TEHRAN - Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish professor of political science at DePaul University in Chicago, believes that the Jewish elites in the United States use the holocaust as a weapon to silence those who criticize Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians.

Following is the text of a brief interview emailed to the Mehr News Agency on January 2, in which Finkelstein described his views on the holocaust:

“I argue that Jewish elites in the U.S. use the Nazi holocaust as a weapon for political and financial gain. In particular it is used to bludgeon critics of Israel into silence and to extract what was called "Holocaust compensation" from Europe.

“I am against the extortion of holocaust compensation on false pretexts (the claims made against the Swiss banks, for example, were nonsense), and I am against Jewish organizations pretending to speak in the name of holocaust survivors and then keeping the money for themselves, the survivors never seeing a dime of it.

“I state that what is now called anti-Semitism is actually legitimate criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, and that the charge of anti-Semitism is simply used, like the Nazi holocaust, to silence criticism of Israel.”

Dr. Norman Finkelstein received his doctorate from Dept. of Political Science at Princeton University. He is the author of several books including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2000), which was attacked by organizations in North America dedicated to defending Israeli state policies. Finkelstein, both of whose parents were holocaust survivors, says "The Holocaust Industry is, as I conceive in the book, institutions, organizations and individuals who have put to use Jewish suffering for political and financial gain." Finkelstein supported Hezbollah's armed resistance against the Israeli Army in Lebanon. He says the Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. He argues that the Zionists’ repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis.