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Norman Finkelstein getting name dropped in the files and coming out the other side looking even more morally upstanding
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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He is cool in his area of expertise and should be mostly ignored in his opinion of anytjing else. He didn't investigate and had no right to speak. He holds this standard for the stuff he knows about and should hold the same for stuff he's ignorant about.
His most recent book is entirely about how he is a "rebel" against woke. He has decided that is his expertise, and so you can't say he "didn't investigate" it. He did, and came down on the side of being an old crank who makes fun of pronouns.
There are also some solid Palestinian critique to his prominence in even talks about Palestine. Aside from the racism involved in elevating a non-Palestinian as a voice of authority (a struggle Palestinians have spoken about at length, where their opinions are only considered legitimized by acceptance by Jewish people), he has spoken over Palestinians, and has called BDS a cult, has argued against the dismantling of Israel (though he may have changed his tune on that one), and has blamed Palestinians who call for the end of Israel for their own victimization by elevating Zionist fears into a potential reality and giving imagined cause to oppress Palestinians. Ultimately you could find just as many people to talk about this that don't spend their twilight years as an old academic in the US yelling about woke and cancel culture and punching down on trans people.
I won't discount his work (I've read many of books and find them very useful), but the man himself doesn't impress me.
Edit: long-winded way to say kill your idols. Elevate people's works and actions, but not the people. Hero worship, even of leftists, is counter to the ideology they are espousing anyway
Well, that's a bummer. I can say he probavlt didnt investigate it, he can get a book deal for anything he writes and can be as arrogant as he gets mad at others about Israel/Palestine if he feels like it. I doubt he did any real investigation cause his conclusions prove that. He is an old crank tho. I am saying a guy who is only good at one thing is only good at one thing.