Political scientist offers an analysis of Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Norman Finkelstein, controversial author of such books as Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (University of California Press, 2005) and The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2000 and 2003), speaks at 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 8,  in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. The public is invited to attend the talk, sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and the Department of Politics, free of charge.

Finkelstein is no stranger to controversy. A New York City native and the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, his positions on anti-Semitism, what he describes as the “Holocaust Industry” and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have earned him both passionate critics, including Harvard Holocaust historian Daniel Goldhagen and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, and staunch supporters, including MIT Professor of Linguistics Emeritus and political critic Noam Chomsky and the late Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg.

Finkelstein taught at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University and at DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.

Denied tenure in a controversial decision by DePaul in June 2007, Finkelstein was scheduled to teach a final year at the university in 2007-08, when the institution decided to place him on administrative leave in fall 2007 and canceled his fall classes. Responding to his employer’s decision with the threat of civil disobedience, Finkelstein announced his resignation from DePaul in September, when he reached an undisclosed settlement with the university.

Finkelstein attended Binghamton University as an undergraduate, followed by studies at École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. He received a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University.