American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein

Mary Finkelstein:
I remember that my biggest desire and dream was that if I ever survive, I will stay tall and tell people the story. I now am strictly a pacifist and I believe that if you kill you don't achieve. With the first killing, you've already lost.

Norman Finkelstein:
[responding to hecklers at a lecture he is giving] Excuse me! Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and it's precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians.

Norman Finkelstein:
[commenting on Alan Derschowitz's new book] I was asked to come in and discuss his new book. I went home and purchased one copy. In fact I purchased two copies. I read the book very carefully, I did what someone serious does with a book: I read the text, I went through the footnotes. I went through it very carefully, and there's only one conclusion one can reach having read the book... and this is a scholarly judgment, it's not an ad hominem attack; Mr. Derschowitz has concocted a fraud.

Norman Finkelstein:
Believe me, sometimes I wonder whether it's worth it. As I like to say, speaking as a devout atheist, thank God that in His almighty wisdom he made us mortal. We don't have to endure it through eternity.

Norman Finkelstein:
[on being called a self-hating jew] Okay, for argument's sake let's assume it's true. Let's say I have deep identity conflicts. Let's assume it's all true. What's the relevance? The only relevant question is whether what I'm saying is true or false. Let's say Einstein had deep identity conflicts. How does that influence one's judgment about his physics?