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
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.
There are contradictory tendencies in American society. There's a huge range of activities that one can engage in that mark it as a quite free society. It's also true to say that the powers that be have so much control over how people think that there are fewer and fewer people who make use of the rights and information available to them.
My original interest in the Nazi holocaust was personal. Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis.
The whole purpose of annual reviews is to keep you abreast of whether or not you are fulfilling the requirements of tenure.
Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse.
I had been a Maoist, and then when the Gang of Four was overthrown, I was completely distraught. I was bedridden for three weeks; it was a very painful experience for me. Not only because I had been wrong, but because I felt really embarrassed that I had been lecturing and pontificating with such self-confidence.
People have to liberate themselves, because liberation is not a single act. It's a question of eternal vigilance. Otherwise, you'll just become enslaved by someone else.
Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis.
I would not have stayed at a university if it told me upfront that a condition for me getting tenure. my views have to be filtered through Catholic values. I would consider it a betrayal of my parents' legacy.
Goldstone has done terrible damage to the cause of truth and justice and the rule of law. He has poisoned Jewish-Palestinian relations, undermined the courageous work of Israeli dissenters and-most unforgivably-increased the risk of another merciless IDF assault.
Each of the various tactics that have been tried to get Israel to budge.. nonviolent resistance, legal accountability, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).. has had some measure of success.
You know, frankly speaking, money just doesn't figure largely in my world view.
I focus on my work. If I let myself get distracted by the insults and slanders I wouldn't get anything substantive done.
War is not a means to an end, it is the end, whereas politics is merely the hiatus between wars.