Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist and author whose primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and, most recently, DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.

~

The full documentary:

AMERICAN RADICAL, a probing, definitive documentary about American academic Norman Finkelstein. A devoted son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israel and US Middle-East policy, and author of five provocative books, including THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY, Finkelstein has been at the center of many intractable controversies. Called a lunatic and a self-hating Jew by some and an inspirational street-fighting revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity, and nationhood. From Beirut to Kyoto, Ridgen and Rossier follow Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a voice among both supporters and critics, providing an intimate portrait of the man behind the controversy while giving equal time to both his critics and supporters.

Norman G. Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. For many years he taught political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Finkelstein is the author of five books which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions: Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering; Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict; The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years; and, with Bettina Birn, A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. He has just completed a new book entitled A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-up of American Zionism, to be published in 2009.