review 1: For someone that only knows the basics about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like me, I hoped this book would educate me and shed a light on the core of the dispute. That was too optimistic. The book reads like a university textbook. Each page has at least 5 notes and 5 more quotes, so I had to read it with a pencil and with full concentration. Only in the last two chapters, when Finkelstein writes from his experience of a visit to Gaza in 2009, I could relax and start to understand the complexity of the problems.He explains how in December 2008, when Israel invaded Gaza, the simmering discontent of the world with Israel reached a boiling point. Finkelstein tries to analyse the motives behind this assault and records the suffering of the people in Gaza. His goal is to in... moreform and mobilize the public around the settlement of the conflict. I think he has succeeded in his promise to inform the public, but I am gloomy about his second goal. review 2: The title of Norman Finklestein's latest book on the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a direct quote from a column written by Haaretz's Gideon Levy regarding the international community's response to Israel's brutal assault on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. The implicit argument in Levy's column is also the central theme of Finkelstein's book: the worldwide public response to Israel's massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, 800 of whom were civilians and 400 of whom were women and children, in “Operation Cast Lead” marks a turning point away from unconditional approbation of Israel's occupation of Palestine. Prior to the massacre in Gaza, politicians and media spokespersons had been largely successful at silencing or marginalizing any criticism of Israel's militarism and of US backing for it. While the political and media establishments were still quick to rush to Israel's defense this time, they were unable to keep all criticisms out of the mainstream debate, particularly when the United Nations Human Rights Council commissioned Justice Richard Goldstone, a liberal Zionist, and a team of investigators to determine whether the laws of war were violated in Israel's assault. In “'This Time We Went Too Far,'” Professor Finkelstein examines what prompted Israel to subject a defenseless population to “22 days of death and destruction” (to quote the title of Amnesty International's first report on the assault) and how Israel's failure to silence the international outcry raises the possibility of reaching a viable solution that allows everyone to enjoy peace, security, and human dignity.Anyone remotely familiar with the recent history of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories knows better than to accept Israel's claim that “Operation Cast Lead” was undertaken in self defense in response to Hamas' rocket attacks on southern Israel. Still, the incredible disparity between Hamas' homemade rockets and Israel's sophisticated air and ground forces aside, even impartial human rights agencies frequently present these attacks as though they take place in a political vacuum. To remedy this, Finkelstein devotes the beginning of his book to the recent history of Israel's occupation of Gaza, and maintains that “Operation Cast Lead” was only a defensive conflict from the point of view of Hamas and the residents of Gaza. In addition to the slow strangulation of Gazan society with a crippling blockade, Israeli forces have repeatedly launched attacks on Gaza even after pulling out their illegal settlements in 2005. Moreover, it was Israel who first broke the ceasefire in November 2008 when it launched a bloody border raid—prior to this Hamas had refrained from launching rockets into Israel since Egypt had brokered a ceasefire in June.If the assault on Gaza was not, as Israel's apologists in the mainstream press still maintain, a defensive operation, then that leaves us with the question of what Israel's real reasons for the operation were. This is the question that Finkelstein devotes the next section of his book to, and based on statements by Israeli officials and arguments advanced by its apologists, he proposes two complementary motives behind the attacks. The first should sound familiar to those who have sought an explanation for the United States' occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan: Israel was seeking to restore its regional hegemony by demonstrating its willingness and its ability to visit terror on a militarily weaker opponent. After its humiliating defeat by Hezbollah in 2000 and again in 2006, Israeli officials began to fear that their ability to intimidate the Arab world into submitting to its whims had been compromised. Just as a neighborhood bully will try to “make an example” out of one of their weakest victims, Israel deliberately rained down fire on a defenseless population in an effort to convince its neighbors that it is still willing and able to respond to the slightest “provocation” with “disproportionate force” (a political euphemism for the “lunatic doctrine” that Bush and his cohorts were so fond of, and that Obama has yet to challenge).The second reason that Finkelstein proposes to explain Israel's willingness to attack the people of Gaza was an effort to head off a “peace offensive” by Hamas. The phrase “peace offensive” should also be familiar to those who are familiar with the history of the Israeli occupation, as it is frequently used by Israeli officials when they fear that Palestinian leaders may be willing to settle for the peace mandates supported by the international community, including the more unreasonable clauses that Israel has managed to introduce into the proposals (i.e. a two-state settlement with full recognition of Israel's “right to exist” as a “Jewish state”). Whenever Israel fears that support for such a settlement is growing among the Palestinian leadership or the Arab community, it attempts to undermine this support by instigating (or, failing that, initiating) armed violence in the Occupied Territories or on one of its other borders. In the past, this has allowed Israel to refuse to pursue peace negotiations while still claiming to be merely defending itself.As Finkelstein points out, Israel met with limited success in its efforts to demonstrate its military prowess and regional superiority. On the one hand, its decision to attack a population that it knew was incapable of inflicting any serious casualties among its own forces merely highlighted the nation's decline as a military power. On the other hand, the international community strengthened its calls for a peaceful termination of the military occupation, and the Palestinian leadership has thus far continued to cooperate with the United Nations. As a result, Israel has actually weakened its position and isolated itself from many of its former supporters.After reviewing the rationales behind Israel's devastating attack on Gaza, Finkelstein discusses what could be considered the “second phase” of the Israeli operation—i.e. the battle for public support. By counterpoising reports by multiple human rights organizations, impartial observers, and even statements made by Israeli officials against Israeli's claims that it adhered carefully to the laws of war and that its forces made every effort to avoid civilian casualties, Finkelstein demonstrates the near total failure of the Israeli government to conceal the reality of the massacre. In addition to intentionally targeting civilians, Finkelstein points out that Israeli forces attacked several critical elements of Gaza's already weakened infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, factories, water and sewage facilities, and numerous homes, all in the absence of any evidence that these buildings were housing armed combatants or posed any strategic threat to Israeli soldiers. This leads to the conclusion that, if the weapons and training used by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) allow anything near the level of precision claimed by Israel itself, then it must have been targeting these nonmilitary targets deliberately.The fundamental problem with Israel's propaganda efforts was not a lack of resources, Finkelstein contends, but that the scale of the massacre was too incredible to hide behind a public relations campaign. When it realized that its traditional assertions, such as claims that Hamas was using “human shields” and that the IDF is the “most moral army in the world” would not silence or marginalize its growing numbers of critics, Israel immediately began resorting to intimidation and minimization. Similar to the way the Bush administration responded to the revelation that US forces had been torturing prisoners in its prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba, Israeli officials attempted to portray their more egregious crimes as “isolated incidents” brought on by a few “rotten apples.” Additionally, officials continued to bar human rights investigators from organizations like Amnesty International and B'Tselem from entering Gaza. When the Israeli organization of IDF veterans Breaking the Silence published a report containing the testimonies of roughly thirty soldiers who participated in “Operation Cast Lead,” the Israeli foreign ministry responded by calling on the European governments who supported the organization to terminate their funding. As Finkelstein documents, neither the intimidation nor the scapegoating succeeded in stifling the criticisms of Israel's conduct. In addition to the investigation commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council, perhaps one of the most significant reports to come out of investigations into Israel's attack on Gaza was Amnesty International's description of foreign arms suppliers to Israel and Palestine that ended with an unprecedented call for a “comprehensive UN Security Council arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups .”After describing his personal experiences in Gaza after the massacre, where he found that the brutality of the attack had still failed to deter the people's determination to demand security and human dignity or Hamas' willingness to work with the international community to reach a peaceful settlement, Finkelstein describes the dramatic effects of the attack on worldwide public opinion. While various political leaders continued to voice their unconditional support for Israel's militarism, the public everywhere responded with an unprecedented level of outrage. Even in the United States, where both the political establishment and the mainstream media continue to serve the interests of their “Junior Partner” in the Middle East unwaveringly, Finkelstein cites a survey indicating that voters who considered themselves supporters of Israel dropped from 69 to 49 percent, while those who felt that the US should back Israel dropped from 69 to 44 percent. Finkelstein also points out important changes in the demographics of those who have begun to question Israel's claims. He notes that the organizations calling for a peaceful resolution to Israel's conflict with the Palestinian people have begun to demonstrate a great deal of racial, gender, and age diversity, including large numbers of Jewish individuals. This growing number of both Jewish and mainstream supporters of a peaceful settlement has slowly begun to undermine claims made by the likes of Alan Dershowitz and Abraham Foxman that concern for the Palestinian people is somehow linked to a “new anti-Semitism.” Even a small number of liberal Zionists have begun to oppose the “Israel lobby,” in some cases defending others who do so against charges of racism and anti-Semitism.Finkelstein sees the widespread outrage over “Operation Cast Lead” and the growing willingness among mainstream commentators to question the claims made by Israel's apologists as symptoms of a major shift in worldwide public opinion. As the once unanimous support for Israel's military adventures continues to encounter larger pockets of resistance, the possibility of bringing peace and justice to Palestine becomes more real and plausible. Although the struggle to convince Israel to accept the international consensus and atone for its crimes against the Palestinian people will by no means be a minor one, the possibility of seeing both Palestinians and Jews living together in peace and fellowship is closer now than ever before. less
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