Dec. 2005
* ]. {{dead link|date=June 2013}} Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah''. '']'' 10 Dec. 2005
* ]. Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah''. '']'' Jan. 2006
* ]. {{dead link|date=June 2013}} Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah''. '']'' November 2005 Volume 18 Number 11
* ]. {{dead link|date=November 2011}} Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah''. '']'' 17 Nov. 2005
* ]. Review of ''Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History'', by Norman G. Finkelstein. '']'' 12 Oct. 2005
* ]. {{dead link|date=June 2013}} Review of ''Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict'', by Norman G. Finkelstein. '']'' 23 Oct. 2003
* Bogdanor, Paul. Review of ''The Holocaust Industry'', by Norman Finkelstein. ''Judaism'', Fall, 2002.
* ]. Review of ''The Holocaust Industry'', by Norman Finkelstein. ''New Interventions'', vol. 10, no. 2, 2000.
* ]. Review of ''The Holocaust Industry'', by Norman Finkelstein. '']'' 6 Aug. 2000.


{{blockquote|text=Israel has a population of 8.3 million people. Of those 8.3 million, about 6 million are Jewish. The number of Palestinian refugees is about 6 million. Is it realistic to expect that international public opinion at the popular or State level will demand that Israel open its borders such that the number of Palestinians entering the country would be equal to the current Israeli-Jewish population? ... I don’t believe that's a realistic expectation.<ref name="alt16nov1">{{cite web |title= Norman Finkelstein: Prospects, Hope and Strategies for the Future in Palestine |website= Alternatives International |date=1 November 2016 |url= https://www.alterinter.org/?Norman-Finkelstein-Prospects-Hope-and-Strategies-for-the-Future-in-Palestine |access-date=4 October 2020}}</ref>}}
===Profiles of Finkelstein===
*Garner, Mandy. '']'' 16 December 2005.
*]. '']'' 12 December 2005.
*Rayner, Jay. '']'' 16 July 2000.
*Sheleg, Yair. {{dead link|date=June 2013}} '']'' 30 March 2001.


Finkelstein further argues that even if a binational state comes into existence, there is no guarantee of an absence of bloodshed. He sees the ], ], and ] as showing why Jews and Palestinians sharing a state could be problematic.<ref name="fink11dec10-2">{{cite web |title= Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein |website= normanfinkelstein.com |date= 10 December 2011 |url= http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111210195943/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-date= 10 December 2011 |url-status= dead |access-date=4 October 2020 |quote= The binational state that bears closest comparison with Palestine is Lebanon, where many Palestinians now live. Even subtracting the toll exacted by Israeli invasions, the carnage there has exceeded by orders of magnitude that of the entire Israel/Palestine conflict. The most encouraging examples of binational states, Belgium and Czechoslovakia, are now dissolved or on the brink of dissolution. Then there is, or was, Yugoslavia. Is there such warmth between Israeli Jews and Palestinians that we may expect a better outcome there than in these countries?}}</ref>
===Critics of Finkelstein and replies===
* Daniel Goldhagen,
** Norman Finkelstein, {{dead link|date=June 2013}}
* William Rubinstein et al., , letters to the ''London Review of Books''
* Alex Callinicos, {{dead link|date=June 2013}}, criticism in ''Socialist Worker''
* David Friedman, , calling Finkelstein a ]
** {{dead link|date=June 2013}}
** {{dead link|date=June 2013}}, Marc Fisher, WP columnist, publishes a retraction of his charge of "holocaust revisionism


For these reasons, Finkelstein prefers the two-state solution. He believes that, while such a solution is currently politically impossible,<ref name="alt16nov1-2">{{cite web |title= Norman Finkelstein: Prospects, Hope and Strategies for the Future in Palestine |website= Alternatives International |date=1 November 2016 |url= https://www.alterinter.org/?Norman-Finkelstein-Prospects-Hope-and-Strategies-for-the-Future-in-Palestine |access-date=4 October 2020 |quote= Today, the occupation for Israel is cost-free: Europe subsidizes the occupation, the Palestinian Authority polices the occupation, while the US protects Israel from any diplomatic fallout. There's no incentive for Israel to end the occupation. What needs to change is the balance of power, which is at the moment overwhelmingly favorable to Israel.}}</ref> it could come to fruition through mutually agreed land swaps and by evacuating about half of all Israeli West Bank settlers:
==References==
{{blockquote|text=Topographers and cartographers on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides say there is a way to retain a contiguous Palestinian state with land swaps so that the total area remains the same as the 1967 borders, while enabling around 60 percent of the illegal Jewish settlers to remain in place under Israeli rule. ... But it’s feasible.<ref name="alt16nov1"/>}}
{{Reflist|30em}}

Finkelstein argues that many Israeli Jews see the ongoing occupation and the West Bank settlements as problematic; that they benefit only a small segment of Israel's Jews; that they complicate security arrangements; that the occupation is expensive; and that it earns Israel near-universal opprobrium. Thus, he argues, Israel could be compelled to accept a two-state solution.<ref name="fink11dec10-3">{{cite web |title= Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein |website= normanfinkelstein.com |date= 10 December 2011 |url= http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111210195943/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-date= 10 December 2011 |url-status= dead |access-date=4 October 2020 |quote= It is one thing to vacate the settlements. They represent and benefit a smallish minority of Israelis. For many more Israelis, they are a great big headache. The occupation is expensive; it earns Israel near-universal opprobrium; it requires semi-open borders which constrain security arrangements; above all it requires Israel to spread its forces all over the landscape rather than concentrate them for efficient military operations.}}</ref> The Palestinian right of return would not necessarily be relinquished if a two-state solution was implemented, but according to Finkelstein, the Palestinians could still impose it on Israel if they became powerful enough.<ref name="fink11dec10-4">{{cite web |title= Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein |website= normanfinkelstein.com |date= 10 December 2011 |url= http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111210195943/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/reasoned-rejection-of-one-state-position/ |archive-date= 10 December 2011 |url-status= dead |access-date=4 October 2020 |quote= For now, Israel will not honor a Palestinian right of return; to 'demand' it is the emptiest of gestures. That right will be honored only if the Palestinians become powerful enough to enforce it. If or when that happens, that some leaders verbally renounced the right will count for nothing. The Palestinians will be free to say: this was never our will; this was a renunciation obtained under duress; those who renounced it should not have done so.}}</ref>

===The BDS movement===
Finkelstein's opinions on the ] and the right of return lay the foundation for his critique of the ] (BDS) movement. BDS demands three things of Israel: an end to the occupation and the removal of the ] in the West Bank, full equality for ]; and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties". It advocates international boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to achieve these goals. Finkelstein believes that BDS's tactics are correct but not its demands.<ref>{{cite news|title=Norman Finkelstein on the Role of BDS & Why Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Words on Israel-Palestine|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/4/norman_finkelstein_on_the_role_of|access-date=October 12, 2014|work=]|publisher=Pacifica|date=June 4, 2014|quote=Who could not support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions? Of course you should. And most of the human rights organizations, church organizations have moved in that direction. The problem is the goal...}}</ref> BDS has no official position on the one- or the two-state solution, which he finds dishonest,<ref>{{youTube|ASIBGSSw4lI|title=Norman Finkelstein Interview with Frank Barat: BDS Campaign {{!}} Imperial College London |time=28m50s}}</ref> because in his view, BDS's demands would eliminate Israel: "If we end the occupation and bring back six million Palestinians and we have equal rights for Arabs and Jews, there's no Israel."<ref name="alj12feb28">{{cite web | last=Abunimah | first=Ali | title=Finkelstein, BDS and the destruction of Israel – Ireland | website=Al Jazeera | date=February 28, 2012 | url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/2/28/finkelstein-bds-and-the-destruction-of-israel/ | access-date=October 4, 2020}}</ref>

BDS claims that its demands are anchored in international law.<ref name="Reynolds2017">{{cite book|author=John Reynolds|title=Empire, Emergency and International Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TLYrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA288|date=10 August 2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-17251-7|pages=287–288}}</ref> Finkelstein disputes this because the international community recognizes Israel. Therefore, because he believes that BDS's demands would lead to the end of Israel, international law does not support them.<ref>{{cite news|title=Norman Finkelstein on the Role of BDS & Why Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Words on Israel-Palestine|url=http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/4/norman_finkelstein_on_the_role_of|access-date=October 12, 2014|work=]|publisher=Pacifica|date=June 4, 2014|quote=The BDS movement, it always says, and I'm using their language, "We are a rights-based organization. We are based in international law." I agree with that. That's where you have to go: rights-based international law. But the international law is clear. You read the last sentence of the 2004 International Court of Justice opinion on the wall that Israel has been building in the West Bank, and the last sentence says, "We look forward to two states: a Palestinian state alongside Israel and at peace with its neighbors." That's the law.}}</ref> He also believes that there is a "limit of the spectrum of progressive thought in the world we live{{clarify|reason=Misquoted or unedited. Either "we live in", or a "(sic)" is required.|date=April 2022}}" and that BDS's demands exceed that limit. Therefore, he argues, BDS is a "cult" that cannot reach the broad public: "if you want to go past that law or ignore the Israel part, you'll never reach a broad public. And then it's a cult."<ref name="dem12jun4">{{cite web |title= Norman Finkelstein on the Role of BDS & Why Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Words on Israel-Palestine |website=] |date= 23 September 2020 |url= http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/4/norman_finkelstein_on_the_role_of |access-date=4 October 2020}}</ref>

BDS claims to enjoy broad support in Palestinian civil society. Finkelstein claims that is a lie:<ref>{{youTube|ASIBGSSw4lI|title=Norman Finkelstein Interview with Frank Barat: BDS Campaign {{!}} Imperial College London |time=24m50s}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=I'm not going to be in a cult again. I'm not going through that stage again, with the gurus in Ramallah, you know, giving out marching orders. And then if you disagree, they say, "10,556,454 Palestinian civil society organizations have endorsed this."

Who are these organizations? They're NGOs in Ramallah, one-person operations, and they claim to represent what they call this thing, "Palestinian civil society." ... hen why can't they ever organize a demonstration of more than 500 people? ... represent absolutely nothing.}}

Finkelstein believes that BDS serves the role as "a new ]" to the Israeli government, an external threat "bent on Israel's destruction" to rally around. In his view, international public opinion has begun to turn against Israel but BDS allows it "to play victim." He believes that by inflating the threat of BDS, the Israeli government delegitimizes other critics of Israel:
{{blockquote|text=By inflating the threat posed by BDS; and by redefining BDS to encompass all opposition to it, including European Union and church initiatives wholly divorced from BDS; and by subsuming under the rubric of BDS the campaigns in the West that only targeted the settlements and the occupation—by exaggerating the reach and potency of BDS, Israel could delegitimize even its most tepid but also most ominous critics. It could now allege that even they were really, whatever they might avow, seeking Israel's destruction.<ref name="mw16">{{cite web |last= Weiss |first= Philip |title= Norman Finkelstein on Sanders, the first intifada, BDS, and ten years of unemployment |website= Mondoweiss |date= 27 April 2016 |url= https://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/norman-finkelstein-on-sanders-the-first-intifada-bds-and-ten-years-of-unemployment/ |access-date=4 October 2020}}</ref>}}

Finkelstein contends that BDS has allowed Israel to "play the victim card" and shift the debate from pressing human rights concerns, such as the ], to the question of whether BDS is anti-Semitic. He believes that BDS has helped Israel in this effort: "But it must also be said that BDS made it very easy for Israel, by refusing to recognize its legality as a state within the pre-June 1967 borders."<ref name="mw16-1">{{cite web |last= Weiss |first= Philip |title= Norman Finkelstein on Sanders, the first intifada, BDS, and ten years of unemployment |website= Mondoweiss |date= 27 April 2016 |url= https://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/norman-finkelstein-on-sanders-the-first-intifada-bds-and-ten-years-of-unemployment/ |access-date=4 October 2020 |quote= Nobody talks about the blockade of Gaza anymore, it's all about BDS: Is BDS anti-Semitic? Does BDS want to destroy Israel? It gets to play the victim card again. It has succeeded in changing the subject. But it must also be said that BDS made it very easy for Israel, by refusing to recognize its legality as a state within the pre-June 1967 borders. BDS enabled Israel to wrap itself in the cloak of victimhood.}}</ref>

Finkelstein's criticism of BDS has put him on a collision course with other voices in the Palestinian solidarity movement who support it. He suspects that his public criticism has caused him to be locked out of the pro-Palestinian debating circuit; in 2016, he said:

{{blockquote|text=A month ago, ]'s program ''Up Front'' contacted me. They wanted me to join a debate on BDS. But the BDS leaders refused to appear on the program. It's happened more times than I care to remember. One BDS leader told ''Democracy Now!'', "Why debate Finkelstein? He's not important. We should debate important people." I used to give 40 talks a year. Now I give maybe four. I know the number because of those 1099 slips I have to submit to my accountant. Three years ago, before the BDS thing exploded, I gave him 40 slips. Last year I gave him four.<ref name="mw16"/>}}

] has written an article criticizing Finkelstein's arguments.<ref name="alj12feb28"/>

==Other statements==
===''Charlie Hebdo'' shootings===
On the shooters of the ] on January 7, 2015, Finkelstein commented two weeks later:
<blockquote>So two despairing and desperate young men act out their despair and desperation against this political pornography no different than '']'', who in the midst of all of this death and destruction decide it's somehow noble to degrade, demean, humiliate and insult the people. I'm sorry, maybe it is very politically incorrect. I have no sympathy for . Should they have been killed? Of course not. But of course, ] shouldn't have been hung . I don't hear that from many people."<ref>{{cite news|last=Caglayan|first=Mustafa|url=http://aa.com.tr/en/politics/norman-finkelstein-charlie-hebdo-is-sadism-not-satire/82824|title=Norman Finkelstein: Charlie Hebdo is sadism, not satire|work=]|location=Ankara, Turkey|date=January 19, 2015|access-date=August 23, 2020}}</ref></blockquote>

=== On Holocaust denial ===
In a July 2020 online discussion with British activists, Finkelstein called ] ] "a very good historian". Finding insufficient the evidence of ] as the expert witness in ] in 2000 against ], who had labeled Irving a Holocaust denier, Finkelstein said Irving had "produced works that are substantive … If you don't like it, don't read it. In the case of Irving, he knew a thing or two—or three".<ref>{{cite news|last=Harpin|first=Lee|url=https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/norman-finkelstein-praises-holocaust-denier-david-irving-at-pro-corbyn-group-meeting-1.502134|title=Norman Finkelstein praises Holocaust denier David Irving at pro-Corbyn group meeting|work=The Jewish Chronicle|date=July 31, 2020|access-date=July 31, 2020}}</ref>

In October 2020, Finkelstein published an extract from his forthcoming book, ''Cancel Culture, Academic Freedom and Me'' on his website following the banning of Holocaust denial from ] and ]. According to Finkelstein, "Holocaust denial should be taught in university and preferably by a Holocaust denier" as a means "to inoculate students" against it. He states: "If one is committed to the purity of truth, not just in its wholeness but also in its parts, then a Holocaust denier performs the useful function of ferreting out 'local' errors, precisely because he is a devil’s advocate—that is, fanatically committed to 'unmasking' the 'hoax of the 20th century.'"<ref>{{cite news|last=Phillips|first=Aleks|url=https://www.thejc.com/norman-finkelstein-students-should-be-taught-about-holocaust-denial-ideally-by-a-holocaust-denier-1.507888|title=Norman Finkelstein: students should be taught about Holocaust denial, ideally by a Holocaust denier|work=The Jewish Chronicle|date=October 23, 2020|access-date=October 23, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman G.|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/2020/10/21/why-we-should-rejoice-at-holocaust-deniers-not-suppress-them-a-reply-to-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-and-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-by-norman-g-finkelstein/|title=Why We Should Rejoice at Holocaust Deniers, Not Suppress Them: A Reply to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey|work=Norman Finkelstein|date=October 21, 2020|access-date=October 23, 2020}}</ref>

=== Wokeism ===
In May 2023, on ]'s podcast ''The Glenn Show'', Finkelstein called ] a "lucrative scam" and "intellectually worthless", criticizing ]'s and ]'s speaking engagements as "rich white folks using woke people as protective cover".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Loury |first1=Glenn |title=Why Wokeness Is a Scam Glenn Loury & Norman Finkelstein |date=May 19, 2023 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rvxnmIJ7yQ&t=2732s |publisher=The Glenn Show |access-date=16 January 2024}}</ref>

In an interview with ], Finkelstein expanded on this:

<blockquote> I didn't have a problem with it, it seemed to be another "college fad"... but then it became painfully obvious that it was politically a very pernicious phenomenon... the big difference between political correctness and woke politics is political correctness was really marginal, a few campus radicals, but the Democratic Party has instrumentalized identity politics to displace what was once its base, namely the trade union movement... identity politics has infiltrated most of what you would call liberal culture and so its impact, the dangers it poses are much more significant... identity politics has appropriated those causes, the women's question, the African-American question, but lopped off the class element.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Garda |first1=Imran |title=Norman Finkelstein's lifelong rebellion and new war on woke The InnerView |date=August 21, 2023 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0i0mnhobNs |publisher=TRT World |access-date=18 January 2024}}</ref></blockquote>

==Works==
* 2022: '']'', ], Portland, {{ISBN|979-8-9867884-2-5}}
* 2019: ''I Accuse!: Herewith A Proof Beyond Reasonable Doubt That ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda Whitewashed Israel'', ], New York (2019), {{ISBN|9781682192276}}
* 2018: '']'', ], Oakland, California, January 2018, {{ISBN|9780520295711}}
* 2014: ''Method and Madness: The Hidden Story of Israel's Assaults on Gaza'', ], New York (2014), {{ISBN|978-1-939293-71-8}}
* 2014: ''Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit's Promised Land'', ], New York (2014), {{ISBN|978-1-939293-46-6}}
* 2012: ''Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End'', ], New York (2012) {{ISBN|978-1-935928-77-5}}
* 2012: ''What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage'', ], New York: 2012, {{ISBN|978-1-935928-79-9}}
* 2011: ''Goldstone Recants. Richard Goldstone renews Israel's license to kill'', ], New York (2011), {{ISBN|978-1-935928-51-5}}
* 2010: ''This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion''. ], New York: 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-935928-43-0}}
* 2007: ''Dennis Ross and the Peace Process: Subordinating Palestinian Rights to Israeli "needs"'', Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, D.C. {{ISBN| 978-0-88728-308-6}}
* 2005: '']''. University of California Press: Berkeley, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-520-24989-9}}
* 2000: '']: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering'', Verso; {{ISBN|1-85984-488-X}}.
* 1998: ''A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth'' (co-written with ]), Henry Holt and Co.; {{ISBN|0-8050-5872-9}}.
* 1996: ''The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years''. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, {{ISBN|0-8166-2859-9}}.
* 1995: '']'', Verso; {{ISBN|1-85984-442-1}}
* 1987: ''From the Jewish Question to the Jewish State: An Essay on the Theory of Zionism'' (thesis), Princeton University.

==See also==
* '']'' 2009 documentary

== References ==
===Notes===
{{reflist}}

===Bibliography===
====Books====
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book|first=Matthew|last=Abraham|title=Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NYbFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA86|date=2 January 2014|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-4411-3823-1}}
* {{cite book|first=Norman G.|last=Finkelstein|title=Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History|url=https://archive.org/details/beyondchutzpahon00fink_0/mode/2up|date=2 June 2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24989-9}}, contains an appendix written by Frank J. Menetrez, "Dershowitz vs Finkelstein. Who's Right and Who's Wrong?", pp.&nbsp;363–394.
* {{cite book|first=Howard |last=Friel|title=Chomsky and Dershowitz: On Endless War and the End of Civil Liberties|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Iy0uAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT179|date=21 September 2013|publisher=Interlink Publishing|isbn=978-1-62371-035-4}}
* {{cite book|first=Lawrence|last=Swaim|title=How Finkelstein Broke the Trauma Bond, and Beat the Holocaust: Traumatic Memory And The Struggle Against Systemic Evil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U8alCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT163|date=30 October 2015|publisher=John Hunt Publishing|isbn=978-1-78535-021-4}}
* {{cite book|first=Amy|last=Goodman|title=Breaking the Sound Barrier|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0MVVgX2xfuEC&pg=PA330|year=2009|publisher=Haymarket Books|isbn=978-1-931859-99-8}}
{{refend}}

====Critics of Finkelstein and replies====
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite web | last=Abunimah | first=Ali | title=Finkelstein, BDS and the destruction of Israel - Ireland | website=Al Jazeera | date=February 28, 2012 | url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/2/28/finkelstein-bds-and-the-destruction-of-israel/ | access-date=October 4, 2020}}
* {{cite journal | author=William Rubinstein | title= Letters | journal=London Review of Books | date=February 2000 | volume= 22 | issue= 3 | url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n03/letters | access-date=October 15, 2020}}
* {{cite web | url = http://israel.georgetown.edu/ADL-letter.pdf | author = David Friedman | title = Anti-Defamation League letter | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050515095722/http://israel.georgetown.edu/ADL-letter.pdf | date = November 22, 2000 | archive-date=May 15, 2005}}, calling Finkelstein a "]"
* {{cite web|url=http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=1|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080702112944/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/content.php?pg=1|archive-date=July 2, 2008|title=The Washington Post Publishes a Retraction: Marc Fisher, a ''Washington Post'' columnist, publishes a retraction of his charge of "Holocaust revisionism"}}
* {{Cite web |url=http://www.goldhagen.com/nda0.html |title=The New Discourse of Avoidance |access-date=December 2, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021204232909/http://www.goldhagen.com/nda0.html |archive-date=December 4, 2002 |url-status=dead | author = Daniel Goldhagen}}
* {{cite web | url = http://www.normanfinkelstein.com | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050320120755/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=2&ar=2 | archive-date = March 20, 2005 | title = Response to Goldhagen | author = Norman Finkelstein}}
{{refend}}


==External links== ==External links==
{{external links|date=November 2021}}
{{Wikiquote}} {{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category|Norman Finkelstein}} {{Commons category|Norman Finkelstein}}
* bibliography at "Norman G. Finkelstein Solidarity Campaign" *
* bibliography at "Norman G. Finkelstein Solidarity Campaign"
* official site of the documentary film * official site of the documentary film
* State of Nature interview with Norman Finkelstein (2008) * State of Nature interview with Norman Finkelstein (2008)
*, featuring biography, works by Finkelstein, past and upcoming speaking engagements, and other links to information about him and controversies in which he is involved.


'''Videos'''
===Video===
*{{IMDb name|3581609}}
* - broadcast of the documentary in two parts
*{{C-SPAN|1009594}}
*: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Jan 21, 2009.
* (two sets of four), December 2014 and January 2015, and , May 2015, '']''
* – broadcast of the documentary in two parts
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065153/http://workingtv.com/finkelstein-jan09.html |date=March 4, 2016 }}: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, January 21, 2009.
* January 20, 2008 * January 20, 2008
*{{dead link|date=June 2013}}, presentation in Seattle, Washington, May 8, 2008. *, presentation in Seattle, Washington, May 8, 2008.
*{{dead link|date=June 2013}}, presentation in Olympia, Washington, May 8, 2008. *, presentation in Olympia, Washington, May 8, 2008.
*, April 15, 2008 *{{YouTube|wi02XF9BfNI|VIDEO: Norman Finkelstein at Brown University}}, April 15, 2008
* Video of debate on whether the "pro-Israeli lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel's actions" with ], ], and ], May 1, 2007 * Video of debate on whether the "pro-Israeli lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel's actions" with ], ], and ], May 1, 2007
* on '']'', February 14, 2006 * on '']'', February 14, 2006
* March 23, 2010 * March 23, 2010
* (April 2014), '']''
{{Good article}}


{{Norman Finkelstein}}
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{{Link GA|uk}}

Latest revision as of 18:59, 11 December 2024

American political scientist (born 1953) For the poet, see Norman Finkelstein (poet).

Norman Finkelstein
Finkelstein in 2005
BornNorman Gary Finkelstein
(1953-12-08) December 8, 1953 (age 71)
New York City, U.S.
Education
Occupation(s)Professor, author
Notable workThe Holocaust Industry (2000)
Websitenormanfinkelstein.com

Norman Gary Finkelstein (/ˈfɪŋkəlstiːn/ FING-kəl-steen; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist and activist. His primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Finkelstein was born in New York City to Jewish Holocaust-survivor parents. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007. In 2006, the department and college committees at DePaul University voted to grant Finkelstein tenure. For undisclosed reasons the university administration did not tenure him, and he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university.

Finkelstein rose to prominence in 2000 after publishing The Holocaust Industry, a book in which he writes that the memory of the Holocaust is exploited as an ideological weapon to provide Israel a degree of immunity from criticism. He is a critic of Israeli policy and its governing class. The Israeli government barred him from entry to the country for ten years in 2008. Finkelstein has called Israel the "Jewish supremacist state", and views it as committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people. Through personal accounts in one of his books, he compares the plight of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation with the horrors of the Nazis. Finkelstein's most recent book on Palestine and Israel, published in 2018, is Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.

Early life and education

Norman Finkelstein was born on December 8, 1953, in New York City, the son of Harry and Maryla (née Husyt) Finkelstein. Finkelstein's parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors. His mother grew up in Warsaw and survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp. His father was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz. After the war they met in a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria, and then emigrated to the United States, where his father became a factory worker and his mother a homemaker and later a bookkeeper. Finkelstein's mother was an ardent pacifist. Both his parents died in 1995.

Finkelstein has said of his parents that "they saw the world through the prism of the Nazi Holocaust. They were eternally indebted to the Soviet Union (to whom they attributed the defeat of the Nazis), and so anyone who was anti-Soviet they were extremely harsh on". They supported the Soviet Union's approval of the creation of the State of Israel, as enunciated by Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko, who said that Jews had earned the right to a state, but thought that Israel had sold its soul to the West and "refused to have any truck with it".

Finkelstein grew up in Borough Park, then Mill Basin, both in Brooklyn, New York, where he attended James Madison High School. In his memoir he recalls strongly identifying with the outrage that his mother, who witnessed the genocidal atrocities of World War II, felt at the carnage the United States wrought in the Vietnam War. One childhood friend recalls his mother's "emotional investment in left-wing humanitarian causes as bordering on hysteria". He "internalized indignation", a trait that he admits rendered him "insufferable" when talking about the Vietnam War, and that imbued him with a "holier-than-thou" attitude he now regrets. But Finkelstein regards his absorption of his mother's outlook—the refusal to put aside a sense of moral outrage in order to get on with one's life—as a virtue. Subsequently, reading Noam Chomsky played a role in learning to apply the moral passions his mother bequeathed to him with intellectual rigor.

Finkelstein completed his undergraduate studies at Binghamton University in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 1979 in Paris. He was an ardent Maoist from his teenage years on and was "totally devastated" by the news of the trial of the Gang of Four in 1976, which led him to decide he had been misled. He was, he says, bedridden for three weeks.

He received his master's degree in political science in 1980, and his PhD in political studies from Princeton in 1988. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His doctoral thesis is on Zionism. Before gaining academic employment, Finkelstein was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts in New York.

According to Finkelstein, his involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict began in 1982 when he and a handful of other Jews in New York protested against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He held a sign saying: "This son of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Auschwitz, Maijdenek will not be silent: Israeli Nazis – Stop the Holocaust in Lebanon!"

During the First Intifada, he spent every summer from 1988 in the West Bank as a guest of Palestinian families in Hebron and Beit Sahour, where he taught English at a local school. Finkelstein wrote that the fact that he was Jewish didn't bother most Palestinians: "The typical response was indifference. Word had been passed to the shebab that I was 'okay' and, generally, the matter rested there." He recounted his experiences of the intifada in his 1996 book The Rise and Fall of Palestine.

Academic career

Finkelstein at the University of Leeds in 2009.

Finkelstein first taught at Rutgers University as an adjunct lecturer in international relations (1977–78), then at Brooklyn College (1988–1991), Hunter College (1992–2001), New York University (1992–2001), and DePaul University (2001–2007). The New York Times reported that Finkelstein left Hunter College in 2001 "after his teaching load and salary were reduced" by the college administration. He has said he enjoyed teaching at Hunter and was "unceremoniously kicked out" after begging the college to keep him on with just two courses a semester for $12,000 a year. Hunter set conditions that would have required him to spend four days a week teaching, which he thought unacceptable. Finkelstein taught at Sakarya University Middle East Institute in Turkey in 2014–15.

Writings

Finkelstein has described himself as a "forensic" scholar who has worked to demystify what he considers pseudo-scholarly arguments. He has written scathing academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars who he says misrepresent facts in order to defend Israel's policies and practices. His writings have dealt with politically charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine, and his allegations of the existence of a "Holocaust industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli political interests. He has also described himself as "an old-fashioned communist", in the sense that he "see no value whatsoever in states."

Finkelstein's work has been praised by scholars such as Noam Chomsky, the political scientist Raul Hilberg, and historian Avi Shlaim, and his advocates and detractors have remarked on his polemical style.

On From Time Immemorial

Finkelstein's doctoral thesis formed the basis for his interest in examining the claims made in Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, a best-selling book at the time. Peters's "history and defense" of Israel deals with the demographic history of Palestine. Demographic studies had tended to assert that the Arab population of Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a 94% majority at the turn of the century, had dwindled toward parity due to massive Zionist immigration. Peters radically challenged this view by arguing that a substantial portion of the Palestinians were descended from immigrants from other Arab countries from the early 19th century onward. It followed, for Peters and many of her readers, that the picture of a native Palestinian population overwhelmed by Jewish immigration was little more than propaganda, and that in actuality two almost simultaneous waves of immigration met in what had been a relatively unpopulated land.

From Time Immemorial was praised by figures as varied as Barbara Tuchman, Theodore H. White, Elie Wiesel, and Lucy Dawidowicz. Saul Bellow wrote in a jacket endorsement, "Millions of people the world over, smothered by false history and propaganda, will be grateful for this clear account of the origins of the Palestinians."

Finkelstein called the book a "monumental hoax". He later opined that, while Peters's book received widespread interest and approval in the United States, a scholarly demonstration of its fraudulence and unreliability aroused little attention:

By the end of 1984, From Time Immemorial had...received some two hundred notices ... in the United States. The only "false" notes in this crescendoing chorus of praise were the Journal of Palestine Studies, which ran a highly critical review by Bill Farrell; the small Chicago-based newsweekly In These Times, which published a condensed version of this writer's findings; and Alexander Cockburn, who devoted a series of columns in The Nation exposing the hoax. ... The periodicals in which From Time Immemorial had already been favorably reviewed refused to run any critical correspondence (e.g., The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Commentary). Periodicals that had yet to review the book rejected a manuscript on the subject as of little or no consequence (e.g., The Village Voice, Dissent, The New York Review of Books). Not a single national newspaper or columnist contacted found it newsworthy that a best-selling, effusively praised "study" of the Middle East conflict was a threadbare hoax.

According to Adam Shatz, "when Finkelstein showed that Peters had manipulated Ottoman demographic records to make her case, the book's supporters attacked him as an anti-Zionist. By 1986, though, Zionist scholars having published articles that bolstered Finkelstein's case, his version was the conventional wisdom."

In Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky wrote that Finkelstein sent his preliminary findings to about 30 people interested in the topic, but no one replied, except for him, and that was how they became friends:

I told him, yeah, I think it’s an interesting topic, but I warned him, if you follow this, you’re going to get in trouble—because you're going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they're going to destroy you. So I said: if you want to do it, go ahead, but be aware of what you're getting into. It's an important issue, it makes a big difference whether you eliminate the moral basis for driving out a population—it's preparing the basis for some real horrors—so a lot of people's lives could be at stake. But your life is at stake too, I told him, because if you pursue this, your career is going to be ruined. Well, he didn't believe me. We became very close friends after this, I didn't know him before.

According to Chomsky, the controversy over Finkelstein's research caused a delay in his earning his Ph.D. at Princeton University. Chomsky wrote that Finkelstein could not get the faculty to read his dissertation, and that Princeton eventually granted Finkelstein his doctorate only "out of embarrassment" and refused to give him any further professional backing.

Norman Finkelstein at Solidarity stage in 2013.

In a 1996 Foreign Affairs review of a subsequent book, William B. Quandt called Finkelstein's critique of From Time Immemorial a "landmark essay" that helped demonstrate Peters's "shoddy scholarship". Israeli historian Avi Shlaim later praised Finkelstein's thesis, saying that it had established his credentials when he was still a doctoral student. In Shlaim's view, Finkelstein had produced an "unanswerable case" with "irrefutable evidence" that Peters's book was "preposterous and worthless".

The Rise and Fall of Palestine

In 1996, Finkelstein published The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years, which chronicled his visits to the West Bank during the First Intifada. Through personal accounts, he compares the plight of the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation with the horrors of the Nazis.

The book was unfavorably reviewed by Joost Hiltermann, who objected to Finkelstein's "abrasiveness, righteous anger, hyperbole, distortions and unwarranted generalizations", and to his generalizations about West Bank Palestinians:

Finkelstein commits the error of assuming that he saw everything there was to see during his trips to the West Bank, and that what he saw represented reality. This leads to absurd observations. He claims, for example, that "many Palestinians are fluent in English" (p. 4), that "many" homes he visited were "equipped with the latest, wide-screen, color models" of television (p. 6), and that "women wore bikinis at the beach" (p. 18).

Hiltermann wrote that while "there is plenty of reason to be anguished about the terrible injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian", Finkelstein's "bludgeoning" style wouldn't reach an audience beyond those already converted.

A Nation on Trial

In 1996, Harvard historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen published Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, in which he argued that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture. Finkelstein's critique, “Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 'Crazy' Thesis”, was published in New Left Review and excerpted in Der Spiegel and Italy's Panorama. In the essay, Finkelstein places the term "holocaust" in lower case to "universalize events and thereby downgrade the significance of the Holocaust for Jewish history".

Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company, announced it would publish a revised version of the essay, along with that of German-born historian Ruth Bettina Birn that had been published in the Cambridge Historical Journal, under the title A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. Leon Wieseltier and the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman unsuccessfully pressured Metropolitan to cancel it. Columbia University's István Deák backed out of writing a preface but did endorse the book, along with historians Raul Hilberg, Christopher Browning, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, and Eric Hobsbawm.

The book slightly tones down the essay, with Goldhagen describing the revision as the "sanitized", "excised" and "coverup" version. According to Adam Shatz, Finkelstein's arguments in the book are that only a minority of Germans voted for the Nazis, that antisemitism wasn't Hitler's primary appeal to the German people, that "Germans overwhelmingly condemned the Nazi anti-Semitic atrocities", and that Goldhagen's book was successful because of its Zionist agenda. Shatz suggests that these points are either exaggerated or not new:

Israeli intellectuals such as Amos Elon and Tom Segev and the Holocaust historian Omer Bartov have made similar points about the ideological subtext of Holocaust writing. But they also take pains not to dismiss the trauma the Holocaust visited and continues to visit upon Jews. By contrast, Finkelstein adopts an ugly conspiratorial tone when he attributes the book's popularity in the United States to its Zionist message.

The Holocaust Industry

Main article: The Holocaust Industry

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering was published in 2000. In this work, Finkelstein argues that Elie Wiesel and others exploit the memory of the Holocaust as an "ideological weapon". Their purpose, he writes, is to enable Israel, "one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, cast itself as a victim state"; that is, to provide Israel "immunity to criticism". He alleges "a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters" have sought enormous legal damages and financial settlements from Germany and Switzerland, money that then goes to the lawyers and institutional actors involved in procuring them rather than actual Holocaust survivors. In a television interview to publicize the book, he said a "handful of American Jews have effectively hijacked the Nazi Holocaust to blackmail Europe" to "divert attention from what is being done to the Palestinians".

The book was received negatively in many quarters, with critics charging that it was poorly researched and/or allowed others to exploit it for antisemitic purposes. The German historian Hans Mommsen disparaged the first edition as "a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices". Israeli Holocaust historian Israel Gutman called it "a lampoon, which takes a serious subject and distorts it for improper purposes. I don't even think it should be reviewed or critiqued as a legitimate book." The Holocaust Industry was also harshly criticized by Brown University Professor Omer Bartov, University of Chicago Professor Peter Novick and other reviewers accusing Finkelstein of selective or dubious evidence and misinterpretation of history. At the time the book was published in Germany, Der Spiegel reported the country was "in the grip of Holocaust madness. Finkelstein is being taken seriously. What he says corresponds with what many who do not know the facts think." In an interview, Finkelstein said, "the Holocaust is a political weapon. Germans have legitimate reasons to defend themselves against this abuse".

In an August 2000 interview for Swiss National Radio, Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg said the book expressed views Hilberg held, in that he too found "detestable" the exploitation of the Holocaust by groups such as the World Jewish Congress. Asked whether Finkelstein's analysis might play into the hands of neo-Nazis for antisemitic purposes, Hilberg replied, "Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, I'm afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing".

In a review in the journal Historical Materialism, Enzo Traverso called the book "polemical and violent" but also "in many ways appropriate and convincing". Traverso expressed many reservations about Finkelstein's arguments about the Swiss banks and the reaction in Europe. Traverso agreed (with Hilberg) that the allegations Finkelstein made against a number of Jewish-American institutions are probably correct. He also referred to the favorable reception Finkelstein's book received in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, calling it "welcome hyberbole". But Traverso criticized Finkelstein for ignoring the European aspect of the matter, and said Finkelstein's analysis was too simplistic and crudely materialistic. He concluded, "Finkelstein's book contains a core of truth that must be recognised, but it lends itself, due to its style and several of its main arguments, to the worst uses and instrumentalisations".

The historian David Cesarani criticized Finkelstein for absolving Swiss banks of serious misconduct toward Holocaust survivors and for depicting the banks as victims of Jewish terror. Cesarani said that Finkelstein based his claim on a single sentence from an annex to a report that related to some specific issues, while ignoring the report's main conclusions, which "fully justified the campaign that was necessary to wrest compensation from initially unapologetic and obdurate Swiss banks".

Criticism of Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel

Main article: Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair
Finkelstein's public feud with jurist and academic Alan Dershowitz lasted for years and had a negative effect on Finkelstein's academic career

Shortly after the 2003 publication of Alan Dershowitz's book The Case for Israel, Finkelstein derided it as "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism, and nonsense". During a debate on Democracy Now!, Finkelstein said that Dershowitz lacked knowledge of specific contents of his own book. He also claimed that Dershowitz did not write the book and may not have even read it.

Finkelstein said there were 20 instances, in as many pages, where Dershowitz's book cites the same sources and passages Peters used in her book, in largely the same sequence, with ellipses in the same places. In two instances, Dershowitz reproduces Peters's errors. From this Finkelstein concluded that Dershowitz had not checked the original sources himself, contrary to his claims. Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas. Examining a copy of a proof of Dershowitz's book he managed to obtain, he found evidence that Dershowitz had his secretarial assistant, Holly Beth Billington, check in the Harvard library the sources he had read in Peters's book. Dershowitz answered the charge in a letter to the University of California's Press Director Lynne Withey, arguing that Finkelstein had made up the smoking gun quotation by changing its wording (from "cite" to "copy") in his book. In public debate, he has said that if "somebody borrowed the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that, obviously that would be a serious charge", but said that he did not do that and had indeed checked the original source.

Dershowitz threatened libel action over the charges in Finkelstein's book, as a consequence of which the publisher deleted the word "plagiarism" from the text before publication. Finkelstein agreed to remove the suggestion that Dershowitz was not the true author of The Case for Israel because, as the publisher said, "he couldn't document that".

Asserting that he did consult the original sources, Dershowitz said Finkelstein was simply accusing him of good scholarly practice: citing references he learned of initially from Peters's book. Dershowitz denied that he used any of Peters's ideas without citation. "Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and claiming they're your own. There are no borrowed words from anybody. There are no borrowed ideas from anybody because I fundamentally disagree with the conclusions of Peters's book." In a footnote in The Case for Israel that cites Peters's book, Dershowitz explicitly denies that he "relies" on Peters for "conclusions or data".

In their joint interview on Democracy Now, Finkelstein cited specific passages in Dershowitz's book in which a phrase that he said Peters coined was incorrectly attributed to George Orwell:

coins the phrase "turnspeak"; she says she's using it as a play off of George Orwell, which as all listeners know used the phrase "Newspeak." She coined her own phrase, "turnspeak". You go to Mr. Dershowitz's book, he got so confused in his massive borrowings from Joan Peters that on two occasions—I'll cite them for those who have a copy of the book, on page 57 and on page 153—he uses the phrase "George Orwell's 'turnspeak'." "Turnspeak" is not Orwell, Mr. Dershowitz".

James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth College, the University of Iowa, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, defended Dershowitz:

I do not understand charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as The Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: 'Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of fair use, it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism.' This is precisely what Dershowitz did.

Responding to an article in The Nation by Alexander Cockburn, Dershowitz also cited The Chicago Manual of Style:

Cockburn's claim is that some of the quotes should not have been cited to their original sources but rather to a secondary source, where he believes I stumbled upon them. Even if he were correct that I found all these quotations in Peters's book, the preferred method of citation is to the original source, as The Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: "With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This...helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism ... To cite a source from a secondary source ('quoted in...') is generally to be discouraged"

Cockburn responded:

Quoting The Chicago Manual of Style, Dershowitz artfully implies that he followed the rules by citing "the original" as opposed to the secondary source, Peters. He misrepresents Chicago here, where "the original" means merely the origin of the borrowed material, which is, in this instance, Peters.

Now look at the second bit of the quote from Chicago, chastely separated from the preceding sentence by a demure three-point ellipsis. As my associate Kate Levin has discovered, this passage ("To cite a source from a secondary source...") occurs on page 727, which is no less than 590 pages later than the material before the ellipsis, in a section titled "Citations Taken from Secondary Sources." Here's the full quote, with what Dershowitz left out set in bold: "'Quoted in'. To cite a source from a secondary source ("quoted in") is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed."

So Chicago is clearly insisting that unless Dershowitz went to the originals, he was obliged to cite Peters. Finkelstein has conclusively demonstrated that he didn't go to the originals. Plagiarism, QED, plus added time for willful distortion of the language of Chicago's guidelines, cobbling together two separate discussions.

On Dershowitz's behalf, Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan asked former Harvard president Derek Bok to investigate the assertion of plagiarism; Bok exonerated Dershowitz of the charge.

In April 2007, Frank Menetrez, a former Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Law Review, published an analysis of the charges Dershowitz made against Finkelstein and concluded that Dershowitz had misrepresented matters. In a follow-up analysis he concluded that he could find "no way of avoiding the inference that Dershowitz copied the quotation from Twain from Peters's From Time Immemorial, and not from the original source", as Dershowitz claimed.

Controversies

Tenure rejection and resignation

Finkelstein's tenure at DePaul University, Chicago, ended with a vote against granting him tenure. Weeks of protests ensued on campus in support of granting him a position at the university.

Amid considerable public debate, Dershowitz campaigned to block Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul University. His campaign began in 2004 when he sent DePaul president Dennis Holtschneider a manuscript, "Literary McCarthyism," arguing that the university should fire Finkelstein. He also contacted DePaul political science department chair Patrick Callahan. In 2005, Dershowitz announced his intent to block Finkelstein's tenure bid, saying, "I will come at my own expense, and I will document the case against Finkelstein" and "I'll demonstrate that he doesn't meet the academic standards of the Association of American Universities". In October 2006, he sent members of DePaul's law and political science faculties what he called "a dossier of Norman Finkelstein's most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions" and lobbied DePaul's professors, alumni and administrators to deny Finkelstein tenure. In May 2007, Dershowitz spoke at Northwestern University and claimed that Finkelstein had recently attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.

DePaul's political science committee investigated Dershowitz's accusations against Finkelstein and concluded that they were unsubstantiated. The department subsequently invited John Mearsheimer and Ian Lustick, two previously uninvolved academics with expertise on the Israel–Palestinian conflict, to evaluate the academic merit of Finkelstein's work; they came to the same conclusion.

In early 2007, DePaul's political science department voted nine to three, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee five to zero, to give Finkelstein tenure. The three opposing faculty members subsequently filed a minority report opposing tenure, supported by the Dean of the College, Chuck Suchar. In leaked memos, Suchar wrote that he opposed tenure because "the personal attacks in many of Dr. Finkelstein's published books ... border on character assassination" and his attitudes threatened "some basic tenets of discourse within an academic community". He believed they were inconsistent with DePaul's "Vincentian" values. As examples, Suchar said that Finkelstein lacked respect for "the dignity of the individual" and for "the rights of others to hold and express different intellectual positions". In June 2007, DePaul University's Board on Promotion and Tenure, with the support of Holtschneider, denied Finkelstein tenure by a 4–3 vote.

The university denied that Dershowitz's lobbying played a part in its decision. At the same time, the university denied tenure to international studies assistant professor Mehrene Larudee, a strong supporter of Finkelstein and Jewish Voice for Peace member, despite unanimous support from her department, the Personnel Committee and the dean. Finkelstein said that he would engage in civil disobedience if attempts were made to bar him from teaching his students.

The Faculty Council later affirmed the professors' right to appeal, which a university lawyer said was not possible. Council President Anne Bartlett said she was "terribly concerned" that a correct procedure had not been followed. DePaul's faculty association considered taking no-confidence votes on administrators, including Holtschneider, because of the tenure denials.

In June 2007, after two weeks of protests, some DePaul students staged a sit-in and hunger strike in support of both professors. The Illinois Conference of the American Association of University Professors also sent Holtschneider a letter reading, "It is entirely illegitimate for a university to deny tenure to a professor out of fear that his published research ... might hurt a college's reputation" and that the association has "explicitly rejected collegiality as an appropriate criterion for evaluating faculty members".

In a statement issued upon Finkelstein's resignation in September 2007, DePaul called him "a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher". Dershowitz found the compromise and statement objectionable, saying that DePaul had "traded truth for peace" and that the claim Finkelstein "is a scholar is simply false. He's a propagandist". In a 2014 interview, Matthew Abraham, author of Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine, called Finkelstein's tenure case "one of the most significant academic freedom cases in the last fifty years" and said it demonstrated "the substantial pressure outside parties can place on a mid-tier religious institution when the perspectives advanced by a controversial scholar threaten dominant interests".

Denied entry to Israel in 2008

Terminal 3 of Ben Gurion International Airport. Attempting to enter Israel in 2008, Finkelstein was detained at that airport for 24 hours and then deported.

In May 2008, Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel, according to unnamed Shin Bet security officials, because "of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon" and because he "did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions." Finkelstein had visited south Lebanon and met with Lebanese families during the 2006 Lebanon War. He was banned from entering Israel for 10 years.

Finkelstein was questioned after his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and detained for 24 hours in a holding cell. His Israeli attorney Michael Sfard said he was questioned for several hours. The following day, he was deported on a flight to Amsterdam, his point of origin. In an interview with Haaretz, Finkelstein said, "I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me. I am confident that I have nothing to hide... no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organizations." He had been traveling to visit friends in the West Bank and said he had no interest in visiting Israel.

Reception

Many of Finkelstein's books critically examine other authors' books. Authors of books he has criticized include Dershowitz, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, and Benny Morris. They have in turn accused Finkelstein of grossly misrepresenting their work and quoting their books selectively. In 2007, Morris said, "Finkelstein is a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian."

Hilberg has praised Finkelstein's work: "That takes a great amount of courage. His place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost." In a peer review for Beyond Chutzpah, Avi Shlaim said that Finkelstein "has a most impressive track record in exposing spurious American-Jewish scholarship on the Arab-Israeli conflict." He praised Finkelstein for "all the sterling qualities for which he has become famous: erudition, originality, spark, meticulous attention to detail, intellectual integrity, courage, and formidable forensic skills."

Sara Roy said that her shared experience with Finkelstein as a child of Holocaust survivors engaged in research on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict gave her a unique position to comment. According to Roy, Finkelstein's scholarship is "exceptional both for its brilliance and rigor. In the fields of Middle Eastern studies and political science his work is considered seminal and there is no doubt that both disciplines would be intellectually weaker without it. Norman's power and value, however, do not emanate only from his scholarship but from his character. His life's work, shaped largely but not entirely by his experience as a child of survivors, has been and continues to be informed by a profound concern with human dignity and the danger of dehumanization."

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an editorial that states it "is difficult to sympathize with Finkelstein's opinions and preferences, especially since he decided to support Hezbollah, meet with its fighters and visit the graves of some of its slain operatives." Still, it argued that he should not be banned from entering Israel, because "meetings with Hezbollah operatives do not in themselves constitute a security risk".

Lee Harpin, writing in The Jewish Chronicle, described Finkelstein as an "anti-Israel activist".

Criticism

Finkelstein has been heavily criticized for many aspects of his work and public commentary. Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners Finkelstein criticized, claimed his scholarship has "everything to do with his burning political agenda". According to Gavriel D. Rosenfeld in Contemporary European History,

The accusation that Goldhagen was a Zionist ideologue surfaced in two extremely critical essays by Norman Finkelstein which, while offering substantive criticisms of Goldhagen's work, concluded with wildly polemical and unfair speculations Goldhagen's putative role as the chief representative of the (allegedly) politically driven and scholarly worthless field of "Holocaust studies". Revealingly, Finkelstein declined to identify any representatives of this scholarly field, leaving one little choice but to regard it as a straw man argument, perfectly suited for him to topple as a means of promoting his own political agenda.

Peter Novick, a history professor at the University of Chicago and historian of the Holocaust whose work Finkelstein said inspired The Holocaust Industry, has strongly criticized Finkelstein's work, calling it "trash" and "a twenty-first century updating of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion". He added, "No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites".

David Cesarani wrote of The Holocaust Industry: "Selective quotation such as Finkelstein's and other misuse of evidence undermine the credibility of his polemic. Any serious points it raises, and there are a few, are distorted by a venomous dislike of the 'American Jewish elites'. Memory of the Holocaust has been abused and misused, but this book is part of the problem rather than its cure".

Similarly, Alan Dershowitz, whose book The Case for Israel and Finkelstein's response Beyond Chutzpah sparked an ongoing feud between the two, has claimed Finkelstein is complicit in a conspiracy against pro-Israel scholars: "The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn't actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud". Dershowitz added that Finkelstein has leveled charges against many academics, calling at least 10 "distinguished Jews 'hucksters', 'hoaxters', 'thieves', 'extortionists', and worse". The feud between Finkelstein and Dershowitz received the most attention in the controversy, but Finkelstein has said that "the real issue is Israel's human rights record".

Israeli historian Omer Bartov, writing for The New York Times Book Review, judged The Holocaust Industry to be marred by the same errors Finkelstein denounces in those who exploit the Holocaust for profit or politics:

It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority... Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious.

Finkelstein has accused journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of "torturing" or "being an accessory to torture of" Palestinian prisoners during his IDF service in the First Intifada, based on statements in Goldberg's book Prisoners. Finkelstein says Goldberg admits to personally sending prisoners to the zinzana, which he says has been repeatedly condemned as torture in human rights reports. Goldberg called the allegation "ridiculous" and said he had "never laid a hand on anybody". Goldberg said his "principal role" was "making sure prisoners had fresh fruit". He called Finkelstein a "ridiculous figure" and accused him of "lying and purposely misreading my book".

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein is a documentary film about Finkelstein's life and career, released in 2009, and directed by David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier. It has been screened at Amsterdam's IDFA, Toronto's Hot Docs, and many other venues. It has an approval rating of 100% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 11 critic reviews. In one scene, at Waterloo University, Finkelstein takes exception to a German student's teary complaint about how he talks about the Nazis and the Holocaust, saying:

I don't like to play before an audience the Holocaust card but, since now I feel compelled to: my late father was in Auschwitz concentration camp. My late mother was in Majdanek concentration camp. Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians. And I consider nothing more despicable than to use their suffering and their martyrdom to try to justify the torture, the brutalization, the demolition of homes that Israel daily commits against the Palestinians. So I refuse any longer to be intimidated or browbeaten by the tears. If you have any heart in you, you would be crying for the Palestinians.

The same year, Finkelstein also appeared in Defamation (Hebrew: השמצה), a documentary by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir.

Views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Comments about Israel

See also: Criticism of Israel and Israel and apartheid
Interview of Norman Finkelstein on This Week In Palestine radio.

Finkelstein is a sharp critic of the state of Israel, which he has called the "Jewish supremacist state" and believes is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians. Discussing his book Beyond Chutzpah, Israeli historian Avi Shlaim called Finkelstein's critique of Israel "extremely detailed, well-documented and accurate."

In a 2009 telephone interview with Today's Zaman, Finkelstein said:

I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war. In the first week of the massacres, there were reports in the Israeli press that Israel did not want to put all its ground forces in Gaza because it was preparing attacks on Iran. Then there were reports it was planning attacks on Lebanon. It is a lunatic state.

When asked how he, as the son of Holocaust survivors, felt about Israel's operation in Gaza, Finkelstein replied:

It has been a long time since I felt any emotional connection with the state of Israel, which relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars. It is a vandal state. There is a Russian writer who once described vandal states as Genghis Khan with a telegraph. Israel is Genghis Khan with a computer. I feel no emotion of affinity with that state. I have some good friends and their families there, and of course I would not want any of them to be hurt. That said, sometimes I feel that Israel has come out of the boils of the hell, a satanic state.

The Anti-Defamation League has called Finkelstein an "obsessive anti-Zionist" filled with "vitriolic hatred of Zionism and Israel." Of being called an anti-Zionist, Finkelstein has said: "It's a superficial term. I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel."

Finkelstein believes that the main reason the conflict isn't resolved is "the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community."

Terrorism and targeting civilians

Finkelstein's views on terrorism and targeting civilians are ambiguous. In an interview with Emanuel Stoakes, he answered the question "Do you unequivocally condemn Palestinian attacks against innocent civilians?" as follows:

It is impossible to justify terrorism, which is the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal. But it's also difficult to make categorical statements of the kind you suggest. I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts.

Finkelstein has said that Hamas and Hezbollah have the right to defend their countries from what he sees as Israeli aggression, and that both Israel and Hamas are guilty of targeting civilians. Israel, he claims, indiscriminately kills Palestinians, which he says is the same thing as targeting civilians. There is an equivalence between these groups and Israel, he argues: "If Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, if you want to make that claim, I won't argue with you so long as you say further that Israel is a terrorist organization by probably, at least, 25-fold greater."

After the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Finkelstein wrote:

For the past 20 years the people of Gaza, half of whom are children, have been immured in a concentration camp. Today they breached the camp's walls. If we honor John Brown's armed resistance to slavery; if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza's smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled. The stars above in heaven are looking kindly down. Glory, glory, hallelujah. The souls of Gaza go marching on!

Finkelstein later explained that this reaction was based on initial reports that only 50 Israelis had been killed in the attack.

Hezbollah and Hamas

Finkelstein has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah with respect to defensive actions.

I was of course happy to meet the Hezbollah people, because it is a point of view that is rarely heard in the United States. I have no problem saying that I do want to express solidarity with them, and I am not going to be a coward and a hypocrite about it.

He has said that Hezbollah has "a serious leadership whose commitment is matched by its intelligence and its incorruptibility" and expressed admiration for its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. He believes that the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War demonstrated how to defeat Israel using guerilla warfare. Hezbollah militants' superior discipline gives them an edge against Israel's army, Finkelstein argues:

Israel is, for better or for worse, it's a Westernized society and they don't have… they're interested in hi-tech, they're interested in a good time, they cannot fight and win against the types who embody Hezbollah values. It's just not going to happen. When they described in the newspapers how Hezbollah organizes, they said this is not an organization that you can knock on the door, can I join? No. They start from a quite young age and they learn discipline. What does discipline mean? They tell a fellow, you go over there in that barn and you wait there until we call you. And sometimes they sit in that barn for 2, 3 and 4 days, waiting to be called and until they're called, they don't leave. You know, most people in the West can't do that.

Finkelstein argues that one of Israel's primary motives for the 2008 offensive in Gaza was that Hamas was "signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border." He believes Hamas has joined the international community in "seeking a diplomatic settlement" and has called Hamas's stance toward Israel before the war a "peace offensive".

One-state solution, two-state solution, and the Palestinian refugees

Finkelstein has said he believes that the Palestine solidarity movement should focus on a pragmatic settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict rather than a just one. In his view, the two-state solution is the pragmatic option and the one-state solution the idealistic one. He claims that the two-state solution is deeply unjust to the Palestinians:

Of course the two-state solution is unjust. It cements Zionist usurpation of Palestinian land. It lets the perpetrators of this usurpation go scot-free, without so much as compensation for their victims. Worst of all, it perpetuates a state based on racial supremacy. Israel’s notion of Jewishness, the determinant of who should hold sovereignty, is ultimately a biological [sic]. It is based on kinship. In practice, this kinship does not, as in other countries, depend on tracing family lines back to residence in the sovereign state, but simply on closeness to anyone considered "Jewish" in the racial sense of the term.

According to Finkelstein, the two-state solution is achievable, and the one-state solution is not. His view of the one-state solution is "a society in which Jews and Palestinians enjoy the same democratic rights. One Jew, one vote, one Palestinian, one vote." This, he argues, is a society Israeli Jews will never acquiesce to because Jewish dominance cannot be guaranteed. He argues that it would be tantamount to Israel giving up "its existence, its rationale, and the security of all its Jewish citizens". He similarly argues that the Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homes in the 1948 war, whom Israel prevents from returning, have the right of return to what is now Israel. But he believes that insisting on that right is unrealistic and doubts international public support could be found for it:

Israel has a population of 8.3 million people. Of those 8.3 million, about 6 million are Jewish. The number of Palestinian refugees is about 6 million. Is it realistic to expect that international public opinion at the popular or State level will demand that Israel open its borders such that the number of Palestinians entering the country would be equal to the current Israeli-Jewish population? ... I don’t believe that's a realistic expectation.

Finkelstein further argues that even if a binational state comes into existence, there is no guarantee of an absence of bloodshed. He sees the Yugoslav Wars, Lebanon, and Czechoslovakia as showing why Jews and Palestinians sharing a state could be problematic.

For these reasons, Finkelstein prefers the two-state solution. He believes that, while such a solution is currently politically impossible, it could come to fruition through mutually agreed land swaps and by evacuating about half of all Israeli West Bank settlers:

Topographers and cartographers on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides say there is a way to retain a contiguous Palestinian state with land swaps so that the total area remains the same as the 1967 borders, while enabling around 60 percent of the illegal Jewish settlers to remain in place under Israeli rule. ... But it’s feasible.

Finkelstein argues that many Israeli Jews see the ongoing occupation and the West Bank settlements as problematic; that they benefit only a small segment of Israel's Jews; that they complicate security arrangements; that the occupation is expensive; and that it earns Israel near-universal opprobrium. Thus, he argues, Israel could be compelled to accept a two-state solution. The Palestinian right of return would not necessarily be relinquished if a two-state solution was implemented, but according to Finkelstein, the Palestinians could still impose it on Israel if they became powerful enough.

The BDS movement

Finkelstein's opinions on the one-state solution and the right of return lay the foundation for his critique of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS demands three things of Israel: an end to the occupation and the removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel; and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties". It advocates international boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to achieve these goals. Finkelstein believes that BDS's tactics are correct but not its demands. BDS has no official position on the one- or the two-state solution, which he finds dishonest, because in his view, BDS's demands would eliminate Israel: "If we end the occupation and bring back six million Palestinians and we have equal rights for Arabs and Jews, there's no Israel."

BDS claims that its demands are anchored in international law. Finkelstein disputes this because the international community recognizes Israel. Therefore, because he believes that BDS's demands would lead to the end of Israel, international law does not support them. He also believes that there is a "limit of the spectrum of progressive thought in the world we live" and that BDS's demands exceed that limit. Therefore, he argues, BDS is a "cult" that cannot reach the broad public: "if you want to go past that law or ignore the Israel part, you'll never reach a broad public. And then it's a cult."

BDS claims to enjoy broad support in Palestinian civil society. Finkelstein claims that is a lie:

I'm not going to be in a cult again. I'm not going through that stage again, with the gurus in Ramallah, you know, giving out marching orders. And then if you disagree, they say, "10,556,454 Palestinian civil society organizations have endorsed this." Who are these organizations? They're NGOs in Ramallah, one-person operations, and they claim to represent what they call this thing, "Palestinian civil society." ... hen why can't they ever organize a demonstration of more than 500 people? ... represent absolutely nothing.

Finkelstein believes that BDS serves the role as "a new Great Satan" to the Israeli government, an external threat "bent on Israel's destruction" to rally around. In his view, international public opinion has begun to turn against Israel but BDS allows it "to play victim." He believes that by inflating the threat of BDS, the Israeli government delegitimizes other critics of Israel:

By inflating the threat posed by BDS; and by redefining BDS to encompass all opposition to it, including European Union and church initiatives wholly divorced from BDS; and by subsuming under the rubric of BDS the campaigns in the West that only targeted the settlements and the occupation—by exaggerating the reach and potency of BDS, Israel could delegitimize even its most tepid but also most ominous critics. It could now allege that even they were really, whatever they might avow, seeking Israel's destruction.

Finkelstein contends that BDS has allowed Israel to "play the victim card" and shift the debate from pressing human rights concerns, such as the ongoing blockade of Gaza, to the question of whether BDS is anti-Semitic. He believes that BDS has helped Israel in this effort: "But it must also be said that BDS made it very easy for Israel, by refusing to recognize its legality as a state within the pre-June 1967 borders."

Finkelstein's criticism of BDS has put him on a collision course with other voices in the Palestinian solidarity movement who support it. He suspects that his public criticism has caused him to be locked out of the pro-Palestinian debating circuit; in 2016, he said:

A month ago, Mehdi Hasan's program Up Front contacted me. They wanted me to join a debate on BDS. But the BDS leaders refused to appear on the program. It's happened more times than I care to remember. One BDS leader told Democracy Now!, "Why debate Finkelstein? He's not important. We should debate important people." I used to give 40 talks a year. Now I give maybe four. I know the number because of those 1099 slips I have to submit to my accountant. Three years ago, before the BDS thing exploded, I gave him 40 slips. Last year I gave him four.

Ali Abunimah has written an article criticizing Finkelstein's arguments.

Other statements

Charlie Hebdo shootings

On the shooters of the Charlie Hebdo shooting on January 7, 2015, Finkelstein commented two weeks later:

So two despairing and desperate young men act out their despair and desperation against this political pornography no different than Der Stürmer, who in the midst of all of this death and destruction decide it's somehow noble to degrade, demean, humiliate and insult the people. I'm sorry, maybe it is very politically incorrect. I have no sympathy for . Should they have been killed? Of course not. But of course, Streicher shouldn't have been hung . I don't hear that from many people."

On Holocaust denial

In a July 2020 online discussion with British activists, Finkelstein called Holocaust denier David Irving "a very good historian". Finding insufficient the evidence of Richard J. Evans as the expert witness in Irving's unsuccessful libel action in 2000 against Deborah Lipstadt, who had labeled Irving a Holocaust denier, Finkelstein said Irving had "produced works that are substantive … If you don't like it, don't read it. In the case of Irving, he knew a thing or two—or three".

In October 2020, Finkelstein published an extract from his forthcoming book, Cancel Culture, Academic Freedom and Me on his website following the banning of Holocaust denial from Facebook and Twitter. According to Finkelstein, "Holocaust denial should be taught in university and preferably by a Holocaust denier" as a means "to inoculate students" against it. He states: "If one is committed to the purity of truth, not just in its wholeness but also in its parts, then a Holocaust denier performs the useful function of ferreting out 'local' errors, precisely because he is a devil’s advocate—that is, fanatically committed to 'unmasking' the 'hoax of the 20th century.'"

Wokeism

In May 2023, on Glenn Loury's podcast The Glenn Show, Finkelstein called wokeness a "lucrative scam" and "intellectually worthless", criticizing Ibram X. Kendi's and Angela Davis's speaking engagements as "rich white folks using woke people as protective cover".

In an interview with Imran Garda, Finkelstein expanded on this:

I didn't have a problem with it, it seemed to be another "college fad"... but then it became painfully obvious that it was politically a very pernicious phenomenon... the big difference between political correctness and woke politics is political correctness was really marginal, a few campus radicals, but the Democratic Party has instrumentalized identity politics to displace what was once its base, namely the trade union movement... identity politics has infiltrated most of what you would call liberal culture and so its impact, the dangers it poses are much more significant... identity politics has appropriated those causes, the women's question, the African-American question, but lopped off the class element.

Works

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Illinois: Resignation in Jewish Dispute". The New York Times. Associated Press. September 6, 2007. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  2. ^ "Joint statement of Norman Finkelstein and DePaul University on their tenure controversy and its resolution". DePaul University. September 5, 2007. Archived from the original on January 15, 2015.
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  13. ^ Finkelstein, Norman G. (May 13, 2006). "Haunted House". Monthly Review. Retrieved September 1, 2020. It was only many years later after reading Noam Chomsky that I learned it was possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage; that an intelligent argument didn't have to be an intellectualizing one.
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  26. ^ Howard, Jennifer (April 13, 2007). "Harvard Law Professor Seeks to Block Tenure for Adversary at DePaul U." Chronicle of Higher Education. 53 (32): A13. Retrieved April 6, 2019.
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  30. Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, pp. 45–46
  31. ^ Shatz, Adam (April 8, 1998). "Goldhagen's Willing Executioners". Slate Magazine. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
  32. Quandt, William B. "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict". Foreign Affairs (May/June 1996). Archived from the original on March 11, 2007. Along with a few other conscientious scholars, he demonstrated that Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial, which claimed that Palestinians arrived in Palestine only recently, was based on shoddy scholarship. That landmark essay is included in this collection.
  33. ^ Shlaim, Avi (Winter 2006). "Confidential Peer Review of Beyond Chutzpah for the University of California Press, February 9, 2005" (PDF). Journal of Palestine Studies. XXXV: 88. doi:10.1525/jps.2006.35.2.85. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 27, 2010.
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  36. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen The New Discourse of Avoidance, Frankfurter Rundschau (August 18, 1997)
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  38. Alexander, Edward; Bogdanor, Paul, eds. (2017) . The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders. Abingdon, Oxon, London & New York City: Routledge. p. 154. ISBN 9781351480499.
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  40. Landau, Ronnie (July 21, 2000). "A grubby story?". The Spectator. p. 30. evidence cited seems highly selective and dubious
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  42. Antonini, Roberto; Hilberg, Raul (August 31, 2000). "Interview with Raul Hilberg". Swiss National Radio (SBC-SSR). Archived from the original on March 27, 2006. the methods of the World Jewish Congress and some other organizations or people allied with it in his campaign I feel are detestable. I don't subscribe to them. In sum and substance I agree with what Finkelstein says.
  43. Traverso, Enzo (July 1, 2003). "The Holocaust Industry. Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering NORMAN FINKELSTEIN". Historical Materialism. 11 (2): 215–225. doi:10.1163/156920603768311291. ISSN 1569-206X.
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  58. Frank J. Menetrez (February 12, 2008). "The Case Against Alan Dershowitz". CounterPunch. Archived from the original on February 18, 2008.
  59. Alan M. Dershowitz; Frank J. Menetrez (February 26, 2008). "Debating Norman Finkelstein". CounterPunch. Archived from the original on March 1, 2008.
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  93. Finkelstein gives the following quote from Goldberg: The zinzana was the size of a refrigerator box, into which three, four, five or six prisoners were shoveled. The prisoners were seated on a cold and hard plastic floor, limbs draped over limbs, and they shat in a bucket that was emptied once a day. After a few days in the box, prisoners could no longer stand unaided. (p. 109; cf. p. 114, where he describes four Palestinians locked "in a space fit, at most, for two small dogs")
  94. Greenberg, Brad A. (May 8, 2008). "Torture, Jews, and Finkelstein's 'fact-finding'". Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
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  101. ^ "Norman Finkelstein: Israel is committing a holocaust in Gaza". Todayszaman.com. January 19, 2009. Archived from the original on December 2, 2014. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
  102. "Norman Finkelstein: An Obsessive Anti-Zionist Shows his Stripes". Anti-Defamation League. Archived from the original on December 15, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
  103. ^ "Former Amb. Martin Indyk vs. Author Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel's Assault on Gaza and the US Role in the Conflict – Finkelstein in a dual interview with former US-Israel ambassador Martin Indyk discussing the US Role in Israel's 2008-9 Assault on Gaza". Democracy Now!. January 8, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
  104. "It Was a Massacre – Interview with Norman Finkelstein". Palestinechronicle.com. Archived from the original on October 6, 2013. Retrieved November 13, 2011. It is impossible to justify terrorism, which is the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal. But it's also difficult to make categorical statements of the kind you suggest. I do believe that Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel persists in targeting civilians until Israel ceases its terrorist acts.
  105. "American Political Scientist Norman Finkelstein: "Israel Has to Suffer a Defeat"". Normanfinkelstein.com. Archived from the original on February 26, 2008. Retrieved February 29, 2024. But there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question.
  106. "Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis, Lebanon, Hezbollah(Burlington, VT, 09.30.2006)". Norman G. Finkelstein. November 4, 2006. Archived from the original on July 2, 2015. Retrieved October 4, 2020. What does the record show? Once again we have quite extensive human rights reports, quite extensive documentation — the record shows that Israel has routinely targeted civilians for killing. ... So at that level, again, there seems to be, pretty much, an equivalence between the actions of Hamas and the actions of the State of Israel. It's also true to say, and you'll find this throughout the human rights literature, that Israel indiscriminately kills Palestinians. That is to say, it fires wildly into crowds and many Palestinians get killed.
  107. ^ "Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis, Lebanon, Hezbollah(Burlington, VT, 09.30.2006)". Norman G. Finkelstein. November 4, 2006. Archived from the original on July 2, 2015. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
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  113. Weiss, Philip (December 23, 2011). "Two critiques of Norman Finkelstein – Mondoweiss". Mondoweiss. Retrieved October 4, 2020. He stakes all of his positions on these issues, which are virtually based on the same premises, that we should a) do what is popular or 'realistic' b) adjust our language and positions to appeal to 'global consensus' for fear that c) if we don't, we will inevitably 'turn people off.'
  114. ^ "Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein". normanfinkelstein.com. December 10, 2011. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
  115. "Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein". normanfinkelstein.com. December 10, 2011. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2020. Israel is a Jewish state; it is committed to that. One-staters apparently believe that Israel will give up its reason for existence and at the same time expose itself not to the risk but to the certainty of being 'swamped by Arabs'. ... How long is it supposed to take before Israel gives up its existence, its rationale, and the security of all its Jewish citizens?
  116. "Norman Finkelstein: Prospects, Hope and Strategies for the Future in Palestine". Alternatives International. November 1, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2020. Under international law, Palestinian refugees have the right to return. The major human rights organizations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have both upheld the right of return; as a legal right, it's there.
  117. ^ "Norman Finkelstein: Prospects, Hope and Strategies for the Future in Palestine". Alternatives International. November 1, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
  118. "Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein". normanfinkelstein.com. December 10, 2011. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2020. The binational state that bears closest comparison with Palestine is Lebanon, where many Palestinians now live. Even subtracting the toll exacted by Israeli invasions, the carnage there has exceeded by orders of magnitude that of the entire Israel/Palestine conflict. The most encouraging examples of binational states, Belgium and Czechoslovakia, are now dissolved or on the brink of dissolution. Then there is, or was, Yugoslavia. Is there such warmth between Israeli Jews and Palestinians that we may expect a better outcome there than in these countries?
  119. "Norman Finkelstein: Prospects, Hope and Strategies for the Future in Palestine". Alternatives International. November 1, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2020. Today, the occupation for Israel is cost-free: Europe subsidizes the occupation, the Palestinian Authority polices the occupation, while the US protects Israel from any diplomatic fallout. There's no incentive for Israel to end the occupation. What needs to change is the balance of power, which is at the moment overwhelmingly favorable to Israel.
  120. "Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein". normanfinkelstein.com. December 10, 2011. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2020. It is one thing to vacate the settlements. They represent and benefit a smallish minority of Israelis. For many more Israelis, they are a great big headache. The occupation is expensive; it earns Israel near-universal opprobrium; it requires semi-open borders which constrain security arrangements; above all it requires Israel to spread its forces all over the landscape rather than concentrate them for efficient military operations.
  121. "Reasoned rejection of one-state position – Norman G. Finkelstein". normanfinkelstein.com. December 10, 2011. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved October 4, 2020. For now, Israel will not honor a Palestinian right of return; to 'demand' it is the emptiest of gestures. That right will be honored only if the Palestinians become powerful enough to enforce it. If or when that happens, that some leaders verbally renounced the right will count for nothing. The Palestinians will be free to say: this was never our will; this was a renunciation obtained under duress; those who renounced it should not have done so.
  122. "Norman Finkelstein on the Role of BDS & Why Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Words on Israel-Palestine". Democracy Now!. Pacifica. June 4, 2014. Retrieved October 12, 2014. Who could not support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions? Of course you should. And most of the human rights organizations, church organizations have moved in that direction. The problem is the goal...
  123. Norman Finkelstein Interview with Frank Barat: BDS Campaign | Imperial College London [09-02-2012] on YouTube
  124. ^ Abunimah, Ali (February 28, 2012). "Finkelstein, BDS and the destruction of Israel – Ireland". Al Jazeera. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
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  126. "Norman Finkelstein on the Role of BDS & Why Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Words on Israel-Palestine". Democracy Now!. Pacifica. June 4, 2014. Retrieved October 12, 2014. The BDS movement, it always says, and I'm using their language, "We are a rights-based organization. We are based in international law." I agree with that. That's where you have to go: rights-based international law. But the international law is clear. You read the last sentence of the 2004 International Court of Justice opinion on the wall that Israel has been building in the West Bank, and the last sentence says, "We look forward to two states: a Palestinian state alongside Israel and at peace with its neighbors." That's the law.
  127. "Norman Finkelstein on the Role of BDS & Why Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Words on Israel-Palestine". Democracy Now!. September 23, 2020. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
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  130. Weiss, Philip (April 27, 2016). "Norman Finkelstein on Sanders, the first intifada, BDS, and ten years of unemployment". Mondoweiss. Retrieved October 4, 2020. Nobody talks about the blockade of Gaza anymore, it's all about BDS: Is BDS anti-Semitic? Does BDS want to destroy Israel? It gets to play the victim card again. It has succeeded in changing the subject. But it must also be said that BDS made it very easy for Israel, by refusing to recognize its legality as a state within the pre-June 1967 borders. BDS enabled Israel to wrap itself in the cloak of victimhood.
  131. Caglayan, Mustafa (January 19, 2015). "Norman Finkelstein: Charlie Hebdo is sadism, not satire". Anadolu Agency. Ankara, Turkey. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
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