Quotes by Norman Finkelstein

Holocaust Memorial Day has nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust. The Holocaust industry has nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust. All it is, is an ideological weapon of Israel and its supporters to immunize Israel and its supporters from criticism. It has nothing to do with the actual event. These people don’t care about the actual event. They don’t care about the survivors. It’s a manipulative public relations device, and I think nobody should have any truck with it. You should stay away from it, you should boycott it, and say that you’re not going to allow the Nazi holocaust to be turned into an ideological club to keep dissenting opinion in line.

Just look at what happened, the build-up to the war in Iraq in 2003. Anyone who dissented—anyone who dissented from an illegal war of aggression was accused of being an appeaser of Hitler. Now can you imagine that? The Nazi holocaust has now become the main ideological weapon for justifying wars of aggression. That’s a fact. Every time Israel and the United States want to launch an illegal war of aggression, what do they charge? That their enemy is Hitler. Ahmadinejad, he’s Hitler. Hezbollah’s Hitler. Hamas is Hitler. Every time they want to commit an illegal war of aggression, they use the Nazi holocaust to justify it. Now that’s the ultimate irony. The Nazi holocaust has become the chief, the main ideological weapon for waging illegal wars of aggression.

Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann once asked a British official why the British continued to support Zionism despite Arab opposition. Didn't it make more sense for them to keep Palestine but drop support for Zionism? "Although such an attitude may afford a temporary relief and may quiet Arabs for a short time," the official replied, "it will certainly not settle the question as the Arabs don't want the British in Palestine, and after having their way with the Jews, they would attack the British position, as the Moslems are doing in Mesopotamia, Egypt and India." Another British official judged retrospectively that, however much Arab resentment it provoked, British support for Zionism was prudent policy, for it established in the midst of an "uncertain Arab world a well-to-do educated, modern community, ultimately bound to be dependent on the British Empire."

Israel flew about 3,000 sorties over Gaza. Every plane came back. None was damaged. None was downed. There was no fighting in Gaza. If you read the reports that were issued by the—the testimonies of the Israeli soldiers, the one consistent theme in all of the testimonies was they never met any Hamas militants, they never engaged in any battles. Some of the Israeli soldiers expressed exasperation: “We came here to fight. We’re not fighting anyone.” There was no—there were no battles. There were no Hamas militants in the field. The basic fact was, as a couple of Israeli soldiers said—one of them said, “This was like PlayStation, a computer game.” Another Israeli soldier said, literally—I’m quoting exactly, almost word for word—he said, “It was like a child with a magnifying glass burning ants.” That’s what Gaza was like.

... One soldier after another after another after another said Israel used insane amounts of firepower. Insane amounts of firepower. There were no soldiers, no battles, but they’re using insane amounts of firepower. One soldier said—two soldiers, actually, talked about how the ground was trembling because of all the bombing and all of the missiles and all of the rockets. Another said that “We were told—even though we were firing in the distance, we were told to evacuate the houses we were in, because the shaking from the distance was going to cause the house to collapse over our heads.”

It was a massacre in Gaza. And you don’t really see that, because they’re measuring everything against what they call the laws of war. But you’re applying laws of war to a massacre. There was no war there.

Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.

The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.

We can’t look passively for “leaders” to make the world a better place. In order to achieve those positions of power and privilege, you have to have been pretty ruthless, and in order to get to the top, you have to ultimately be serving the interests of those at the top. And the interests of those at the top are not the interests of most of humanity. Most of humanity, regrettably or not, has to fight its own struggles to get its place at the table, and not just be there waiting for a few crumbs.