67 Facts About Norman Finkelstein

Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author.

Norman Finkelstein is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.

Norman Finkelstein has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.

Norman Finkelstein was born on December 8,1953, in New York City, the son of Harry and Maryla Finkelstein.

Norman Finkelstein's mother grew up in Warsaw and survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp.

Norman Finkelstein's father was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz.

Norman Finkelstein grew up in Borough Park, then Mill Basin, both in Brooklyn, New York, where he attended James Madison High School.

Norman Finkelstein completed his undergraduate studies at Binghamton University in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in 1979 in Paris.

Norman Finkelstein was an ardent Maoist from his teenage years on and was "totally devastated" by the news of the trial of the Gang of Four in 1976, which led him to decide he had been misled.

Norman Finkelstein received his Master's degree in political science in 1980, and his PhD in political studies from Princeton in 1988.

Norman Finkelstein first taught at Rutgers University as an adjunct lecturer in international relations, then at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University.

The New York Times reported that Norman Finkelstein left Hunter College in 2001 "after his teaching load and salary were reduced" by the college administration.

Norman Finkelstein has said he enjoyed teaching at Hunter and was "unceremoniously kicked out" after begging it to keep him on with just two courses a semester for $12,000 a year.

Norman Finkelstein has described himself as a "forensic" scholar who has worked to demystify what he considers pseudo-scholarly arguments.

Norman Finkelstein has written scathing academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars he accuses of misrepresenting facts in order to defend Israel's policies and practices.

Norman Finkelstein's writings have dealt with politically charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine and his allegations of the existence of a "Holocaust industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests.

Norman Finkelstein's work has been praised by scholars such as Raul Hilberg, Avi Shlaim, and Noam Chomsky, and his advocates and detractors have remarked on his polemical style.

Norman Finkelstein later opined that, while Peters's book received widespread interest and approval in the United States, a scholarly demonstration of its fraudulence and unreliability aroused little attention:.

In Understanding Power, Chomsky wrote that Norman Finkelstein sent his preliminary findings to about 30 people interested in the topic, but no one replied, except for him, and that was how they became friends:.

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim later praised Norman Finkelstein's thesis, saying that it had established his credentials when he was still a doctoral student.

In 1996 Norman Finkelstein published The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years, which chronicled his visits to the West Bank during the First Intifada.

Norman Finkelstein commits the error of assuming that he saw everything there was to see during his trips to the West Bank, and that what he saw represented reality.

Hiltermann wrote that while "there is plenty of reason to be anguished about the terrible injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian", Norman Finkelstein's "bludgeoning" style wouldn't reach an audience beyond those already converted.

Norman Finkelstein alleges "a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters" have sought enormous legal damages and financial settlements from Germany and Switzerland, money that then goes to the lawyers and institutional actors involved in procuring them rather than actual Holocaust survivors.

Traverso agreed that the allegations Norman Finkelstein made against a number of Jewish-American institutions are probably correct.

Norman Finkelstein referred to the favorable reception Finkelstein's book received in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, calling it "welcome hyberbole".

Norman Finkelstein concluded, "Finkelstein's book contains a core of truth that must be recognised, but it lends itself, due to its style and several of its main arguments, to the worst uses and instrumentalisations".

The historian David Cesarani criticized Norman Finkelstein for absolving Swiss banks of serious misconduct toward Holocaust survivors and depicting the banks as victims of Jewish terror based on a sentence from an important report annex.

Shortly after the publication of Alan Dershowitz's book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein derided it as "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism, and nonsense".

Norman Finkelstein said there were 20 instances, in as many pages, where Dershowitz's book cites the same sources and passages Peters used in her book, in largely the same sequence, with ellipses in the same places.

From this Norman Finkelstein concluded that Dershowitz had not checked the original sources himself, contrary to his claims.

Norman Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas.

Dershowitz answered the charge in a letter to the University of California's Press Director Lynne Withey, arguing that Norman Finkelstein had made up the smoking gun quotation by changing its wording in his book.

Norman Finkelstein agreed to remove the suggestion that Dershowitz was not the true author of The Case for Israel because, as the publisher said, "he couldn't document that".

Norman Finkelstein has conclusively demonstrated that he didn't go to the originals.

Norman Finkelstein's campaign began in 2004 when he sent DePaul president Dennis Holtschneider a manuscript, "Literary McCarthyism," arguing that the university should fire Finkelstein.

Norman Finkelstein contacted DePaul political science department chair Patrick Callahan.

In May 2007, Dershowitz spoke at Northwestern University and claimed that Norman Finkelstein had recently attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.

DePaul's political science committee investigated Dershowitz's accusations against Norman Finkelstein and concluded that they were unsubstantiated.

Norman Finkelstein believed they were inconsistent with DePaul's "Vincentian" values.

Norman Finkelstein said that he would engage in civil disobedience if attempts were made to bar him from teaching his students.

Norman Finkelstein was banned from entering Israel for 10 years.

Norman Finkelstein was questioned after his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and detained for 24 hours in a holding cell.

Norman Finkelstein has been heavily criticized for many aspects of his work and public commentary.

Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners Norman Finkelstein criticized, claimed his scholarship has "everything to do with his burning political agenda".

Peter Novick, Professor of History at the University of Chicago and a historian of the Holocaust whose work Norman Finkelstein said inspired The Holocaust Industry, has strongly criticized his work, calling it "trash".

Israeli historian Omer Bartov, writing for The New York Times Book Review, judged The Holocaust Industry to be marred by the same errors Norman Finkelstein denounces in those who exploit the Holocaust for profit or politics:.

Norman Finkelstein has accused journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of "torturing" or "being an accessory to torture of" Palestinian prisoners during his IDF service in the First Intifada, based on statements in Goldberg's book Prisoners.

Norman Finkelstein says Goldberg admits to personally sending prisoners to the zinzana, which he says has been repeatedly condemned as torture in human rights reports.

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein is a documentary film about Finkelstein's life and career, released in 2009, and directed by David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier.

In one scene, at Waterloo University, Norman Finkelstein takes exception to a German student's teary complaint about how he talks about the Nazis and the Holocaust, saying:.

Norman Finkelstein is a sharp critic of the state of Israel.

Norman Finkelstein has said that Hamas and Hezbollah have the right to defend their countries from what he sees as Israeli aggression, and that both Israel and Hamas are guilty of targeting civilians.

Norman Finkelstein has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah with respect to defensive actions.

Norman Finkelstein has said that Hezbollah has "a serious leadership whose commitment is matched by its intelligence and its incorruptibility" and expressed admiration for its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.

Norman Finkelstein has said he believes that the Palestine solidarity movement should focus on a pragmatic settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict rather than a just one.

Norman Finkelstein argues that it would be tantamount to Israel giving up "its existence, its rationale, and the security of all its Jewish citizens".

Norman Finkelstein similarly argues that the Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homes in the 1948 war, whom Israel prevents from returning, have the right of return to what is Israel.

Norman Finkelstein further argues that even if a binational state comes into existence, there is no guarantee of an absence of bloodshed.

Norman Finkelstein sees the Yugoslav Wars, Lebanon, and Czechoslovakia as showing why Jews and Palestinians sharing a state could be problematic.

Norman Finkelstein believes that, while such a solution is currently politically impossible, it could come to fruition through mutually agreed land swaps and by evacuating about half of all Israeli West Bank settlers:.

Norman Finkelstein argues that many Israeli Jews see the ongoing occupation and the West Bank settlements as problematic; that they benefit only a small segment of Israel's Jews; that they complicate security arrangements; that the occupation is expensive; and that it earns Israel near-universal opprobrium.

Norman Finkelstein believes that BDS's tactics are correct but not its demands.

Norman Finkelstein believes that there is a "limit of the spectrum of progressive thought in the world we live" and that BDS's demands exceed that limit.

Norman Finkelstein believes that BDS serves the role as "a new Great Satan" to the Israeli government, an external threat "bent on Israel's destruction" to rally around.

Norman Finkelstein contends that BDS has allowed Israel to "play the victim card" and shift the debate from pressing human rights concerns, such as the ongoing blockade of Gaza, to the question of whether BDS is anti-Semitic.

In October 2020, Norman Finkelstein published an extract from his forthcoming book, Cancel Culture, Academic Freedom and Me on his website following the banning of Holocaust denial from Facebook and Twitter.