Downstream: ‘Gaza Is Over, It’s Gone. There’s Nothing Left’ w/ Norman Finkelstein

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Philosophy, News, Politics, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2025

⏱️ 97 minutes

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Summary

Norman Finkelstein is one of the west’s leading anti-Zionist scholars. The son of Holocaust survivors, he has spent his life studying and critiquing Israel’s assault on Palestine, decades before it became socially acceptable to do so.

Yet despite having dedicated his career to it, by the day before Hamas’ attack in October 2023, Norman had all but given up on the cause of Palestinian liberation. His most recent book on the subject had sold 370 copies. When news of the attack arrived, Norman knew people would want to hear from him. He wrestled with what to say, eventually coming to the view that Hamas’ actions could be viewed through the lens of the slave rebellions in the early 1800s: heinous acts of violence borne out of desperate circumstances: acts that he could not condemn.

In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Norman tells the story of his parents’ lives before the war, and the life they built in the shadow of the Holocaust. Could they speak about what they had been through? How did their experience impact Norman’s work and his devotion to the truth? What was it like arguing with his mentor, Noam Chomsky? And what is Israel’s endgame?

Transcript

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0:00.0	On the 7th October 23, the conflict, or as some call it, the occupation of Palestine, specifically Gaza, by Israel, was projected to the forefront of the global conversation.
0:20.0	Everybody started talking about it and
0:22.4	pretty much they haven't stopped since. But of course, that wasn't when things started.
0:27.9	The story of Israel-Palestine goes back a century or more. The Zionist story further still.
0:34.7	And many people, long before 2023, have tried to make sense of what Israel is doing
0:39.9	in Palestine. It's endgame, the ideology that drives it, and the specific details of what the
0:45.4	occupation of Palestine actually looks like. In all of that, in the Anglophone world at least,
0:51.3	nobody comes near my guest today. Nobody active anyway. His mentor was
0:57.6	Noam Chomsky. His PhD was on Zionism. And really since the early 1980s, he has been a central
1:05.0	critical voice in the United States regarding Israel and how it conducts itself. He has been reinvigorated by a world
1:15.4	of YouTube videos and social media clicks, but he remains very much a literary figure. His research
1:21.8	is second to none. His commitment is to intellectual life and getting the details right. That's certainly the case in
1:29.8	his newest book, which investigates the ongoing genocide of Gaza. I say it a lot, but this time it
1:36.7	really is absolutely warranted. He needs no introduction at all. Norman Finkelstein,
1:43.5	welcome to downstream. Thank you for having me.
1:46.6	Can I start by talking about your parents? There were Holocaust survivors. You've talked about
1:50.5	them many times. People like to focus on one's credentials, your PhD at Princeton and whatnot.
1:56.6	But I think that's probably the best place to start in terms of your world here on these things.
2:00.6	Who were there and what was their life experience?
2:02.6	That's a large question. It's actually a small question. It's large because they looms so large in my life.
2:09.6	But small because I never knew many details about them before the war.
2:15.6	We just never discussed it. We discussed the war as a political
	...

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