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" I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel. "

Norman Finkelstein

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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. "

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

" 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. "

Norman Finkelstein

Self-Confidence

" 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. "

Norman Finkelstein

The Right Thing

" Israel has been a stage on which American Jews have played out their fantasies of toughness - often from Martha's Vineyard. "

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

" No conditions justify torture. "

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

" When you are a people's movement, you have one thing. Your only asset is people. And you have to deal with real people. Not the people of your imagination. Not the people you wish people would be. But people as they exist actually out there in the real world. "

Norman Finkelstein

" I don't want to become a rhetorical speaker. My effectiveness is mastering all of the data and being able to respond. "

Norman Finkelstein

" 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. "

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 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

" Personal convictions are not politics. Personal convictions, if they become the subject of a group conviction, they become a cult. "

Norman Finkelstein

" 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. "

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

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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? "

Norman Finkelstein

" 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. "

Norman Finkelstein

" I'm politically on the left, no question about it. I oppose sweatshops, I oppose exploitation of labour in the third world. "

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 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

" 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

" 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. "

Norman Finkelstein

" 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

" 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. "

Norman Finkelstein

" Teaching is in my bones. I love to teach. "

Norman Finkelstein