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- Thursday, Mar 15, 2012
- Norman Finkelstein: Why Israel Won’t Attack Iran
  ZNet Article
  American public opposes Israel striking Iran
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- Sunday, Feb 19, 2012
- Norman Finkelstein: Khader Adnan on 63rd day of Hunger Strike
  ZNet Article
  Khader Adnan is now on his 63rd day on Hunger Strike, and is very close to death
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Thursday, Feb 16, 2012
- Norman Finkelstein: In Edinburgh
  ZNet Article
  Talk on how to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Friday, Feb 03, 2012
- Norman Finkelstein: At Mount Allison University
  Video
  Talk on the current situation on the Middle East
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Tuesday, Dec 20, 2011
- Norman Finkelstein: On Christopher Hitchens
  ZNet Article
  Excerpt from The Rise and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next year
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Tuesday, Nov 15, 2011
- Norman Finkelstein/Jamie Stern-Weiner: How to End the Israel-Palestine Conflict
  ZNet Article
  Interview on Israel-Palestine conflict
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Thursday, Aug 05, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein/Kate Perkins: It Wasn’t a War
  ZNet Article
  Kate Perkins interviews Norman Finkelstein about the “Gaza massacre,” the Goldstone Report, the public turn against Israeli policy, and the difference between “of” and “in.”
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- Sunday, Jul 25, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: Those Who Help Themselves Pt. 2
  ZNet Article
  Part 2 of interview...
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- Sunday, Jul 18, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: Those Who Help Themselves
  ZNet Article
  The basic conflict can be understood in very conventional terms of people enduring and trying to resist an occupation. I don’t think it requires much more profundity in order to understand why Palestinians are opposed to their current condition, a...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Wednesday, Jun 02, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: "Israel is a Lunatic State"
  Video
  Political scientist Norman Finkelstein speaks with RT to give his assessment of Israel's raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Tuesday, Apr 27, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: Gaza's Calm Determination
  ZNet Article
  To preserve my sense of purpose, and keep the Palestine struggle from becoming a lifeless abstraction, I need periodically to recharge my moral batteries by reconnecting with the actual people living under occupation and by witnessing firsthand th...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Monday, Apr 19, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: Goldstone, Gaza, & Israel
  Video
  Israel would not be so up in arms about the Goldstone Report, would not be so upset by it, were it not for the fact that, yes, they are very vulnerable to the public opinion, and they know very well the limits beyond which it may not express itsel...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Monday, Mar 08, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: We Went Too Far
  ZNet Article
  An excerpt from Norman Finkelstein’s new book about the Gaza conflict, "This Time We Went Too Far" published this month by OR Books.
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- Sunday, Feb 22, 2009
- Norman Finkelstein: Cordesman & Israel
  ZNet Article
  Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading military analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, published a "strategic analysis" of the Gaza massacre shortly after it ended. He reaches the remarkable conclusion that "Israel did not viol...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Sunday, Jan 04, 2009
- Norman Finkelstein: Gaza Crisis
  Video
  Interview...
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- Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
- Site Administrator: Israel Wall Debate Pt. 1
  Video
  The Israeli separation wall making its way through the West Bank cuts to the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli issue: Will the final settlement between these two peoples be negotiated, or imposed unilaterally by Israel?
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Tuesday, Apr 22, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein/Jake Hess/Margaree Little: Power, Politics & Scholarship
  ZNet Article
  Interview on the Israel lobby, American Zionism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Venezuelan politics, teaching, Palestine solidarity, and much more.
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Norman Finkelstein/Jake Hess/Margaree Little: Power, Politics & Scholarship
  ZNet Article
  Interview on the Israel lobby, American Zionism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Venezuelan politics, teaching, Palestine solidarity, and much more.
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Saturday, Feb 16, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein/Saeed taji Al-farouky: Tear Down the Walls
  ZNet Article
  Urging Palestinians to break down the "segregation" wall built across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: Academic Freedom 9/9
  Audio
  In Defense of Academic Freedom, Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago 12 October 2007
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Saturday, Jan 19, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: American Zionism Breaking Up Pt.3
  Audio
  Mostly Q&A... On November 29, the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange (CEPAL) in commemoration of the eleventh annual United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People Ms. Olfat Mahmoud, and featured keynote speak...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Friday, Jan 18, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: American Zionism Breaking Up Pt.2
  Audio
  On November 29, the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange (CEPAL) in commemoration of the eleventh annual United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People Ms. Olfat Mahmoud, and featured keynote speaker, Dr. Norman F...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Thursday, Jan 17, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: American Zionism Breaking Up Pt.1
  Audio
  Dr. Norman Finkelstein and Ms. Olfat Mahmoud discusses roots of conflict and prospects for peace in Israel and Palestine. The talk was presented on November 29, 2007. Pt.1 of 3. Keynote speaker, Dr. Norman Finkelstein will discuss roots of conf...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Sunday, Sep 16, 2007
- Norman Finkelstein: Interview
  ZNet Article
  Finkelstein Interviewed
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Tuesday, Sep 11, 2007
- Norman Finkelstein: Democracy Now Interview
  ZNet Article
  AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to our last segment. Professor Norman Finkelstein has resigned from DePaul University in ...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Friday, Apr 27, 2007
- Norman Finkelstein: Distorting Camp David
  ZNet Article
  "Distorting Camp David"
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Sunday, Dec 31, 2006
- Norman Finkelstein: Attacks on Carter
  ZNet Article
  As Jimmy Carter's new book ...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Tuesday, Nov 14, 2006
- Norman Finkelstein: Carter's Roadmap
  ZNet Article
  The historical chapters of Palestine Peace Not Apartheid are rather thin, filled with errors small and large, as well as tendentious and untenable interpretations. But few persons will be reading it for the hi...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006
- Norman Finkelstein: Moral Barbarism
  ZNet Article
  As Israel's military bravely fires away shells and missiles to lay waste the fragile human and physical infrastructure of Lebanon, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, waging battle on a second front to legitimize Israel's criminal aggression, b...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Wednesday, May 03, 2006
- Norman Finkelstein: The Israel Lobby
  ZNet Article
  In the current fractious debate over the role of the Israel Lobby in the formulation and execution of US policies in the Middle East, the "either-or" framework -- giving primacy to either the Israel Lobby or to U.S. strategic interests -- isn't, i...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
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Recent Audio
- Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: Academic Freedom 9/9
  Audio
  In Defense of Academic Freedom, Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago 12 October 2007
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Saturday, Jan 19, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: American Zionism Breaking Up Pt.3
  Audio
  Mostly Q&A... On November 29, the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange (CEPAL) in commemoration of the eleventh annual United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People Ms. Olfat Mahmoud, and featured keynote speak...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Friday, Jan 18, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: American Zionism Breaking Up Pt.2
  Audio
  On November 29, the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange (CEPAL) in commemoration of the eleventh annual United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People Ms. Olfat Mahmoud, and featured keynote speaker, Dr. Norman F...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Thursday, Jan 17, 2008
- Norman Finkelstein: American Zionism Breaking Up Pt.1
  Audio
  Dr. Norman Finkelstein and Ms. Olfat Mahmoud discusses roots of conflict and prospects for peace in Israel and Palestine. The talk was presented on November 29, 2007. Pt.1 of 3. Keynote speaker, Dr. Norman Finkelstein will discuss roots of conf...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- All Recent Audio
Recent Video
- Friday, Feb 03, 2012
- Norman Finkelstein: At Mount Allison University
  Video
  Talk on the current situation on the Middle East
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Wednesday, Jun 02, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: "Israel is a Lunatic State"
  Video
  Political scientist Norman Finkelstein speaks with RT to give his assessment of Israel's raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Monday, Apr 19, 2010
- Norman Finkelstein: Goldstone, Gaza, & Israel
  Video
  Israel would not be so up in arms about the Goldstone Report, would not be so upset by it, were it not for the fact that, yes, they are very vulnerable to the public opinion, and they know very well the limits beyond which it may not express itsel...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Sunday, Jan 04, 2009
- Norman Finkelstein: Gaza Crisis
  Video
  Interview...
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
- Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
- Site Administrator: Israel Wall Debate Pt. 1
  Video
  The Israeli separation wall making its way through the West Bank cuts to the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli issue: Will the final settlement between these two peoples be negotiated, or imposed unilaterally by Israel?
  Norman Finkelstein ZSpace page
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Norman Finkelstein's Bio Info

Biography:
Finkelstein has written of his parents' experiences during World War II. His mother, Maryla H... more

Finkelstein has written of his parents' experiences during World War II. His mother, Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, grew up in Warsaw, Poland, and survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp, as well as two slave labor camps. Her first husband died in the war. She considered the day of her liberation as the most horrible day of her life, since it first struck her then that she was alone, none of her parents and siblings having managed to survive. Norman's father, Zacharias Finkelstein, was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and the Auschwitz concentration camp.^[5] After immigrating to the United States, his father became a factory worker, while his mother stayed home with the kids. Finkelstein's parents, particularly his mother, had communist leanings, although they never officially belonged to any ideological movement. Both his parents died in 1995.^[6]

Finkelstein grew up in New York City. In his forthcoming memoir, Finkelstein recalls his strong youthful identification with the outrage that his mother, witness to the genocidal atrocities of World War II, felt at the carnage wrought by the United States in Vietnam. One childhood friend recalls his mother's "emotional investment in left-wing humanitarian causes as bordering on hysteria." ^[7] He had 'internalized (her) indignation', a trait which he admits rendered him 'insufferable' when talking of the Vietnam War, and which imbued him with a 'holier-than-thou' attitude at the time which he now regrets. But Finkelstein regards his absorption of his mother's outlook — the refusal to put aside a sense of moral outrage in order to get on with one's life — as a virtue. Subsequently, his reading of Noam Chomsky played a seminal role in tailoring the passion bequeathed to him by his mother to the necessity of maintaining intellectual rigor in the pursuit of the truth.^[5] According to the New York Times, as his career progressed, his mother "came to feel he had taken her too literally and become a 'Frankenstein’s monster' on a path toward self-destruction."^[8]

He completed his undergraduate studies at Binghamton University in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. He went on to earn his Master's degree in political science from Princeton University in 1980, and later his PhD in political studies, also from Princeton. Finkelstein wrote his doctoral thesis on Zionism, and it was through this work that he first attracted controversy. Before gaining academic employment, Finkelstein was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts in New York. He then taught successively at Rutgers University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and Hunter College and, until recently, taught at DePaul University in Chicago. According to the New York Times he left Hunter College in 2001 "after his teaching load and salary were reduced" by the college administration.^[9]

Beginning with his doctoral thesis at Princeton, Finkelstein's career has been marked by controversy. A self-described "forensic scholar," he has written sharply critical academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars whom he accuses of misrepresenting the documentary record in order to defend Israel's policies and practices. His writings, noted for their support of the Palestinian cause^[2] have dealt with politically-charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine and his allegations of the existence of a "Holocaust Industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests. Citing linguistand political activist Noam Chomsky as an example, Finkelstein notes that it is "possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage,"^[5] and supporters and detractors alike have remarked on the polemical style of Finkelstein's work.^[1]^[10] Its content has been praised by eminent historians such as Raul Hilberg and Avi Shlaim,^[10] as well as Chomsky.

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