Norman Finkelstein

"[A] simplistic lumper who refuses to make the most elementary analytical distinctions, believing that the concept of new antisemitism hasnt anything to do with fighting bigotry – and everything to do with stifling criticism of Israel; a polemicist with an ugly and sectarian mode of argument and a prose style that is a parody of a once-flourishing antisemitic literature; a lover of the ad hominem attack which leaves the substance of the question unaddressed, preferring to parade before the readers his collection of ... "antisemitism mongers" who should "crawl back into their sewers"; a tendentious joker trading in the indirect expressions of hostility or obscenity; a conspiracy theorist who reduces the history of Holocaust memory to the machinations of the Zionist propaganda machine, and contemporary forms of antisemitism to a public relations exercise; a crude reductionist who prefers a caricatural simplification of the historical process to a careful reconstruction of the dynamics of either collective memory or protean hatreds; a man who normalises antisemitism by telling his audiences that most Jews believe in their groups superiority, talk too much about the Holocaust, are over-represented in the media and use that over-representation for Jewish ends, are tapped into the networks of power and privilege, and who should stop complaining about antisemitism."

"Since completing this memoir in 1995 Ive returned to Palestine every year. In fact, apart from traveling abroad to lecture, Palestine is the only place Ive been since I first journeyed there 15 years ago. I sometimes fantasize vacationing in Greece or Italy but never do. If I have time and cost isnt prohibitive, I always return to Palestine. I do so mostly from a sense of duty - do I have a right to be elsewhere? - relieved by the authentic affection Ive developed for friends. I cannot say I enjoy going back. From the moment I arrive, even before arriving, I count the minutes left before I depart. The eminent Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Gaza as "the largest concentration camp ever to exist." The West Bank ranks only a mite less awful. Once the Israeli wall currently under construction is finished, the West Bank will replace Gaza with top honors. Bordered on both sides by four meter deep trenches, fortified with guard towers at regular intervals, and topped with barbed wire, this massive barricade will stretch across fully 347 kilometers - twice the size of the Berlin Wall."

"To my thinking the honorable thing now is to show solidarity with Hezbollah as the US and Israel target it for liquidation. Indeed, looking back my chief regret is that I wasn’t even more forceful in publicly defending Hezbollah against terrorist intimidation and attack."

"When I read Finkelsteins 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 Finkelsteins breakthrough."

"Articulating the key Holocaust dogmas, much of the literature on Hitlers Final solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud. (p. 55)"

"If everyone who claims to be a survivor actually is one," my mother used to exclaim, "who did Hitler kill then?" (p. 81)"

"Frankly, part of me says…"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."

"There are a large number of claims circulating about rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. When you go actually go through the records, talk to the schools, speak to the deans and so forth, all of these claims turn out to be fraudulent. There’s just no record of this so-called rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. The most striking example is Columbia University where [...] pro-Israel outsiders were disrupting the classrooms of these professors [falsely accued of anti-Semitism], secretly video-taping their lectures and being turned, as the Columbia Report put it, into informers for the pro-Israel lobby. The real story was the harassment of professors who were critical of Israeli policy."

"My parents -- we lived in Brooklyn, NY, we owned a house -- my parents were difficult people, they didnt get along with anyone. Actually, they didnt even get along with each other. So, on the one side were the Golds and on the other side were the Kasslers and they did not get along with the Golds and they did not get along with the Kasslers, so they built a fence. And it was within their right to build a fence. But, as everybody knows, when you build at fence, at any rate in New York, you first have to hire a surveyor. Thats a fact, Im not joking. You have to hire a surveyor and you have to make sure that fence is right down the line on your property because if that fence is literally one quarter of an inch on the Golds side or on the Kasslers side, they have the right to tear it down. Under law, thats it. Now, lets take Israels wall. What happens if my parents decide to build a fence thats not only on the Kasslers side but goes right around their swimming pool? Well, some people will begin to wonder "are Mary and Harry Finkelstein trying to protect their property? Or are they trying to steal the Kasslers swimming pool?"

"I dont see the reason to get excited about Holocaust deniers. First of all I dont know what a Holocaust denier even is. People say if you deny the centrality of the six million Jews being killed and you try to bring in other groups of people you become a Holocaust denier. Other people say if you deny the centrality of the gas chambers you become a Holocaust denier."

"Speaking as a devout atheist, thank God in his Almighty wisdom that he made us mortal."

"Whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the new anti-Semitism. The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. Its to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. Its a role reversal – the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. Its no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; its the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism."