Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist, historian, and academic born on December 8, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York.
Finkelstein attended James Madison High School before pursuing higher education at Binghamton University, the École pratique des hautes études, and Princeton University. This sequence of institutions brought him through both American and European academic contexts before he went on to work as a university teacher and writer.
His written work includes several books composed in American English. Among them are The Holocaust Industry, Beyond Chutzpah, A Nation on Trial, and Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. These titles represent the published record of a career carried out across his roles as political scientist, historian, academic, and human rights defender.
Finkelstein holds United States citizenship and is associated with the anti-Zionism movement. That association has situated his books within debates that extend beyond academic settings. His occupations — spanning political science, history, human rights work, and university teaching — mark the range of positions from which he has produced his writing.
Quotes by Norman Finkelstein
My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and U.S. support for these policies.
I earn – I’m not – I don’t want to claim I’m a scholar of great stature, but I have made a certain reputation for myself, I’ve published several books, I’ve never been able to get a permanent teaching job.
I don’t feel particularly attached to Israel – ‘nationalism,’ as Noam Chomsky said, ‘is not my cup of tea’ – but I feel no particular need to demonize it.
You know, frankly speaking, money just doesn’t figure largely in my world view.
People are motivated by the desires for privilege, for power, for profit. Those are not shocking revelations. Anyone who’s had any experience in life knows these things.
September 11 was a godsend for Israel. It could now conjoin its merciless persecution of the Palestinians with Bush’s War against Terror. But my impression is that it wasn’t altogether successful.
There’s nothing Israel can do without US support. It can’t breathe without US support. The US bankrolls everything, and it’s just silly to think that Israel can do anything without the support.
Everybody wants peace. That’s a truism. There is no point in accomplishing through war what you can accomplish through peace.
When I was a young man, my mother said to me, ‘You can’t be a communist without being a militant atheist.’ So I had to be a militant atheist because I wanted to be a communist.