Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Norman Finkelstein
Age: 70
Born: 1953
Born: December 8
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Political Scientist
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Norman Gary Finkelstein
Lost
Difficulty
Israeli
Young
Conflict
Jews
Cluster
Littles
Battle
Bombs
Settlements
Little
Opinion
Liberal
Clusters
Much
Public
Jew
Lebanon
Knowledge
Claim
Settlement
American
Claims
Defending
Use
Israel
Supporting

More quotes by Norman Finkelstein

Image
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
Image
Why should these Palestinians, who have lived in Jerusalem for hundreds of years, be evicted from their homes so that Jews from Brooklyn can live in them?
Norman Finkelstein
Image
Everybody wants peace. That's a truism. There is no point in accomplishing through war what you can accomplish through peace.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
There's no question that public opinion is changing, and if you're a person of the left, your goal is presumably to try to mobilize public opinion to affect elite policy and I think now there are unusual, unprecedented opportunities to do so.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal. By liberal, I mean, basically, support for the rule of law, support for human rights, support for peace and on all those counts - rule of law, human rights, peace - Israel's record has become indefensible.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
The justice of a war basically refers to the question whether there is a right to attack in the first place. Justice in a war is concerned with whether the fighting happens in accordance with the international laws of war.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
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
Image
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
Image
As one Israeli said, It's a big mistake for Israel to say it 'won' the war, when there was no war. There were no battles...no military enemy in the field.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense if not sheer fraud.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Every victory of Hezbollah, I celebrate.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I'm politically on the left, no question about it. I oppose sweatshops, I oppose exploitation of labour in the third world.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
Goldstone has done terrible damage to the cause of truth and justice and the rule of law. He has poisoned Jewish-Palestinian relations, undermined the courageous work of Israeli dissenters and-most unforgivably-increased the risk of another merciless IDF assault.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
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 Finkelstein