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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

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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
Thinking
Opinion
Elite
Public
Unprecedented
Goal
Affect
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Unusual
Left
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More quotes by Norman Finkelstein

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Every victory of Hezbollah, I celebrate.
Norman Finkelstein
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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
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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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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
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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
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It's utterly hypocritical for Israelis to wonder aloud why Palestinians don't pursue a non-violent strategy. One obvious reason is that, whenever they have, Israel brutally represses it.
Norman Finkelstein
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State terrorism - and yet the Israeli invasion Goldstone investigated is still commonly referred to as the Gaza War.
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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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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War is not a means to an end, it is the end, whereas politics is merely the hiatus between wars.
Norman Finkelstein