Norman Finkelstein alleges that Israel has committed genocide by attempting to annihilate the Palestinians in Gaza. Moreover, in a recent podcast, Finkelstein denied that heinous abuses were committed by Hamas on and after October 7, 2023. Finkelstein has a long history of anti-Israel activities. In an essay dated October 7, 2023, in response to the Hamas-led massacre of Israeli civilians on that day, Finkelstein wrote, “We honored the heroic resistance of Gaza… The stars above in heaven are looking kindly down. Glory, glory hallelujah.”
Who is Norman Finkelstein? How and why has he become a frequently quoted critic of Israel? Are his claims of Israeli genocide against Palestinians and denial of severe abuse by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists against Israeli civilians valid?
Finkelstein has travelled a long, circuitous road to reach his status as an independent political scientist and public commentator. He holds no academic position, and although he has lectured at many universities, he has never been tenured, indicating that there are questions about the level of his scholarship. He has written and published several books, including The Holocaust Industry and Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. These books are highly critical of Israel and its use of the Holocaust to shield its policies from criticism. Reviews of the books have been both strongly positive and strongly negative. He has benefitted from his notoriety by being given social media platforms from which he can espouse his views to a wide audience.
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-American lawyer, coined the word “genocide” in 1944. Lemkin defined genocide as the planned destruction of a people, an ethnic group, or a religious entity. The question that arises is whether the Israeli response to the Hamas-perpetrated massacre fits the definition of genocide.
Finkelstein’s allegation of Israeli genocide following October 2023 and his accusations against the Jewish State, as stated in a podcast interview hosted by Riz Khan, repeatedly and egregiously ignore the facts on the ground. In 1948, the Palestinian population of Gaza was estimated at about 280,000, with 200,000 of these refugees from the Israel-Arab war of 1948-1950. From 1950-1967, under Egyptian dominion, the population increased to roughly 500,000. After Israel took over administrative responsibility for the strip in 1967, the Palestinian population increased to 1.4 million in 2005 and to about 2.2 million by 2022.
From 1967 to the start of the first Intifada in 1987, between 46,000 and 60,000 Gazan Palestinians worked in Israel. This represented nearly half of the Gazan workforce and a significant percentage of the income flowing into the strip. However, in a book published in 2018, Finkelstein was already vilifying Israel for creating a man-made humanitarian disaster in the strip. His recent adoption of the genocide libel is consistent with his previous positions. However, the continued increase in the population of Gaza and Israel’s willingness to employ its workforce argue against a genocide.
Other facts dispute Finkelstein’s assertions of an Israeli-promulgated humanitarian disaster. Israel has allowed enormous amounts of food and other humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. Israel supplies the strip with water, electricity, and fuel. Most recently, a report from UNICEF confirmed the Israeli assertion that there is no famine in the Gaza Strip and that acute malnutrition among the children of Gaza remains at prewar levels.
Israeli soldiers have not engaged in indiscriminately attacking civilians. Their targets are Hamas terrorists and those who seek the elimination of the Jewish people from their homeland in Israel. No, Norman, Israel has not committed genocide in Gaza. Its goal is to survive in a region where Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis have pledged to eliminate Jewish dominion.
Finkelstein was recently featured on a Hasan Piker podcast where he denied that grave abuses occurred during the Hamas massacre, and his host argued that even if such atrocities had occurred, they didn’t matter. Piker has millions of followers, and his rhetoric and that of Finkelstein justify anti-Jewish violence.
The denial of such abuse by Hamas is contradicted by reports from numerous international and independent agencies. Reports from the UN and the Parliamentary committee of the UK have concluded that there is clear evidence of widespread mutilation of the bodies of Israeli victims, the murder of young children, and other horrific abuses. Although couched in diplomatic verbiage, the report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that grave abuses occurred during the October 7 attacks in multiple locations across the Gaza periphery.
Lord Andrew Roberts, a British historian, Conservative member of the House of Lords, and chair of a UK parliamentary committee on October 7, presented a 318-page report that found (numbering is the author’s): (i) “864 civilians from 52 nations were killed on October 7 representing 73% of the dead.” (ii) “Women and children represented 27% of the dead.” (iii) Many victims were subjected to deliberate brutality, including mutilation and severe abuse before or after death.
On October 7, 2023, thousands of young revelers were attending an outdoor dance festival. They were celebrating the fall Jewish holidays and doing what teenagers and 20–40-year-olds do. 344 of the attendees were mercilessly gunned down by Palestinian terrorists. Eyewitness reports of horrific abuses nullify the myth presented by Finkelstein that there is no evidence supporting such atrocities. Norman, you simply got it wrong. Hamas uses horrific abuse and other inhuman techniques to terrorize Israelis and those who oppose their maniacal quest. They are not heroes, nor are they resistance fighters; they are simply psychopathic killers.
Finkelstein does not deny the killing of Israeli and non-Israeli civilians on October 7, nor does he deny mutilation of victims. He simply justifies these actions based on the “cruel” treatment of the Palestinian Gazans by the Israelis since 1948. However, from 1948 to 1967, Gaza was under the sole jurisdiction of Egypt. In 2006, Israel disengaged from Gaza, expelling more than 8,000 of its own citizens. The blockade of the strip began after Hamas took over administrative control following Palestinian elections in 2006. Before its election, Hamas had initiated an ever-increasing amount of rocket fire into Israeli border communities. Its anti-Israeli rhetoric calls for the complete destruction of the Jewish State and all Jews living within those borders. To date, Hamas’s political position has remained unchanged; no infidels (Jews or Christians) are wanted in the Middle East.
As a child of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein’s “Jewishness” has benefitted him in securing a platform to spew his rhetoric. He has stated he is not America First; he is “justice first.” This polemic allows him to hold what he proffers to be the moral high ground in opposing Israel’s attempt to defend itself from hostile forces. Many would label Finkelstein as a self-hating Jew. To me, he is simply misguided. Norman, like your parents’ fellow Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, the people of Israel wish to live in peace with their neighbors while eliminating threats to their survival. We are entitled to defend ourselves. Your use of inversion of genocide arguments, that is, accusing Israel of genocide while it is Hamas and the other Iranian proxies who have committed, and given the chance would commit, genocide against Jews and Israelis, is simply irresponsible. Perhaps you should try to articulate your case to Yarden Bibas, who spent 484 days with “your resistance fighters” and whose wife and babies were murdered at their hands. You should stop your shameless justification of the actions of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the IRGC.
Fred Naider, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at the City University of New York. He currently resides in Israel.
