Norman G. Finkelstein Famous Quotes & Sayings
36 Norman G. Finkelstein Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation.
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 US support for these policies.— Norman G. Finkelstein
A sure sign of ineptitude and malice is manifested when one's attacker is willing to cover himself with mud in order to try and make some of it adhere to his target.— Christopher Hitchens
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.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a "victim" state, and the most successful ethnic group in the US has likewise acquired victim status.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
The Holocaust industry has always been bankrupt. What remains is to openly declare it so. The time is long past to put it out of business.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
If there were an Oscar for best theatrical performance by a country, Israel would win every year. It's a country based on theater. It's a lunatic state - completely insane.— Norman Finkelstein
The whole purpose of annual reviews is to keep you abreast of whether or not you are fulfilling the requirements of tenure.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
Teaching is in my bones. I love to teach.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
They've (Israel) lost the battle for public opinion. They claim it's because American Jews know too little.. I claim it's because they know too much about the conflict, and young liberal Jews have difficulty defending the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon or supporting the Israeli settlements.— Norman Finkelstein
Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics.— Norman Finkelstein
Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense if not sheer fraud.— Norman Finkelstein
Judging by opinion polls, Israel has bigger problems than me. It is among the most hated countries on the planet. It should stop acting like a lunatic state. Once it carries on like a normal country, I will be happily redirect my energies elsewhere.— Norman Finkelstein
Insofar as Zionism sought to solve the Jewish question, it must be reckoned not just a failure but a catastrophe: Israel is the main cause of anti-Semitism in the world today.— Norman Finkelstein
Everybody wants peace. That's a truism. There is no point in accomplishing through war what you can accomplish through peace.— Norman Finkelstein
The moment you have massive social and political commentary trying to explain a phenomenon, then you know we are no longer dealing with a strictly psychiatric question.— Norman Finkelstein
My books don't sell anymore. There are many reasons why they don't sell, but one of the reasons is because people don't read anymore. Forget about reading books of detail - they don't read at all.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
I focus on my work. If I let myself get distracted by the insults and slanders I wouldn't get anything substantive done.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
I'm not a good writer, and I don't care. Unfortunately, after I left college, I didn't have time much for literature. I wish I did. Most of the time I read documents, and that's not going to help your writing. But I'm a very logical writer, and you can't get out of me. Once I've nailed you, you're finished.— Norman Finkelstein
They used to say Palestinians fight like heroes, now they say heroes fight like Palestinians— Norman Finkelstein
There is no way a non-Jew could say what I did in 'The Holocaust Industry' without being labelled a Holocaust denier. I am labelled a Holocaust denier, too.— Norman Finkelstein
There is a fundamental principle. 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. That to me is a very basic, elementary, and uncomplicated question.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
Mainstream Jewish intellectuals became 'pro'-Israel after the June 1967 war when Israel became the U.S.A.' s strategic asset in the Middle East, i.e., when it was safe and reaped benefits. To credit them with ideological conviction is, in my opinion, very naive.— Norman Finkelstein
Israel has been a stage on which American Jews have played out their fantasies of toughness - often from Martha's Vineyard.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman Finkelstein
The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.— Norman Finkelstein
Every victory of Hezbollah, I celebrate.— Norman Finkelstein
DePaul's plot to deny me tenure had nothing to do with my faults. In fact, and ironically, it viciously attacked me and destroyed my career because of my virtues. Which, although few in number, they still found threatening.— Norman Finkelstein
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.— Norman G. Finkelstein
