Quote

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

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
Anyone
Desire
Experience
Shocking
Power
Revelations
Things
Motivated
Life
Desires
People
Privilege
Profit

More quotes by Norman Finkelstein

Image
Each of the various tactics that have been tried to get Israel to budge.. nonviolent resistance, legal accountability, BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).. has had some measure of success.
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
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
They used to say Palestinians fight like heroes, now they say heroes fight like Palestinians
Norman Finkelstein
Image
Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense if not sheer fraud.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
Israel has come out of the boils of the hell, a satanic state.
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'm politically on the left, no question about it. I oppose sweatshops, I oppose exploitation of labour in the third world.
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
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 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
State terrorism - and yet the Israeli invasion Goldstone investigated is still commonly referred to as the Gaza War.
Norman Finkelstein
Image
War is not a means to an end, it is the end, whereas politics is merely the hiatus between wars.
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 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
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
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
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
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
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