Norman Finkelstein

"I had been a Maoist, and then when the Gang of Four was overthrown, I was completely distraught. I was bedridden for three weeks; it was a very painful experience for me. Not only because I had been wrong, but because I felt really embarrassed that I had been lecturing and pontificating with such self-confidence."

"I think sometimes we underestimate just how vulnerable Israel is on the public-relations front. That's why they spend so much money on propaganda. And that's why they panic every time they feel like they're losing the propaganda war."

"If there were an Oscar for best theatrical performance by a country, Israel would win every year. It's a country based on theater. It's a lunatic state - completely insane."

"No doubt one can, in light of further study and life experience, come to repudiate past convictions."

"Personal convictions are not politics. Personal convictions, if they become the subject of a group conviction, they become a cult."

"The real goal of politics has to be getting people to act on what they already know was wrong."

"The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats."