I was bashing Israel in the past because nobody else was exposing its true record. Many people are doing it now, so I switched hats from a critic of Israel to a diplomat who wants to resolve the conflict. I have not changed, but I think the spectrum has moved. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
I don’t claim to know Israel. I don’t speak Hebrew; my contacts are pretty limited. But I didn’t know Vietnam; I didn’t know Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras. It doesn’t mean you can’t reach your conclusions. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
My original interest in the Nazi holocaust was personal. Both my father and mother were survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. Apart from my parents, every family member on both sides was exterminated by the Nazis. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
No doubt one can, in light of further study and life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
I don’t think it’s a good thing to have Christian states, Muslim states, or any kind of ethnic states. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
I think one of the problems when we discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict is people talk too much in terms of, ‘What’s your preference?,’ like politics is a Chinese menu – I’ll take one from column A and two from column B. That’s not what politics is about. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
I don’t want to become a rhetorical speaker. My effectiveness is mastering all of the data and being able to respond. Norman Finkelstein Read Quote
