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" 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. "
Norman Finkelstein
Family
Father
Ghetto
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" Israel has been a stage on which American Jews have played out their fantasies of toughness - often from Martha's Vineyard. "
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" Personal convictions are not politics. Personal convictions, if they become the subject of a group conviction, they become a cult. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel. "
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" 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. "
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" I voted for Nader, and I have no doubts at all that it was the right thing to do because the Nader candidacy was extremely energising and a terrific phenomenon in American life, and I hope he continues. "
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" I don't want to become a rhetorical speaker. My effectiveness is mastering all of the data and being able to respond. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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Help
Time
Writing
" I don't claim to know Israel. I don't speak Hebrew; my contacts are pretty limited. But I didn't know Vietnam; I didn't know Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras. It doesn't mean you can't reach your conclusions. "
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" 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. "
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People
Who
Country
" You know, frankly speaking, money just doesn't figure largely in my world view. "
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" 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. "
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" The whole purpose of annual reviews is to keep you abreast of whether or not you are fulfilling the requirements of tenure. "
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" 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. "
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Family
Parents
Mother
" Why should Americans go on with their lives as normal, worrying about calories and hair loss, while other people are worrying about where they are going to get their next piece of bread? "
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Normal
People
Loss
" 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. "
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Power
Profit
" I earn - I'm not - I don't want to claim I'm a scholar of great stature, but I have made a certain reputation for myself, I've published several books, I've never been able to get a permanent teaching job. "
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Reputation
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" 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. "
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" International law says people fighting for self-determination can use force in order to achieve their independence. "
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" I'm politically on the left, no question about it. I oppose sweatshops, I oppose exploitation of labour in the third world. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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Plot
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" 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. "
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Want
Flaws
Lying
" 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. "
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Self-Confidence
Three
" The Holocaust only emerged in American life after Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day war against its Arab neighbours. "
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" 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 U.S. support for these policies. "
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Why
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" I no longer say I'm unemployed. I say I'm unemployable. It's different. An unemployed suggests at a certain point in the future, you might be employed. That's not the case with me. I'm unemployable, and unfortunately, that's one of the bits of the web, in particular of Google. "
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" Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense if not sheer fraud. "
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Field
Nonsense
Sheer