Elena Kagan
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office August 7, 2010
Appointed by	Barack Obama
Preceded by	John Paul Stevens
45th Solicitor General of the United States
In office March 19, 2009 – May 17, 2010[1]
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Neal Katyal
Preceded by	Edwin Kneedler (Acting)
Succeeded by	Neal Katyal (Acting)
11th Dean of Harvard Law School
In office July 1, 2003 – March 19, 2009
Preceded by	Robert Clark
Succeeded by	Martha Minow
Personal details
Born	(1960-04-28) April 28, 1960 (age 52) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University (A.B.) University of Oxford (M.Phil.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)

Elena Kagan (pronounced /ˈkeɪɡən/; born April 28, 1960)^[2] is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice.

Kagan was born and raised in New York City. After attending Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, she completed federal Court of Appeals and Supreme Court clerkships. She began her career as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, leaving to serve as Associate White House Counsel, and later as policy adviser, under President Clinton. After a nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which expired without action, she became a professor at Harvard Law School and was later named its first female dean.

President Obama appointed her Solicitor General on January 26, 2009. On May 10, 2010, Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy from the impending retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. After Senate confirmation, Kagan was sworn in on August 7, 2010, by Chief Justice John G. Roberts. Kagan's formal investiture ceremony before a special sitting of the United States Supreme Court took place on October 1, 2010.^[3]

Personal life and education[link]

Kagan was born in New York City, the middle of three children, on the city's Upper West Side. Her mother, Gloria Gittelman Kagan, taught fifth and sixth grade at Hunter College Elementary School, and her father, Robert Kagan, was an attorney.^[4][5] Kagan's two brothers are public school teachers.^[6]

Kagan and her family lived in a third-floor apartment at West End Avenue and 75th Street^[7] and attended Lincoln Square Synagogue.^[8] Kagan was independent and strong-willed in her youth and, according to a former law partner, clashed with her Orthodox rabbi over aspects of her bat mitzvah.^[7] "She had strong opinions about what a bat mitzvah should be like, which didn't parallel the wishes of the rabbi," said her former colleague. "But they finally worked it out. She negotiated with the rabbi and came to a conclusion that satisfied everybody." Kagan's rabbi, Shlomo Riskin, had never performed a ritual bat mitzvah before.^[8] "Elena Kagan felt very strongly that there should be ritual bat mitzvah in the synagogue, no less important than the ritual bar mitzvah. This was really the first formal bat mitzvah we had," said Riskin. Kagan asked to read from the Torah on a Saturday morning but ultimately read on a Friday night, May 18, 1973, from the Book of Ruth.^[8] Today, she identifies with Conservative Judaism.^[8]

Childhood friend Margaret Raymond recalled that Kagan was a teenage smoker but not a partier. On Saturday nights, she and Kagan "were more apt to sit on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and talk."^[7] Kagan also loved literature and re-read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice every year.^[7] In her Hunter College High School yearbook of 1977, Kagan was pictured in a judge's robe and holding a gavel.^[9]

Next to her photo was a quote from former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter: "Government is itself an art, one of the subtlest of arts."^[10] After graduating from high school, Kagan attended Princeton University, where she earned an A.B., summa cum laude in history in 1981. Among the subjects she studied was the socialist movement in New York City in the early 20th century. She wrote a senior thesis under historian Sean Wilentz titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933". In it she wrote, "Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America."^[11] Wilentz insists that she did not mean to defend socialism, noting that, "She was interested in it. To study something is not to endorse it."^[12] Wilentz called Kagan "one of the foremost legal minds in the country, she is still the witty, engaging, down-to-earth person I proudly remember from her undergraduate days."^[13]

As an undergraduate, Kagan also served as editorial chair of the Daily Princetonian. Along with eight other students (including Eliot Spitzer, who was student body president at the time), Kagan penned the Declaration of the Campaign for a Democratic University, which called for "a fundamental restructuring of university governance" and condemned Princeton's administration for making decisions "behind closed doors".^[14]

Kagan graduates from Harvard Law School in 1986.

She received Princeton's Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship, one of the highest general awards conferred by the university, which enabled her to study at Worcester College, Oxford. She earned a Master of Philosophy at Oxford in 1983.^[15] She received a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, at Harvard Law School in 1986, where she was supervisory editor of the Harvard Law Review. Friend Jeffrey Toobin recalled Kagan "stood out from the start as one with a formidable mind. She's good with people. At the time, the law school was a politically charged and divided place. She navigated the factions with ease, and won the respect of everyone."^[16]

Kagan has never married and has no children.^[17]

Early legal and academic career[link]

Kagan was a law clerk for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1987 and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988. Marshall nicknamed the 5 foot 3 inch Kagan "Shorty".^[7] She later entered private practice as an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly.^[2]

Kagan joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School as an assistant professor in 1991 and became a tenured professor of law in 1995.^[18] While at the University of Chicago, she published a law review article on the regulation of First Amendment hate speech in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul; an article discussing the significance of governmental motive in regulating speech; and a review of a book by Stephen L. Carter discussing the judicial confirmation process.

According to her colleagues, Kagan's students complimented and admired her from the beginning, and she was granted tenure "despite the reservations of some colleagues who thought she had not published enough."^[19]

White House and judicial nomination[link]

In 1996 she wrote an article in the University of Chicago Law Review entitled, "Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine." Kagan argued that the Supreme Court should examine governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases.^[20] She analyzed historic draft-card burning and flag burning cases in light of free speech arguments.^[21]

While serving as an adviser in the White House domestic policy office, Kagan co-authored a May 13, 1997, memo to President Bill Clinton urging him to support a ban on late-term abortions: "We recommend that you endorse the Daschle amendment in order to sustain your credibility on HR 1122 and prevent Congress from overriding your veto."^[22]

On June 17, 1999, Clinton nominated Kagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace James L. Buckley, who had taken senior status in 1996. The Senate Judiciary Committee's Republican Chairman Orrin Hatch scheduled no hearing, effectively ending her nomination. When Clinton's term ended, her nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court lapsed, as did the nomination of fellow Clinton nominee Allen Snyder.^[23]

Return to academia[link]

After her service in the White House and her lapsed judicial nomination, Kagan returned to academia in 1999. She initially sought to return to the University of Chicago Law School, but having given up her tenured position as a result of her extended stint in the Clinton Administration, she needed to be rehired and the school chose not to do so, reportedly because of doubts about her commitment to academia.^[24] Kagan quickly found a position as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she authored a law review article on United States administrative law, including the role of aiding the President of the United States in formulating and influencing federal administrative and regulatory law, which was honored as the year's top scholarly article by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and is being developed into a book to be published by Harvard University Press.^{[citation needed]}

Kagan as Dean of Harvard Law School

In 2001, she was named a full professor and in 2003 was named Dean of the Law School by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers.^[25] She succeeded Robert C. Clark, who had served as dean for over a decade. The focus of her tenure was on improving student satisfaction. Efforts included constructing new facilities and reforming the first-year curriculum as well as aesthetic changes and creature comforts, such as free morning coffee. She has been credited for employing a consensus-building leadership style, which surmounted the school's previous ideological discord.^[26][27][28]

In her capacity as dean, Kagan inherited a $400 million capital campaign, "Setting the Standard", in 2003. It ended in 2008 with a record breaking $476 million raised, 19% more than the original goal.^[29] Kagan made a number of prominent new hires, increasing the size of the faculty considerably. Her coups included hiring legal scholar Cass Sunstein away from the University of Chicago^[30] and Lawrence Lessig away from Stanford.^[31] She also broke a logjam on conservative hires by bringing in scholars such as Jack Goldsmith, who had been serving in the Bush administration.^[27]

According to Kevin Washburn, dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, Kagan transformed Harvard Law School from a harsh environment for students to one that was much more student-centric.^[32]

During her deanship, Kagan upheld a decades old policy barring military recruiters from the Office of Career Services because she felt that the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy discriminated against gays and lesbians. According to Campus Progress,

As dean, Kagan supported a lawsuit intended to overturn the Solomon Amendment so military recruiters might be banned from the grounds of schools like Harvard. When a federal appeals court ruled the The Pentagon could not withhold funds, she banned the military from Harvard's campus once again. The case was challenged in the Supreme Court, which ruled the military could indeed require schools to allow recruiters if they wanted to receive federal money. Kagan, though she allowed the military back, simultaneously urged students to demonstrate against Don't Ask, Don't Tell.^[33][34]

In October 2003, Kagan transmitted an e-mail to students and faculty deploring that military recruiters had shown up on campus in violation of the school's anti-discrimination policy. It read, "This action causes me deep distress. I abhor the military's discriminatory recruitment policy." She also wrote that it was "a profound wrong—a moral injustice of the first order."^[35]

From 2005 through 2008, Kagan was a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute and received a $10,000 stipend for her service in 2008.^[36]

By early 2007, Kagan was a finalist for the presidency of Harvard University as a whole after Lawrence Summers' resignation the previous year, but lost out to Drew Gilpin Faust. She was reportedly disappointed not be chosen, and supportive law school students threw her a party to express their appreciation for her leadership.^[37]

Solicitor General[link]

On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced he would nominate Kagan to be Solicitor General.^[38][39] Before this appointment she had never argued a case before any court.^[40] At least two previous solicitors general, Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr, also had no previous Supreme Court appearances, though Starr was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit before becoming Solicitor General.^[41]

Kagan was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009, by a vote of 61 to 31,^[42] becoming the first woman to hold the position. She made her first appearance before the Supreme Court on September 9, 2009, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.^[43]

The First Amendment Center and the Cato Institute later expressed concern over arguments Kagan advanced as a part of her role as Solicitor General. For example, during her time as Solicitor General, Kagan prepared a brief defending a law later ruled unconstitutional that criminalized depictions of animal cruelty.^[44][45] During her confirmation hearing, she said that "there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage." Also during her confirmation hearing, she was asked about the Defense of Marriage Act, pursuant to which states cannot recognize same-sex marriages originating in other states. Kagan indicated that she would defend the act if "there was any reasonable basis to do so."^[46]

Supreme Court[link]

Obama nominates Kagan.

Prior to the election of President Barack Obama, Kagan was the subject of media speculation regarding her potential to be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States if a Democratic president were elected in 2008.^{[47][48][49][50][51]} This speculation increased after the retirement announcement of Associate Justice David H. Souter, effective at the start of the Court's summer 2009 recess.^[52]

It was speculated that her position as Solicitor General would increase Kagan's chances for nomination, since Solicitors General have been considered potential nominees to the Supreme Court in the past. On May 13, 2009, the Associated Press reported that Obama was considering Kagan, among others, for possible appointment to the United States Supreme Court.^[53] On May 26, 2009, however, Obama announced that he was nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the post.^[54]

Kagan meets with Obama in Oval Office, April 2010.

On April 9, 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he would retire at the start of the Court's summer 2010 recess, triggering new speculation about Kagan's potential nomination to the bench.^[55] In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Jeffrey Toobin, a Supreme Court analyst and Kagan's friend and law school classmate^[56], speculated that Kagan would likely be President Obama's nominee, describing her as "very much an Obama type person, a moderate Democrat, a consensus builder."^[57] This possibility has alarmed many liberals and progressives, who worried that "replacing Stevens with Kagan risks moving the Court to the right, perhaps substantially to the right."^[58]

While Kagan's name was mentioned as a possible replacement for Justice Stevens, the New York Times noted that she "has supported assertions of executive power."^[59] This view of vast executive power has caused some commentators to fear that she would reverse the majority in favor of protecting civil liberties on the Supreme Court were she to replace Stevens.^[60]

On May 10, 2010, Obama nominated Kagan to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Justice Stevens.^[61] The deans of over one-third of the country's law schools, sixty-nine people in total, endorsed Kagan's nomination in an open letter in early June. It lauded what it considered her coalition-building skills and "understanding of both doctrine and policy" as well as her written record of legal analysis.^[62]

Kagan, Obama, and Roberts before her investiture ceremony

The confirmation hearings began June 28. Kagan's testimony and her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questions on July 20 were uneventful, containing no new revelations about her character or background. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania cited an article Kagan had published in the Chicago Law Review in 1995, criticizing the evasiveness of Supreme Court nominees in their hearings.^[63] Kagan, noted Specter, was now practicing that very evasiveness.^[64] On July 20, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13–6 to recommend Kagan's confirmation to the full Senate. On August 5 the full Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 63–37.^[65] The voting was largely on party lines, with five Republicans (Richard Lugar, Judd Gregg, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe) supporting her and one Democrat (Ben Nelson) opposing. The Senate's two independents voted in favor of confirmation. She was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on Saturday August 7, in a private ceremony.^[3][66]

Kagan is the first justice appointed without any prior experience as a judge since William Rehnquist in 1972.^[67][68][69] She is the fourth female justice in the Court's history (and, for the first time, part of a Court with three female justices) and the eighth Jewish justice,^[70] making three of the nine current justices Jewish.

Kagan's first opinion, Ransom v. FIA Card Services, was filed on January 11, 2011. In an 8–1 decision, Kagan found that an individual declaring bankruptcy could not count expenses for a car he had paid off in his "applicable monthly expenses".^[71][72]

Legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen praised Kagan's "eloquent voice," which he characterized as unusual for a relative newcomer to the Court, and noted her "ability to puncture her colleagues’ bloodless abstractions and tendentious arguments, and to explain the constitutional stakes in plain language that all citizens can understand." He said Kagan's writing was giving Justice Antonin Scalia "a run for his money."^[73]

See also[link]

• Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates
• Bill Clinton judicial appointment controversies
• Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Potier, Beth (September 16, 2004). "Big plans highlight Elena Kagan's 2L; HLS dean looks forward to a busy year". Harvard Gazette (Harvard News Office). http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/09.16/03-kagan.html. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• Levine, Adina (September 30, 2004). "Kagan declares state of the law school is "very strong"; Plans more construction, reassessment of curriculum, and enlargement of faculty". Harvard Law Record (Harvard Law School Record Corporation). ISSN 0017-8101. http://www.hlrecord.org/media/paper609/news/2004/09/30/News/Kagan.Declares.State.Of.The.Law.School.Is.very.Strong-739674.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.hlrecord.org&page=3. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• "No Excuse Not to Work Out: Hemenway Opens". Harvard Law Record (Harvard Law School Record Corporation). September 29, 2005. ISSN 0017-8101. http://www.hlrecord.org/media/paper609/news/2005/09/29/News/No.Excuse.Not.To.Work.Out.Hemenway.Opens-1005413.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.hlrecord.org. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• Brown, Kelly Lynn (September 30, 2004). "Editorial: Dean Kagan off to a promising start". Harvard Law Record (Harvard Law School Record Corporation). ISSN 0017-8101. http://www.hlrecord.org/media/paper609/news/2004/09/30/Opinion/Editorial.Dean.Kagan.Off.To.A.Promising.Start-739681.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.hlrecord.org. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
• Gerstein, Josh (March 10, 2006). "As Harvard Seeks a President, Dean Kagan's Star Is Rising". New York Sun. http://www.nysun.com/article/28925?page_no=1. Retrieved January 5, 2009. "Ms. Kagan, 45, is credited with overseeing a renaissance at the law school during her nearly three years as dean, and many of her fans believe she could achieve the same for the entire university if given the chance." 
• Bennett, Drake (October 19, 2008). "Crimson tide – Harvard Law School, long fractious and underachieving, is on the rise again – and shaking up the American legal world". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/10/19/crimson_tide/. Retrieved January 5, 2009. "[T]here is near unanimity that the school's dean, Elena Kagan, a scholar of administrative law and a former Clinton administration official, has galvanized the place with her ambition and adroit management style, knitting together the faculty, charming the students, and attracting top-flight talent to the school." 
• Leonard, Tom (April 24, 2009). "Barack Obama administration seeks to change police questioning law". The Daily Telegraph (UK). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5214985/Barack-Obama-administration-seeks-to-change-police-questioning-law.html. Retrieved April 24, 2009. "The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Elena Kagan, the solicitor general, said the 1986 decision "serves no real purpose" and offers only "meagre benefits"." 
• Lichtblau, Eric (May 15, 2009) Potential Justice's Appeal May Be Too Bipartisan, New York Times
• van Diggelen, Alison (April 10, 2010). "Jeffrey Toobin says Elena Kagan Likely Supreme Court Justice". Huffington Post (USA). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-van-diggelen/jeffrey-toobin-says-elena_b_532838.html. Retrieved April 10, 2010. ""She's very much an Obama type person, a moderate Democrat, a consensus builder ..."" 
• Greenwald, Glenn (April 13, 2010) The case against Elena Kagan, Salon.com
• The Progressive Case For Elena Kagan Thinkprogress.com (May 10, 2010)

External links[link]

Find more about Elena Kagan on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

• Supreme Court official site with biographies
• Profile at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center
• Legal resources at the Law Library of Congress
• Biography and writings at the Legal Information Institute
• Profile at the Oyez Project
• Profile at Judgepedia
• Profile at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Profile at the Internet Movie Database
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Elena Kagan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at Notable Names Database
• Elena Kagan Through the Years – slideshow by ABC News

Supreme Court of the United States
The Roberts Court Chief Justice: John Glover Roberts, Jr. (2005–present) 2010–present: A. Scalia A. Kennedy C. Thomas R.B. Ginsburg S. Breyer S. Alito S. Sotomayor E. Kagan

v t e United States Solicitors General Bristow • Phillips • Goode • Jenks • Chapman • Taft • Aldrich • Maxwell • Conrad • Richards • Hoyt • Bowers • Lehmann • Bullitt • Davis • King • Frierson • Beck • Mitchell • Hughes • Thacher • Biggs • Reed • Jackson • Biddle • Fahy • McGrath • Perlman • Cummings • Sobeloff • Rankin • Cox • Marshall • Griswold • Bork • McCree • Lee • Fried • Starr • Days • Dellinger (acting) • Waxman • Barbara Underwood (acting) • Olson • Clement • Garre • Kneedler (acting) • Kagan • Katyal (acting) • Verrilli

Paul Clement
43rd Solicitor General of the United States
In office July 11, 2004 – June 19, 2008
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Theodore Olson
Succeeded by	Gregory G. Garre
Acting Attorney General of the United States
In office September 17, 2007 – September 18, 2007
Preceded by	Alberto Gonzales
Succeeded by	Peter Keisler, act.
Personal details
Born	Paul Drew Clement (1966-06-24) June 24, 1966 (age 46) Cedarburg, Wisconsin
Political party	Republican
Alma mater	Georgetown University Darwin College, Cambridge Harvard Law School

Paul Drew Clement (born June 24, 1966) is a former United States Solicitor General and current Georgetown University legal professor. He is also an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on March 14, 2005 for the post of Solicitor-General, confirmed by the United States Senate on June 8, 2005, and took the oath of office on June 13. Clement replaced Theodore Olson.

Clement resigned on May 14, 2008, effective June 2, 2008, and joined the Georgetown University Law Center as a visiting professor and senior fellow at the Supreme Court Institute.^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Clement was born to Jean and Jerry Clement, and he had two brothers and a sister. Clement is a native of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. In 1984 he graduated from Cedarburg High School, where he was on the debate team. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a master's degree in economics from Darwin College, University of Cambridge. While at Georgetown, Clement successfully competed in the American Parliamentary Debate Association. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he was the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Legal career[link]

Following graduation, Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis. Clement went on to serve as Chief Counsel of Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Afterwards, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of King & Spalding, where he headed the firm's appellate practice. He also served from 1998 to 2004 as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a seminar on the separation of powers.

Clement joined the United States Department of Justice in February 2001. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and he became the acting Solicitor General on July 11, 2004 when Theodore Olson resigned. He has argued over 53 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, United States v. Booker, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Gonzales v. Raich, Gonzales v. Oregon, Gonzales v. Carhart, and Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. He also argued many of the key cases in the lower courts involving challenges to the President's conduct of the war on terrorism.^[2] He has argued more cases before the Supreme Court since 2000 than any other lawyer.^[3]

On August 27, 2007, President Bush named Clement as the future acting Attorney General of the United States, to take office upon the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, effective September 17, 2007.^[4] According to administration officials, Clement took that office at 12:01 AM September 17, 2007, and left office 24 hours later.^[5] On September 17, President Bush announced that Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, Peter Keisler would become acting Attorney General, pending a permanent appointment of a presidential nominee.^[6][7]

Clement gave notice of his resignation on May 14, 2008, effective June 2, 2008, and returned to Georgetown Law School as a senior fellow.^[1] He had been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court candidate in a John McCain presidency^[1] and is a coveted potential hire among DC legal firms, who reportedly are vying to build a firm around his expertise in appellate matters.^[8] Evan Tager of Mayer Brown said: “Paul Clement is the Holy Grail of law firm recruiting... The buzz in the legal world about Clement is like the buzz in basketball when LeBron James was coming out of high school and turning pro. It will be interesting to see where the market will go.”^[8]

As of November 20, 2008, Clement re-joined King & Spalding as a partner in its expanding appellate litigation practice. As part of King & Spalding he argued on behalf of the NRA in the Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago on March 2, 2010.^[9]

Clement was part of the legal team that represented players in the NBA in labor negotiations during the 2011 lockout. Clement also advised 10 NFL players in the spring of 2011 when the NFL was facing a potential lock-out.^[10]

As a partner at King & Spalding, Clement was hired in April 2011 by the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that federally defines marriage as between one man and one woman, after the U.S. Department of Justice decided to stop defending it.^[11] King & Spalding withdrew from the case on April 25, 2011, and Clement resigned from the firm to continue his representation, arguing that "representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters."^[12] He joined Bancroft PLLC, a smaller law firm led by former Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh.^[13][14]

Clement led the challenge on behalf of 26 states to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court on March 26 - 28, 2012.

See also[link]

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• George W. Bush Supreme Court candidates

References[link]

External links[link]

• Paul Clement's federal campaign contributions
• Office of the Solicitor General

v t e United States Solicitors General Bristow • Phillips • Goode • Jenks • Chapman • Taft • Aldrich • Maxwell • Conrad • Richards • Hoyt • Bowers • Lehmann • Bullitt • Davis • King • Frierson • Beck • Mitchell • Hughes • Thacher • Biggs • Reed • Jackson • Biddle • Fahy • McGrath • Perlman • Cummings • Sobeloff • Rankin • Cox • Marshall • Griswold • Bork • McCree • Lee • Fried • Starr • Days • Dellinger (acting) • Waxman • Barbara Underwood (acting) • Olson • Clement • Garre • Kneedler (acting) • Kagan • Katyal (acting) • Verrilli

Norman Finkelstein
Finkelstein giving a talk at Suffolk University in 2005
Born	Norman Gary Finkelstein (1953-12-08) December 8, 1953 (age 58)
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Jewish
Education	Binghamton University (B.A.) Princeton University (M.A.) Princeton University (Ph.D.)
Influenced by	Mohandas Gandhi, Noam Chomsky, John Stuart Mill
Parents	Mother: Maryla Husyt Finkelstein Father: Zacharias Finkelstein
Website
normanfinkelstein.com

Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who are Jewish Holocaust survivors. 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.

In 2007, after a highly publicized row between Finkelstein and a notable opponent of his, Alan Dershowitz, Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul was denied.^[1] Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007–2008 academic year, and on September 5, 2007, he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university on generally undisclosed terms.^[2][3] An official statement from DePaul strongly defended the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure, stated that outside influence played no role in the decision, and praised Finkelstein "as a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher."^[4]

Personal background and education[link]

Finkelstein has written of his Jewish parents' experiences during World War II. His mother, Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, grew up in Warsaw, Poland, survived the Warsaw Ghetto, the Majdanek concentration camp, and two slave labor camps. Her first husband died in the war. She considered the day of her liberation as the most horrible day of her life, as she realized that she was alone, her parents and siblings gone. Norman's father, Zacharias Finkelstein, was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and the Auschwitz concentration camp.^[5] After immigrating to the United States, his father became a factory worker, while his mother was a homemaker. Finkelstein's mother was an ardent pacifist. Both his parents died in 1995.^[6]

Finkelstein grew up in New York City, where he attended James Madison High School and was a childhood friend of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), who was two years ahead of him.^[7][8] In his forthcoming memoir, Finkelstein recalls his strong youthful identification with the outrage that his mother, witness to the genocidal atrocities of World War II, felt at the carnage wrought by the United States in Vietnam. One childhood friend recalls his mother's "emotional investment in left-wing humanitarian causes as bordering on hysteria."^[9] He had 'internalized (her) indignation', a trait which he admits rendered him 'insufferable' when talking of the Vietnam War, and which imbued him with a 'holier-than-thou' attitude at the time which he now regrets.^[5] But Finkelstein regards his absorption of his mother's outlook — the refusal to put aside a sense of moral outrage in order to get on with one's life — as a virtue. Subsequently, his reading of Noam Chomsky played a seminal role in tailoring the passion bequeathed to him by his mother to the necessity of maintaining intellectual rigor in the pursuit of the truth.^[5]

He completed his undergraduate studies at Binghamton University in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. He went on to earn his Master's degree in political science from Princeton University in 1980, and later his PhD in political studies, also from Princeton. Finkelstein wrote his doctoral thesis on Zionism, and it was through this work that he first attracted controversy. Before gaining academic employment, Finkelstein was a part-time social worker with teenage dropouts in New York. He then taught successively at Rutgers University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and Hunter College and, until recently, taught at DePaul University in Chicago. According to The New York Times he left Hunter College in 2001 "after his teaching load and salary were reduced" by the college administration.^[9]

Beginning with his doctoral thesis at Princeton, Finkelstein's career has been marked by controversy. A self-described "forensic scholar", he has written sharply critical academic reviews of several prominent writers and scholars whom he accuses of misrepresenting the documentary record in order to defend Israel's policies and practices. His writings, noted for their support of the Palestinian cause,^[2] have dealt with politically charged topics such as Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine and his allegations of the existence of a "Holocaust Industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests. Citing linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky as an example, Finkelstein notes that it is "possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage,"^[5] and supporters and detractors alike have remarked on the polemical style of Finkelstein's work.^[1][10] Its content has been praised by eminent historians such as Raul Hilberg and Avi Shlaim,^[10] as well as Chomsky.

Finkelstein has described himself as "an old-fashioned communist," in the sense that he "see(s) no value whatsoever in states."^[11]

Academic career[link]

Finkelstein has made a career as a traveling academic and public intellectual. He is seen here at a 2009 talk at the University of Leeds.

[edit] On From Time Immemorial

In Finkelstein's doctoral thesis, he examined the claims made in Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, a best-selling book at the time.

Peters's "history and defense" of Israel deals with the demographic history of Palestine. Demographic studies had tended to assert that the Arab population of Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a 94% majority at the turn of the century, had dwindled towards parity due to massive Zionist immigration. Peters radically challenged this picture by arguing that a substantial part of the Palestinian people were descended from emigrants from other Arab countries from the early 19th century onwards. It followed, for Peters and many of her readers, that the picture of a native Palestinian population overwhelmed by Jewish immigration was little more than propaganda, and that in actuality two almost simultaneous waves of immigration met in what had been a relatively unpopulated land.

From Time Immemorial had been effusively praised in mainstream United States media sources by figures as varied as Barbara Tuchman, Theodore H. White, Elie Wiesel, and Lucy Dawidowicz. Saul Bellow, for one, wrote in a jacket endorsement that:

"Millions of people the world over, smothered by false history and propaganda, will be grateful for this clear account of the origins of the Palestinians."^[12]

Finkelstein asserted that the book was nothing more than what he now calls a "monumental hoax".^[13] He later opined that, while Peters's book received widespread interest and approval in the United States, a scholarly demonstration of its fraudulence and unreliability aroused little attention:

"By the end of 1984, From Time Immemorial had...received some two hundred [favorable] notices ... in the United States. The only 'false' notes in this crescendoing chorus of praise were the Journal of Palestine Studies, which ran a highly critical review by Bill Farrell; the small Chicago-based newsweekly In These Times, which published a condensed version of this writer's findings; and Alexander Cockburn, who devoted a series of columns in The Nation exposing the hoax. ... The periodicals in which From Time Immemorial had already been favorably reviewed refused to run any critical correspondence (e.g. The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Commentary). Periodicals that had yet to review the book rejected a manuscript on the subject as of little or no consequence (e.g. The Village Voice, Dissent, The New York Review of Books). Not a single national newspaper or columnist contacted found newsworthy that a best-selling, effusively praised 'study' of the Middle East conflict was a threadbare hoax."^[14]

Noam Chomsky later reminisced:

"I warned him, if you follow this, you're going to get in trouble—because you're going to expose the American intellectual community as a gang of frauds, and they are not going to like it, and they're going to destroy you."^[15]

In 1986, the New York Review of Books published Yehoshua Porath's review^[16] and an exchange with critics of the review^[17] in which he criticized the assumptions and evidence on which Peters's thesis relied, thus lending independent support from an expert in Palestinian demographics to Finkelstein's doctoral critique.^[15] In the house journal of the American Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, William B. Quandt, the Edward Stettinius professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and authority on Middle Eastern politics,^[18] later described Finkelstein's critique of From Time Immemorial as a "landmark essay" and a "victory to his credit", in its "demonstration" of the "shoddy scholarship" of Peters's book.^[19]

According to Noam Chomsky, the controversy that surrounded Finkelstein's research caused a delay in his earning his Ph.D. at Princeton University. Chomsky wrote in Understanding Power that Finkelstein "literally could not get the faculty to read [his dissertation]" and that Princeton eventually granted Finkelstein his doctorate only "out of embarrassment [for Princeton]" but refused to give him any further professional backing.^[15]

Finkelstein published portions of his thesis in the following publications:

• "Disinformation and the Palestine Question: The Not-So-Strange Case of Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial." Chapter 2 of Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question (1988); and
• "A Land Without a People (Joan Peters' "Wilderness" Image)." Chapter 2 of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (1995).

[edit] The Holocaust Industry

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering was published in 2000. Here, Finkelstein argues that Elie Wiesel and others exploit the memory of the Holocaust as an "ideological weapon." This is so the state of Israel, "one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, [can] cast itself as a victim state" in order to garner "immunity to criticism."^[20] He also alleges what he calls a "double shakedown" by "a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters" seeking enormous legal damages and financial settlements from Germany and Switzerland, moneys which then go to the lawyers and institutional actors involved in procuring them, rather than actual Holocaust survivors.^[21][22][23]

The book met with a hostile reception in some quarters, with critics charging that it was poorly researched and/or allowed others to exploit it for antisemitic purposes. For example, German historian Hans Mommsen disparaged the first edition as "a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices." Israeli holocaust historian Israel Gutman called the book "a lampoon," stating "this is not research; it isn't even political literature... I don't even think it should be reviewed or critiqued as a legitimate book."^[24] The book was also harshly criticized by Brown University Professor Omer Bartov^[25] and University of Chicago Professor Peter Novick.

Based on his criticism of Holocaust exploitation, the Anti-Defamation League and others "smeared" Finkelstein as a Holocaust denier, despite his being the son of two Holocaust survivors, most of whose family died in the Holocaust.^[26][27]. However, preeminent Holocaust scholar^[28][29][30] Raul Hilberg said the book expressed views Hilberg himself subscribed to in substance, in that he too found the exploitation of the Holocaust, in the manner Finkelstein describes, "detestable." Asked on another occasion if Finkelstein's analysis might play into the hands of neo-Nazis for antisemitic purposes, Hilberg replied: "Well, even if they do use it in that fashion, I'm afraid that when it comes to the truth, it has to be said openly, without regard to any consequences that would be undesirable, embarrassing."^[31][32]

[edit] Criticism of Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel

Finkelstein's public feud with jurist and academic Alan Dershowitz lasted for years and had a negative effect on Finkelstein's academic career

Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz, Finkelstein derided it as "a collection of fraud, falsification, plagiarism, and nonsense".^[33] During a debate on Democracy Now!, Finkelstein asserted that Dershowitz lacked knowledge about specific contents of his own book. He also claimed that Dershowitz did not write the book, and may not have even read it.^[33] Finkelstein noted 20 instances, in as many pages, where Dershowitz's book cites the same sources and passages used by Joan Peters in her book, in largely the same sequence, with ellipses in the same places. In two instances, Dershowitz reproduces Peters's errors (see below). From this Finkelstein concluded that Dershowitz had not checked the original sources himself, contrary to the latter's claims.^[34] Finkelstein suggests that this copying of quotations amounts to copying ideas.^[35] Examining a copy of a proof of Dershowitz's book he managed to obtain, he found evidence that Dershowitz had his secretarial assistant, Holly Beth Billington, check in the Harvard library the sources he had read in Peters's book.^[36] Dershowitz answered the charge in a letter to the University of California's Press Director Lynne Withey, arguing that Finkelstein had made up the smoking gun quotation, in that he had changed its wording (from 'cite' to 'copy') in his book.^[37] In public debate he has stated that if "somebody borrowed the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that, obviously that would be a serious charge"; however, he insisted emphatically that he himself did not do that, that he had indeed checked the original source by Twain.^[33]

Dershowitz threatened libel action over the charges in Finkelstein's book, as a consequence of which, the publisher deleted the word "plagiarism" from the text before publication.^[38] Finkelstein also agreed to remove the suggestion that Dershowitz was not the true author of The Case for Israel because, as the publisher said, "he couldn't document that."^[39]

Asserting that he did consult the original sources, Dershowitz says that Finkelstein is simply accusing him of good scholarly practice: citing references he learned of initially from Peters's book. Dershowitz denies that he used any of Peters's ideas without citation. "Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and claiming they're your own. There are no borrowed words from anybody. There are no borrowed ideas from anybody because I fundamentally disagree with the conclusions of Peters's book."^[40] In a footnote in The Case for Israel which cites Peters's book, Dershowitz explicitly denies that he "relies" on Peters for "conclusions or data".^[41]

In their joint interview on Democracy Now, however, Finkelstein cited specific passages in Dershowitz's book in which a phrase that he says Peters coined was incorrectly attributed to George Orwell:

"[Peters] coins the phrase, 'turnspeak', she says she's using it as a play off of George Orwell which as all listeners know used the phrase 'Newspeak.' She coined her own phrase, 'turnspeak.' You go to Mr. Dershowitz's book, he got so confused in his massive borrowings from Joan Peters that on two occasions, I'll cite them for those who have a copy of the book, on page 57 and on page 153 he uses the phrase, quote, George Orwell's 'turnspeak.' 'Turnspeak' is not Orwell, Mr. Dershowitz, you're the Felix Frankfurter chair at Harvard, you must know that Orwell would never use such a clunky phrase as 'turnspeak'."^[42]

James O. Freedman, the former president of Dartmouth College, the University of Iowa, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has defended Dershowitz:

I do not understand [Finkelstein's] charge of plagiarism against Alan Dershowitz. There is no claim that Dershowitz used the words of others without attribution. When he uses the words of others, he quotes them properly and generally cites them to the original sources (Mark Twain, Palestine Royal Commission, etc.) [Finkelstein's] complaint is that instead he should have cited them to the secondary source, in which Dershowitz may have come upon them. But as The Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: 'Importance of attribution. With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This not only bolsters the claims of fair use, it also helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism.' This is precisely what Dershowitz did.^[43]

Responding to an article in The Nation by Alexander Cockburn,^[41][44] Dershowitz also cited The Chicago Manual of Style:

Cockburn's claim is that some of the quotes should not have been cited to their original sources but rather to a secondary source, where he believes I stumbled upon them. Even if he were correct that I found all these quotations in Peters's book, the preferred method of citation is to the original source, as The Chicago Manual of Style emphasizes: "With all reuse of others' materials, it is important to identify the original as the source. This...helps avoid any accusation of plagiarism...To cite a source from a secondary source ('quoted in...') is generally to be discouraged...."

...to which Cockburn responded:

Quoting The Chicago Manual of Style, Dershowitz artfully implies that he followed the rules by citing "the original" as opposed to the secondary source, Peters. He misrepresents Chicago here, where "the original" means merely the origin of the borrowed material, which is, in this instance, Peters. Now look at the second bit of the quote from Chicago, chastely separated from the preceding sentence by a demure three-point ellipsis. As my associate Kate Levin has discovered, this passage ("To cite a source from a secondary source...") occurs on page 727, which is no less than 590 pages later than the material before the ellipsis, in a section titled "Citations Taken from Secondary Sources." Here's the full quote, with what Dershowitz left out set in bold: "'Quoted in.' To cite a source from a secondary source ("quoted in") is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed." So Chicago is clearly insisting that unless Dershowitz went to the originals, he was obliged to cite Peters. Finkelstein has conclusively demonstrated that he didn't go to the originals. Plagiarism, QED, plus added time for willful distortion of the language of Chicago's guidelines, cobbling together two separate discussions.^[44]

On behalf of Dershowitz, Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan asked former Harvard president Derek Bok to investigate the assertion of plagiarism; Bok exonerated Dershowitz of the charge.^[38]

Although the plagiarism allegations by Finkelstein received the most attention and attracted a lot of controversy, Finkelstein has maintained that "the real issue is Israel's human rights record."^[35]

In an April 3, 2007 interview with the Harvard Crimson, "Dershowitz confirmed that he had sent a letter last September to DePaul faculty members lobbying against Finkelstein's tenure."^[45]

In April 2007, Dr. Frank Menetrez, a former Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Law Review, published an analysis of the charges made against Finkelstein by Alan Dershowitz, finding no merit in any single charge, and that, on the contrary, "Dershowitz is deliberately misrepresenting what Finkelstein wrote".^[46] In a follow-up analysis he concluded that he could find 'no way of avoiding the inference that Dershowitz copied the quotation from Twain from Peters's From Time Immemorial, and not from the original source', as Dershowitz claimed.^[47][48]

Controversies[link]

Tenure denial and resignation[link]

Finkelstein's tenure at DePaul University ended with a vote against granting him tenure. Weeks of protests ensued on campus in support of granting him a position at the university.

In early 2007 the DePaul University Political Science department voted nine to three, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee five to zero, in favor of giving Finkelstein tenure. The three opposing faculty members subsequently filed a minority report opposing tenure, supported by the Dean of the College, Chuck Suchar who was also Jewish. Suchar stated he opposed tenure because Finkelstein's "personal and reputation demeaning attacks on Alan Dershowitz, Benny Morris, and the holocaust authors Elie Wiesel and Jerzy Kosinski" were inconsistent with DePaul's "Vincentian" values.^[49] Amidst considerable public debate, Alan Dershowitz actively campaigned to block Finkelstein's tenure bid.^[1] In June 2007, a 4-3 vote by DePaul University's Board on Promotion and Tenure (a faculty board), affirmed by the university's president, the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, denied Finkelstein tenure.^[50][51]

The university denied that Dershowitz, who had been criticized for his campaign against Finkelstein's tenure, played any part in this decision.^[51] At the same time, the university denied tenure to international studies assistant professor Mehrene Larudee, a strong supporter of Finkelstein, despite unanimous support from her department, the Personnel Committee and the Dean.^[52][53] Finkelstein stated that he would engage in civil disobedience if attempts were made to bar him from teaching his students.^[54][55]

The Faculty Council later affirmed the right of Professors Finkelstein and Larudee to appeal, which a university lawyer said was not possible. Council President Anne Bartlett said she was "'terribly concerned' correct procedure was not followed".^[56] DePaul's faculty association considered taking no confidence votes in administrators, including the president, because of the tenure denials.^[57] In a statement issued upon Finkelstein's resignation, DePaul called him "a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher."^[4] Dershowitz expressed outrage at the compromise and this statement in particular, saying that the university had "traded truth for peace."^[2][3]

In June 2007, after two weeks of protests, some DePaul students staged a sit-in and hunger strike in support of both professors denied tenure. The Illinois Conference of the American Association of University Professors also sent a letter to the university's president stating: "It is entirely illegitimate for a university to deny tenure to a professor out of fear that his published research ... might hurt a college's reputation" and that the association has "explicitly rejected collegiality as an appropriate criterion for evaluating faculty members".^[58]

Denied entry to Israel in 2008[link]

Attempting to enter Israel in 2008, Finkelstein was detained at the airport for 24 hours and then sent back to the United States

On May 23, 2008 Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel, according to unnamed Shin Bet security officials, because "of suspicions involving hostile elements in Lebanon" and that he "did not give a full accounting to interrogators with regard to these suspicions." Finkelstein had previously visited south Lebanon and met with Lebanese families during the 2006 Lebanon War.^[59] He was banned from entering Israel for 10 years.^[60][61]

Finkelstein was questioned after his arrival at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and detained for 24 hours in a holding cell. After speaking to Israeli attorney Michael Sfard he was placed on a flight back to Amsterdam, his point of origin. In an interview with Haaretz, Finkelstein stated "I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me. I am confident that I have nothing to hide... no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organizations."^[62] He had been travelling to visit friends in the West Bank and stated he had no interest in visiting Israel. Sfard said banning Finkelstein from entering the country "recalls the behavior of the Soviet bloc countries."^[62]

Reception[link]

Finkelstein's books are an attempt to examine the works of mainstream scholarship. The authors whose work he has thus targeted, including Daniel Jonah Goldhagen and Alan Dershowitz, along with others such as Benny Morris whose work Finkelstein has also cited approvingly, have in turn accused Finkelstein of grossly misrepresenting their work, and selectively quoting from their books.^[63][64]

Finkelstein's work has attracted a number of supporters and detractors from around the world. Notable supporters of his work include Noam Chomsky, prominent intellectual and political critic; Raul Hilberg, Holocaust historian; Avi Shlaim, New Historian; and Mouin Rabbani, Palestinian jurist and analyst. According to Hilberg, Finkelstein displays "academic courage to speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him... I would say that his place in the whole history of writing history is assured, and that those who in the end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost."^[10]

Criticism[link]

Criticism has been leveled against Finkelstein from several angles. The first sources are responses from those whose work Finkelstein has discussed. Daniel Goldhagen, whose book Hitler's Willing Executioners Finkelstein criticized, claimed his scholarship has "everything to do with his burning political agenda."^[65] Peter Novick, Professor of History at the University of Chicago and a noted Holocaust historian whose work Finkelstein says inspired "The Holocaust Industry," has also strongly criticized the latter's work, describing it as "trash."^{[citation needed]} Similarly, Alan Dershowitz, whose book The Case for Israel and Finkelstein's response Beyond Chutzpah sparked an ongoing feud between the two, has claimed Finkelstein's complicity in a conspiracy against pro-Israel scholars: "The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn't actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud," arguing that Finkelstein has leveled charges against many academics, calling at least 10 "distinguished Jews 'hucksters', 'hoaxters' (sic), 'thieves,' 'extortionists', and worse."^[43]

Israeli historian^[66] Omer Bartov, writing for The New York Times Book Review, judged The Holocaust Industry to be marred by the same errors he denounces in those who exploit the Holocaust for profit or politics:

'It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority... Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious.'^[67]

In 2003, Finkelstein published a considerably expanded second edition of this book, focusing especially on the Swiss Banks case. He identifies areas where people have attacked the book, and says that none of them question his actual findings.

Finkelstein has accused Jeffrey Goldberg of "torturing" Palestinian prisoners during his IDF service in the First Intifada. Goldberg referred to the allegation as "ridiculous" and he had "never laid a hand on anybody." Goldberg said his "principal role" was "making sure prisoners had fresh fruit." He characterized Finkelstein as a "ridiculous figure" and accused him of "lying and purposely misreading my book."^[68]

2009 film about Finkelstein[link]

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein is an award-winning documentary film about the life and career of Norman Finkelstein, released in 2009 and directed by David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier. It has been screened in Amsterdam IDFA, in Toronto Hot Docs and in more than 40 other national and international venues, it received a freshness rating over 90% on film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.^[69]

Statements on Israel and Israelis[link]

Interview of Norman Finkelstein on This Week In Palestine radio.

Finkelstein is a sharp critic of Israel. In a telephone interview with Today's Zaman, in 2009, Finkelstein stated:

I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war. In the first week of the massacres, there were reports in the Israeli press that Israel did not want to put all its ground forces in Gaza because it was preparing attacks on Iran. Then there were reports it was planning attacks on Lebanon. It is a lunatic state.^[70]

When asked how he, as the son of Holocaust survivors, felt about Israel’s operation in Gaza, Finkelstein replied:

It has been a long time since I felt any emotional connection with the state of Israel, which relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars. It is a vandal state. There is a Russian writer who once described vandal states as Genghis Khan with a telegraph. Israel is Genghis Khan with a computer. I feel no emotion of affinity with that state. I have some good friends and their families there, and of course I would not want any of them to be hurt. That said, sometimes I feel that Israel has come out of the boils of the hell, a satanic state^[70]

The Anti-Defamation League has described Finkelstein as an "obsessive anti-Zionist" filled with "vitriolic hatred of Zionism and Israel."^[71] On being called an anti-Zionist Finkelstein has said: "It's a superficial term. I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel."^[6]

Finkelstein is an advocate of a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.^[72]

Hezbollah and Hamas[link]

Finkelstein's comparisons between the State of Israel and armed Arab groups has proven deeply controversial

Finkelstein has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah and Hamas with respect to defensive actions, alleging that Israel had invaded Lebanon as a signal of rejection when Hamas was seeking a diplomatic settlement with Israel. He also condemned Israel's refusal "to abide by international law (and) to abide by the opinion of the international community" to settle the conflict".^[73][74]

"I don’t care about Hizbullah as a political organization. I don’t know much about their politics, and anyhow, it’s irrelevant. I don’t live in Lebanon. It’s a choice that the Lebanese have to make: Who they want to be their leaders, who they want to represent them. But there is a fundamental principle. People have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers, and people have the right to defend their country from invaders who are destroying their country. That to me is a very basic, elementary and uncomplicated question."^[75]

While condemning the targeting of civilians to achieve a political goal, Finkelstein has stated he believes Hezbollah has the right to target Israeli civilians if Israel targets civilians.^[76]

During the Second Intifada, Finkelstein stated a moral equivalence exists between Hamas and the state of Israel in regards to the military policy of targeted killings.^[77] Finkelstein argued one of Israel’s primary motivations for launching the 2008 offensive in Gaza was that Hamas was “signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border.” Finkelstein believes Hamas had joined the international community in “seeking a diplomatic settlement” and describes Hamas's stance towards Israel prior to the war as a “peace offensive.”^[74][78]

Statements on the BDS movement[link]

In February 2012, Finkelstein "launched a blistering attack" of the BDS movement, saying it was a "hypocritical, dishonest cult" that tries to cleverly pose as human rights activists while in reality their goal is to destroy Israel. In addition, he said: "I'm getting a little bit exasperated with what I think is a whole lot of nonsense. I'm not going to tolerate silliness, childishness and a lot of leftist posturing. I loathe the disingenuousness. We will never hear the solidarity movement [back a] two-state solution." Furthermore, Finkelstein stated that the BDS movement has had very few successes, and that just like a cult, the leaders pretend that they are hugely successful when in reality the general public rejects their extreme views.^[79]

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• 2012: Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End, OR Books, New York: 2012.^[80], ISBN 978-1-935928-77-5
• 2012: What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage, OR Books, New York: 2012.^[81], ISBN 978-1-935928-79-9
• 2011: Goldstone Recants. Richard Goldstone renews Israel’s license to kill, OR Books, New York: 2011.^[82], ISBN 978-1-935928-51-5
• 2010: This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. OR Books, New York: 2010. [4], ISBN 978-1-935928-43-0
• 2005: Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. U of California P, ISBN 0-520-24598-9. 2nd updated edition, U of Cal. P. June 2008, ISBN 0-520-24989-5, contains an appendix written by Frank J. Menetrez, Dershowitz vs Finkelstein. Who's Right and Who's Wrong?, p. 363-394,^[83]
• 2000: The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Verso, ISBN 1-85984-488-X.
• 1998: A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth (Co-author with Ruth Bettina Birn) Henry Holt and Co., ISBN 0-8050-5872-9.
• 1996: The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, ISBN 0-8166-2859-9.
• 1995: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Verso, ISBN 1-85984-442-1
• 1987: From the Jewish Question to the Jewish State: An Essay on the Theory of Zionism, thesis, Princeton University.

Articles and chapters[link]

• ”Disinformation and the Palestine Question: The Not-So-Strange Case of Joan Peter's 'From Time Immemorial.'“ in Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question. Ed. Edward W. Said and Christopher Hitchens. Verso Press, 1988. ISBN 0-86091-887-4. Chapter Two, Part One:
• ”Peace process or peace panic? - The scourge of Palestinian moderation”, Middle East Report, 19 (1989) 3/158, pp. 25–26,28-30,42
• ”Zionist orientations”, Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives 9 (March 1990) 1. p. 41-69
• ”Bayt Sahur in year II of the intifada. - A personal account”, Journal of Palestine Studies 19 (Winter 1990) 2/74.p. 62-74
• ”Israel and Iraq. - A double standard”, Journal of Palestine Studies 20 (1991) 2/78. p. 43-56
• "Reflections on Palestinian attitudes during the Gulf war", Journal of Palestine Studies, 21 (1992) 3/83, p. 54-70
• ”Réflexions sur la responsabilité de l´État et du citoyen dans le conflit arabo-israélien” (Reflections on the responsibility of state and citizen in the Arab-Israeli conflict), in L' homme et la société, L'Harmattan 1994, 114, S. 37-50
• ”Whither the `peace process'?”, New Left Review, (1996) 218, p. 138
• ”Securing occupation: The real meaning of the Wye River Memorandum”, New Left Review, (1998) 232, p. 128-139
• Contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Ed. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. AK Press, 2001. ISBN 1-902593-77-4.
• ”Lessons of Holocaust compensation”, in Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return. Ed. Naseer Aruri. Pluto Press, 2001, S. 272-275. ISBN 0-7453-1776-6.
• ”Abba Eban with Footnotes”, Journal of Palestine Studies,, vol 32. (2003), p. 74-89
• ”Prospects for Ending the Occupation”, Antipode, 35 (2003) 5, p. 839-845
• Contributor to Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel, by Seth Farber. Common Courage Press, 2005. ISBN 1-56751-326-3.
• ”The Camp David II negotiations. - how Dennis Ross proved the Palestinians aborted the peace process”, Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 36 (2007), p. 39-53
• ”Dennis Ross and the peace process: subordinating Palestinian rights to Israeli ‘needs’” Institute for Palestine Studies, 2007 ISBN 0-88728-308-X

Others on Finkelstein and his works[link]

Academic reviews of books by Finkelstein[link]

• Massad, Joseph. "Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness," Review Essay, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1. (Autumn, 2002), pp. 78–89.
• Cole, Tim. "Representing the Holocaust in America: Mixed Motives or Abuse?," The Public Historian, Vol. 24, No. 4. (Fall, 2002), pp. 127–131
• Hooglund, Eric. Reviewed work: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman Finkelstein, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3, Special Issue in Honor of Edward W. Said. (Spring, 2004), pp. 123–124.
• Pelham, Nicolas. Reviewed Work: Image and Reality in the Israel-Palestine Conflict. by Norman G. Finkelstein, International Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, Ethnicity and International Relations. (July 1996), pp. 627–628.
• Pappe, Ilan. "Valuable New Perspectives," Reviewed Work: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. by Norman G. Finkelstein, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4. (Summer, 1997), pp. 113–115.
• Beinin, Joel. "The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict after Oslo," Reviewed work: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman G. Finkelstein. Middle East Report, No. 201, Israel and Palestine: Two States, Bantustans or Binationalism?. (Oct. - Dec., 1996), pp. 45–47.

Reviews of books by Finkelstein[link]

• Blokker, Bas. Review of Beyond Chutzpah in NRC Handelsblad 24 February 2006.
• Pappe, Ilan. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. BOOKFORUM Feb./March 2006.
• De Zayas, Alfred. Review of Beyond Chutzpah in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 3 February 2006.
• Merkley, Paul Charles. These Pigs on the Face of the Earth: Israel's most relentless critic. Review of Beyond Chutzpah in Christianity Today January/February 2006.
• Desch, Michael C.. The Chutzpah of Alan Dershowitz. Review of Beyond Chutzpah in The American Conservative 5 Dec. 2005
• Goldberger, Ernest. English translation of German review Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Neue Zürcher Zeitung 10 Dec. 2005
• Marqusee, Mike. Israel, fraud and chutzpah Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Red Pepper (magazine) Jan. 2006
• Prashad, Vijay. Z magazine reviews Beyond Chutzpah. Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Z Magazine November 2005 Volume 18 Number 11
• McCarthy, Conor. The case against Israel^{[dead link]} Review of Beyond Chutzpah. Village Magazine, Ireland 17 Nov. 2005
• Gordon, Neve. Neve Gordon: Review of Norman Finkelstein's, Beyond Chutzpah. Review of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, by Norman G. Finkelstein. History News Network 12 Oct. 2005
• Nicolás, Rubén. El conflicto entre israelíes y palestinos sólo empeorará. Review of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, by Norman G. Finkelstein. El Mundo 23 Oct. 2003
• Bogdanor, Paul. The Finkelstein Phenomenon. Review of The Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein. Judaism, Fall, 2002.
• Abse, Tobias. Finkelstein's Follies: The Dangers of Vulgar Anti-Zionism Review of The Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein. New Interventions, vol. 10, no. 2, 2000.
• Bartov, Omer. A Tale of Two Holocausts. Review of The Holocaust Industry, by Norman Finkelstein. New York Times Book Review 6 Aug. 2000.

Profiles of Finkelstein[link]

• Garner, Mandy. "The Good Jewish Boys Go into Battle." Times Higher Education Supplement 16 December 2005.
• Naparstek, Ben. "His Own Worst Enemy." The Jerusalem Post 12 December 2005.
• Rayner, Jay. "Finkelstein's List." The Observer 16 July 2000.
• Sheleg, Yair. "The Finkelstein Polemic." Ha'aretz 30 March 2001.

Critics of Finkelstein and replies[link]

• Daniel Goldhagen, The New Discourse of Avoidance
  • Norman Finkelstein, Response to Goldhagen
• William Rubinstein et al., Uses of Holocaust, letters to the London Review of Books
• Alex Callinicos, Finkelstein and the Holocaust, criticism in Socialist Worker
• David Friedman, Anti-Defamation League letter, calling Finkelstein a Holocaust denier
  • How the ADL Fights Anti-Semitism
  • The Washington Post Publishes a Retraction, Marc Fisher, WP columnist, publishes a retraction of his charge of "holocaust revisionism

References[link]