Norman Finkelstein

Published on May 28, 2012
BBC News Channel, Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Norman Finkelstein - Political scientist

This BBC host is completely focused on style and oblivious to substance. So what if her guest is acerbic? Is he right or wrong?

The interview starts with hard aggressive questioning and ends in outright bickering. She interrupts Mr. Finkelstein while he is answering one of her questions and asks, out of the blue and completely unrelated to what he was saying, "Do you ever hold back? Do you ever self-censor?" This is an interview with the interviewer persistently trying to insult the interviewee. She hardly gives him sufficient time to answer. The focus is in discrediting Mr. Finkelstein. The agony and suffering of the Palestinian people seems to be of no interest.

Finkelstein on a Gandhian strategy for Gaza

[Finkelstein comments: I originally wrote this article having in mind a Gandhian strategy for dismantling the illegal wall Israel has been constructing in the West Bank. The same Gandhian principles however apply to breaking the illegal Gaza blockade.]

Gandhil lecture

Resolving the Israel-Palestine Conflict: What we can learn from Gandhi

Tans Lecture, Maastricht University (13 November 2008)

This lecture will divide into three parts. First, I will lay out the terms of the international consensus for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. Second, I will sketch Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolent civil resistance. Third, I will assess the relevance of Gandhi’s doctrine for the Israel-Palestine conflict. I will argue that a moral legal consensus is a prerequisite for Gandhi’s doctrine to succeed. In the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict such a consensus does exist, and consequently those seeking a just and lasting peace might benefit from giving Gandhi’s doctrine a serious hearing.

I. What is the international consensus for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict?

II. What is Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolence?

III. What can supporters of a just peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict learn from Gandhi?

U.S. support of Israel

The true face of the supposed "only democracy in the Middle East". A young American Jew quietly and calmly voices his opposition to Israel's policies towards the Palestinians, both in the occupied territories and in Israel itself, and is attacked by the Israeli police, who drag him along the road face down and throw him into a police van.