1.
Goodman:
As we continue our coverage, we’re joined now by two guests. Here in our
Firehouse studio, Norman Finkelstein, Professor of Political Science at DePaul
University in Chicago. His latest book is called Beyond Chutzpah: On the
Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. And on the telephone, we’re
joined by Josh Block, Director of Media Affairs for
AIPAC — that’s the American Israel Public Affairs Committee —
speaking to us on the line from Connecticut. Josh Block, let’s begin with you.
Your response and the latest, the last thing that Chris McGreal said, saying human
rights groups, the Palestinian leadership, Mahmoud Abbas talking about this as
collective punishment and a crime against humanity.
2.
Block:
Well, clearly the concern is the reaction from those same folks when it comes
to the murder and kidnap of Israeli citizens. From many perspective, American
or otherwise, an attack inside Israel, unprovoked, that resulted in the murder
of two Israelis and not the capture, Amy, but the kidnapping of an Israeli
soldier is, in and of itself, an act of war. And clearly the Israelis tried for
several days, 48 hours, 36 hours, of intense diplomacy with the aid of the
United States, the French — and I should add that this young man who has been
kidnapped is also a French citizen — to secure the release from Hamas, the
terrorist group that has him. And by the way, in high irony, the government of
the Palestinian Authority, run by the same terrorist group, so a government
that’s charged with fighting terrorism is itself a terrorist group that’s
responsible for his kidnapping. So after 48 hours and 36 hours of difficult and
unproductive diplomacy, clearly the Israelis felt that they needed to act in
their own defense. And I think the question is what is
the reaction from these same human rights groups when it comes to the
condemnation of terrorism or other acts? And clearly — and I don’t speak
for the Israelis, but they must have felt that this was an important thing to
do to help isolate and prevent the movement of this terrorist groups from
moving the captive or kidnapped Israeli soldier around the Gaza Strip.
3.
Goodman:
Professor Finkelstein?
4.
Finkelstein:
I think it is useful to begin with what the human rights groups have to say
about this. Let’s leave aside the background for a moment and look narrowly at
the incident that triggered the Israeli invasion. Let’s see what Hamas did not
do, what the Palestinian militants did not do. Number one, they did not
liquidate the corporal, which Israel routinely does, namely its political
assassinations. That’s a war crime under international law. Israel routinely
does that. Hamas did not do that to the corporal.
Number two, they didn’t kill the corporal while trying to
arrest him. Israel routinely does that. If you look at July 2005, B’Tselem, the
Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, they
put out a very hefty report entitled “Take No Prisoners.” And the report shows
Israel routinely, during so-called arrest operations, kills Palestinians,
documents a case of a Palestinian who was wounded, on the ground, no weapon.
Israel killed him. Hamas didn’t do that to the corporal. It said by this — by
[inaudible], it said that they took him hostage, they kidnapped him. Okay.
Israel routinely takes Palestinians, Lebanese hostage. In fact, Israel was the
only country in the world, in 1997, which legalized hostage-taking. The liberal
head of the Israeli High Court, Aharon Barak, he said it’s legal, legitimate,
under international law to take what he called bargaining chips in order to get
prisoners, Israeli prisoners being held by the Lebanese. The decision was
reversed in 2000, but Israel continued to hold Lebanese hostages until 2004.
So, at worst, Hamas is being accused of what Israel legalized and routinely
does. And finally, let’s talk about those 9,000 Palestinians who are
effectively hostages being held by Israel. 1,000 of them are administrative
detainees.
5.
Goodman:
You’re talking about prisoners.
6.
Finkelstein:
Yes. Administrative detainees who are being held without any charges or trial.
And the other 8,000 are being held after military courts have convicted them,
almost always on the basis of confessions which were extracted by torture. So
if we’re going to look simply at the numbers, we have one hostage on the
Palestinian side, and effectively we have about 9,000 on the Israeli side.
7.
Goodman:
We’re going to break, and then we’ll get a response from Josh Block of
AIPAC. Dr. Norman Finkelstein is Professor at DePaul University in Chicago. [break]
We’re talking about the siege in Gaza. Our
guests are Josh Block, a spokesperson for AIPAC, which is the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, speaking to us from Connecticut; and Professor Norman
Finkelstein, teaches political science at DePaul University in Chicago, is in
our Firehouse studio. Juan?
8.
González:
Josh Block, before break, Norman Finkelstein was talking about the lack of
proportionality in looking at the issue of prisoners and hostages on both
sides. Your response to that?
9.
Block:
Well, I think the first thing that he said was that we should ignore the
context in which this attack took place, and I think that’s a major flaw with
his commentary over time. I’m not surprised to hear him talk about things in those
terms, considering he’s called Hezbollah, which is the number one killer of
Americans outside of al-Qaeda, a heroic organization. You know, ultimately, the
question for Israel is, what is its responsibility as a government? And any
government, whether it’s our or theirs, has the duty to protect its citizens.
Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, other terrorists groups, have been
conducting an unremitting campaign of terrorism against Israeli citizens. Hamas is an
organization that fundamentally believes, deep in its core, that Israel does
not have the right to exist. When they talk about an
occupation, they’re talking about Tel Aviv. That’s why when this terrorist
attack took place, it took place not in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank, but
inside Israel itself. They infiltrated Israel, digging a tunnel from underneath
a home into the country of Israel, where they attacked soldiers who were not
engaged in an offensive operation against any Palestinian. They murdered two of
them, and they kidnapped one of them. And they’re holding him captive, hostage.
That is an act of war. It’s a provocation. And it comes as a culmination of
months and months of terrorist attacks and rocket attacks against Israeli
citizens, who were not engaged in any offensive effort, who are simply going
ahead and living their lives. And that kind of terrorism is unacceptable, and
forces a response from any responsible government. The Palestinian Authority
has the responsibility to secure the release of this individual, this soldier.
And failing that, the international community has to continue to put pressure
on the Palestinian Authority to fulfill those obligations. Again, Hamas is the
government of the Palestinian Authority, and it is sanctioning and conducting
terrorism. That’s not an acceptable situation, and it cuts against the entire
grain of fundamental international conduct.
10.
Goodman:
Norman Finkelstein, I’d like to you respond to that and also the timing of this
operation, coming hours after Fatah and Hamas announced that they had agreed on
a document that implicitly recognized Israel within its 1967 borders.
11.
Finkelstein:
Well, I want to first take note that Josh didn’t respond to any of my claims
about Israel taking hostages, about 9,000 —
12.
Block:
That’s because they’re ludicrous claims. They don’t merit a response.
13.
Finkelstein:
I respected your time, Josh. I respected your time.
Please do the same for me. He didn’t respond to any of my claims about
Israel taking hostages, routinely killing Palestinians taken prisoner, and so
on and so forth. So let’s turn to the issue that Josh wants to address, namely the context. I’m very happy to do so. Let’s look at
the context. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005 ‘til today, the
estimates run between 7,000 and 9,000 heavy artillery shells have been shot and
fired into Gaza. On the Palestinian side, the estimates are approximately 1,000
Kassam missiles, crude missiles, have been fired into Israel. So we have a
ratio of between seven and nine to one. Let’s look at
casualties. In the last six months, approximately 80 Palestinians have
been killed in Gaza due to Israel artillery firing. Now, on the Israeli side,
we hear all of these terrible things about these Kassams. Even Shlomo Ben-Ami,
yesterday on your program, who I respect, he said what’s Israel to do about
these Kassams? What does the record show? I mentioned a moment ago, 80
Palestinians killed in six months. There have been exactly eight Israelis killed in the last
five years from the Kassam missiles. Again, we have a huge
disproportion, a huge discrepancy. Now, Josh says Israel has a
responsibility to protect its citizens. I totally agree with that. But Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians. They
have a responsibility to protect their citizens. They have a responsibility to
get back their 9,000 hostages. They have a responsibility to protect their
Palestinian civilians, who are being daily attacked by Israel. Josh says
that the —
14.
Block:
If I might, Amy, I’m ready to respond to that.
15.
Goodman:
Josh Block of AIPAC.
16.
Block:
Yeah, first of all, the folks that have been arrested for participating in
terrorist activity against innocent Israeli civilians have been arrested for
criminal activity. They were not kidnapped because they
were doing their responsible civic duty and no offensive position against the
Palestinians. In fact, those who, again, are in Israeli jail are there for
conducting terrorist activity. Among the people that he mentions that
have been killed, were killed because they were participating in terrorist
activity, shooting missiles, planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Those
folks were not innocent civilians who were killed in suicide bus bombings or
have had missiles fall on their kindergartens. There’s a moral equivalency that your
guest is drawing that is fundamentally out of proportion.
17.
Finkelstein:
May I ask Josh a question?
18.
Block:
It’s totally disproportionate and fundamentally incorrect.
19.
Finkelstein:
May I ask Josh — I’d like to ask you a question, Josh. 1,000
of those Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, according to B’Tselem, the
Israeli human rights organization, 1,000 of them are administrative detainees.
That is, there have been no charges leveled against them. How do you know what
they’re being held for?
20.
Block:
Fundamentally —
21.
Finkelstein:
No, answer that question. There have been no charges and no trials.
22.
Block:
I’m about to, if you would give me a second to answer —
23.
Finkelstein:
How do you know what they’re being held for?
24.
Block:
But instead you’re trying to filibuster the question. Fundamentally, the
Israeli army and the Israeli government arrest Palestinians who are engaged in
terrorist activity. That’s a proven fact.
25.
Finkelstein:
No, I don’t think that’s a proven fact. It would be
a proven fact if there were court trials.
26.
Block:
It is. It is a proven fact.
27.
Finkelstein:
How do you know what administrative detainees are being held for? Israel doesn’t
say, so how do you know?
28.
Block:
I fundamentally understand the facts, which clearly you
do not, which are that Israel takes fundamental legal action to arrest
individuals who are engaged in terrorist activity directed against its
citizens. There is no moral equivalency to be drawn between a country
acting in defense of its citizens and those engaging in terrorist activity in
an effort to stabilize and destroy that free and peaceful society. Look, Amy
and Juan, as a Liberal Democrat who is a long-time listener of this program, I
fundamentally believe that the audience and you are in a position to understand
that liberal fundamental values, which are celebrated in Israel — freedom of
the press, women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion
— are denied to those living in Palestinian areas and throughout the rest of
the Arab world. There’s an asymmetry that’s involved in the Middle East, which
is a country of Israel that is based on fundamental free values, that is not
replicated in the Arab world, where education systems inculcate children with hatred and teach them
that martyrdom and death is preferred over science and math and education. And
fundamentally, after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza less than a year ago, when
the Palestinian people and the Authority that leads them had the chance to
build a better life for their citizens, they chose not to do that. They destroyed the
greenhouses, the economic infrastructure that was provided. They then
took the opportunity not to fight terrorism and to provide security for their
people and went the other direction. That’s why when these attacks take place
through the very arteries, the crossing points and the cargo points that
benefit the Palestinian people, Hamas is intentionally harming their own
society. That is the fundamental dynamic, none of the other speciousness that
we’re hearing from our other guest today.
29.
González:
But, Josh Block, I’d like to ask you, on the targeted assassinations that
Israel has often participated, has often executed in Palestinian territories,
we hear repeatedly of innocent civilians. Putting aside the fact whether the
people who were targeted were actually terrorists or not, because we have
Israel’s reporting that they are, but the innocent civilians that are
inevitably killed in these missile attacks, how is that justified as not
terrorism against a civilian population?
30.
Block:
You’re absolutely right. Those incidents are deeply regrettable. I think any
one of us would say that. And I think any American, any Israeli, would say that
innocent people who are killed as a result of a military action
unintentionally, that’s a tragedy. But there’s,
again, a moral difference between an army — Israel’s
military goes to great lengths to prevent those kinds of incidents, and if you
look at the number of preventative attacks that Israel has carried out with the
number of those who have been incidentally and unfortunately killed in those
incidents, there’s a tremendous preponderance of occasions when, in fact,
Israel has gone to great lengths not to harm innocent civilians.
31.
Goodman:
We just have a minute. We gave Josh Block the first word. Professor Norman
Finkelstein, the last.
32.
Finkelstein:
Well, the question is whether or not there is a significant difference between
what Israel does and what the Palestinians do, apart from the fact that Israel
does it in a much higher proportion than Palestinians. If you indiscriminately
fire on a civilian population, which Israel routinely does, under international
law — and here I can quote the president of Tel Aviv University, Yoram Dinstein, who’s one of the leading international
experts on these matters; he says, “There’s no
difference whatsoever between intentionally targeting civilians and
indiscriminately firing into a civilian crowd.”
33.
Block:
Fair enough.
34.
Finkelstein:
He says both of them are terrorism. So if Hamas —
35.
Block:
If terrorist were attacking —
36.
Finkelstein:
So if
Hamas blows up a bus, as it used to do in Tel Aviv, that’s terrorism. If
Hamas were to say, “We didn’t intend to kill the civilians. We intended to blow
up the bus,” people would laugh. But if Israel drops —
37.
Block:
If terrorists attack —
38.
Finkelstein:
Allow me to finish. Allow me to finish. If Israel drops a one-ton bomb on a densely populated
neighborhood in Gaza, as it did in July 2002, and it said, “Oh, we didn’t
intend to kill the civilians. We can just intended to kill a Palestinian
terrorist —
39.
Block:
And later apologized for the incident.
40.
Finkelstein:
It would be considered as preposterous as if Hamas said “We only intended to
blow up the bus.”
41.
Block:
I’m sorry. First of all, there has been no apology from Hamas for those
incidents. Israel apologizes when things like that happen.
42.
Finkelstein:
Israel didn’t apologize. As a
matter of fact, Ariel Sharon hailed the bombing of Gaza City —
43.
Block:
That’s another specious lie.
44.
Finkelstein:
— that time as one of the greatest
acts in Israeli history.
45.
Block:
Again, a lie.
46.
Goodman:
We’re going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you, Josh Block, for
joining us, spokesperson for AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
in Connecticut; and Professor Norm Finkelstein, here in New York, teaches at
DePaul University in Chicago. His book is called Beyond Chutzpah: On the
Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.
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