Conducted during Professor Finkelstein’s US college speaking tour, this interview was never publicly released until now.
The interviewer, Ron Kelley, is photographer trained in anthropology, a visual ethnographer who spent the early 1990s living and working in Israel’s Negev desert. During a year-long Fulbright fellowship in 1992–93, he went beyond his official brief and recorded the daily enforcement of state policy against Bedouin communities rendered “unrecognised” by law.
Working quietly, he amassed an archive of more than one hundred hours of video, documenting demolitions, raids, testimony from Bedouin families, and candid explanations from Israeli officials themselves.
For decades the footage remained unseen, refused by broadcasters, festivals, and institutions in the United States. Only in 2026, thirty-four years after it was filmed, has Kelley digitised and begun releasing this archive publicly, making visible a record that had long been buried in plain sight.
Watch the full interview here. Watch “Israel’s destruction of its Bedouin” here before it is deleted. Support Ron’s work by donating here.
Interview Transcript below:
Ron Kelley: There is an especially poignant section in the film, American Radical, when a young woman starts weeping as she talks about your comments about the Holocaust. Could you discuss your response to that whole realm?
Norman Finkelstein: First of all, I did not see the film, but I do know that particular segment. It went viral on YouTube on the internet. There is a bit of a misunderstanding about that segment.
Everybody assumes, because they did not listen closely, that the young woman was Jewish, but she is not Jewish. If you listen closely to what she said, she began by saying my remarks were offensive to Germans. She is German. She is not Jewish.
I found it extremely offensive because, as I told her, but it was not in the film, I said: I think you are a little bit confused, young lady. It is your parents who murdered my parents. So do not lecture me on how to speak about the Nazi Holocaust.
The Germans have this kind of breast-beating theatric. It is their passion play now to show how pained and anguished they are about the Nazi Holocaust. I would be very happy if it were authentic, but it is not authentic at all. It is theatre.
I was resentful at her telling me. I lived with my parents’ horrors for their entire life and for nearly my whole life except for the last fifteen years. Nobody is going to tell me when it is and when it is not apt to invoke the memory of, or make analogies with, the Nazi Holocaust.
Ron Kelley: Why have so many people in the Jewish community been so active in the idea of universality in the context of the American civil rights movement, but so many reverse position when it comes to Israel, where Jewish particularity and so forth is heralded as an important moral virtue?
Norman Finkelstein: That is a good question. I think the answer is that people learn to live with contradictions. Jews have been able to live with the contradiction that, in the United States, they demand strict separation of church and state and they demand full equality under the law, but they do not see a contradiction between that and supporting the idea of a state that belongs to a particular ethnic group, in which other non-members of the group are, at best, given a second-class status and ultimately are transmitted the message that they do not belong and that they should leave.
How Jews reconcile that: as I said, people learn to live with contradictions between what they avow and how they act. Here it is slightly different because it is not just a contradiction between what they avow and how they act. It is a contradiction between two sets of avowals: the demand for full equality under the law here, and the demand for a state which denies full equality there.
Ron Kelley: In your view, is there a strong component of Jewish religious values, the chosen people, nation apart, all that, invested in modern secular Zionism, per the arguments of people like Israel Shahak and Joel Kovel? What is your perspective on that?
Norman Finkelstein: I am not sure of the question. You have to explain it.
Ron Kelley: The chosen people, the nation apart ideas, religious, Jewish religious history. Does that actually inform modern Zionist worldview?
Norman Finkelstein: I am not religious and I cannot speak in any authoritative way to the religious texts. I suppose Judaism has been adapted by many Jews in such a way as to confirm what has been, and cannot be denied, a remarkable success story of modern Jewry.
Whether you look at things like the number of Nobel laureates who are Jewish, or the positions of power and privilege that Jews occupy in American society, there is a sense among Jews that we are special. It is not a sense that just derives from abstract notions or religion. It is a sense that derives from remarkable secular, worldly success.
When you have this remarkable secular, worldly success, you begin to find notions in the Jewish religion which confirm that success, namely chosen people, nation apart. The whole world is jealous of us. They envy us. If they criticise us, it cannot be because we are doing something wrong. They are criticising us from jealousy and envy.
I think it is a reciprocal effect where there are elements in the Jewish religion which confirm this notion of chosenness, but on the other hand there is this worldly success of Jews which then points the eye towards those elements of religion which validate the specialness of Jews, things like chosenness.
In a lot of cases, it is not the religion. Most Jews are secular, overwhelmingly. It is simply a sense of superiority that derives from what Jews seem to believe are the objective facts that Jews are by far and away the most wealthy ethnic group in the United States, and the level of success is quite extraordinary.
Ron Kelley: How is the Holocaust used, in your view, as a political tool, with Israel and so forth?
Norman Finkelstein: Basically, the way the Nazi Holocaust is used is to say that Jews suffered uniquely during the Nazi Holocaust, which is sometimes called the uniqueness doctrine. That is, never before in the history of humanity has any ethnic group suffered the way Jews suffered. Because Jews have suffered uniquely, then they should not be held to the same ordinary moral and legal standards as anybody else, because their suffering was unique.
So then if you say Israel has committed X crime, or Y crime, or Z crime against the Palestinians, or against neighbouring Arab states, then we are told: remember the Holocaust. Remember that special suffering which should grant us a pass.
Ron Kelley: In The Holocaust Industry, there are two central dogmas, many things of course, but one is what you alluded to. The Holocaust marks a categorically unique historical event, and the Holocaust marks the climax of an irrational, eternal gentile hatred of Jews. Could you elaborate on that, please?
Norman Finkelstein: Basically, the way the Nazi Holocaust is conceived, it is conceived as the climax of a millennial hatred of Jews by non-Jews.
Obviously there are elements of truth to that, as there are generally elements of truth to most ideologies, even the most erratic. There is an element of truth to that.
The thing is, Nazi ideology was a synthesis of many strands. For example, if you are insistent on the fact that the Nazi Holocaust was the climax or culmination of millennial antisemitism, you cannot explain why the first victims of Hitler’s Final Solution were handicapped people and cripples. That does not make sense.
If you look at the typical histories of the Nazi Holocaust, they begin with the fact that around 1938 or 1939, Hitler begins to implement this programme to kill off people whom the Nazis called people who had defects. They used the expression “a life not worth living”.
If you situate the Nazi Holocaust strictly and narrowly in the framework of, or in the trajectory of, antisemitism, that does not make sense.
Or if you situate the Nazi Holocaust strictly and narrowly in the question of antisemitism, then why were gypsies targeted? Why was he intent, or the Nazis, he in particular, intent on wiping out the Polish population?
The framework of millennial antisemitism explains some things about the Nazi Holocaust, but it does not explain everything.
Ron Kelley: Could you address the issue of censorship in academia? You have faced it quite a bit, and a lot of other people who are in the ballpark of your argument face academic intimidation. Could you elaborate on all that? What is going on in academia?
Norman Finkelstein: First of all, I do not think it is entirely true to say that a lot of people faced what I did. To my knowledge, I was the only one denied tenure. There was another case that had nothing to do with Israel-Palestine. The other well-known academic freedom case was Ward Churchill, but that was an altogether different issue with Churchill.
To my knowledge, I was the only one denied tenure, and in general academia is pretty accommodating for dissenting points of view.
The reason a vendetta was launched against me was not because of my point of view. From the point of view of academia, I am actually quite mild, and I do not mean that rhetorically. I mean it literally.
A lot of academics advocate what is called a one-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. I am pretty conventional: two states.
A lot of academics attempt to justify, using some form of jargon, postmodern jargon or something, things like terrorism. I do not. So I am pretty tame if you look at my actual political positions.
What caused a furore, in my opinion, was that I am an activist. I was actually having an impact on public opinion, not a lot obviously, I am one person, but I was having an impact, and I was pretty effective at what I was doing.
They were determined to stop me because, unlike most academics, I did not confine my involvement to academic conferences and academic journals, wine and cheese parties. I was out there trying to reach public opinion, and so I needed to be stopped.
If I were just espousing my ideas in the most narrow conception of academic freedom, namely the right to express your point, they would not have cared.
Ron Kelley: Could you discuss Elie Wiesel, his influence in what you call the Holocaust industry?
Norman Finkelstein: Elie Wiesel kind of embodies the whole ideology of the Holocaust. This notion of the uniqueness of Jewish suffering, and the mystification of the Nazi Holocaust.
It cannot be understood. Obviously, at some level, any human experience you cannot understand. It is true. Until my parents passed away, I would not have known what death felt like. I have never been a parent, and I am sure a parent will tell you: you do not know what it is like to have your child. At some level, every experience is beyond human grasp.
But on the other hand, at some level, every experience is within the grasp of reason and rationality, within limits.
In the case of the Nazi Holocaust, it becomes uniquely inaccessible to reason. The University of Chicago sociologist Peter Novick said that Wiesel had turned the Nazi Holocaust into a mystery religion, and I think that is correct.
Ron Kelley: Could you discuss how the charge of antisemitism and Jewish self-hatred, all those things, are used politically in silencing dissent?
Norman Finkelstein: Basically, if you cannot answer an argument, you change the subject. In the case of criticism of Israel, you try to discredit the messenger because you cannot answer the message.
Everybody who criticises Israel, rather than dealing with the criticism itself, is charged with antisemitism.
It is becoming more and more ineffective as a weapon because of overuse, charging everyone, and now it is a large number of people who are critical of Israel.
More importantly, it is becoming ineffective as a weapon because it is being used more against mainstream people who are known.
When you attack this fellow nobody has ever heard of, named Norman Finkelstein, and say he is an antisemite, people are willing to believe it because they do not know who I am. But then when you start calling Jimmy Carter an antisemite, it is something very different because Jimmy Carter is a well-known quantity in American life and he has established, at least since his presidency, a pretty impressive record of devotion to causes of human rights and human decency. So when you charge him with being an antisemite, it loses its credibility.
It reached its ultimate absurdity, reductio ad absurdum, when they started to charge Richard Goldstone with being an antisemite. He was a very respected international jurist from South Africa who investigated Israeli conduct during the invasion of Gaza, and he reached the conclusion that Israel had committed quite significant war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. Then it started to be said that Goldstone was an antisemite.
The problem is Goldstone is Jewish, a practising Jew, and he is also, by his own reckoning, a very committed Zionist.
Ron Kelley: How do you understand the semantic issues evolving in the naming of your and other people’s ideological enemy? Is it Zionist? Is it Jewish Zionists? Is it the organised Jewish community? There is a lot of argument and, at risk of being called an antisemite, that is always a subtext. Could you discuss that?
Norman Finkelstein: I do not find these terms very useful. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the theory of Zionism, and I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that virtually nobody who hurls around the epithet Zionist or anti-Zionist knows what it is.
I would not call it a complex ideology. It does not require a degree in particle physics to understand it. But on the other hand, it does have intellectual content. It does not mean anything nowadays. It is just an epithet. You do not like somebody, they are a Zionist.
I do not think it is useful. I think it is useful to stick to language and categories which everybody understands. Israel violates human rights. Israel is guilty of aggression. The conventional language of our day is the language of human rights and international law, and I think you can say everything in that language that you can say using epithets like Zionist.
Ron Kelley: You mentioned in the book, The Holocaust Industry, systematic institutional bias that exists on the subject of Israel and so forth. Who is that? Where does it come from? Why is it so widespread in modern society?
Norman Finkelstein: I think there are a number of reasons.
The first reason is Israel serves US interests. So just like the US government gets a free pass in the American media, it would be unsurprising if Israel did not also get a free pass because Israel serves US interests. It is the same reason that Egypt gets a free pass in the American media. People think Egypt is a democracy.
Egypt has had emergency laws in effect non-stop since Sadat’s assassination in 1981, I guess. Sadat has been the president for life, no different than Duvalier in Haiti, but Egypt gets a free pass.
When Obama goes to speak to the Arab Muslim world, where does he go? He goes to Cairo, and it does not say anything about the government under which he is, whose invitation he has accepted.
The second reason is, it is true, and there is no reason to be in denial of it, the Jews occupy a prominent place in the media and publishing and Hollywood, the arts, and that has an influence. It would be remarkable if there were not an influence.
When I was growing up and you watched film and you watched the arts, you would think that the whole history of the United States was written by white males. Actually, the whole history of the world was made by white males. Why? Because white males control everything in the United States. Obviously, they are going to depict a history which is very flattering to them.
So if Jews occupy a prominent place in the arts, it is unsurprising that they would convey an image that was flattering to Jews. That does not really surprise me. It would be surprising if it were different.
Ron Kelley: Could you discuss the Anti-Defamation League? You are on one of their official watch lists and so forth. What is it? What function does it serve? What are its goals? What has it become?
Norman Finkelstein: The Anti-Defamation League, its main function is to defame people who criticise Israel. That is their job.
They like to play the antisemitism card. Already beginning in the mid-1970s, when criticism of Israel became quite, it began, it was not yet prominent but it began in the mid-1970s, they began to put out these publications periodically claiming that there was a new antisemitism.
In 1974, the head of the ADL, Arnold Forster and his partner Benjamin Epstein, put out a book called The New Antisemitism.
Then in 1981, Nathan and Ruth Perlmutter, Perlmutter was the head of the ADL then, put out a book called The Real Antisemitism.
Then Abraham Foxman puts out a book, the current head of the ADL puts out a book called Never Again: The New Antisemitism.
They use the charge of antisemitism as a means of deflecting criticism of Israel. They have a peculiar knack for defaming those who are critical of Israel, including myself.
Ron Kelley: How do you react to the charge that your research and books are gifts to antisemites?
Norman Finkelstein: It is a fact that anything you write can be used by other people in nefarious ways. That is part of the nature of writing.
Then you have to do a balanced reckoning. You have to ask yourself: is the danger of such a magnitude that you should not criticise at all, at this particular moment, or ever?
I do not think Jews are in a particularly precarious situation in the United States. There is no danger of an outbreak of homicidal antisemitism. Their position is quite strong in the United States, and therefore it should not be a deterrent to speak frankly and honestly, especially when crimes of a significant magnitude are taking place.
You could say talking about slavery is going to contribute to hatred of southern whites. Should we not talk about the history of slavery? No. You say: southern whites are doing okay. They can handle a little bit of criticism about their past.
I do think there are times when, yes, you should reserve judgement. If I were in Nazi Germany, for example, and I were a scientist, I do not think it would be appropriate in Nazi Germany, if I were a scientist, to try to do some research on whether or not there is a gene in Jews for craftiness or cheapness. No, I do not think that would be appropriate under those circumstances, and you would have to question the motives of a person who would undertake that research project at that particular moment.
But I do not think, under these circumstances.
I remember Raul Hilberg, the great historian of the Nazi Holocaust, and he had defended me in a lot of the things I was saying. Hilberg was asked the same thing. He said, because he was asked about the things I was saying in connection with what was then West Germany, he said: I think the German Republic, its democracy, is strong enough that it could withstand the kinds of criticisms Finkelstein is making.
Ron Kelley: In 2004 there was a new position created in the State Department called the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism. Do you have any knowledge about this, or any perspective on what that is?
Norman Finkelstein: It is nothing. It is just a bone that is thrown to the Jewish community.
The head of it, his name is Greg. I cannot remember. I know the man. He was involved in the shakedown of the Swiss banks during the Holocaust Industry’s extraction, extraction of monies from Europe. He is a complete imbecile. He is incapable of putting together an English sentence, and so I was actually quite happy when he was appointed to the post.
Now they have somebody new, a woman, I forgot her name.
These are just things that are thrown to the Jewish community. So whoever is the current head of state when it comes to trying to get money.
Ron Kelley: In The Holocaust Industry, John Murray Cuddihy’s exasperation. You have a citation from him. It is a sort of riddle about antisemitism. Do you recall this?
Norman Finkelstein: No, I knew Cuddihy. He taught at Hunter College. He was a smart man.
Ron Kelley: Essentially what he says, the quote you use, is: not only does anything Jews do or refrain from doing have nothing to do with antisemitism, but any attempt to explain antisemitism by referring to the Jewish contribution to antisemitism is itself an instance of antisemitism. Could you elaborate on the implications of that, where that goes?
Norman Finkelstein: Basically, Cuddihy was saying that it is normal that in most cases you would look for some aspect of a person’s conduct to explain why there is animus or love towards that person.
If people love a person, presumably it is because, at least in part, there are some actions of that person which would command admiration and love. If a person, or persons, are hated, it is normal to assume there are some actions on the part of that person that would invite or provoke hatred. That does not mean that is the full story, but it is certainly an area of inquiry, a useful area, and a rational area of inquiry.
Cuddihy was saying that perfectly rational, normal area of inquiry becomes impossible when it comes to antisemitism.
Take a case like today. Israel commits many abominable acts. Israel calls itself the state of the Jewish people. So it would be perfectly reasonable for many Palestinians to hate Jews because Israel claims to be acting in the name of Jews. Each abomination that they commit is being done in the name of the Jewish people.
So it would be perfectly rational for a Palestinian to infer from these facts that there is something evil about Jews and they become antisemitic.
Now that is a reasonable explanation of why many Palestinians might not like Jews. What Cuddihy is saying is: you are not allowed to find a rational explanation regarding Jewish conduct. That is prohibited. Whereas if you think through along those lines, it is perfectly sensible.
The amazing thing about Palestinians is how many do not feel a hatred of Jews.
Ron Kelley: You say in the book, quote, “most successful ethnic group, sorry, the most successful ethnic group in the United States has acquired victim status.” Could you discuss that?
Norman Finkelstein: It is a paradox that even though Jews have done remarkably well in the United States, as I said earlier, an amazing success story, notwithstanding that success, Jews still have in the United States, and cultivate, the status of being victims. That is, on its surface, paradoxical, given the kinds of success Jews have enjoyed in the United States.
Ron Kelley: What has been the mainstream media reaction to your books?
Norman Finkelstein: Basically, the mainstream reaction is: there are no books. They have not been reviewed. The only one that was really reviewed was The Holocaust Industry, and that is because it created a sensation in Europe.
So it became slightly embarrassing not to comment on it in the United States. It sold quite a large number of copies and was on the bestseller list in many European countries for quite a long time. At a certain point it appeared to be censorship not to review the book. So it was reviewed, and it was reviewed very harshly.
Ron Kelley: Harsh. I presume you have supporters who cannot go public with support out of fear and intimidation. Could you discuss that?
Norman Finkelstein: No, I do not think I have supporters who cannot go public. I would say I have supporters who do not do very much in the way of support aside from verbal support. But I would not say it is true.
Ron Kelley: Could you discuss how much personal suffering and struggle it takes to make a stand like you?
Norman Finkelstein: There is no personal suffering. People have to have a sense of proportion.
There is a large part of the world that lives at the edge of poverty, and there is a large part that lives beyond the edge of poverty. I have a roof over my head. I have hearty meals when I want them.
There is a large part of the world where if you make the most elementary criticism of your government, pretty trivial things, you end up dead. In my case, I lost my job. But in large parts of the world, not most but large parts of the world, for demanding your most elementary human rights, you lose a body part. You lose your tongue, you lose your nose, you lose your ear. Then you lose your head, and you lose your life.
So you have to maintain a sense of proportion. In the great scheme of things, I have lived a very blessed life and it really would be the pinnacle of solipsism, self-absorption, for me to be talking about suffering.
The average life expectancy in Africa is forty-six. So I am fifty-six. I have lived already a decade more than I deserve by the standards of Africa.
Ron Kelley: How do you weigh your search for truth versus pragmatism? How many bubbles can you pop before people, especially in the Jewish community, cannot take it anymore? I am thinking perhaps of your comments about Hezbollah and all that. What is your sense as you go through this process?
Norman Finkelstein: I am not out to antagonise anyone, but I am also not going to exercise self-censorship on issues which I think are critical.
When I support Hezbollah, it was in Lebanon in July and August 2006, when Israel was annihilating the country. There is no way I am going to be silent in the midst of that destruction and bloodletting in Lebanon.
Ron Kelley: I think we are there. We are at 9:30.
Norman Finkelstein: Let us just take this and one more question.
There is no way I am going to be silent in the midst of that destruction and bloodletting in Lebanon. I was perfectly aware that there were going to be cameras at the march, that the axis of evil, the ADL and other organisations, were going to use what I said against me.
But I have to weigh that against the fact that people were being killed and I am not going to be silent. I absolutely did then and I continue today.
I support any people who are resisting foreign marauders, vandals, murderers, which is what Israel is doing in Lebanon, and which, in my opinion, they are going to be doing again pretty soon.
Ron Kelley: Last question, I guess. There is a Jewish anti-Zionist, or whatever, a protester in Ann Arbor called Henry Herskovitz. He leads a weekly vigil for seven years. He calls it the Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, outside a conservative synagogue in Ann Arbor. His argument, and I would like your take on it, is that the organised Jewish community today, including synagogues, cannot be separated from Zionism, and that the critic must actually confront the organised, quote, Jewish community, and not only the one term Zionist expressly. So what do you think?
Norman Finkelstein: I have no interest in this kind of language, “confronting Zionism”. It does not mean anything to me. It is gobbledegook.
Let us speak in a language which clarifies what the issues are. If you are opposed to certain policies that Israel is engaged in, then just state the policies, but not all of this “we have to confront Zionism”, like Zionism is some sort of mythical monster, some sort of chimera. I find it rubbish and I will not any longer.
There was a time when I was tolerant of it, but now I find it kind of insidious, this kind of language and this kind of approach to it, because it is either sinister or it is meaningless. Whichever it is, sinister or meaningless, it is not my cup of tea.
I have no interest whatsoever in Zionism. I came to the Israel-Palestine conflict relatively late in life. I was already, in 1982, twenty-nine years old. I was involved mostly in anti-war activity, civil rights movement, and I came to the Israel-Palestine conflict relatively late in life, and it had to do with, it grew out of, my general humanist beliefs.
It had nothing to do with some sort of fixation or obsession with Zionism. If the conflict had been resolved, I would have moved on. I would have looked elsewhere in the world where there was injustice and I would have invested my energies and my time in trying to undo that injustice.
Just as, as a youth, I was involved in the struggle against the war in Vietnam, like many other people.
This focus on Zionism, it is kind of this Captain Ahab, Moby-Dick kind of monomaniacal fixation which I find, if I can say so, slightly disturbed, and I do not want to get involved in it.
So “confronting Zionism”, and their books “overcoming Zionism”, like you are supposed to lie on a couch with a therapist. I find it all nonsense.
