American Radical
The trials of Jewish-American political scientist Norman
Finkelstein.
Must Watch Video
May 01, 2012 "Al
Jazeera" --
American Radical is the probing, definitive documentary about
Jewish-American political scientist Norman Finkelstein.
"Every single member of my family on both sides was
exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising. And it is precisely and exactly
because of the lessons my parents taught me and my
two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel
commits its crimes against the Palestinians."
Norman Finkelstein |
Part 2 Below
American Radical is the
probing, definitive documentary about Jewish-American political
scientist Norman Finkelstein.
A devoted son of holocaust survivors, an ardent critic of Israel
and US Middle East policy, Finkelstein has been steadfast at the
centre of many intractable controversies, including his denial
of tenure at DePaul University.
"You
don't know who Norman Finkelstein is. He's poison,
he's a disgusting self-hating Jew."
Leon Wieseltier, literary
editor, The New Republic |
Called a lunatic and
self-hating Jew by some and an inspirational street-fighting
revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarising
figure.
"Norman is a very careful scholar. And he feels very
passionately about the Holocaust. His parents are
both survivors of extermination camps and he was
deeply involved in their lives and the tragedies and
so on. [He] knows everything about the Holocaust.
And when he sees somebody using it, exploiting it,
demeaning the memory of the victims for personal
gain, he doesn't like it. I can understand that."
Noam Chomsky, friend and
professor of linguistics, MIT |
From Beirut to Kyoto,
the filmmakers follow Finkelstein around the world as he
attempts to negotiate a voice among both supporters and critics.
"If
he were not a Jew - that is, I don't think he is a
Jew. As someone once put it 'he's only Jewish on his
parents side". If he were not a Jewish person or a
person of Jewish heritage with a name like
Finkelstein, nobody would have any doubt that he was
an anti-Semite."
Alan Dershowitz, author
'The Case for Israel' |
Filmmakers: David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier
The documentary was recently voted fifth best political
documentary of all time by
www.screenjunkies.com.
