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Norman G. Finkelstein (born 1953) is a Jewish American professor of political science at DePaul University known for advocating controversial positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for criticizing the way the Holocaust is handled by most parties and organizations. He is the son of Holocaust survivors and the author of five books, of which the most prominent are Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict and The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.

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 splendid series of columns in The Nation to 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, 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 some of Finkelstein's criticisms, U.S. journals began publishing more critical reviews of the book. Today, partly as a result of Finkelstein's analysis and criticism, Peters' book is discredited among scholars. Finkelstein's findings appear in ibid., chapter 2.

Finkelstein and Chomsky

At Princeton, the hostility that Finkelstein received threatened his ability to earn his Ph.D. Noam Chomsky, who is a friend of Finkelstein, writes in Understanding Power that Finkelstein "literally could not get the faculty to read ." According to Chomsky, in the end, Princeton 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 )

Controversial Opinions

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. 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."

Criticism by the Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called Finkelstein a "Holocaust denier" and accused him of pursuing an anti-Semitic agenda. Finkelstein has called the ADL's accusations against him empty and undeserved. "I am Jewish and my parents are Holocaust survivors. With others you could say, 'you're an anti-Semite' or 'you're a Holocaust denier,' you can't do that with me," he once responded, "you have to argue the facts." Neither the ADL nor similar groups have quoted Finkelstein denying that the Holocaust actually occurred (Indeed, the premise of his The Holocaust Industry is that the historical Holocaust did occur). Finkelstein was also called a "self-hating Jew" on numerous occasions.

Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz

In addition to his denunciation of Peters herself, Finkelstein has accused Alan Dershowitz of using Peters' research without acknowledgement, pointing to passages where Dershowitz quoted exactly the same excerpts that Peters footnoted in her book, but where Dershowitz referenced only their original sources and not Peters. Finkelstein regards this as plagiarism, a charge that Dershowitz denies. (See Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair.)

Finkelstein has expanded his findings in a book entitled Beyond Chutzpah, which was to be published by the University of California Press (UCP) on June 1, 2005, in spite of threats of legal action by Alan Dershowitz. . On June 27, 2005, however, the banner "DERSHOWITZ WINS: University of California Press will not publish BEYOND CHUTZPAH." appeared on Finkelstein's website . The press itself stated that it continued "to work with the author on editorial changes" to this work "of critical importance" and that it was "committed to working with the author to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion and to publish the book as scheduled in August." On July 9, 2005, editorial negotiations between Finkelstein's representatives and UCP came to a successful conclusion and Beyond Chutzpah was finally published on 28 August 2005.

Quotes

Leon Wieseltier: "He's poison, a disgusting self-hating Jew, something you find under a rock."

“Norman Finkelstein a writer celebrated by neo-Nazi groups for his Holocaust revisionism and comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany.”

Marc Fisher,

“Campus Should Cultivate Its Seeds of Debate,”

Washington Post, December 3, 2002

“rackpot ideas, some of them mirrored almost verbatim in the propaganda put out by neo-Nazis around the world.”

Gabriel Schoenfeld’s response to critics,

“Holocaust Reparations,” Commentary, January 2001, p. 20

“Finkelstein is a Jew…who supports anti-Semitism. He is grist to extreme right’s mill... eldom has a Jew been more celebrated by brown propaganda than Finkelstein.”

Eds. Martin Dietzsch and Alfred Schobert,

„Ein „jüdischer David Irving“?, p. 6

Norman Finkelstein is “the Jewish Ward Churchill.”

Intended to be a compliment by Portland Independent Media Center,

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/312868.shtml.

Finkelstein’s mentor on Finkelstein

“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.”

Peter Novick,

whose work Finkelstein described as the “initial stimulus” for

The Holocaust Industry (p. 4),

‘Offene Fenster und Tueren,’ Sueddeutsche Zeitung, February 7, 2001

“Finkelstein’s book is trash.”

Peter Novick,

for writing The Holocaust Industry, Tagesspiegel, Feb 6, 2001

“ I feel like a kid in a candy store… Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving.”

Intended to be a compliment by

Ingrid Rimland, wife of neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel,

Eds. Martin Dietzsch and Alfred Schobert,

„Ein „jüdischer David Irving“?,p. 11

“This book is, in a word, an ideological fanatic’s view…by a writer so reckless and ruthless in his attacks... both irrational and insidious…an international Jewish conspiracy verges on paranoia and would serve anti-Semites….

combines an old-hat 1960's view of Israel as the outpost of American imperialism with a novel variation on the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which warned of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the

world…. series of vague, undocumented and contradictory assertions…. There is something sad in this warping of intelligence, and in this perversion of moral indignation. There is also something indecent about it, something juvenile,

self-righteous, arrogant and stupid.”

Omer Bartov, “A Tale of Two Holocausts,”

New York Times, August 6, 2000, p. 8

“Finkelstein’s work is, from beginning to end, a tendentious series of inventions. …he examples from his article that are deemed to be the strongest are thoroughly misleading and without merit. Finkelstein’s writing is the sort of transparent

political polemic that—had others not cynically propped him up as an expert and a champion of truth—would not even merit a response. This is a man who has made a career of attacking Israel’s legitimacy…. His documented inventions

about my book, it is worth noting that Finkelstein has never before written anything on the Holocaust or German history and cannot read German…which means that he cannot read many of the sources on which he is passing his ‘expert’

opinion…. man who has arrived overnight to a scholarly field made up of massive scholarly literature, not to mention all the documents, who, to boot, cannot read most of the sources because they are in German.”

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen,

A Comment by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen on: A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth” (found at www.goldhagen.com/csiz2.html.)

Finkelstein about Finkelstein

“I’m in exile in … Chicago because I was thrown out of every … school in New York.”

Norman Finkelstein,

“‘I won’t lie down and take the insults,’”

Irish Times, July 1, 2003, p. 13

“Never has one of my articles been published in a scientific magazine”

NRC Handelsblad, Aug. 5, 2000

Bibliography

• (translator) The Future of Maoism, by Samir Amir, Monthly Review, 1983 (ISBN 0853456224)
• 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)
• The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Verso, 2003 (ISBN 185984488X)
• 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.
  • Goldhagen for Beginners: A Comment on Jan T. Gross's Neighbors
  • Letters to Finkelstein
• Finkelstein's List
• 'Shoah Biz' Critic Claims His Views Cost Him Prof Job
• Interview on the Holocaust

Appearances:

• Vancouver Public Library (15 May 2004)
• Debate with Alan Dershowitz (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
• Omer Bartov, A Tale of Two Holocausts
• Edward Alexander, The Dream-Jew of the Anti-Semites
• Paul Bogdanor, The Finkelstein Phenomenon
• Anti-Defamation League, Letter on Finkelstein
• Alan Dershowitz, The Hazards of Making the Case for Israel

• 1953 births
• American writers
• Political writers