American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein is a documentary about the life and work of Professor Norman. To be honest, when watching him on YouTube, I always thought that he had a case of autism. He is always rigid, straight to the point, and emotionless! The first minute of the DVD is a black screen with Dr. Norman throwing a joke!
There is alot of footage from lectures, debates that are not found on YouTube, i recommend everyone interested in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to watch it. He is outstanding, very articulate, and funny; he was let go from his university due to pressures from the Jewish lobby, and he was banned from entering Israel for ten years.
This documentary shows everything about him: childhood, parents, family, education, his friends in Palestine, his friends in Israel, and his body of work.
I read his book The Holocaust Industry, and I recommend it to everyone. I’m going to try to read his other books as soon as I can find them here.
What’s ironic is that he is one of the few individuals in this world who stands tall and stands up for the injustice happening to Palestinians, and he happens to be a Jew himself. At the same time, no prominent Arab in the public eye, as far as I know, did a fraction of what Dr Norman did; the closest to an Arab was the Turkish Prime minister, who walked out at the World Economic Forum after giving the Israeli Perez an earful before leaving the stage. At the same time, Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa was mute.
Quotes:
they say i didn’t say any good words about Israel, lets be clear about one thing, in my view… Israelis have the right to be there, they have the right to exercise self determination in what is historic Palestine, i have no questions about that in my mind, i have many friends who live there, many people i deeply respect, i have no interest whatsoever in playing this game of bashing Israel, thats not my thing.
But…but… allow me the “but” for those of you who are snickering… but just as it would be shameful… shameful.. for any German during world war 2 to give a lecture singing the praises of Germany, and just as during the US war in Vietnam for me to sing the praises of the US, amid the horror and amid the suffering, I’m not gonna sing the praises of Israel, when the war is over, when Palestinians have equal rights, when there is justice there, i will very happy to join along everybody to singing the Israels accomplishments and criticizing its faults.. but not while and when its torturing the Palestinians.
Q: why you completely not mentioned Palestinian terrorists?
A: we do have the problem that every time an effort is made on the Palestinian or the European side to negotiate an end to the violent attacks against Israel, which i have no fear at all calling terrorists… so long as you have no fear of calling the leader of the state of Israel one of the main terrorists in the world today.
While Dr. Norman is reading in public his agreement with DePaul University to stop teaching there due to huge pressure from the Jewish Lobby, a person in the crowd says: you are too good for DePaul.
He answers: Not true.
Though he was let go by DePaul University, he still feels humbled in front of his employer.
Watch it.
