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Norman G. Finkelstein (born December 8 1953) is an American assistant professor of political science at DePaul University known for his writings pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and for his view that the Holocaust is being exploited for pro-Jewish/Israel political ends. Finkelstein claims to be the son of Holocaust survivors.

Norman G. Finkelstein should not be confused with Norman H. Finkelstein who is an author of several nonfiction books for young adults, some of which are about the State of Israel.

Doctoral thesis and exposure of From Time Immemorial

Finkelstein wrote his Princeton doctoral thesis on Zionism, and it was through this work that he first attracted controversy. In 1984, while Finkelstein was still at Princeton, he began to write a critical review of Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial in which he examined every footnote and concluded that the book was a "monumental hoax." A "history and defense" of the state of Israel, Peters' book had been effusively praised in mainstream United States media sources. Finkelstein's charges initially roused little attention in the U.S. According to Finkelstein, "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, 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 newsworthy that a best-selling, effusively praised 'study' of the Middle East conflict was a threadbare hoax" (Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, pp. 45-6).

However, after a number of reviewers in the British and Israeli media supported Finkelstein's criticisms, a few U.S. journals began publishing more critical reviews of the book. In the magazine Foreign Affairs, William B. Quandt described Finkelstein's criticism of From Time Immemorial as a "landmark essay" and a "victory to his credit."

The controversy that surrounded Finkelstein's research caused a delay in his earning his Ph.D. at Princeton. Noam Chomsky, an anti semitic friend of Finkelstein, wrote in Understanding Power that Finkelstein "literally could not get the faculty to read ." According to Chomsky, Princeton eventually granted Finkelstein his doctorate only "out of embarrassment," though they didn't "even write a letter for him saying that he was a student at Princeton University." (Understanding Power, New York, 2002, p. 245 )

Publications

He is has published five books, of which the most prominent are:

• Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
• The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering
• Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

Controversial opinions

Finkelstein's work is often viewed as being antiesemitic. One of his books, The Holocaust Industry, was on the top seller lists in many countries where according to an article in Die Welt in which he was interviewed , he points out that Amazon.com data shows the book was number one in South-America, number four in Central-America, number one in Austria, number three in Switzerland and number five in Jordan on the best-selling lists, and it is presently translated into eleven languages. He has gained a popular following in Germany where, according to Haaretz, he is considered a "darling of the extreme right." When he was asked in the same Haaretz article "How does it feel for him to be a favorite of the radical right in Germany?", he replied: "At first I was very puzzled by it," says Finkelstein, "and then I realized I wasn't responsible for it. It was the actions of the Jewish establishment. You can't accuse me of encouraging anti-Semitism. I am only the messenger who reports on the actions of the Jewish establishment, actions that are encouraging anti-Semitism."

However, The Economist wrote: "Mr Finkelstein... is not exerting much influence in the United States. His essays have attracted attention, largely hostile, in Britain, ... but have so far dropped like a stone in America. ...Yet his basic argument that memories of the Holocaust are being debased is serious and should be given its due." Critics in the mainstream Jewish community tend to find the core ideas of The Holocaust Industry less objectionable than the style and tone of "overriding hatred" that they see in Finkelstein's writing.

Finkelstein has taken other controversial positions. In The Holocaust Industry, he described Holocaust reparations as a corrupt "racket," in which little of the money actually goes to victims and too much goes to lawyers involved. He has also challenged the characterization of the Holocaust as a uniquely evil historical event, and likened Israeli security to the Gestapo. Questioned explicitly about his views on terrorism, Finkelstein has said that rather than violence, Palestinians should pursue independence through "non-violent civil revolt."

He has been called a "terrorist sympathizer" for what critics term his "bizarre" views on Osama bin Laden. Frequently quoted is Finkelstein's statement, "Frankly, part of me says - even though everything since September 11 has been a nightmare--'you know what, we deserve the problem on our hands because some things Bin Laden says are true'. One of the things he said on that last tape was that 'until we live in security, you're not going to live in security', and there is a certain amount of rightness in that." Finkelstein and his defenders respond that Finkelstein opposes terrorism, and say that his views are actually "banal" and commonplace: he is merely trying to "locate the Bin Laden phenomenon in some deeper social and political current."

Praise of Finkelstein's Scholarship

Raul Hilberg. "Today he is rather unpopular and his book will certainly not become a best seller, but what it says is basically true even though incomplete. It is more a journalistic account than an in depth study on the topic, which would need to be much longer."

Noam Chomsky. "A very solid, important and highly informative book . Norman Finkelstein provides extensive details and analysis, with considerable historical depth and expert research, of a very wide range of issues concerning Israel, the Palestinians, and the U.S."

Baruch Kimmerling. "Beyond Chutzpah is the most comprehensive, systematic, and well-documented work of its kind. It is one of the harshest—rational and nonemotional—texts about the daily practices of the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories by Israel, and it is an excellent demonstration of how and why the blind defenders of Israel, by basing their arguments on false facts and figures, actually bring more damage than gains to their cause."

Avi Shlaim. "On display are all the sterling qualities for which Finkelstein has become famous: erudition, originality, spark, meticulous attention to detail, intellectual integrity, courage, and formidable forensic skills."

Mouin Rabbani. "The scholarship is simply superb. Finkelstein has clearly done his homework, and consulted and mastered a breathtaking range of material: primary sources and documents, scholarly works, reports old and new, correspondence with relevant individuals, and numerous other sources too. He has left no stone unturned."

Criticism of Finkelstein's Scholarship

Benny Morris. "Finkelstein and share a method: they selectively quote from what suits their purposes while ignoring, and in Finkelstein's case, ridiculing what doesn't. Neither seems to know anything about 1948 beyond what is to be found in my books and neither marshals sources or material from elsewhere that could serve to contradict my findings."

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. "It is only through such wholesale falsification of evidence that Finkelstein can give surface plausibility to his attack...Finkelstein can make this...argument seem plausible only through out-of-context quotation, the manifest twisting of meaning, and blatant misrepresentation. This is also his standard technique for inventing the aspersion that I have misused sources.

Finkelstein’s gross misrepresentation of my book is just one indication that his attack on it has little to do with any knowledge of, and concern for, scholarship on the Holocaust and everything to do with his burning political agenda...Even though the primary material and critical secondary material are in German, he does not cite a single German source because he does not even read German. Nevertheless, the neophyte Finkelstein makes a string of pronouncements (and errors) about what the sources prove, all the while pretending that the enormous amount of evidence that contradicts his wishful assertions and ideological pronouncements do not exist."

Peter Novick. "As concerns particular assertions made by Finkelstein…, the appropriate response is not (exhilarating) "debate" but (tedious) examination of his footnotes. Such an examination reveals that many of those assertions are pure invention… 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…. I had not thought that (apart from the disreputable fringe) there were Germans who would take seriously this twenty-first century updating of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ I was mistaken."

Omer Bartov, reviewing "The Holocaust Industry" for the New York Times Book Review. "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."

Marc Saperstein, reviewing "Beyond Chutzpah" for the The Middle East Journal. "Bottom line: if you are looking for a book that gathers for polemical purposes every anti-Israel argument in the arsenal of its opponents, and if you enjoy the rhetorical style of the arrogant academic pit bull, this may be the book for you. If you are looking for balance, fairness, context, a critical weighing of evidence on different sides of a controversial issue - the qualities that one might expect in a publication by a distinguished University Press - you will not find them here." [Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (review) Marc Saperstein. The Middle East Journal. Washington: Winter 2006.Vol.60, Iss. 1; pg. 183, 3 pgs]

Finkelstein on David Irving and on numbers of Holocaust victims

Finkelstein's views on Irving are expressed in The Holocaust Industry, where he states that Irving “notorious as an admirer of Hitler and sympathizer with German national socialism has, nevertheless, as Gordon Craig points out, made an 'indispensable' contribution to our knowledge of World War II." Finkelstein goes on to endorse Craig's dismissal of Irving's Holocaust claims as "obtuse and quickly discredited". The "indispensable" comment (made by Craig and quoted by Finkelstein) is specifically about Irving's contribution to the study of military history on the "German side of the Second World War" (Source: The Holocaust Industry, Second Edition, New York: Verso, 2003; page 71-72).

Finkelstein says that he relies on the work of Raul Hilberg for historical facts about the Holocaust, and on the basis of that research Finkelstein quotes the numbers of Holocaust Jewish victims killed as being 5.1 million . In The Holocaust Industry Finkelstein took issue with the numbers of Holocaust survivors as quoted by interest-groups seeking Holocaust reparations.

Criticism of the Anti-Defamation League

Finkelstein has frequently criticized the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an organization dedicated not to defense against anti-Semitism, but to defamation of critics of Israel. Ultimately, he argues, the ADL trivializes real anti-Semitism by "crying wolf" over fraudulent allegations of "the New anti-Semitism."

Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz

Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz of "fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense." Saying that Dershowitz lacked knowledge about specific contents of his own book during a debate, Finkelstein also speculated that Dershowitz did not write the book, and may not have even read it. He later cited the presence of "unserious" references, including the web site for a documentary film and an online high school syllabus, as further evidence that the book was ghostwritten.

In addition, Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's book cites from the same passages that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, in largely the same order often quoting exactly the same words with ellipses in the same places. In at least two instances, Dershowitz reproduces Peters' errors (see below), from which Finkelstein draws the conclusion that he could not have checked the original sources as he claims. Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas. Dershowitz admitted 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." Writing with Sources, a writing manual cited by Finkelstein, criticizes the practice of quoting sources not actually consulted.

Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan asked former Harvard president Derek Bok to investigate the charges; Bok determined against the charge of plagiarism. Dershowitz threatened libel action over the charges in Finkelstein's book, even writing to California governor Arnold Schwartzeneggar in an attempt to stop publication of Beyond Chutzpah. The word "plagiarism" was dropped from the text before publication. The charge that Dershowitz was not the true author of The Case for Israel was also removed, the publisher said, because "he couldn’t document that."

Claiming to have first consulted the original sources, Dershowitz says that Finkelstein is simply accusing him of good scholarly practice: citing references he learned of in Peters' book. Dershowitz denies that he used any of Peters' ideas without citation. In a footnote in The case for Israel which cites Peters' book, Dershowitz explicitly denies that he "relies" on Peters for "conclusions or data". . However, in their debate on Democracy Now, Finkelstein cited specific passages in Dershowitz's book where a phrase 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 is 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 Felix Frankfurter chair at Harvard, you must know that Orwell would never use such a clunky phrase as 'turnspeak.'" Dershowitz, who in his own words deplores "borrow the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that" (cited above), was caught doing exactly that in the case of George Orwell; he was there, in person, in a one-on-one debate with Finkelstein, when Finkelstein called him on it, and he did not deny it.

James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth, University of Iowa, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, defended Dershowitz, saying "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." However, Freedman is here completely ignoring the charge actually levelled by Finkelstein: that Dershowitz, in failing to acknowledge his secondary source (Peters), implicitly presented Peters' research as his own. (See the Harvard Crimson: Finkelstein's professed "bone of contention" is that Dershowitz "didn’t do his own research.")

The Chicago Manual of Style requires the author to cite the sources actually examined during preparation of the text:

Citations Taken from Secondary Sources 17.274

"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. (emphasis added)

Despite the attention garnered by Finkelstein's accusations, the bulk of Beyond Chutzpah consists of an essay critiquing the "new anti-Semitism" and chapters contrasting Dershowitz's arguments in The Case for Israel with the views of some human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Quotations

• Noam Chomsky: "I'm delighted to hear that I'll be followed shortly by Norman Finkelstein and would very strongly advise you to come listen to him. Not only an old personal friend but a person who can speak with more authority and insight on these topics than anyone I can think of. So that should be a memorable occasion and I urge that you not miss the opportunity."
• Leon Wieseltier: "He's poison, a disgusting self-hating Jew, something you find under a rock."
• Raul Hilberg: (From the rear cover of the second edition of The Holocaust Industry) "When I read Finkelstein's book, The Holocaust Industry, at the time of its appearance, I was in the middle of my own investigations of these matters, and I came to the conclusion that he was on the right track. I refer now to the part of the book that deals with the claims against the Swiss banks, and the other claims pertaining to forced labor. I would now say in retrospect that he was actually conservative, moderate and that his conclusions are trustworthy. He is a well-trained political scientist, has the ability to do the research, did it carefully, and has come up with the right results. I am by no means the only one who, in the coming months or years, will totally agree with Finkelstein's breakthrough."

Bibliography

• (translator) The Future of Maoism, by Samir Amir, Monthly Review, 1983 (ISBN 0853456224)
• (contributor) Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, by Edward W. Said (editor), Christopher Hitchens (editor), Verso Press, 1988 (ISBN 0860918874)
• Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Verso, 1995 (ISBN 1859843395)
• Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years, University of Minnesota, 1996 (ISBN 0816628599)
• (with Ruth Bettina Birn) A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth, Henry Holt and Co., 1998 (ISBN 0805058729)
• (contributor) The Politics of Anti-Semitism, edited by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair, AK Press, 2001 (ISBN 1902593774)
• (contributor) Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return, by Naseer Aruri (Editor), Pluto Press, 2001 (ISBN 0745317766)
• The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Verso, 2003 (ISBN 185984488X)
• (contributor) Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel, by Seth Farber, Common Courage Press, 2005 (ISBN 1567513263)
• Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History , University of California Press, 2005 (ISBN 0520245989)

External links

• Official Site
  • Biographical details
  • DePaul University C.V.
  • Transparent Hatchet Jobs: The Attacks on Beyond Chutzpah
  • Why an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified
  • Judge Deeds, Not Words: Unpublished Op-Ed on Gaza Withdrawal
  • Letters to Finkelstein
  • Israeli civil libertarian on German edition of Beyond Chutzpah
• 'Shoah Biz' Critic Claims His Views Cost Him Prof Job
• Interview on the Holocaust

Profiles

• Andreatta, David. 'Hate' Storm Looms NY Post 07 March 2006
• Aysha, Emad El-Din. Something to 'Finkle' about! Egyptian Mail 16 December 2005
• Garner, Mandy. The good Jewish boys go into battle Times Higher Education Supplement 16 December 2005
• Naparstek, Ben. His own worst enemy. Jerusalem Post 12 Dec. 2005
• Rayner, Jay. Finkelstein's List The Observer 16 July 2000
• Shelag, Yair. The Finkelstein Polemic. Haaretz 30 March 2001

Reviews

• Blokker, Bas. English translation of Dutch review Review of Beyond Chutzpah. NRC Handelsblad 24 February 2006
• Pappe, Ilan. Occupation Hazard. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. BOOKFORUM Feb./March 2006
• De Zayas, Alfred. Against Brazenness: The discourse on the Israel-Palestine Conflict Requires Intellectual Honesty. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 3 February 2006
• Merkley, Paul Charles. These Pigs on the Face of the Earth: Israel's most relentless critic. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Christianity Today January/February 2006
• Desch, Michael C.. The Chutzpah of Alan Dershowitz. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. The American Conservative 5 Dec. 2005
• Goldberger, Ernest. English translation of German review Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Neue Zürcher Zeitung 10 Dec. 2005
• Marqusee, Mike. Israel, fraud and chutzpah Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Red Pepper (magazine) Jan. 2006
• Prashad, Vijay. Z magazine reviews Beyond Chutzpah. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Z Magazine November 2005 Volume 18 Number 11
• McCarthy, Conor. The case against Israel Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Village Magazine, Ireland 17 Nov. 2005
• Gordon, Neve. Neve Gordon: Review of Norman Finkelstein's, Beyond Chutzpah. Review of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, by Norman G. Finkelstein. History News Network 12 Oct. 2005
• Nicolás, Rubén. El conflicto entre israelíes y palestinos sólo empeorará. Review of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, by Norman G. Finkelstein. El Mundo 23 Oct. 2003
• Bartov, Omer. A Tale of Two Holocausts. Review of The Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein. New York Times Book Review 6 Aug. 2000

Appearances

• Finkelstein at Columbia University (8 March 2006)
• Debate with Fmr. Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami on Israel, the Palestinians, and the Peace Process (Democracy Now!) (14 February 2006)
• Flashpoints (KPFA) radio interview (28 December 2005)
• Al Jazeera Interview (30 November 2005)
• BBC World Service Interview (29 November 2005)
• Georgetown: Finkelstein Speech Contributes to Debate (The Hoya) (22 November 2005)
  • Finkelstein Reflects Poorly on GU Campus (The Hoya, Campus Watch) (2 December 2005)
• Israel-Palestine: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (17 November 2005)
• Finkelstein at Yale University (20 October 2005)
  • Finkelstein and the YCIAS: Misusing Yale, abusing students (Yale Daily News) (24 October 2005)
  • Silencing Finkelstein is the easy way out (Yale Daily News) (25 October 2005)
  • Editorial misrepresented the Middle East Crisis Committee (Yale Daily News) (25 October 2005)
• Harvard Law: Amicus Curiae: Justice for Palestine or Jew-Baiting? (The Record) (20 October 2005)
  • Debating, not "Jew-Baiting": Setting the Record Straight (The Record) (3 November 2005)
  • Keeping it Civil (The Record) (8 November 2005)
• Finkelstein interview transcript (WNUR 89.3 Chicago) (17 September 2005)
• Carnegie Mellon talk: Don't Tell Anyone! (14 March 2005)
  • Academia Threatened (The Tartan, by CMU Faculty) (25 April 2005)
  • SayWhat? Controversial speakers need to be reviewed (The Tartan) (26 September 2005)
  • Committee to review at-issue speakers (The Tartan) (26 September 2005)
  • Do we need another committee? (The Tartan) (26 September 2005)
  • Heckling is hateful (The Tartan) (3 October 2005)
  • Ali Abunimah responds (The Tartan) (3 October 2005)
• Vancouver Public Library (15 May 2004)
• Debate with Alan Dershowitz (24 September 2003)
  • Debate with Alan Dershowitz, Part 2 (24 September 2003)
• Population Transfer: Is Israel Considering Expelling Palestinians to Jordan Under Cover of Iraq War? (18 September 2002)
• Progressive roundtable (21 August 2002)
• Ariel Sharon Plans to Annex Half of the West Bank: A Debate On the History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Zionism (23 April 2002)
• Is criticizing Israel anti-Semitic? A debate (16 April 2002)
• Restoring the Debt: Descendents of Slaves File for Reparations From US Corporations That Profited From Slavery (28 March 2002)
• The Holocaust Industry (13 July 2000)
• German Government Announces Deal On Compensation for Former Jewish Slave Laborers (17 December 1999)
• Process Begins for Distributing Holocaust Reparations (1 December 1998)
• Palestinian Leader Arafat Visits Washington (1 December 1998)

Criticisms

• Daniel Goldhagen, The New Discourse of Avoidance
  • Norman Finkelstein, Response to Goldhagen
• William Rubinstein et al., Letters on the Uses of the Holocaust
• Edward Alexander, The Dream-Jew of the Anti-Semites
• Paul Bogdanor, The Finkelstein Phenomenon
• Anti-Defamation League, Letter on Finkelstein
  • Norman Finkelstein, The Washington Post publishes a retraction
• Alan Dershowitz, The Hazards of Making the Case for Israel
  • The Nation (John Wiener), Giving Chutzpah New Meaning
  • Michael C. Desch, Desch v. Dershowitz in The American Conservative.
• Alan Dershowitz, Response to Norman Finkelstein Page
• CAMERA (Deborah Passner), Norman Finkelstein's Fraudulent Scholarship
  • CAMERA's Distorted Lens Reader letters
• Marc Saperstein. The Middle East Journal. Washington: Winter 2006. Vol.60, Iss. 1; pg. 183, 3 pgs. Negative review on Beyond Chutzpah.

1. Book review: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, William B. Quandt, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1996

• 1953 births
• American political writers
• Jewish American writers
• Jewish historians
• Living people