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Apr 8, 2011

Norman Finkelstein on Goldstone's revisionism

 


From: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs [mailto:info@wrmea.com]
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 1:25 PM

Subject: Finkelstein Provides Evidence of Israeli War Crimes

ACTION ALERT
April 7, 2011

Contact: news_editor@wrmea.com
Finkelstein Provides Evidence of Israeli War Crimes

The old Richard Goldstone found evidence that Israel committed war  
crimes in Gaza; the new Richard Goldstone suggests it didn't.
Here's the evidence.

Decide for yourself where is the truth.

An expanded and revised edition of Norman Finkelstein's This Time We  
Went Too Far, releasing later this month, refutes Richard Goldstone's  
recent recantation of his report on Gaza.

This significantly revised and expanded edition is the only  
comprehensive book-length study of the 2008-2009 Israeli invasion of  
Gaza and its consequences. It is based on thousands of passages of  
human rights reports as well as the statements of Israeli soldiers  
and Israeli officials. It covers the full documentary record— 
including all the official Israeli reports and investigations—right  
up until Dec. 31, 2010.
In light of Richard Goldstone's recent recantation of the report he  
authored on the Gaza invasion, Finkelstein's book provides a unique  
vantage point for judging whether the original report, or Goldstone's  
current position, is more credible.

The best way to order the Norman Finkelstein's new book is through  
the website: http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/this-time-revised/
Paperback is $15 and e-Book is $10. An excellent companion volume,  
The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the  
Gaza Conflict, edited by Adam Horowitz, Lizzy Ratner and Philip  
Weiss, is available for $11.25 through the AET Book Club.

Here is an excerpt from the epilogue of This Time We Went Too Far:

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

The massive destruction Israel inflicted on Gaza during the 2008-9  
invasion was designed in part to exacerbate the effects of an illegal  
blockade that had already wreaked havoc for some three years. "I  
fully expected to see serious damage, but I have to say I was really  
shocked when I saw the extent and precision of the destruction," the  
World Food Program director for the Gaza Strip observed after the  
assault. "It was precisely the strategic economic areas that Gaza  
depends on to relieve its dependency on aid that were wiped out." The  
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted critical civilian infrastructure  
such as the only operative flourmill and nearly all of the cement  
factories so that Gaza would be evermore dependent on Israeli whim  
for staples and would not be able to rebuild after a ceasefire went  
into effect.

A year and a half after the Gaza invasion, major humanitarian and  
human rights organizations uniformly attested that the people of Gaza  
continued to suffer a humanitarian crisis on account of the Israeli  
blockade: "Contrary to what the Israeli government states, the  
humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza is only a fraction of what is  
needed to answer the enormous needs of an exhausted people" (Oxfam);  
"The blockade . . . has severely damaged the economy, leaving 70 to  
80 percent of Gazans in poverty" (Human Rights Watch); "Israel is  
blocking vital medical supplies from entering the Gaza Strip" (World  
Health Organization); "The closure is having a devastating impact on  
the 1.5 million people living in Gaza" (International Committee of  
the Red Cross).
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was nonetheless emphatic that there  
was "no humanitarian crisis" and "no lack of medicines or other  
essential items" in Gaza.

"We mustn't tire of reminding others," Parisian media philosopher  
Bernard- Henri Lévy chimed in, that "the blockade concerns only arms  
and the material needed to manufacture them." Mocking claims of a  
humanitarian crisis Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon gestured to  
Gaza's "sparkling new shopping mall…new Olympic-sized swimming pool… 
five-star hotels and restaurants." Israel circulated photographs of  
these lavish scenes on the Internet. It is true that tiny pockets of  
prosperity have flourished in the Strip. Harvard political economist  
Sara Roy noted the emergence of an economic stratum that had "grown  
extremely wealthy from the black-market economy," and the "almost  
perverse consumerism in restaurants and shops that are the domain of  
the wealthy." But for students of the Nazi holocaust such a  
juxtaposition, however repellent, should hardly surprise. Thus, a  
survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto recalled:

The sword of the Nazi extermination policy hung over all Jews  
equally. But a social differentiation arose in the ghetto, setting  
apart substantial groups who had the means even under those infernal  
conditions to lead a comparatively full, well-fed life and enjoy some  
kinds of pleasures. On the same streets where daily you could see  
scenes of horrors, amid the swarms of tubercular children dying like  
flies . . . , you would come upon stores full of fine foods,  
restaurants and cafés, which served the most expensive dishes and  
drinks. . . . The clientele of these places consisted principally of  
Jewish Gestapo agents, Jewish police officials, rich merchants who  
did business with the Germans, smugglers, dealers in foreign exchange  
and similar kinds of people.

He went on to note that "the Nazis made moving pictures of such  
festive orgies to show the 'world' how well the Jews lived in the  
ghetto.
"Regrettably the ensuing debate on whether Israel had put Gazans on a  
"starvation" or "starvation plus" regimen shifted attention away from  
and obscured the more fundamental point: What right did Israel have  
to put the people of Gaza on any diet?

It was also lamentable how even the sternest critics of the blockade  
nevertheless seconded Israel's right to prevent weapons from reaching  
Gaza. Even if one accepts the highly debatable contention that, after  
acquiescing in the international consensus for resolving the  
conflict, Palestinians still do not have the right of armed  
resistance to end the occupation, the fact remains that, as Amnesty  
International has urged (if on different grounds), an arms embargo  
should be imposed on both Hamas and Israel. It is a curious  
conception of justice that would deny the victims the means to resist  
even as they support the legally mandated norms for achieving peace,  
but allow the perpetrators to replenish their arsenal of repression  
even as they reject these norms and ride roughshod over them.
###

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Peace.
Michael Santomauro 
@ 917-974-6367 

What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?

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