My Interview With Norman Finkelstein

This is a transcript of an interview with Norman Finkelstein last November, which was conducted by Atticus Mullikin and arranged and filmed by Bernd Kapeller, Associate Producer at the European Journalism Centre. The video was recorded following Mr. Finkelstein's lecture The Israel-Palestine Conflict: What We Can Learn From Gandhi at Maastricht University. You can also watch a video of this interview on Mr. Finkelstein's website.

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AM - We're speaking today with Norman Finkelstein. He received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. For many years he taught political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is currently an independent scholar.

Finkelstein is the author of five books which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions, including:

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

He has just completed a new book entitled A Farewell to Israel: The coming break-up of American Zionism, to be published in 2009.

Mr. Finkelstein, welcome to Maastricht.

N. Finkelstein - Well, thank you.

AM - I'd like to start off by asking…we just finished listening to you speaking at the Studium Generale event at Maastricht University. I was wondering if you could tell us if you notice a difference in the reception you receive in the United States as opposed to Europe?

N. Finkelstein – No, actually, college audiences, their reception, tends to be fairly homogeneous. Wherever I speak, there seems to be an element of seriousness, earnestness, and interest. If you treat an audience with respect, or if you treat a college classroom with respect, wherever you go there's pretty much the same reception.

AM - The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering was published in 2000. I was wondering if you could tell us what the "Holocaust Industry" is?

N. Finkelstein – Basically it's the exploitation of the colossal suffering of Jews during the Second World War for political - and for a certain period, financial - gain. The political gain was basically using the Nazi Holocaust as a club to silence criticism of Israel. And at some point this Holocaust compensation racket - the extraction of monies from European governments in the name of what we'll call needy Holocaust victims began and [I think the figure now comes to about] 20 billion dollars were coerced from European governments, mostly on fraudulent grounds.

AM - You've spoken about the holocaust in two different lights: one is the historical event, the Nazi Holocaust, and the other is the "ideological holocaust" you're mentioning now, used as a means of profiteering; would that be a fair categorization?...

N. Finkelstein – Profiteering and political intimidation.

AM – Could you contrast the two? What is the picture of the actual history as opposed to the one that's presented?

N. Finkelstein – The actual history – there are many competent historians who've done excellent research on the topic. It's not the historians that usually get the big reviews in the mainstream media. They [the historians] treat the topic with a great deal of seriousness. As I say, they've accumulated a significant body of research, pioneered by Raul Hilberg, the Austrian-born, American political scientist – his book being The Destruction of the European Jews.

And then there's all this schlock, nonsense, which basically is used to defend Israel and deflect criticism of Israeli policy. You can usually tell this literature because it asserts or insists on the absolute uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust with the claim that no people in the history of humanity have ever suffered the way Jews suffered. And that's clearly an ideological claim; you can't intellectually prove things like that. It's almost absurd to want to prove them.

The purpose is fairly straightforward: that is, if people have "uniquely suffered," then they can't be held to conventional moral and legal standards. So, for example, if you say that Israel tortures Palestinian detainees, well, then you're told, "Remember the Holocaust." Or, [if you say] that Israel illegally demolishes the homes of Palestinians, you're told, "Remember the Holocaust." The point being, that because Jews suffered uniquely, it somehow excuses these – by any other standard – crimes.

AM – You said this evening – and I'm paraphrasing because I wasn't able to write it down quickly enough – ..."there exists a consensus for…resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There's no conflict in the world which is less complicated, less controversial."

Referring again to the publication of The Holocaust Industry, when the hardcover edition came out – and I'm quoting from the forward to the soft cover edition later – "The book evoked considerable reaction internationally. In contrast to the deafening roar elsewhere, the initial response in the United States was silence."

Why is that? Why in the United States is there this idea that it's such a complex issue and why was there silence when this book came out?

N. Finkelstein – Well, now I think that we're confusing [the issue]. I spoke this evening on the Israel-Palestine conflict and said that it was relatively uncomplicated, probably the least complicated conflict in the world.

But in the case of the Nazi Holocaust there are serious, scholarly questions which it's not easy to supply answers to. In fact, the most basic questions remain areas of great contention among historians. The basic questions are, "Why did Hitler order the Nazi Holocaust and when did he order it?" The "why" and the "when." And in fact there's no agreement among historians on the answers to those two questions.

AM – So, this idea that often emerges of linking the Holocaust to the "necessity for Israel," that's not a valid correlation?

N. Finkelstein – People can make that sort of argument and I don't think it's, in itself, invalid. The issue that arises is, given the catastrophe that Jews endured during World War Two, can a catastrophe - even of those dimensions or of that magnitude – can a catastrophe of that magnitude justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? That's the issue. In my opinion, the answer is no. No amount of human suffering can justify the amounts of which were inflicted on a people [the Palestinians] that clearly had no responsibility for the suffering itself.

AM – Speaking of this correlating of these two historical events - the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel - you've turned some references to the Third Reich on their head in the past. On the April 16, 2002 episode of Democracy Now, you said that a rally supporting Jewish occupation of Palestinian lands and opposing negotiations with Yasser Arafat resembled "a Jewish version of a Nuremberg Rally more than it did a peace rally." You've referenced Hitler's Lebensraum, the idea of a virgin, empty Eastern Europe, to Zionist arguments that Palestine was a virgin, empty wilderness. That's typified by From Time Immemorial, by Joan Peters, that claims that much of 1948 [non Jewish] Palestine population were recent immigrants from neighboring Arab states.

Is it, and this is a rhetorical question, is it appropriate, in the wake of the Holocaust to make such comparisons?

N. Finkelstein – Well, the examples you cited didn't pertain directly to the Nazi Holocaust. If you say a rally "resembles" a Nuremburg rally, I'm not sure what's the connection between that and speaking about Auschwitz or exterminations or genocide. Similarly…the second example you gave…oh, the Lebensraum: that's not necessarily the Nazi Holocaust. The Lebensraum dealt with the conquest of Eastern Europe.

As a general rule, I'm not sure what's the point of studying history if you can't compare and contrast. That seems to me the essence of history. A typical history question in high school, "Compare and contrast the French and Russian Revolutions." "Compare and contrast the British and the French Monarchy." Comparing and contrasting is the essence of history. So then to suddenly say that when it comes to the Nazi Holocaust, nothing can be compared and nothing can be contrasted, then it suddenly becomes a case of Holocaust denial to even compare or contrast…that seems to me to turn what should be history into some sort of religion. You're just worshipping at some totem and the totem is called, "The Holocaust."

AM – Given this idea…that the Holocaust doesn't give the Jewish people special dispensation, so to speak, is it fair to say that they're guilty of hypocrisy to, in the wake of the Holocaust, treating the Palestinians in the manner that they [Israeli Jews] are?...Or does the Holocaust exonerate them [the Jews] to a degree?

N. Finkelstein – I don't think any suffering you endure exonerates you and gives you the right to inflict suffering on others. That doesn't make any sense to me. The usual relationship is that it's supposed to sensitize you to other people's sufferings, not give you the right to abuse other people. That doesn't seem to make much sense to me. I don't think I'd say much beyond that.

AM - On July 4th in 1946 in the Polish town of Kielce, there was a pogrom where 37 Jews were killed, including many survivors of the death camps. The murders were instigated with the medieval claim of the Blood Libel - this idea that Jews used the blood of Christian children in their rituals. There were other acts of violence against Jews in the post-war period, but the Kielce pogrom served, at least at the time, as a symbol for the necessity of a Jewish state. A lot of people who returned to Poland and other parts of Europe used that as a reason, "This is why we need a Jewish state."

Do you think that Kielce and the subsequent conflicts between the Jews and the neighboring Arab states lend any legitimate credence to this idea of Israel, and Jews, as eternal victims, that they have to have a sort of fortified state?

N. Finkelstein – As I've said, I think a reasonable person can make the argument that...what Jews endured during World War II would justify their claims on the state [of Israel]. I think you can make that argument. I happen not to agree with it, because I think the alternative of fighting for your rights within a state – the state you happen to reside in – is also an option. That was, for example, Gandhi's position - the Jews should have fought for their rights as equal citizens within the state that they reside in.

But I think reasonable people can say that, as an alternative to fighting for rights within your state, people might decide the struggle is futile or it's not worth it, and so we'd like to…establish our own state. I can see that argument. But that's not really the issue at stake here. The issue at stake here is, "Do those claims, do those historic and colossal injustices, do they justify the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of an area?" And I think the answer to that is plainly, "No."

AM – Do you think the answer would have been different in the colonial period?

N. Finkelstein - The answer might have been different in the colonial period but that's just saying that colonialism is wrong.

AM – Alright. I'd like to read you a quote from the book Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum. He's referring in this quote specifically to Claude Lanzmann…Paris-based filmmaker who created the 9 ½ hour film Shoah, released in 1985. Rosenbaum said, "For Lanzmann, the attempt to explain Hitler is not merely futile but immoral - he calls the very enterprise of understanding obscene. 'There are some pictures of Hitler as a baby too, aren't there?' he has said. 'There is even a book written...about Hitler's childhood, an attempt at explanation which is for me obscenity as such.' Rosenbaum then said, "One can sense why Lanzmann finds in the impressionable plasticity of the baby pictures a fatally alluring invitation...the deceptive and dangerous promise of understanding.

Do you see any correlations between Lanzmann's characterization of Hitler explainers, with those who address the question "Why?" - which is the question that's always repeated about the Holocaust – as "obscene," to the modern state of Israel's assertion that many of its critics are anti-Semitic?

N. Finkelstein – Look, this is just nonsense. It's just meaningless drivel. "Plasticity of pictures." What do these terms mean? They're completely empty-headed. It's "obscene" to try to understand?

Now I understand that the documentary he [Lanzmann] produced was quite good. My parents watched it, I never did. But why is it obscene to try to understand why a phenomenon happened? Do you want to worship at it? Do you want to explain it? Or do you want to understand it in order to avert its repetition? To say that trying to understand it is "obscene..." I'm afraid to say this is typical French intellectual drivel.

And then there's these expressions, "…obscene as such." What does "as such" mean? It's just this pretentious twaddle. I wonder why people even pay attention to this, it's just "pseudo-profundity." Would you say of any other crime in history it's "obscene" to try and understand it? Oh, it's OK to try and understand Genghis Khan and Joseph Stalin, but it's obscene to try to understand Hitler. Why?

AM – Do you think that the attempt to try to characterize understanding as "obscene" has influenced the perception of criticisms of Israel today?...

N. Finkelstein – The whole purpose of this is to put the Nazi Holocaust in a category all its own. Everything else is understandable. The Nazi Holocaust is not understandable. Everything else we should try to rationally comprehend. The Nazi Holocaust, it's obscene to try to comprehend it. It's all designed to prove the uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust and therefore the uniqueness of Jewish suffering and therefore to exempt Jews in Israel from ordinary moral standards. It's a shakedown. It's moral extortion.

AM – At the beginning of the presentation this evening, there was a statement that you grew up in a home that was hostile to war. I'd like ask you a question about your parents, if that's OK. You are the son of two Holocaust survivors. They were both in the Warsaw Ghetto. Your father survived Auschwitz and your mother Majdanek. How do you think they would see your perspectives on the Holocaust.

N. Finkelstein – My parents lived until 1995 and I was already quite active politically on this issue since the early 1980's. There were no major disagreements. There probably would have been disagreements, had they lived, regarding my views of the Germans.

I'm not prepared to categorize any group of people as being evil. My parents, there's no love lost between them and the Germans or them and the Polish people. We probably would have disagreed and probably would have disagreed strongly on that issue.

AM – Well, it was a pleasure to speak with you and it was a pleasure to hear your lecture this evening.

N. Finkelstein – Well, thank you.

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