Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelsteinis an American political scientist, activist, professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who were Jewish Holocaust survivors. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in political science at 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth8 December 1953
CountryUnited States of America
Personal convictions are not politics. Personal convictions, if they become the subject of a group conviction, they become a cult.
No doubt one can, in light of further study and life experience, come to repudiate past convictions.
Israel has been a stage on which American Jews have played out their fantasies of toughness - often from Martha's Vineyard.
I'm an old fan of the Negro spirituals.
I don't want to pretend to be a prophet or a saint. I'm very conscious of my limitations. I know my flaws. But I don't like lying.
I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel.
Israel's pro-American orientation exists not just among Israeli elites but also among the whole population. Come what may in Israel, it's inconceivable that this fundamental orientation will change. Combined with its overwhelming military power, this makes Israel a unique and irreplaceable American asset in the Middle East.
I was probably unusually close to my parents, so I do what I can now to preserve the integrity of their memory. The Holocaust deserves to be remembered.
I was bashing Israel in the past because nobody else was exposing its true record. Many people are doing it now, so I switched hats from a critic of Israel to a diplomat who wants to resolve the conflict. I have not changed, but I think the spectrum has moved.
I think sometimes we underestimate just how vulnerable Israel is on the public-relations front. That's why they spend so much money on propaganda. And that's why they panic every time they feel like they're losing the propaganda war.
I don't think it's a good thing to have Christian states, Muslim states, or any kind of ethnic states.
I think one of the problems when we discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict is people talk too much in terms of, 'What's your preference?,' like politics is a Chinese menu - I'll take one from column A and two from column B. That's not what politics is about.
I think that people like Bloomberg, they're complete thugs. No question about it. But on the other hand, it must be said that they are politically savvy. They don't get into those positions of power - in the case of Bloomberg, both economic and political power - by being anybody's fool.
I don't want to become a rhetorical speaker. My effectiveness is mastering all of the data and being able to respond.