Editing The Holocaust Industry (section)

==Reviews and critiques==
The book has been controversial, receiving a number of both positive and negative reviews.<ref name=":0" /> It was reviewed positively in ''[[The Nation]]'' by [[Neve Gordon]].<ref name="Wiener"/> The Holocaust historian [[Raul Hilberg]] said:
{{blockquote|Today [Finkelstein] is rather unpopular and his book will certainly not become a best seller, but what it says is basically true even though incomplete. It is more a journalistic account than an in depth study on the topic, which would need to be much longer.<ref>[http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=202 ''Raul Hilberg interviews on The Holocaust Industry & Finkelstein (2000/2001)''], available at NormanFinkelstein.com  {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060327144638/http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=202 |date=2006-03-27 }}.</ref>}} Referring to the part of the book that deals with the claims against the Swiss banks and to forced labor, he noted: {{blockquote|I would now say in retrospect that he was actually conservative, moderate and that his conclusions are trustworthy. He is a well-trained [[political scientist]], has the ability to do the research, did it carefully, and has come up with the right results. I am by no means the only one who, in the coming months or years, will totally agree with Finkelstein's breakthrough.<ref name="Wiener">{{cite news |last1=Wiener |first1=Jon |title=Giving Chutzpah New Meaning |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/giving-chutzpah-new-meaning/ |work=The Nation |date=June 23, 2005}}</ref>}}

Israeli historian [[Moshe Zuckermann]] welcomed his book as an "irreplaceable critique of the ‘instrumentalisation of the past’ and underlined its ‘liberating potential’".<ref name=":0" />

Oren Baruch Stier reviewing the book for the journal ''[[Prooftexts (journal)|Prooftexts]]'' summarized the book as a "small and pungent manifesto" and concluded his review by writing that "there are worthwhile arguments here, if one can stomach the bile in which they float".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stier|first=Oren Baruch|date=2002|title=Holocaust, American Style|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/pft.2002.22.3.354|journal=Prooftexts|volume=22|issue=3|pages=354–391|doi=10.2979/pft.2002.22.3.354|jstor=10.2979/pft.2002.22.3.354}}</ref>

Genocide scholar [[Omer Bartov]] wrote that "Like any conspiracy theory, it contains several grains of truth; and like any such theory, it is both irrational and insidious."<ref>{{cite news| newspaper=The New York Times | author = Omer Bartov | url = https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/08/06/reviews/000806.06bartovt.html | title = A Tale of Two Holocausts | date = 6 August 2000}}</ref>

[[Enzo Traverso]] reviewing the book for the journal ''[[Historical Materialism (journal)|Historical Materialism]]'' wrote that the book has proven controversial, concluding that it "contains a core of truth that must be recognised, but it lends itself, due to its style and several of its main arguments, to the worst uses and instrumentalisations." He suggested that the book should be seen as an opportunity for stimulating public debates about difficult topics related to "the [[politics of memory]] and on the public uses of history"<ref name=":0" />

[[Donald D. Denton]], reviewing the book for ''[[Terrorism and Political Violence]]'' journal, noted that it "will be valuable as an historical piece of research and of interest to those who now attempt to deal with the contemporary genocides and the subsequent generations of children of those who endured such horrors".<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Denton|first=Donald D.|date=October 3, 2019|title=Book Reviews: The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2019.1666573|journal=Terrorism and Political Violence|language=en|volume=31|issue=6|pages=1366–1368|doi=10.1080/09546553.2019.1666573|s2cid=210646022|issn=0954-6553}}</ref>

[[Wolfgang Benz]] stated to ''[[Le Monde]]'': "It is impossible to learn anything from Finkelstein's book. At best, it is interesting for a psychotherapist."<ref>{{cite news|title=Polémique et curiosité en Allemagne |newspaper=Le Monde |date=16 February 2001|first=Wolfgang |last=Benz|author-link=Wolfgang Benz}}</ref> [[Jean Birnbaum]] publishing in the same venue added that Norman Finkelstein "hardly cares about nuance"<ref>{{cite news|first=Jean |last=Birnbaum |author-link=Jean Birnbaum |title=Le débat s'ouvre autour du livre contesté L'Industrie de l'Holocauste |newspaper=Le Monde |date=February 16, 2001}}</ref> and [[Rony Brauman]] wrote in the preface to the French edition (''L'Industrie de l'Holocauste'', Paris, La Fabrique, 2001) that some assertions of Finkelstein (especially on the impact of the [[Six-days war]]) are wrong, others being pieces of "propaganda".

Historian [[Peter Novick]], whose work Finkelstein described as providing the "initial stimulus" for ''The Holocaust Industry'',<ref>{{Cite book|last=Finkelstein|first=Norman G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VrqK5VdO2i0C&q=%22initial+stimulus+for+this+book+was+Peter+Novick's+seminal+study%22&pg=PA4|title=The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering|date=April 15, 2003|publisher=Verso|isbn=9781859844885|via=Google Books}}</ref> said in the July 28, 2000 issue of London's ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]'' that Finkelstein's book is replete with "false accusations", "egregious misrepresentations", "absurd claims" and "repeated mis-statements" ("A charge into darkness that sheds no light"). Finkelstein replied to the allegations by Novick on his website, replying to five "specific charges", and criticizing his opponents' "intellectual standards".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2009-03-21|title=To Debate or to Defame? A reply to Peter Novick |first=Norman |last=G. Finkelstein|url=http://normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=165|url-status=dead|access-date=2021-07-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090321185503/http://normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=3&ar=165|archive-date=2009-03-21}}</ref>

Historian [[Hasia Diner]] described Peter Novick and Finkelstein of being "harsh critics of American Jewry from the left," and challenged the notion in their books that American Jews did not begin to commemorate the Holocaust until after 1967.<ref>{{cite magazine| title=All Quiet; Were postwar American Jews really 'silent' about the Holocaust? |first=Adam |last=Kirsh |date=June 23, 2009 |magazine=[[Tablet Magazine]] |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/64448/all-quiet}}</ref>

Andrew Ross, reviewing the book for ''[[Salon magazine|Salon]]'', wrote:
{{blockquote|On the issue of [[reparation (legal)|reparations]], he barely acknowledges the wrongs committed by the Swiss and German institutions &mdash; the burying of Jewish bank accounts, the use of [[slave labor]] &mdash; that gave rise to the recent reparations drive. The fear that the reparations will not wind up in the hands of those who need and deserve them most is a legitimate concern. But the idea that survivors have been routinely swindled by Jewish institutions is a gross distortion. The chief reason why survivors have so far seen nothing of the $1.25 billion Swiss settlement, reached in 1998, is that U.S. courts have yet to rule on a method of distribution. On other reparations and compensation settlements, the [[Claims Conference]], a particular bete noire of Finkelstein, says that it distributed approximately $220 million to individual survivors in 1999 alone.<ref>{{cite magazine | magazine=[[Salon Magazine]] |date=September 6, 2000 |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2000/books/reviews/09/06/salon.review.holocaust/ |title=Review: 'The Holocaust Industry' |access-date=2008-04-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040407180501/http://edition.cnn.com/2000/books/reviews/09/06/salon.review.holocaust/ |archive-date=April 7, 2004 |first=Andrew |last=Ross |via=CNN}}</ref>}}

[[Alvin Hirsch Rosenfeld]] wrote that ''The Holocaust Industry'' "is representative of a polemical engagement with the Holocaust" that places it in line with a number of other works by "critics of Holocaust consciousness, all of whom stress the utilitarian function of memory", and who see many modern references to The Holocaust as "means of enhancing ethnic identity and advancing political agendas of one kind or another". Rosenfeld also noted that the book presents those ideas in a very "harsh and inflammatory way."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rosenfeld|first=Alvin H.|date=2001|title=The Assault on Holocaust Memory|journal=The American Jewish Year Book|volume=101|pages=3–20|issn=0065-8987|jstor=23604504}}</ref>

It has been suggested by the editor of '' Terrorism and Political Violence'' journal that the book "probably cost [Finkelstein] ... [[tenure]] at [[DePaul University]]".<ref name=":1" />

===Finkelstein's response to critics===
Finkelstein responded to his critics in the foreword to the second edition (published in 2003), writing "Mainstream critics allege that I conjured a '[[conspiracy theory]]' while those on the [[Left-wing politics|Left]] ridicule the book as a defense of 'the banks'. None, so far as I can tell, question my actual findings."<ref name="Finkelstein2003">{{cite book |author=Norman G. Finkelstein |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VuRh9Oz_Cj4C&pg=PT8 |title=The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering |date=17 October 2003 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-84467-487-9 |page= |pages=}}</ref>