Fresh from his show of support for Hizbullah, Anti-Israel Professor Norman Finkelstein reveals more about his views in an interview with Al Jizzeera.
While you can read the whole thing here, here are some observations.
He’s deluded:
Israel’s case [for occupation] has collapsed, it’s not just weak, it has collapsed. You could see in the audience [at Manchester University] there was a row of hostile people who were anxious to hear me finally come to the end, but when I was done they had no objections because you can’t argue the case any more.
I think people know too much.
He’s either ignorant or deliberately skewing the truth (I go for the latter):
The Palestinians have to find a way to act on their own, and I think what happened in late January [the destruction of part of the wall separating Gaza from Egypt] is a good sign.
That is exactly what they should be doing in the West Bank. One million Palestinians armed with picks and hammers should go to that wall and say “The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said this wall has to be dismantled. We are implementing the ICJ decision. We are knocking down the wall.”(This is not what happened – ed).
He support palestinian terrorism against the IDF:
Does that mean you encourage violence?
What happened in Gaza last month was not violence. I advocate what international law allows – that people under occupation can resist occupation using means which are legal under that law. This includes violence so long as you are targeting combatants and not civilians.
He really hates Israel:
George Bush, the US president, has called Iran and North Korea “rogue states”. Do you consider Israel a “rogue state”?
It is more than a rogue state. It is a lunatic state. The only country in the world where the population overwhelmingly supports an attack on Iran is Israel – 78 per cent want to attack Iran. The state has gone berserk. The whole world is yearning for peace, and Israel is constantly yearning for war.
He is unprincipled:
One of the most serious claims against you mentions your invitation to Tehran’s Review of the Holocaust conference in December 2006.
I said I would appear under three conditions. Number one, you have to provide me with a list of who the invitees are because I want to be able to judge if this is a serious conference or if it is a circus. Number two, you have to give me serious time to present my point if view, and number three, you have to let me speak at the universities to the students (yet he willingly attends ‘circuses’ when it suits him -ed).
And he supports Hamas:
What about the claim that you testified as an expert witness for Hamas in a 2006 US court trial?
In Chicago, there was a person who was indicted on some lunatic terrorism charge and I was called in as an expert witness on what Hamas’ record was in Gaza. That’s all I was called in for. I would certainly support them of course, what’s wrong with Hamas? They’re the elected government of Palestine. Who cares what they are considered, the people elected them.
All good to know, especially the next time someone tries to cite him as a credible source in support of their position.
