Discover the Best Books Written by Norman G. Finkelstein

Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He graduated from Binghamton University and received his Ph.D. in political science at Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.

In 2007, after a highly publicized feud between Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz, an academic opponent, Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul. He was placed on administrative leave for the 2007–08 academic year, and on September 5, 2007, he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university on largely undisclosed terms.

In an official statement, Finkelstein said that he had more than fulfilled the requirements for tenure. The department and college-level committees had voted to tenure him. He concluded that the decision not to give assignment was due to external pressures that had affected the process; in the same statement, DePaul defended the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure and said that outside influence played no role in the decision and described Finkelstein as "a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher." In 2008, he was denied entry to Israel and banned from entering the country for ten years.

Beginning with his doctoral thesis at Princeton, Finkelstein's writings have been controversial. He has described himself as a "forensic" scholar who has worked to demystify what he considers pseudo-scholarly arguments. In addition, he has written scathing academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars he accuses of misrepresenting facts to defend Israel's policies and practices.

His writings have dealt with politically charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine, and his allegations of the existence of a "Holocaust industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests. He has also described himself as "an old-fashioned communist" in the sense that he "see[s] no value whatsoever in states." Finkelstein's work has been praised by scholars such as Raul Hilberg, Avi Shlaim, and Noam Chomsky, and his advocates and detractors have remarked on his controversial style.