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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.

Norman Finkelstein

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Norman Finkelstein
Age: 70
Born: 1953
Born: December 8
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Political Scientist
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Norman Gary Finkelstein
Young
Wanted
Without
Men
Militant
Communist
Atheist
Mother

More quotes by Norman Finkelstein

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Israel has come out of the boils of the hell, a satanic state.
Norman Finkelstein
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International law says people fighting for self-determination can use force in order to achieve their independence.
Norman Finkelstein
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Every victory of Hezbollah, I celebrate.
Norman Finkelstein
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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
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Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense if not sheer fraud.
Norman Finkelstein
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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
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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
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Everybody wants peace. That's a truism. There is no point in accomplishing through war what you can accomplish through peace.
Norman Finkelstein
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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 US support for these policies.
Norman Finkelstein
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Public opinion in the United States has shifted significantly, not just outside but also within the Jewish community.
Norman Finkelstein
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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As Israel becomes like South Africa, it's increasingly becoming a pariah state, being excluded from culture at large.
Norman Finkelstein