1.
Jay: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on
The Real News Network. In his book Method and Madness, Norman Finkelstein
wrote, Israel’s evolving modus operandi for restoring its deterrence capacity
describes a curve steadily regressing into barbarism. Israel gained its victory
in 1967 primarily on the battlefield, albeit in a, quote, Turkey shoot, while
in subsequent hostilities, mostly in Lebanon, it sought both to achieve a
battlefield victory and to bombard the civilian population into submission. But
Israel targeted Gaza to restore its deterrence capacity because it eschewed any
of the risks of conventional war. It targeted Gaza because it was largely
defenseless. Further down, Norman writes, a supplementary benefit of this
deterrence strategy was that it restored Israel’s domestic morale. A 2009
internal UN document concluded that the invasion’s “one significant achievement”
was that it dispelled doubts among Israelis about, quote, their ability and the
power of the IDF to issue a blow to its enemies. The use of excessive force
proves Israel is the landlord (...) The pictures of destruction were intended
more for Israeli eyes than those of Israel’s enemies, eyes starved of revenge
and national pride. Near the end of his book, Norman
writes, in the Gaza Strip, they (meaning the people of Gaza) preferred to die
resisting rather than continue living under an inhuman blockade. The resistance
is mostly notional, as the makeshift projectiles caused little damage. So the
ultimate question is: do Palestinians have the right to symbolically resist
slow death punctuated by periodic massacres? Or is it incumbent upon them to
lie down and die? Again joining us in the studio is Norman Finkelstein. Thanks
for joining us again, Norman.
2.
Finkelstein: Thank you so much.
3.
Jay: So, just quickly again, Norman is one of
the foremost scholars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and as I mentioned,
his latest book: Method and Madness: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Assaults on
Gaza. So talk about this deterrence capacity, the necessity of Israel to prove
the destruction it’s capable of wielding.
4.
Finkelstein: Alright. Well, Israel, it’s a
long-standing is a feature of their security policy, basically, to remind the
neighboring Arab states, Palestinians included, but neighboring Arab states as
well, about who’s in charge and what are the consequences of challenging
Israel. You saw that, for example, in the 1960s. It goes back quite
a ways, but I’ll fast-forward to the 1967 War. It
was quite clear--and Israel knew it; we know for sure Israel knew it--we knew
two things: number one, that Nasser did not intend to attack on the eve of the
Israeli first strike; and number two, even if he did attack and even if he did
it in concert with neighboring Arab states Jordan and Syria, that the war would
be over very quickly. Famously, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara, he predicted that the war would last seven to ten
days, and he was always proud of that prediction. In fact, the war was over in
the first day, because Israel, in its first strike, demolished all of the
Egyptian planes on the ground. So the war was over. The only reason it lasted
seven days was because Israel then proceeded to take land in Jordan, take land
in the Golan Heights. It wasn’t even seven days; it was really one day and the
whole thing was over.
5.
Jay: What is the evidence, so that people who
haven’t followed the story, that Israel knew that Egypt wasn’t going
[crosstalk]
6.
Finkelstein: Okay. That’s a good question. The
evidence is as follows, the evidence I prefer to lean on. There’s all sorts
of evidence, but I’ll use the evidence I prefer to lean on. People
quote the the famous statement by Prime Minister Menachim Begin at the national
war college of Israel in July 1982. It was during the Lebanon War. And Menachem
Begin had been a member of the national unity government that was formed in
1967, so he knew all the inner workings. And he
famously said in this 19--July 1982 lecture at the national war college, he
said, let’s be honest with ourselves: there was no evidence that Nasser was
going to attack; we decided to attack first. But that to me is--that’s
some evidence. It’s not necessarily definitive evidence, because Begin at that
time was trying to defend his decision to attack Lebanon in June 1982. But internal evidence, which I consider overwhelmingly
supportive of what I’m about to say, is the Israelis, they desperately
needed--in 1967 they needed the U.S. green light because they were afraid if
they attack like they did in 1956, that the U.S. president is going to force them
to withdraw, just like Eisenhower forced Israel to withdraw in 1956. So
they wanted that American
green light,
so once they attacked, they wouldn’t be forced to unilaterally withdraw.
And so they were sending all of their officials here to show evidence that we’re
facing a existential threat from Egypt, Egypt is going to attack. And so
Johnson took all the evidence--Lyndon Johnson, the president at the time--he
gave it to, like, six or seven U.S. security organizations, the equivalent
of--like, I don’t know if it’s the same name now then, but it was, like, the
National Security Council, the CIA, all of the organizations. He asked them,
okay, vet the Israeli information, use your own information--what do you come
back with? And each time he checked with them, they kept saying, there’s no
evidence that Egypt is going to attack. And they also
said, if there were an attack, and even if it were a concerted attack, it’s
clear that Israel’s going to, in the famous statement, Johnson--I was talking
to Israeli official. I think it was Abba Eban, the foreign minister, but I can’t
say for sure. And he says that all our intelligence shows us, number one, Egypt
is not going to attack, and number two, if they do--and Johnson’s famous line
was: you’re going to whip the hell out of them. Now, you might say,
well, that says what the Americans thought; what about what the Israelis
thought? It’s very interesting. On June 1--that’s just a few days before the
Israeli attack--the head of Israeli intelligence, Meir Amit, he comes to
Washington. He’s consulting. He’s also trying to convince and he’s also trying
to sniff out what will the U.S. do if we attack. He meets with the American
intelligence. And what does he say? He says, our intelligence agrees with all
of your intelligence about whether Nasser will attack and what will happen if
he is--attacks. So there’s complete agreement across the board--American
intelligence agencies, Israeli intelligence agencies: Nasser is not going to
attack; Nasser, even if he did, we will whip--Israelis will whip the hell out
of them. Which brings is now back to your question. The question is: then why
did Israel attack? And the response--one of the responses, the one by Ariel
Sharon--because there was a split in the cabinet whether or not--Israeli
cabinet--whether to launch the first strike. And Sharon
said, if we don’t--this was Ariel Sharon. It’s the same cast of characters--goes back quite a ways. Ariel
Sharon, he says, if we don’t attack, it’s going to diminish our deterrence
capacity. What does that mean? Because Nasser
was making all of these noises, Nasser did close the Straits of Tehran, Nasser
did move troops into the Sinai, and Nasser--you know the rhetorical flourishes
about we’re going to defeat Israel and so on and so forth, and so had whipped
up a kind of ecstatic hysteria in the Arab world, finally, to challenging
Israel. Now, de facto--de facto--Nasser was a windbag--a congenital
problem in the Arab world, leaders who are windbags--and obviously there was
nothing backing his claims, but they thought that this was whipping up too much
of a hysteria in the Arab world; it’s time to remind them who’s in charge.
7.
Jay: Well, then we get this term deterrence
capacity.
8.
Finkelstein: Deterrence capacity. And
incidentally, the expression “turkey shoot”, that came from the national
security adviser Walt Rostow. And he says, well, yeah, it was--the Israelis
attacked. He said, well, it was more like a turkey shoot, which is what it was.
9.
Jay: And I should mention, in Method and
Madness, all the sources for this are there. So if you want to know how we know
so-and-so said what they said, check out the book, ‘cause it’s very--the
notations are very detailed. Well, then, this deterrent--.
10.
Finkelstein: And--yeah. So now to bring it up to
date, to where we begin with Gaza, because the book effectively begins with--.
11.
Jay: Let’s--before you do that, I want to get to
deterrence capacity runs into some trouble in a place called Lebanon
[crosstalk]
12.
Finkelstein: That’s exactly what I was going to
get to. That’s exactly--we’re on the same wavelength. So
the book begins with the Israeli attack on Gaza Operation Cast Lead in 2008,
December 27, 2008, to January 17, 2009. So what was the Israeli purpose
behind that? It’s deterrence capacity--its ability to frighten, terrify the Arab
world. It suffered a real blow during the July-August 2006 war in
Lebanon. Israel went in with a full force of its high-tech killing machine,
inflicted massive death and destruction. About 1,200 Lebanese were killed. Of
those 1,200, about 1,000 were civilians, 200 were Hezbollah fighters. But
Israel was very careful not to launch a ground invasion, because you don’t want
to go to war, hand-to-hand combat, with the Party of God, the Hezbollah. I’ve met Hezbollah
fighters. They’re serious, and they want nothing more than to tangle with
Israelis, and Israeli soldiers did not want to tangle with the Party of God. The
long and the short of it was Israel, as I say, used its high-tech killing
machine for about three weeks’ time--well, it was 34 days. But after
about--okay, let’s call four weeks’ time. And then it was clear that the only
option now was to launch the ground invasion, because the Hezbollah had
these--.
13.
Jay: What year are we in?
14.
Finkelstein: Two thousand six. Hezbollah--Israel
claims it knocked out the medium- and long-term missiles. I don’t know if that’s
necessarily true, but let’s for argument’s sake accept it. The problem was
these short-range rockets that Hezbollah had. You can’t disable them from the
air. The only you can disable them was with a ground invasion. And Hezbollah
kept firing more and more and more, and not inflicting massive damage, but
showing it’s still resisting. The only way to get rid of them is, as I said,
through a ground invasion. Israel did not want a ground invasion, because it
knew it would suffer significant combatant casualties. And
so Condoleezza Rice in the UN was blocking any resolution ending the conflict. Then
it was clear, we’d better end this now because we’re in a mess. And so
Condoleezza Rice finally allowed the resolution to pass in the Security Council
and the Lebanon so-called--well, it was a war--in some ways was over. It was
horrible what the Israelis did at the end. It’s all completely forgotten. The
resolution was passed. The war was over. All that was waiting was now
implementation on the ground. Everybody agreed the war is over. What did Israel
do in the last 72 hours? It’s all completely eliminated from the historical
record. It dropped 4 million--4 million cluster bomblets on South Lebanon,
saturated the whole of South Lebanon. It was like a science fiction movie.
15.
Jay: How do we know
this?
16.
Finkelstein: Oh, you
just look at the Human Rights Watch report. It was called Flooding South
Lebanon. It’s
a very vivid depiction of the monstrousness of what Israel did. It depicts
homes, their roofs; through the windows the cluster bomblets enter. Entire
apartments are just saturated with them, 4 million cluster bomblets. In any
case, that’s a separate issue maybe one day I’ll come back and talk about, but
for now the point is Nasrallah kept referring to it as our divine victory.
17.
Jay: Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah.
18.
Finkelstein: Yeah, the head of the Hezbollah, Sayed Nasrallah, kept
referring to it as our divine victory. And that, of course, shook up the
Israelis, ‘cause it was like Nasser, but with a real victory. And it was
time--they had to figure out a way to restore their deterrence capacity. And
they chose Gaza. And in a typical cowardly way, they chose a place which was
utterly defenseless and then proceeded to--.
19.
Jay: Prove how tough they are.
20.
Finkelstein: Prove how tough they are against a
defenseless victim in Operation Cast Lead. About 1,400 Palestinians were
killed.
21.
Jay: This was 2009.
22.
Finkelstein: Two thousand eight, nine, of whom
about--up to 1,200 were civilians. They left behind
600,000 tons of rubble, which was actually--it paled in comparison to what they
did during Operation Protective Edge this past summer. Protective Edge
was much worse. But it also was different because the Palestinians did manage
to produce, to build the tunnel system. And because of the tunnel system, they
were able--the tunnel system was--the tunnels were not vulnerable to artillery
strikes or air attacks. They were pretty impressive. Anyone who knows the Arab
world knows every--four out of every three Palestinians is a civil engineer,
and in Gaza you have a lot of unemployed civil engineers. And so with very
primitive implements they’d actually built a very impressive, sophisticated
catacombs, tunnel system in Gaza. And so, when Israel went in, it never went
very far in. There was a misunderstanding about that. They basically stayed on
the border, because the Palestinians were coming out, the Hamas fighters were
coming out of the tunnels. And there was--it’s not Stalingrad, it’s not
Leningrad, but in the first Operation Cast Lead, ten Israeli combatants were
killed. Of those ten, four of the ten were killed from friendly fire, which
means only six were actually killed by Hamas fighters. This time it was
different. It was 67 Israeli combatants who were killed. And they were
basically killed for two reasons. First of all, the Hamas fighters appeared to
have been more sophisticated this time. It said they were trained by Hezbollah,
but I don’t know. But secondly, it was their tunnel system.
23.
Jay: But your main point here is that the
fundamental reasons for attacking Gaza is to sort of reassert the fear factor.
24.
Finkelstein: Fear factor. But there was also a second factor, which I discuss at equal
length, which is the peace offensive, that every time Hamas was becoming too
respectable, every time Hamas was becoming too reasonable, every time Hamas was
upholding the terms of the ceasefire it had signed with Israel, there was the
fear by Israel that somebody will say, well, if they’re respecting agreements,
if they’re carrying on in a responsible fashion, then why don’t you negotiate
with them? And the Israelis have a nice--or one Israeli political scientist
(his name is Avner Yaiv), he coined a nice expression. He called it the fear of
Palestinian peace offensives--they’re becoming too reasonable. And so we have
to hit them hard so that the quote-unquote radical and extremist elements will
gain the upper hand internally. So every time there’s a Palestinian peace
offensive, Israel launches one of its murderous invasions. And that’s
exactly--.
25.
Jay: And the sort of--I guess one of the
nightmares of the Israelis in terms of all this is some reunification with
Hamas and Fatah and the PLO. And that’s exactly what happened. They created
this unity government.
26.
Finkelstein: Right. And that’s actually
how--that’s the proper starting point for what happened in Gaza this past
summer. It was called the government of national consensus that was formed at
the end of April 2014. And surprisingly, the United States and the European
Union, they did not immediately break off relations with the new government,
because technically Hamas is or has--a terrorist organization in the U.S., a
terrorist organization in the E.U. So you would have expected the U.S. would
break off relations and the E.U. would, but they did not. Part of it, I think
it was punishment because of the Kerry peace initiative, which was sabotaged by
Netanyahu, and they wanted to get even with him for that. So they said,
no, we’ll take a wait-and-see approach with the Hamas government. And this
inflamed and incensed Netanyahu, because this is the second time these
countries are dealing with terrorists. The first, of course, is Iran. They’re
in the midst of these negotiations with this government that’s threatening a
second Holocaust against Israel and all that sort of nonsense. And now they’re
negotiating with Hamas, which, you know, wants to destroy Israel. But all
Netanyahu could do was fume. He wasn’t able to do anything about it until in
June of this past year: when the three kidnappings occurred of the Israeli
teenagers, he found his opportunity. He decided to use that as a pretext. He
knew the kids were killed, were dead almost within 24 hours. He knew all that.
27.
Jay: So he didn’t have to go looking for them.
28.
Finkelstein: Yeah.
29.
Jay: And it was also known almost right away
that Hamas leadership were not in on this.
30.
Finkelstein: Exactly. He knew all that. But they
used it as a pretext to lunch what they called Operation--.
31.
Jay: In your book you call it a gift. It’s--.
32.
Finkelstein: Yeah, they are gifts. But these are
politicians. You know, sometimes people feel like when you say expression like
gift, that’s just a little bit too callous. They’re politicians. After 9/11,
yes, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Cheney, they got in their little office, they
shed their salty tears, and then 15 minutes later they said, now, what are we
going to do with it? Now let’s get down to serious business. We’re not here to
cry. And it’s the same thing with Israel. Okay, three kids are killed. We’re
not happy about that. Now, what can we do with it? And so he launches Operation
Brother’s Keeper, Israeli troops go on a rampage in the West Bank, kill
Palestinians, demolish Palestinian homes, arrest 500 militants from Hamas,
knowing full well that this is going to evoke a violent reaction from Hamas.
And then, when they get that violent reaction, they can say exactly--.
33.
Jay: Violent reaction meaning rockets that
basically don’t hit very much.
34.
Finkelstein: Right, or some crazy thing,
whatever is going to happen. And then Netanyahu can say, as he did say a few
weeks later, he said, quote, never second-guess me again on Hamas; when I say
they’re a terrorist organization, they’re a terrorist organization. And now he
had his proof. And so he exploited the opportunity.
35.
Jay: ‘Cause as long as he can keep Hamas, as a
terrorist organization, out of the talks, any possibility of any reconciliation
or deal is off the table.
36.
Finkelstein: Right, because he then says the
Palestinian Authority doesn’t represent all Palestinians. So how can we
negotiate a deal with them? The whole purpose is--.
37.
Jay: And he comes to Congress and they stand up
27 times or whatever the crazy number of standing ovations was.
38.
Finkelstein: Mhm. But now he--I think he went a
little too far with the last visit to Congress.
39.
Jay: Okay. We’re going to talk about that and
where we’re at in the next segment.
40.
Please join us for the continuation of our
discussion with Norman Finkelstein on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News
Network. Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. I’m
Paul Jay. And we’re continuing our discussion with Norman Finkelstein. Thanks
for joining us again, Norman.
41.
Finkelstein: Thank you.
42.
Jay: So Norman’s biography’s below the video
here, and just read it, but you should watch the other segments of this
interview that leads up to this. So we’re not going to do another big
interview. Just suffice to say Norman’s most recent book is Method and Madness:
The Hidden Story of Israel’s Assaults on Gaza. So in the last segment we
talked about deterrence
capacity. Israel has to keep the fear factor. They need to prove to the
Palestinians and the Arab world that we have overwhelming dominance over you
militarily, we are not afraid to kill, including women and children. It seems
to me that’s an important part of it. They need to show they’re willing to
kill, including civilians, and that they don’t have reservations about that. But there also seems to me, on the other side,
Hamas has to prove how tough they are, ‘cause it would seem reasonable, when
Israel launches such an attack, actually not to send rockets when you’re not
going to hit very much, and let it be absolutely clear that this is a massacre.
But they do; Hamas sends rockets. And, you know, what was it? Five or six Israelis were killed in the last war, their
last assault? I mean, they’re not very effective. It is essentially
symbolic. But it’s a kind of symbolism that seems to just play into Israel’s
hands--oh, look at the rockets, and then, falling on us, we have a right to
defend ourselves. And that becomes the mantra. We hear that over and over
again, we have the right to defend ourselves.
43.
Finkelstein: Well, there are many things to be
said. What you’re saying, in my opinion, is entirely correct. First of all,
there’s the factual side. In fact there were no Hamas rocket attacks on Israel
if by rocket you mean some sort of lethal weapon which has the capacity to
inflict even minimal damage. There were no rocket attacks on Israel. And it’s
very easy to demonstrate. Israel says between four and five thousand Hamas
rockets were fired at Israel--I’m going to leave aside the mortar shells. Four
to five thousand rocket attacks were fired on Israel. Of those four to five
thousand rocket attacks, there were five civilian casualties and there were $15
million in property damage. That’s the official figure Israel gives: five
civilian casualties, $15 million in property damage. Now, Israel claims the
reason there were so few civilian casualties and so little property damage,
they claim it’s because of Iron Dome, the antimissile defense system, that had
it not been for Iron Dome--that’s what we’re told all the time--had it not been
for Iron Dome, it would have been a catastrophe that was inflicted on Israel. There’s
a very easy way to test that proposition. What we have to do is go back to Cast
Lead. In 2008-09, there was no Iron Dome. Iron Dome is an invention that’s
first tested in November 2012 during Operation Pillar of Defense. There was no
Iron Dome in 2008-09 during Operation Cast Lead. Approximately 1,000 rockets
during Operation Cast Lead, and there were three civilian casualties. So if you
multiply--it’s 4,000 during Protective Edge. So if you do the multiplication,
without Iron Dome there would have been about 12 civilian casualties:
4 × 1,000 = 4,000
3 × 4 = 12
In fact, there were about five--.
44.
Jay: Well, unless Hamas rockets are more
sophisticated [crosstalk]
45.
Finkelstein: Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s an
important point. In fact Hamas rockets were most much less sophisticated,
because you have to remember during 2008-09 there was a tunnel system that
enabled Hamas to smuggle in rockets, say, from Iran. But that by 2014, the Sisi
government had come to power in Egypt and sealed all the tunnels. All of what
was fired in 2014 was much more primitive, because they were all homemade and
there was no material to make anything in Gaza. It had been sealed. And so in
fact Iron Dome accounted--I said possibly it accounted for five civilian
casualties. It would’ve been 12, it was seven, so it’s five. But in fact it
didn’t even account for that, because between Cast Lead and Protective Edge,
Israel had significantly upgraded its civil defense civil warning system. So if
fewer people died, it was because of the civil defense system, not because of
Iron Dome.
46.
Jay: So I go back to my point. What--.
47.
Finkelstein: Just let me do—
48.
Jay: Yeah, go ahead.
49.
Finkelstein: --just make one last point. One of
the world’s leading authorities on antimissile defense is Theodore Postol
from MIT. And Postol has, to his credit,
that he was the one who exposed the Patriot missile hoax, which I don’t have
time to go into now. But he said at most--at most--the efficacy rate of
Iron Dome was at most 10 percent, probably closer to 5 percent. And so now we
have a very simple mathematical problem which will take me two seconds. You
fire 4,000 rockets at Israel. Iron Dome deflects at most 10 percent. That’s 400
rockets. There are 3,600 rockets which make their way into Israel. Israel
itself says only $15 million in property damage. How could 3,600 rockets cause
just $15 million in property damage? It couldn’t be the civil defense system,
because buildings don’t go into shelters. If you fired a rocket at this
building--it’s a nice building--it’s $15 million in property damage. So how
could it be?
50.
Jay: Well, our building’s not worth that much,
but I take your point.
51.
Finkelstein: You take my point.
52.
Jay: Yeah. This is downtown Baltimore.
53.
Finkelstein: Right, but it’s a beautiful
building, too. How could that be? Simple reason: they weren’t rockets. They
were enhanced fireworks. The problem is exactly as you said it. You caught the
problem. Israel has a stake in claiming their rockets so it could say it acts
in self-defense. Unfortunately, Hamas has a mutual stake in claiming their
rockets in order to prove that armed resistance works. So they have a mutual
stake in maintaining this pretense that there were rockets being fired in
Israel. In fact you’re right: they have no--there is a difference between three
things. One, what you have a right to do. Hamas has the right to fire those
rockets, in my opinion. I understand what Amnesty International says: they’re
unguided rockets; therefore they are indiscriminate, and therefore they’re
illegal. I don’t want to get into the technicalities there. If you want me to
get into the technicalities, I can. In my opinion, they have the right to fire
those rockets.
54.
Jay: Well, just quickly, I know in your book you
make the point, you know, the ability of the rocket to be precisely targeted is
a relative concept. So if you’re comparing it to these highly sophisticated
weapons that the Americans and the Israelis have, yeah, you can’t target them
that way. But as you make the point in your book, that means only rich
countries are going to be able to fire rockets.
55.
Finkelstein: Exactly. Exactly. But there is a
second point. What you said, exactly. In effect it means poor people have no
right to resist for foreign invasions and foreign assaults. But there is a
second point, and it’s a Gandhian point. Gandhi made the point, when you have a
huge discrepancy in power, a huge discrepancy in power, then when a weak party
resists, it’s not violence. He gives a
few examples. He says, take the case of a woman who resists a rapist by
scratching the rapist and hitting the rapist. He says that’s not violence; that’s
just a woman trying to summon up the internal moral courage to die. That’s with
dignity. With dignity. And then he says in 1939, you have the German Wehrmacht,
the Army, the Luftwaffe (the air force), they invade Poland. Poland has six
tanks. Poland resists. They use violence, they use their tanks. Gandhi says
they had that right because it was such a huge discrepancy in power. He says it wasn’t
resistance; it was dying with dignity. You’re just trying to summon up the
moral wherewithal to die with dignity. And in my opinion--I can’t
prove it; I can just convey it, and then you decide whether the analogies are
right in the metaphors are right. When Palestinians who
are under a merciless, inhuman, immoral, and illegal siege for seven years,
when 95 percent of the drinking water is not fit for human consumption, when
nobody in the world cares, when they keep signing agreements at the end of each
of these rounds which says the blockade is going to be lifted, including the
agreement that was signed after Protective Edge, the blockade would be lifted,
the blockade is never lifted, the illegal, immoral, and inhuman siege
continues, when parents have to poison their children each day by giving them
water which they know is not fit for human consumption, then you’re telling me
the Palestinians can’t fire symbolic symbols of resistance, notional symbols of
resistance, namely these enhanced fireworks, which are actually more a message
to the world than they are inflicting damage on Israelis? It’s SOS help
us? No, they have that right. Now, I’m not going to quarrel with Amnesty
International. I know they’re a respected human rights organization, and I
respect their work. But as I said, there’s a legal issue, and then separately
from the legal issue, in my opinion, you can still make a moral judgment. You
can say legally they don’t have the right to do it, though for me it’s a little
bit unclear how you can claim that movements for self-determination have the
right to use armed force to win their right of self-determination. That’s
international law. But then tell me every time they use a weapon, the weapon is
illegal, they’re not allowed to use it, that doesn’t make sense to me. But let’s
leave aside the legal issue. There is a moral issue, and it’s a separate one
from the legal issue. You could say legally this is the case, but morally it’s
a different judgment. Morally, in my opinion, they have the right to use those
rockets. There are other arguments, legal ones, but I don’t want to get into
technicalities now. I think they have the right. But there’s a difference
between having a right, a moral right or a legal right--here I think they had
the moral right. The legal right is grayer. As I say, I can’t go into the--.
But is it a prudent political strategy? And for reasons which you just said, I
agree with you.
56.
Jay: Well, before we get that, let’s just one
more time remind everyone that Israel does have very sophisticated rockets, can
target them precisely, and are killings thousands of civilians, thousands of
children.
57.
Finkelstein: They boasted during the Operation
Cast Lead that they had 99 percent accuracy with the rockets they fired. Okay.
If it was 99 percent accuracy, how did it happen that you destroyed all these
civilian buildings? That had to be calculated. And that was what the Goldstone
Report concluded. So, yes, if you want to claim this degree of precision, then
you have to accept the moral and legal responsibility that comes from the fact
that you were targeting civilian infrastructure and you were targeting civilian
sites. Now they’re making all of this talk about how Hamas, you know, was using
Palestinians as human shields and Hamas was using weapons, you know, locating
weapons near civilian sites. There is some evidence for that, but let’s be for
real. First of all, there were 500--the estimates range now between 538 and
550, but 538 and 550 children were killed during Operation Protective Edge. So
you had those four kids who were playing soccer.
58.
Jay: On the beach.
59.
Finkelstein: Yeah. Where was Hamas? Where were
these Hamas fighters? Were they being used as human shields? Is that what
happened? When they were bombing the UN shelters which are keeping women and
children to the point that even Ban Ki-moon, the comatose puppet for the United
States, even Ban Ki-moon finally had to denounce it as a moral outrage on
August 3, were there Hamas fighters there? Not according to the UN. Not
according to the UN. So exactly what you said: if you’re going to claim these
are precision weapons which can target perfectly, then you have to accept the
legal and moral responsibility that comes with the fact that you’re targeting
civilian infrastructure and you’re targeting civilians.
60.
Jay: Okay. So now let’s talk about Hamas’s
tactic of firing these rockets or allowing rockets to be fired. It seems to
play in Netanyahu’s hands, into Israel’s hands, and give a justification for
what essentially is a massacre.
61.
Finkelstein: Look, I have said many times I do
not believe armed resistance can work in the Palestine context. It had a
justification in the case of Lebanon because nobody cared about South Lebanon.
Israel had an occupation there from 1978 to 2000. Did anyone care? Was it in
the eye of the international community? No. So nonviolent civil resistance had
no possibility of working there. It’s exactly what happened Arundhati Roy
writes when she describes what’s going on in the forests in India. Indian
government comes in, commits mass murder, massacres. Nonviolence? Nobody even
knows it’s going on. But Palestine occupies a unique place in the international
arena, international stage. People do follow what’s going on in Palestine. And
therefore you have the potential of mobilizing public opinion. And I think in
places like Palestine, nonviolent civil resistance, including in Gaza, for
example mass march with children at the front, just like in Selma--if it’s good
Selma and it’s good in Birmingham, it’s good in Palestine. They used to say to
King too, Martin Luther King, you’re exploiting the kids. And he used to say,
oh, you’re so concerned now about black children? They put children--if you
read Taylor Branch’s--the first volume, when he describes the victory of
Birmingham--you know what it’s called, the chapter? An incredible chapter. It’s
called “The Children’s Crusade”. “The Children’s Crusade”. It was putting
children at the front. Yes, if the people in Gaza, they put children to the
front--.
62.
Jay: You’re talking about, like, a million
people from Gaza come to the border.
63.
Finkelstein: That’s correct, with women and
children at the front. And we in the solidarity movement in the West does its
job, educates about this immoral, inhuman siege. I can’t go into the details
now. It will take time. I think it has potential. So I think they do have an
alternative strategy. I think they’re hung up on this idea of armed resistance
as being the only--resistance equals armed resistance as being the only option
they have. I think they have another option. However, saying they have, in my
opinion, another option does not mean that I’m saying they don’t have the right
to do what they [want (?)]. I think it’s politically not wise. That’s a
political judgment on my part. But morally and (had time been available, I can
make the argument) legally, I think they have a case. Of course, legally it’s a
troubling case because Amnesty, which I respect--.
64.
Jay: You’re only talking about the rockets. They
certainly have a legal right to use arms to defend themselves.
65.
Finkelstein: Right. But it doesn’t really come
into play. That’s the problem. The moment the arms to defend themselves came
into play in Gaza, they just stopped the ground invasion, because they don’t
want--Hamas was fighting back, and it was not enough to send in the planes, as
they did during Cast Lead, and level everything in front of them. If you read
the orders from Operation Cast Lead, the orders were very clear. We know all of
it now, ‘cause soldiers came forward and told what they were told. Everything
to the left of you, everything to the right of you, everything in front of you,
just flatten it. That’s the way you don’t have combatant casualties. You just
destroy everything. The problem for Israel was, when they did that in Operation
Cast Lead, it got hit with the Goldstone Report. And so it was worried that if
they tried to repeat it during Protective Edge, they may get another Goldstone
Report, from which they wouldn’t be able to escape. But then some things
started to work in their favor. The details would take us too long. But one
thing that--the ground invasion was launched the night of the same day of the
downing of the Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine. Nobody has to doubt that
Mr. Netanyahu is very attuned to cameras. He understands the media. And so he
knew that that was the moment that the cameras would be fixed on the Ukraine,
the Malaysian airliner--the charge is that Russia was behind it--and that he
could now get away with committing mass murder and mayhem, which he did for a
while. Then, when things started to get out of hand--it was August 3 when Ban
Ki-moon denounced the attack on the sixth UN shelter--then the Obama
administration denounced it. And then Netanyahu announced the end of the ground
invasion. But then he was saved again because this new phenomenon emerged out
of nowhere. It was called ISIS. And a reporter was killed by ISIS, and all the
cameras shifted to that. And then Netanyahu, if you recall, at the very end, it
was kind of like watching a computer game. They were just demolishing one
high-rise building in Gaza after another. You just saw the buildings come down.
It was like a mini 9/11.
66.
Jay: And he links Hamas to ISIS, as if they’re
the same thing.
67.
Finkelstein: Yeah, and he links Hamas to ISIS.
Exactly. And so he got another reprieve from the international community. The
problem was Hamas wasn’t stopping--the rocket attacks had basically ended by
the end, but the mortar attacks continued. Another Israeli civilian was killed,
and he decided it’s time to end it. And so it came to an end on August 26.
68.
Jay: Okay. We’re going to do one more segment
and talk about the current situation and the possibility of a resolution at the
United Nations. Please join us for Reality Asserts Itself with Norman
Finkelstein on The Real News Network.
69.
Jay: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself
on The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay. And we’re joined again by Norman
Finkelstein. Thanks for joining us again.
70.
Finkelstein: Thank you for having me.
71.
Jay: So, quickly, one more time, Norman is
one of the foremost scholars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And his
latest book is Method and Madness: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Assaults on
Gaza. So Netanyahu came to Congress, as we all know the story now, came
without President Obama knowing he’d been invited to begin with. And relations
have gone from chilled to freezing, at least at a personal level, between
Netanyahu and Obama. We know there was always a contradiction there. Likud was
closer to the Republican Party. And so there was always this underlying even
partisan political difference between them. But it seems to have broken out in
a new way now. And I wonder if Obama is now speaking more for the professional
policymakers in the American foreign-policy section, which is they need to have
a somewhat more balanced approach to the situation. And there’s even talk of
the U.S. might not veto a UN resolution. So where are we at?
72.
Finkelstein: Well, there’s no question that
there has been a personal falling out between Obama and Netanyahu. It hasn’t
translated into any policy or institutional changes. I think we should take the
U.S. government at its word when it says that it regards Israel is a major
strategic asset in the Middle East and that the military coordination, as well
as economic support, will continue. So it’s a personal falling out. Part
of the personal falling out is because--and I’m not faulting him; I’m just
saying it as a fact--Obama is very thin-skinned and he doesn’t take personal
slights kindly. It wasn’t just that Netanyahu was carrying on like a Jewish
supremacist, as he is and as he always does carry on; it was also plainly
racist. It was racist because it’s inconceivable, it’s inconceivable that if a
George Bush had been in power or a Bill Clinton, that Netanyahu would have come
barging into Congress despite the president saying no.
73.
Jay: I mean, I’m no big defender of Obama, as
people who watch The Real News know, but I wouldn’t even call it thin skin. He
has a responsibility to defend the defense capacity of the presidency.
74.
Finkelstein: Right. But here I think he takes it
not just as an issue of the office of the presidency; it’s a personal issue
having to do with race. You know, some people say I’m speculative on that
point, but in fact I don’t think I am. The first person to announce--or one of
the first persons to announce that he’s not going to that congressional speech
was John Lewis, who is a genuine hero of the civil rights movement, but he’s
also a flack for the Israel lobby. He is the congressman from Atlanta, Georgia,
and Atlanta has a very rich Jewish community. And, well, you can figure out
the--you can connect the dots. But he said no this time. And then there was a
very interesting article just last weekend by Jonathan Broder in The Washington
Post, and he said--and it was very interesting--he said, when Netanyahu came to
Congress, he lost the Black Caucus. The Black Caucus was inflamed, incensed.
And they quoted one member of the Black Caucus as saying, this is racist, we
took it as a racial slight. So it’s not really speculative when you look at it
from the black point of view. No, they saw it as something he would never have
done with a white person. And I think that’s true. In any case, it has had some
personal falling out. There has been a significant personal falling out. And
now the question is whether it will translate into a policy change. And here I
have to say I think there is an opportunity. As the famous cliché goes, you
know, the Chinese character for crisis is also the character for opportunity.
And here there is a opportunity and a crisis. The opportunity is that you now
have Netanyahu, because of the statements he made at the end of his campaign,
saying that he’s opposed to the--there won’t be a Palestinian state on his
watch. There is an opportunity to mobilize public opinion in support of two
states and to mobilize public opinion against Israel for being the obstruction
to a two-state settlement. So there is now a real chance to mobilize public
opinion, because the United States came down very hard on Netanyahu’s statement
in the last two days of the campaign, that there won’t be a Palestinian state
on his watch. Actually, they were quite good. I mean, when an official is good,
he’s good. So when the presidential spokesman, he was asked, well, Netanyahu
has backpedaled, and now he says after the election he’s not really against two
states. And so one of the reporters said, so why don’t you take Netanyahu at
his word? And the presidential spokesman shot back, which word? You know, when
they’re good, they’re good. It was a very good response. So there is an
opportunity now, I think, for--.
75.
Jay: But do you think this--.
76.
Finkelstein: But the crisis is--there is a
crisis. There’s also a danger. The danger is the United States is never going
to put enough pressure on Israel to effect a real withdrawal from the occupied
territories unless there’s a mass movement there. The most they’re going to do
is demand that maybe Israel withdraw to the wall that Israel has built and
allow Israel to incorporate what’s called the major settlement blocks into
Israel. That’s basically the position of people like Herzog from the Labour
Party, Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister and then the justice minister.
Their position is: we annex the major settlement blocks, and maybe
something--Jordan Valley. The point is the major settlement blocks, if you
annex them, it’s going to leave nothing for the Palestinians. Israel will annex
the major water resources, it’ll annex a lot of the most arable land, it will
bisect the West Bank in the northern sector, bisect the West Bank at the waist
between Jerusalem and Jericho, what’s called the settlement Ma’ale Adumim.
Nothing will be left. The danger is that this new UN resolution, which is
supposed to supplant the famous UN Resolution 242 and to become the framework
for resolving the conflict, the new UN resolution will in effect allow Israel
to annex those settlement blocks, because that’s the maximum U.S. is willing to
push Israel. The U.S. wants some part of the Israeli constituency behind them.
And the Israeli constituency--you can read the polls--75 percent of Israelis--I’m
not talking about parties or governments--75 percent of the Israeli Jewish
public wants retention of the major settlement blocks. Seventy five percent
want all of Jerusalem for Israel, including Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
Seventy-five percent want an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley. So
if you want to keep part of the Israeli public, you have to give in to at least
half the demands, namely, Jerusalem goes to Israel, major settlement blocks go
to Israel, which leaves nothing for the Palestinians. In effect, they’re just
going to get a garbage dump.
77.
Jay: That’s the resolution that the United
States might support.
78.
Finkelstein: Yes. And that’s the problem,
because everybody’s going to interpret that as Obama coming down hard on Israel,
because Netanyahu wants to keep everything.
79.
Jay: But it’s actually a framework Netanyahu
should love, because the Palestinians can never agree with it.
80.
Finkelstein: Well, that’s a very interesting
point. Well, first of all, the Palestinians, I think, will agree to it.
81.
Jay: Give up Jerusalem?
82.
Finkelstein: Yeah. They’re going to be cornered.
They’re going to be cornered. They’re going to say--Abbas is going to say, what
can we do?
83.
Jay: Well, I don’t think Abbas could sell it to
his own people.
84.
Finkelstein: Right. That I can’t predict. I
think it’s possible, but yours is equally possible. The problem is the selling,
the marketing. The major settlement blocks, they take up roughly around 9.5
percent of the West Bank. So the way it’s going to be marketed is Israel will
be forced to withdraw from 90 percent of the West Bank. How could the
Palestinians say no to that? They’re being spoilers, they’re being stubborn. So
there are ways of marketing it such that Palestinians will be isolated. And
that’s the real danger. In fact, if Israel gets that 10 percent, there’s really
nothing left for the Palestinians, ‘cause it’s the water, it’s the arable land,
and it’s fragmenting the West Bank, these major settlements. But there are ways
to market it which will corner the Palestinians. So that’s the danger of a new
resolution. It’s also, in my opinion, if I can use the expression again, it’s
morally wrong, for the following reason. After the 1967 War, when UN Resolution
242 was crafted, it was really the product of the collective will of the
international community. There was a huge debate beginning in July 1967 in the
General Assembly involving all the states. It was a very engaging debate, and a
really impressive one in terms of the sophistication and seriousness. The UN General
Assembly couldn’t reach a resolution, and then it moved to the Security Council
in November 1967. And the person who crafted, effectively, 242 was Lord Caradon
from the U.K. And Caradon acknowledged it was the basis of input from
everybody. It was a collective endeavor. Now what’s happening is a resolution
is just going to be rammed through by the United States, or France in league
with the United States and the U.K. The other powers don’t give a darn. You
know, what does Putin care about Palestine? What do the Chinese care about? You
know, all they care about is whether they can sell something to Palestine. That’s
the Chinese in the UN. And so it’s just going to be a completely undemocratic
ramming through of a resolution to which the Palestinians will have to concede
because they’re politically so weak right now. Every day there’s a new crisis
in the Arab world. Now we’re focused on Yemen. The day before we were focused
on Syria. The day before that, we were focused on Libya. Palestine has
disappeared in many ways from the international agenda. They are as important
as those Indians in the forest, you know, in the forests of central India. The
only place it remains alive is in the solidarity movement. And so we have some
leverage, but we have to recognize they’re very weak right now, the
Palestinians. And if it’s marketed the way I suspect it will be, namely, an
Israeli withdrawal from 90 percent of the West Bank, it’ll be very hard.
85.
Jay: Okay. Thanks for joining us Norman.
86.
Finkelstein: Mhm.
87.
Jay: And thank you for joining us on Reality
Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.
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