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Norman G. Finkelstein (born December 8 1953) is an American assistant professor of political science at DePaul University. He is a graduate of Binghamton University. The son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein is known for his writings pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for his view that the Holocaust is being exploited for pro-Jewish/Israel political ends.

Education and career

Finkelstein grew up in New York City. In 1974, he completed his undergraduate degree at Binghamton University in New York, 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. Finkelstein wrote his Princeton doctoral thesis on Zionism, and it was through this work that he first attracted controversy. Finkelstein has taught at Rutgers, Brooklyn College, and Hunter College and currently teaches at DePaul University in Chicago.

Exposure of From Time Immemorial

In 1984, while Finkelstein was still at Princeton, he began to write a critical review of Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial in which he examined every footnote and concluded that the book was a "monumental hoax." A "history and defense" of the state of Israel, Peters' book had been effusively praised in mainstream United States media sources. Finkelstein's charges initially roused little attention in the U.S. According to Finkelstein, "By the end of 1984, From Time Immemorial had...received some two hundred * notices...in the United States. The only 'false' notes in this crescendoing chorus of praise were the Journal of Palestine Studies, which ran a highly critical review by Bill Farrell; the small Chicago-based newsweekly In These Times, which published a condensed version of this writer's findings; and Alexander Cockburn, who devoted a series of columns in The Nation exposing the hoax....The periodicals in which From Time Immemorial had already been favorably reviewed refused to run any critical correspondence (e.g. The New Republic, The Atlantic, Commentary). Periodicals that had yet to review the book rejected a manuscript on the subject as of little or no consequence (e.g. The Village Voice, Dissent, The New York Review of Books). Not a single national newspaper or columnist contacted found newsworthy that a best-selling, effusively praised 'study' of the Middle East conflict was a threadbare hoax" (Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, pp. 45-6).

However, after a number of reviewers in the British and Israeli media supported Finkelstein's criticisms, a few U.S. journals began publishing more critical reviews of the book. In the magazine Foreign Affairs, William B. Quandt described Finkelstein's criticism of From Time Immemorial as a "landmark essay" and a "victory to his credit." Book review: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, William B. Quandt, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1996

The controversy that surrounded Finkelstein's research caused a delay in his earning his PhD at Princeton. Noam Chomsky, a friend of Finkelstein, wrote in Understanding Power that Finkelstein "literally could not get the faculty to read thesis." According to Chomsky, Princeton eventually granted Finkelstein his doctorate only "out of embarrassment," though they didn't "even write a letter for him saying that he was a student at Princeton University." (Understanding Power, New York, 2002, p. 245 *)

Publications

He has published five books, of which the most prominent are:

Controversial opinions

Finkelstein's work is often viewed as being controversial. One of his books, The Holocaust Industry, was on the top seller lists in many countries where according to an article in Die Welt in which he was interviewed he points out that Amazon.com data shows the book was number one in South America, number four in Central America, number one in Austria, number three in Switzerland and number five in Jordan on the best-selling lists, and it is presently translated into eleven languages. He has gained a popular following in Germany where, according to Haaretz, he is considered a "darling of the extreme right." When he was asked in the same Haaretz article *

However, The Economist wrote: "Mr Finkelstein... is not exerting much influence in the United States. His essays have attracted attention, largely hostile, in Britain, ... but have so far dropped like a stone in America. ...Yet his basic argument that memories of the Holocaust are being debased is serious and should be given its due." Some critics in the Jewish community have accused Finkelstein of "hatred" toward Israel and the American Jewish establishment.[http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=11

Finkelstein has taken other controversial positions. In The Holocaust Industry, he described Holocaust reparations as a corrupt "racket," in which little of the money actually goes to victims and too much goes to lawyers involved. He has also challenged the characterization of the Holocaust as a uniquely evil historical event, and likened Israeli security to the Gestapo.

He has been called a "terrorist sympathizer" for what critics term his "bizarre" Osama bin Laden. Frequently quoted is Finkelstein's statement, "Frankly, part of me says - even though everything since September 11 has been a nightmare--'you know what, we deserve the problem on our hands because some things Bin Laden says are true'. One of the things he said on that last tape was that 'until we live in security, you're not going to live in security', and there is a certain amount of rightness in that." *" target="_blank" >Finkelstein and his defenders respond that Finkelstein opposes terrorism, and say that his views are actually "banal" and commonplace: he is merely trying to "locate the Bin Laden phenomenon in some deeper social and political current." * When questioned explicitly about his views on terrorism, Finkelstein has explicitly rejected violent means, claiming instead that Palestinians should pursue independence through "non-violent civil revolt."

Praise of Finkelstein's scholarship

Raul Hilberg. "Today he is rather unpopular and his book Holocaust Industry will certainly not become a best seller, but what it says is basically true even though incomplete. It is more a journalistic account than an in depth study on the topic, which would need to be much longer."*

Noam Chomsky. "A very solid, important and highly informative book Beyond Chutzpah. Norman Finkelstein provides extensive details and analysis, with considerable historical depth and expert research, of a very wide range of issues concerning Israel, the Palestinians, and the U.S."*

Baruch Kimmerling. "Beyond Chutzpah is the most comprehensive, systematic, and well-documented work of its kind. It is one of the harshest—rational and nonemotional—texts about the daily practices of the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories by Israel, and it is an excellent demonstration of how and why the blind defenders of Israel, by basing their arguments on false facts and figures, actually bring more damage than gains to their cause."*

Avi Shlaim. "On display are all the sterling qualities for which Finkelstein has become famous: erudition, originality, spark, meticulous attention to detail, intellectual integrity, courage, and formidable forensic skills."*

Mouin Rabbani. "The scholarship is simply superb. Finkelstein has clearly done his homework, and consulted and mastered a breathtaking range of material: primary sources and documents, scholarly works, reports old and new, correspondence with relevant individuals, and numerous other sources too. He has left no stone unturned."*

Criticism of Finkelstein's scholarship

Benny Morris. "Finkelstein and writer share a method: they selectively quote from books what suits their purposes while ignoring, and in Finkelstein's case, ridiculing what doesn't. Neither seems to know anything about 1948 beyond what is to be found in my books and neither marshals sources or material from elsewhere that could serve to contradict my findings."*

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. "It is only through such wholesale falsification of evidence that Finkelstein can give surface plausibility to his attack...Finkelstein can make this...argument seem plausible only through out-of-context quotation, the manifest twisting of meaning, and blatant misrepresentation. This is also his standard technique for inventing the aspersion that I have misused sources.

Finkelstein’s gross misrepresentation of my book is just one indication that his attack on it has little to do with any knowledge of, and concern for, scholarship on the Holocaust and everything to do with his burning political agenda...Even though the primary material and critical secondary material are in German, he does not cite a single German source because he does not even read German. Nevertheless, the neophyte Finkelstein makes a string of pronouncements (and errors) about what the sources prove, all the while pretending that the enormous amount of evidence that contradicts his wishful assertions and ideological pronouncements do not exist."*

Peter Novick. "As concerns particular assertions made by Finkelstein…, the appropriate response is not (exhilarating) "debate" but (tedious) examination of his footnotes. Such an examination reveals that many of those assertions are pure invention… No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites…. I had not thought that (apart from the disreputable fringe) there were Germans who would take seriously this twenty-first century updating of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ I was mistaken."*

Omer Bartov, reviewing "The Holocaust Industry" for the New York Times Book Review. "It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority....Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious."*

Marc Saperstein, reviewing "Beyond Chutzpah" for the The Middle East Journal. "Bottom line: if you are looking for a book that gathers for polemical purposes every anti-Israel argument in the arsenal of its opponents, and if you enjoy the rhetorical style of the arrogant academic pit bull, this may be the book for you. If you are looking for balance, fairness, context, a critical weighing of evidence on different sides of a controversial issue - the qualities that one might expect in a publication by a distinguished University Press - you will not find them here." [Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (review) Marc Saperstein. The Middle East Journal. Washington: Winter 2006.Vol.60, Iss. 1; pg. 183, 3 pgs]

Finkelstein on David Irving and on numbers of Holocaust victims

Finkelstein's views on Irving are expressed in The Holocaust Industry, where he states that Irving “notorious as an admirer of Hitler and sympathizer with German national socialism has, nevertheless, as Gordon A. Craig points out, made an 'indispensable' contribution to our knowledge of World War II." Finkelstein goes on to endorse Craig's dismissal of Irving's Holocaust claims as "obtuse and quickly discredited". The "indispensable" comment (made by Craig and quoted by Finkelstein) is specifically about Irving's contribution to the study of military history on the "German side of the Second World War" (Source: The Holocaust Industry, Second Edition, New York: Verso, 2003; page 71-72).

Finkelstein says that he relies on the work of Raul Hilberg for historical facts about the Holocaust, and on the basis of that research Finkelstein quotes the numbers of Holocaust Jewish victims killed as being 5.1 million *. In The Holocaust Industry Finkelstein took issue with the numbers of Holocaust survivors as quoted by interest-groups seeking Holocaust reparations.

Criticism of the Anti-Defamation League

Finkelstein has frequently criticized the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an organization dedicated not to defense against anti-Semitism, but to defamation of critics of Israel. Ultimately, he argues, the ADL trivializes real anti-Semitism by "crying wolf" over fraudulent allegations of "the New anti-Semitism."

Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz

Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz of "fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense." Saying that Dershowitz lacked knowledge about specific contents of his own book during a debate,*" target="_blank" >and an online high school syllabus, as further evidence that the book was ghostwritten.[http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1991

In addition, Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's book cites from the same passages that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, in largely the same order often quoting exactly the same words with ellipses in the same places. In at least two instances, Dershowitz reproduces Peters' errors (see below), from which Finkelstein draws the conclusion that he could not have checked the original sources as he claims.Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas.*" target="_blank" >Writing with Sources, a writing manual cited by Finkelstein, criticizes the practice of quoting sources not actually consulted. [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/sources/

Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan asked former Harvard president Derek Bok to investigate the charges; Bok determined against the charge of plagiarism. * Dershowitz threatened libel action over the charges in Finkelstein's book, even writing to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an attempt to stop publication of Beyond Chutzpah. The word "plagiarism" was dropped from the text before publication. *

Claiming to have first consulted the original sources, Dershowitz says that Finkelstein is simply accusing him of good scholarly practice: citing references he learned of in Peters' book. Dershowitz denies that he used any of Peters' ideas without citation. In a footnote in The case for Israel which cites Peters' book, Dershowitz explicitly denies that he "relies" on Peters for "conclusions or data". However, in their debate on Democracy Now, Finkelstein cited specific passages in Dershowitz's book where a phrase Peters coined was incorrectly attributed to George Orwell: "*" target="_blank" > Dershowitz, who in his own words deplores "borrow*

James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth, University of Iowa, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, defended Dershowitz, saying "I do not understand charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) [Finkelstein’s complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as the Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: 'Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others’ materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of fair use, it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism.' This is precisely what Dershowitz did." However, Freedman is here completely ignoring the charge actually levelled by Finkelstein: that Dershowitz, in failing to acknowledge his secondary source (Peters), implicitly presented Peters' research as his own. (See the Harvard Crimson[http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349044: Finkelstein's professed "bone of contention" is that Dershowitz "didn’t do his own research.")

The Chicago Manual of Style requires the author to cite the sources actually examined during preparation of the text:

Citations Taken from Secondary Sources 17.274
"Quoted in." To cite a source from a secondary source ("quoted in...") is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed. (emphasis added)

Despite the attention garnered by Finkelstein's accusations, the bulk of Beyond Chutzpah consists of an essay critiquing the "new anti-Semitism" and chapters contrasting Dershowitz's arguments in The Case for Israel with the views of some human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Quotations

  • Noam Chomsky: "I'm delighted to hear that I'll be followed shortly by Norman Finkelstein and would very strongly advise you to come listen to him. Not only he an old personal friend but a person who can speak with more authority and insight on these topics than anyone I can think of. So that should be a memorable occasion and I urge that you not miss the opportunity." *
  • Leon Wieseltier: "He's poison, a disgusting self-hating Jew, something you find under a rock." *
  • Raul Hilberg: (From the rear cover of the second edition of The Holocaust Industry) "When I read Finkelstein's book, The Holocaust Industry, at the time of its appearance, I was in the middle of my own investigations of these matters, and I came to the conclusion that he was on the right track. I refer now to the part of the book that deals with the claims against the Swiss banks, and the other claims pertaining to forced labor. I would now say in retrospect that he was actually conservative, moderate and that his conclusions are trustworthy. He is a well-trained political scientist, has the ability to do the research, did it carefully, and has come up with the right results. I am by no means the only one who, in the coming months or years, will totally agree with Finkelstein's breakthrough."

Bibliography

External links

Profiles

Reviews

Appearances

Criticisms

1953 births | American political writers | Princeton University alumni | Jewish American writers | Jewish historians | Living people

Norman Finkelstein | 노르만 핀켈슈타인 | Norman Finkelstein (politicoloog) | ノーマン・フィンケルスタイン | Norman Finkelstein | Norman Finkelstein

 

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