Title: Fact-checking Chapter 1 from Norman Finklestein’s Gaza: An Inquest into its Martydom
DISCLAIMER: My mind is broken after this. I recommend this to nobody. I should of done something productive.
Praise for Gaza
Alice Walker
Alice Walker has had multiple accusations of antisemitism and praising David Icke. (Wikipedia)
One of Walker’s poems, “To Study The Talmud,” has also attracted widespread condemnation. In it, she describes her reaction when a Jewish friend (in the interview, she said it was her ex-husband) accused her “of appearing to be antisemitic.” The poem says that one should look to the Talmud in an effort to understand the state of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, which she describes as “demonic.” (NYTimes)
Alfred de Zayas
Quote
The massacre of innocent people is a serious matter. It is not a thing to be easily forgotten. It is our duty to cherish their memory. -Mahatma Gandhi
Finkelstein didn’t cite the above quote in this book, yet used the same quote in another one of his books, This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion pg. 158.
Footnote:
“Speech at Delhi Provincial Political Conference” (2 July 1947), Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, v. 88, p. 263.”
Maybe I’m blind, but I couldn’t find this quote after reading the specific speech multiple times. (Link to Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Vol. 88)
Preface
The notion that enhanced fireworks emanating from an anthill could, in and of themselves, inflect state policy of one of the world’s most formidable military powers is laughable—or would be, were it not for that power’s formidable disinformation apparatus. (pg. xii)
From 2001 to 2015 there were 12,338 rocket attacks and 6,500 mortar attacks that left 33 dead and 1971+ injured in Israel (prior to 2005 most of the attacks were against Israeli targets in the Gaza Strip.)
Between October 7 2023-January 9th, Hamas fired 14,500+ rockets. Interestingly, these “enhanced fireworks” routinely fell short within Gaza and killed Palestinians. In the first couple weeks of the October 7th conflict, the IDF said more than 550 rockets had fallen short.
According to Human Rights Watch:
“Human Rights Watch has previously reported on rockets that have misfired and struck areas in Gaza. Research citing data released by the Israeli military has suggested that between 10 to 20 percent of rockets launched from Gaza have failed. Data on the overall numbers of projectiles (for example, rockets and mortars) fired as well as their success or failure rates are estimates and should not be considered precise.”
References:
Rocket & Mortar Attacks Against Israel by Date
Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel - Wikipedia
IDF claims over 550 rockets fell short in Strip since outbreak of war | The Times of Israel
Chapter One: Self-Defense
Page 3
Approximately 250,000 Palestinians driven out of their homes during the 1948 war fl ed to Gaza and overwhelmed the indigenous population of some 80,000.
Between 160,000 and 190,000 fled to the Gaza Strip. More than one-fifth of Palestinian Arabs left Palestine altogether. About 100,000 of these went to Lebanon, 100,000 to Jordan, between 75,000 and 90,000 to Syria, 7,000 to 10,000 to Egypt, and 4,000 to Iraq.
Palestine - Occupation, Refugees, Conflict | Britannica
Refugees flooded in to the tiny area, with estimates of their numbers ranging between 83,000 (September 1948) and 250,000 (December 1948). By December 1949, a thorough census by village and town of origin had been taken and the number of refugees was established at 202,606. The large refugee numbers combined with those of the native Gazans resulted in a population density of 1,800 people per square mile.
Refugees in the Gaza Strip, December 1948-May 1950 on JSTOR
Page 4
Egypt kept a tight rein on the activity of Fedayeen (Palestinian guerrillas) in Gaza. But in early 1955, Israeli leaders plotted to lure Egypt into war in order to topple President Gamal Abdel Nasser. They launched a bloody cross-border raid into Gaza killing 40 Egyptian soldiers. The Gaza raid proved a near-perfect provocation, as armed border clashes escalated.
This is how Benny Morris describes the early 1955 period:
By February 1955 the situation was ripe for a massive explosion. In Cairo there was deep suspicion (monitored by IDF Intelligence Branch) of Israel’s aggressive intentions; and in Jerusalem there were both real and feigned suspicions and antipathy toward the Egyptian dictator. The Cairo death sentences, aggravated by what was seen as Nasser’s duplicity, and Ben-Gurion’s return to the Defense Ministry, signifying a weakening of Sharett’s moderate approach, were the two important precipitants of what was about to happen. But the immediate trigger, as usual, was provided by the Arab side: In the last week of February a team of Egyptian intelligence scouts penetrated deep into Israel, reconnoitered a number of sensitive defense facilities, and on February 25 gratuitously shot and killed an Israeli cyclist on a road near Rehovot.
Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881–2001 (New
York: 2001), pp. 399
The book Intelligence for Peace provides more detail:
On 25 February Arab infiltrators killed an Israeli cyclist in the town of Rehovot. One of the infiltrators, who was pursued by IDF soldiers and killed shortly afterwards, had a note in his pocket with reports of observations he had apparently carried out from Gaza, on orders from Egyptian Military Intelligence. The following day, Minister of Defence Ben Gurion, and Chief- of-Staff Moshe Dayan, demanded Sharett’s approval for a retaliatory raid against an Egyptian Army base in Gaza. Sharett was willing to approve a raid, but only on condition that it be of a limited nature. In the discussions they held on the planned action, Dayan told Sharett that he believed about ten Egyptian soldiers would be killed in the operation. At the same time, however, Dayan had already laid much more ambitious plans. In a meeting of the General Staff, Dayan asked some of his generals to submit an operational plan for the conquest of the entire Gaza Strip. He presented this plan to Ben Gurion at the beginning of March.
Hesi Karmel, Intelligence for peace: the role of intelligence in times of peace, Frank Cass (1999) p. 56
Finkelstein continues in the footnotes framing Egypt as passive and Israel as the sole aggressor quoting Benny Morris:
“Egypt generally sought tranquility along its border with Israel.” (Footnote cont. from page 4)
Here is the full section:
Before March 1955 Egypt generally sought tranquillity along its borders with Israel, the more freely to pursue its goals of banishing the British, gaining ascendancy in the Arab world, and developing its political, economic, and social structures. It was ‘far less concerned over the Palestine question’ than any of the other Arab states, reported the American ambassador in Cairo, Jefferson Caffery, at the end of 1954.
In his programmatic—philosophical work, The Philosophy of the Revolution, written, apparently, in late 1953, Nasser carefully avoided calling for Israel’s destruction and did not set it as a goal of Egyptian policy. He spoke only vaguely of the ‘common [Arab] struggle’ and described Israel as a ‘fruit of imperialism’ and Palestine as ‘a home stolen illegally from its owners’. But Israel’s—and especially, Ben-Gurion’s—attitude towards Egypt soured in the course of 1954 and January 1955. A major factor was the increasing violence, occasionally by Egyptian army-directed squads, along the Gaza frontier. Continuing Egyptian political and propaganda warfare against Israel also played a role. And so, somewhat paradoxically, did the Bat-Galim and Lavon affairs. But perhaps the single clinching, traumatic event that soured attitudes towards Cairo among Israeli policy- makers was the hanging of the two Jewish saboteurs in Cairo in January 1955. The hangings led almost directly to the IDF raid on Gaza in February 1955, which, in turn, led directly to both the Egyptian Fedayeen campaigns and the Egyptian Soviet arms deal.
Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956 (Oxford: 1993), pp. 272–3
Page 6
Finklestein introduces the First Intifada:
In December 1987, a traffic accident on the Gaza-Israel border that left four
Palestinians dead triggered a mass rebellion, or intifada, against Israeli rule
throughout the occupied territories.
Finklestein goes on to fill the rest of the paragraph with five quotes from Benny Morris with a citation to five different page numbers that spans 38 pages.
*I’m not going to go through each of these quotes since it’s not the quotes themselves thats the issue. It’s the framing of the information. Finkelstein encapsulates the First Intifada in one paragraph with Morris quotes highlighting the most inflammatory parts against Israel—while Morris has a chapter on the Intifada that is 67 pages giving the reader a balanced perspective and contextual understanding. Benny Morris in 1991 (27 years before Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom) would say Finkelstein “selectively quot[ing]” from his book and for not knowing “anything …beyond what is found” in his books. (Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 1991)
Page 7
The summit collapsed in mutual recrimination. But which side bore primary culpability for the aborted talks? “If I were a Palestinian,” Ben-Ami, one of Israel’s chief negotiators at Camp David, later commented, “I would have rejected Camp David as well,” while Israeli strategic analyst Zeev Maoz concluded that the “substantial concessions” Israel demanded of Palestinians at Camp David “were not acceptable and could not be acceptable.”
The Ben-Ami quote has been discussed on this reddit:
Dissecting Omar Baddar’s response video (Effortpost) : r/Destiny
Regarding the Shlomo Ben-Avi quote Axehole brought - I looked into it : r/Destiny
’Arafat was right to turn down Camp David’ & The Death of A Quote : r/Destiny
Page 8
Finklestein talking about the Taba Summit quoting Benny Morris:
Although both parties affirmed that “significant progress had been made” and they had “never been
closer to agreement,” Prime Minister Barak unilaterally “called a halt” to these negotiations, and as a result “the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had ground to an indefinite halt.”
Giving the impression that Prime Minister Barak halted the negotiations and leaving out significant context as to why. Here is Benny Morris full paragraph that Finklestein quoted from:
Palestinian and Israeli delegations met for a last resort at Taba, in Sinai, during January 21–27 but the talks were continuously undermined by Palestinian acts of terrorism (such as the execution-style murder of two unarmed Israeli civilians by Tanzim operatives in Tulkarm on January 23) and by Palestinian unwillingness to budge from their xed positions on Jerusalem, the borders, and the refugees. The talks broke up on January 27 with a joint statement that in effect conceded that nothing had been concluded or agreed, though Abu Alaa and Ben-Ami armed that “significant progress had been made” and that they had “never been closer to agreement.” Again, Arafat had either played Israel along, unwilling simply to make peace with the Jewish state, or, though willing, had simply failed to rise to the occasion and make the best deal he would ever be offered. In either case, the Palestinians, it would seem, had once again missed an historic opportunity in their century-long struggle for independence and statehood. The following day, January 28, Barak called a halt to all talks with the Palestinians (after Arafat’s hate-filled speech against Israel at Davos —see following) and devoted the remaining week to his election campaign. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process had ground to an indefinite halt.
Finklestein ignoring the above Palestinian “provocations” the next paragraph he introduces the Second Intifada and an “Israeli provocation” which he doesn’t elaborate on (maybe Sharon visiting the Temple Mount?).
In September 2000, amid the diplomatic stalemate and aft er Israeli provocation, Palestinians in the occupied territories once again entered into open revolt. Like its 1987 precursor, this second intifada was at its inception overwhelmingly nonviolent. However, in Ben-Ami’s words, “Israel’s disproportionate response to what had started as a popular uprising, with young, unarmed men confronting Israeli soldiers armed with lethal weapons, fueled the [second] intifada beyond control and turned it into an all-out war.” It is largely forgotten that the first Hamas suicide bombing of the second intifada did not occur until five months into Israel’s relentless bloodletting. Israeli forces had fired one million rounds of ammunition in just the first few days of the uprising, while the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed during the first weeks was 20:1.
“After the chief of Jerusalem’s police force was knocked unconscious by a stone, they switched to live ammunition and killed four Palestinian youths.” (Wikipedia)
(Ya’alon denies the 1.3 million figure, which was revealed by Amos Malka, then-director of Military Intelligence, and published by Ben Caspit in Maariv; he claims that the number reflected the demand of the command units for supplemental ammunition).
Deflater of defeatist discourse Israel News | Haaretz
Prior to the “first Hamas suicide bombing” five months into the second intifada there were multiple shooting attacks, passenger in a car killed by stone-throwing, abduction and execution, and bombings and a vehicular attack with a Palestinian bus driver drove into a bus stop. Two days before the suicide bombing that Finklestein references, a Palestinian sniper shot a 10-month-old infant in the head while she was in her stroller, killing her instantly. The Palestinian Authority initially arrested the sniper, but released him after a short while. Shin Bet would later capture the sniper and he’d be sentenced to life in prison. (Wikipedia)
In the warped memory of Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres, however, this period was “another mistake—we restrained ourselves for eight years and allowed [Gazans] to shoot thousands of rockets at us … restraint was a mistake.”
Sections of the interview below that provides context:
What do you think about negotiating with Hamas?
Peres: It’s like talking to the wall. Hamas says we don’t want to talk, we want to destroy you, we don’t want peace with you. The difference between Hamas and Fatah is essential, not political. Fatah is a political organization. Politics is built on negotiation and compromise; religion does not compromise. So long as Hamas is a religious-political organization, I am deeply pessimistic.
About the Turkish flotilla, do you think we acted correctly?
We acted correctly, except in terms of explaining what happened.
We killed nine Turks, they killed no Israelis.
There were six boats. Only on one—where they came prepared for violence—was there a clash. There was a long delay in broadcasting our explanation. There is no starvation in Gaza and no siege. If Gaza would agree not to rocket us, we would leave the entry points open.
But we prevented items like cardamom from reaching Gaza.
OK, we made some mistakes. [But] we made another mistake—we restrained ourselves for eight years and allowed them to shoot thousands of rockets at us until the rage came out at one go [in the IDF assault on Hamas in Gaza in 2008-2009]. Had we done then what we do now, retaliate each time they fire a rocket—there would have been no problem. In the end, it turned out that restraint was a mistake.
Making History - Tablet Magazine
Page 9
“If only it would just sink into the sea,” Rabin despaired.
During a WINEP conference in Jerusalem in September 1992 Yitzhak Rabin remarked, “I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but since that won’t happen we must find a solution to the problem of the Strip.”
Money, Media and Policy Consensus - MERIP
Israel subsequently purported that it was no longer the occupying power in Gaza. However, human rights organizations and international institutions rejected this contention; the fact was, in myriad ways Israel still preserved near-total dominance of the Strip. “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery,” Human Rights Watch concluded, “it remains in control.” Israel’s own leading authority on international law, Yoram Dinstein, aligned himself with the “prevalent opinion” that the Israeli occupation of Gaza was not over.
Two good sources that talks about how Israel doesn’t have effective control over Gaza after their withdraw in 2005:
Is Israel Still an Occupying Power in Gaza? | Netherlands International Law Review
Israel – Hamas 2023 Symposium - The Legal Context of Operations Al-Aqsa Flood and Swords of Iron - Lieber Institute West Point
Page 11
Since its establishment in 1988, Hamas had formally rejected the internationally endorsed terms for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, its participation in the electoral contest signaled the possibility that the Islamic movement “was evolving and could evolve still more.” But Israel immediately tightened its siege, and “economic activity in Gaza came to a standstill, moving into survival mode.” The United States and European Union followed suit, as they inflicted “devastating” financial sanctions.
According to the Global Terrorism Database, Hamas had 246 incidents from 1989 to 2006. (Source)
The same source Finklestein quotes above, “was evolving and could evolve still more” said in the same report:
One of the reasons Abu Mazen favoured Hamas’ participation is precisely that he saw it as tacit acceptance of the Oslo framework, which fitted neatly into his strategy of cooptation. The question, which still remains, is whether this step by Hamas is strategic - i.e. a stage in a process which will eventually lead to folding their discrete armed capability into legal security bodies and irreversibly joining the democratic process - or whether it is merely a subterfuge so as to reap the benefits of a democratic image while buying time to rearm.
DeSotoReport.pdf
Page 12
Footnote:
31.John Dugard, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967 (A/HRC/2/5) (5 September 2006). The special rapporteur continued: “It is interesting to recall that the Western States refused to impose meaningful economic sanctions on South Africa to compel it to abandon apartheid on the grounds that this would harm the black people of South Africa. No such sympathy is extended to the Palestinian people or their human rights.”
John Dugard in 2021 would contract himself (or maybe changed his mind):
South Africa was sanctioned and punished by the international community for practicing apartheid. The United Nations Security Council and General Assembly imposed a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa and recommended a host of sanctions—economic, banking, financial, sporting, cultural, travel. You name it. Virtually every aspect of life in South Africa was subject to some form of sanction.
It’s important to stress that the Western states responded positively to these recommendations and then introduced sanctions and measures themselves. This included not only the Western European states but also the United States, which in 1986 passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act designed to compel South Africa to abandon the policy of apartheid.
2021 John Dugard: Holding South Africa, But Not Israel, Accountable – End U.S. Support for Israeli Apartheid? - WRMEA
Page 13
“Hamas’s success in the Palestinian elections of January 2006,” a 2014 study concludes, could have augured a peaceful political evolution, “but only if the active interference of the United States and the passivity of the European Union had not sabotaged this experiment in government.”
The idea that because Hamas entered into a democratic election, it could been a turning point I believe is a stretch to say the least.
In January 2006, Hamas—designated a terrorist organization by the United States and others—won a majority of the seats in the Palestinian parliament. On January 30, 2006, the United Nations (UN), the United States, the European Union, and Russia— known as the Quartet on the Middle East—stated that they would provide support and assistance to the Hamas-led government only if it agreed to nonviolence, to recognize the State of Israel, and to respect previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. In June 2006, the Congress directed that the Department of State (State) submit a new assistance plan; State provided that on July 21, 2006.
gao.gov/assets/gao-07-443r.pdf
Hamas didn’t accept these conditions.
Hamas will never recognize Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement’s deputy leader. Speaking late on Saturday, Moussa Abu Marzouq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank, would never agree to recognize Israel. “We will not recognize the Zionist entity,” he said at a press conference in Gaza City.
Hamas Won’t Recognize Israel, Accept Quartet Terms — Naharnet
In June 2008, Hamas and Israel entered into a cease-fi re brokered by Egypt, but in November of that year Israel violated the ceasefire. It carried out a lethal border raid on Gaza reminiscent of its 1955 cross-border attack. Then and now, the objective was to provoke retaliation and thus provide the pretext for a massive assault.
Benny Morris op-ed:
Last June, Israel and Hamas agreed to a six-month truce. This unsteady calm was periodically violated by armed factions in Gaza that lobbed rockets into Israel’s border settlements. Israel responded by periodically suspending shipments of supplies into Gaza.
In November and early December, Hamas stepped up the rocket attacks and then, unilaterally, formally announced the end of the truce. The Israeli public and government then gave Defense Minister Ehud Barak a free hand. Israel’s highly efficient air assault on Hamas, which began on Saturday, was his first move. Most of Hamas’s security and governmental compounds were turned into rubble and several hundred Hamas fighters were killed.
Opinion | Why Israel Feels Threatened - The New York Times
Page 14
On the other side, Hamas launched several hundred rudimentary rockets and mortar shells into Israel.
Finklestein says this AFTER Operation Cast Lead begins in his telling—but never informs the reader of the previous rocket attacks from Hamas as stated above and frames it as Israel was acting as the sole aggressor.