2024-05-24

Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman G. Finkelstein | 2018

Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman G. Finkelstein | Goodreads


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Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom


Norman G. Finkelstein


4.66
673 ratings105 reviews

The Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated places in the world. More than two-thirds of its inhabitants are refugees, and more than half are under eighteen years of age. Since 2004, Israel has launched eight devastating “operations” against Gaza’s largely defenseless population. Thousands have perished, and tens of thousands have been left homeless. In the meantime, Israel has subjected Gaza to a merciless illegal blockade.

What has befallen Gaza is a man-made humanitarian disaster.

Based on scores of human rights reports, Norman G. Finkelstein's new book presents a meticulously researched inquest into Gaza’s martyrdom. He shows that although Israel has justified its assaults in the name of self-defense, in fact these actions constituted flagrant violations of international law.

But Finkelstein also documents that the guardians of international law—from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to the UN Human Rights Council—ultimately failed Gaza. One of his most disturbing conclusions is that, after Judge Richard Goldstone's humiliating retraction of his UN report, human rights organizations succumbed to the Israeli juggernaut.

Finkelstein’s magnum opus is both a monument to Gaza’s martyrs and an act of resistance against the forgetfulness of history.

GenresHistoryNonfictionPoliticsWarIsraelSocial JusticeRace
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408 pages, Hardcover

First published January 9, 2018
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4.66
673 ratings105 reviews
Tim
317 reviews290 followers

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November 20, 2023
Updated Nov 20 2023: 

Finkelstein documents through exemplary sourcing the many atrocities committed on Gazans, the exact situation in Gaza, and the history of Gaza back to the founding of Israel. Further as Finkelstein said in a recent interview it will infuriate you and can perhaps inspire all of us in further ways we can pressure those in power to stop this madness. Now that I've been watching this carnage for going on 7 weeks the events in this book couldn't possibly shock you further. However, it's unbelievable that so many in the West don't know that there's been a siege and complete control of utilities, food, water and basic essentials by Israel since Hamas assumed power in 2007. Obviously Israeli military occupation, harrassment and ethnic cleansing has gone on in various forms in Gaza for nearly a century. So nothing happening from October 7th on comes out of a vacuum. This fact has become all too painfully aware to many in recent weeks.

The current genocidal activities of the Israelis all have patterns admitted by IDF members in the past whereas terrorization of populations is a "legitimate military tactic" - i.e. collective punishment admitted by those in the IDF going back even before 1948 to the days of the Hagana, Irgun and Stern Gang. This is documented by soldier testimony in the book. Their playbook happens in front of our eyes, their words say another and it has been this way for decades. Finkelstein's book just serves as source material for all this with very specific cited instances and subsequent reporting and testimony

Further notably concerning is that settlers are never prosecuted for shooting Palestinians (of course not) but now we have record numbers of gun purchases and assaults in the West Bank. Neither are IDF soldiers of course. Also documented in the book through many many international sources.

I have a friend in Gaza who I check in with daily (when there is internet) to make sure he's alive. I have many Palestinian friends in Jordan where I lived who send me messages of friends or loved ones losing multiple family members in bombs or know of them it's all very close and very personal to me. I feel helpless, but I see more around me are becoming ever more aware and I'm seeing people asking questions I never would have imagined. It's encouraging from that aspect but why does it have to take a genocide for this to happen! Let's hope all the death and destruction has not been in vain and that there's a better future for all people in this land.

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Kaelan Ratcliffe ▪ Kaelan Ratcliffe
109 reviews

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March 23, 2019
Relentless, Uncompromising Truth

This book serves a duel purpose. On one hand, it is a meticulous, and unrelenting critique of Israels collective punishment of the Gazan people - specific focus on Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge - as well as the Palestinians as a whole. On the other hand, Gaza acts as an incredible example for anyone who wants to understand how propaganda can influence the views of multiple populations who are aware of an ongoing conflict.

Finkelstein is on an entirely different level in this magnum opus when it comes to the latter function previously mentioned. I felt myself tutored by a true scholar in this field. He opened my eyes not only to the thousand little lies that have been peddled regarding Gaza, but also to the almost missable phrasing of terms when discussing the hideous crimes enacted on Gaza (I'm looking at you Amnesty).

The reader may slow down during his breakdown of Amnesty Internationals report, as well as the UN councils report post-protective edge. However I cannot emphasise how important it is for the reader to stay with this book. It is without a doubt the most powerful, heart-wrenching and gobsmacking piece of text I have opened my eyes to about Israel and Palestine.
activism classic colonialism-imperialism
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Shaimaa Shaimaa
386 reviews286 followers

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May 22, 2024
What a very stressful book, but the reality is even more stressful and painful.

And again, the foolish person says that he really did not know anything about all these events that happened while we were living and eating and drinking normally. Where we were, I swear I don’t know 🥺🥺🥺

This book was published in 2018.

Of course, the atrocities that happened before then are nothing compared to what we have received now in the most brutal operation in history. The history of the contemporary world, which is still continuing under the eyes of the whole world, but the words are the same, and the lies and deception and the whole conspiring world are the same words, with only a difference in the extent of the destruction and a difference in the duration.

It is also possible that if I had read this book before the events of the Al-Aqsa Flood, I would not have integrated with it so much, but now all of these written words and these places and events have brought us very, very close to them and it remains as if we were living there in Gaza and with the people of Gaza.

The book talks about the 2008 war, which they called Operation Cast Lead, which lasted 22 days, and about the Goldstone report, which described these atrocities, and which was attacked after that to the point that he backed down from his position..

And then it talks about the despicable attack on the Mavi Marmara ship, which was going to Gaza with humanitarian aid, and they attacked them. They killed 7 activists and confiscated the ship.

Then I talk about the 2014 war, which they called Operation Protective Edge, which lasted 55 days, and the author saw that it caused unbelievable destruction, and they said at the time that Gaza needed 170 years for reconstruction.

Of course, I still hadn't seen what happened in 2023.

Of course, we know from the book that this Israeli attack on Gaza must happen every now and then, and the story of Hamas and its attack on them are just arguments, but unfortunately they also know how to convince the whole world that they are oppressed and are defending themselves.

A very important book from which we know details that I think most of us do not know, and its style is also good and interesting.

From the definition of the book on Abjad:

“This book narrates interwoven facts of the struggle of the Palestinian people in general, with a focus on Gaza and the successive massacres and stifling siege that befell it. It describes how the Israelis continued to reject peace offers and exert pressure, with the help of the American sponsor, on various international forums to silence witnesses. Escaping accountability and escaping any punishment.

The book consists of four sections and an appendix.

 The first section deals with Operation Cast Lead and its consequences,
in addition to a comprehensive account of what was stated in the reports of international human rights organizations regarding it, and the arguments made by Israel’s defenders and its refutations It analyzes Goldstone's report and later retracts the findings of the committee he chaired. 

The third section deals with the incident of the attack on the humanitarian aid ship convoy and its political and legal consequences. 

Finally, the fourth section deals with Operation Protective Edge with a detailed presentation of Israeli atrocities and the betrayal of the people of Palestine by human rights organizations. This crime, and finally the appendix presents a unique comparison between the legal status of the racist South African regime’s occupation of the state of Namibia and the legal status of the Israeli occupation.”

Show moreAbjad lovely Palestine Non-fiction books-22

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Nelson
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March 14, 2019
The son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein documents Israel's assaults on the Gaza strip since Israel "disengaged" from it in 2005, as well as Israel's cover-up operations, acting as a lawyer for the people of Gaza.

Israel, for all I admire about her talent and her accomplishments, has really. gone. bonkers. Yesterday the IDF just shot and killed two more Palestinians. During Cast Lead and its shooting down of the humanitarian aid flotilla (2008) and Protective Edge (2014), Israel killed 1,000 and 2,000 people each war, 80% of whom were civilians. 

They've dropped one-ton bombs on densely-populated civilian areas, shot at ambulances, aid workers, and journalists, and bombed a UN shelter. Its alibi has always been that Hamas is hiding among the population, although in the overwhelming number of cases, human rights organizations such as Amnesty, HRW, and B'Tselem (which is Israeli) wasn't able to identify any military targets or Hamas operatives. Testimonies from IDF soldiers involved in the conflicts show they often did not see a single Hamas fighter the whole war. They were also told to shoot anybody who looks over 15 or is moving, assuming civilians have all fled.

Israel has also blockaded Gaza in order to bring its economy to the brink of collapse, without starving it, in order to delegitimize Hamas.

When Richard Goldstone, the South African Jew and Zionist, concluded in his UN report that Israel's intent was to terrorize and humiliate the civilian population during Operation Cast Lead, Israel launched vicious PR campaign against him and forced him to recant. This offensive subdued Human Rights Watch into not saying anything after Protective Edge and and Amnesty into watering down its reports on the latest war.

Again acting as Gaza's attorney, Finkelstein has punched all of Israel's atrocities into the peer-reviewed record (UC Press), as a monument to its people's resilience.

Jews have an admirable human rights record and they lead, fund, and heavily staff reputable organizations like Amnesty and HRW. I'm confident they can turn the state of Israel around.


middle-east political-science
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Mustafa
324 reviews280 followers

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March 21, 2024
The writer presents an example of non-dry legal writing. The writer reviews the suffering of the people of Gaza by dismantling dry international legal and human rights reports and treating them as historical events that can be narrated in a format that does not make reading boring. Finkelstein relies to create that style mainly on his very acerbic style in his comments on what It happened, he “spreads the sheets and then literally throws back the United Nations, Amnesty International, philosophers, and advocates of objectivity and balance in dealing with this issue that should not be proportionate” and the hypocrisy of the international community and its fluid laws and their repercussions on the ground in martyred Gaza... and of course, Aside from that framework of the book’s methodology, it is a book that is very hard for the heart to bear, and to believe that this actually happened at that time, and not a hair moved in the conscience of the world. Rather, it is happening now on a larger scale and with more torment, and the massacres are broadcast every moment before our eyes, and we still do not We believe because we feel so helpless... Perhaps God will finally feel for you, people of Gaza, and will look upon you with eyes of mercy.

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Rob Prince
103 reviews5 followers

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ReadFebruary 13, 2018
Finkelstein...a careful and serious researcher. He's the focus of many attacks from pro-Israeli ideologue types who try to paint him as some kind of extremist on the margins...This is silly. His work is about the best stuff out there - and this book is a masterpiece. Appreciated more outside the US of A than within it where he is essentially blackballed from the mainstream media. His work will endure. If you listen to what he has to say politically, by the way, he is a thoughtful moderate and realist. Personally a difficult person...but so what?

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Christopher Moltisanti's Windbreakers fan
96 reviews2 followers

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May 11, 2021
Finkelstein is a rare breed of historian and researcher whose books contain thousands of footnotes so that no one can twist his words or dispute his claims that Israel is a rogue ethonofascist state that has no boundaries of inflicting sufferings on Palestinians both living in Palestine and refugees outside of it. His mastery of using oppositional views and slowly dissecting the flaws and lies in them makes him one of the most beloved figures among Palestinian activists.

Not to get sappy here, my admiration of Palestinians have no limits. For decades with patience they took them upon themselves to save their dignity, protect their friends and families, educate the rest of the world about their sufferings. Yet, the so called civilized world not only doesn't look at them, they actually demonize and inflict more sufferings onto them. It's heartbreaking to see my Palestinian brother's and sister's sufferings for basic humanity. You can't claim to be anti-imperialist and do revisionist bullshit on the history and struggle of Palestine.

Long Live Intifada until Palestine is free. From river to the sea Palestine will be free.

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Maaly
36 reviews1 follower

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November 24, 2023
This book is recommended reading these days,
and it is supported by various references for each sentence and each citation.
The valuable book deals with the history of the Zionist aggression against Gaza and its people through various military operations such as Cast Lead, Protective Edge, Pillar of Defense, and other operations that brutally and deliberately targeted civilians in residential areas, hospitals, and cars. The first aid and systematic destruction of the infrastructure of the steadfast city.
The book refutes all the minutes that occurred at the time of these brutal attacks and many exhausted statements and justifications that are very similar to what is happening these days. However, what is happening in the arena now is genocide and ethnic cleansing in every sense of the word. The largest number of civilian casualties in the book is approximately 1,700 during Protective Edge.
The number of martyrs in the current operation and at the date of writing the review reached 15,000, most of whom were women and children.
The main goal of the aggression is to punish the people of Gaza for the presence of the resistance and their representation of it, as well as to achieve deterrence by painting the image of a brutal army that should not be attacked.
The book also showed the complete bias of international organizations towards Israel and distorting the facts and clearing its name, which I believe will not be repeated these days because the genocide and brutality of the entity is taking place in full view and hearing of all peoples.
There are many really important details inside the book.
May God help the people of Palestine, grant them victory, and remove the grief from them quickly.


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Marwa Fathy
230 reviews25 followers

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January 4, 2024
The Gazans, in the critical time they faced martyrdom, chose to die while resisting rather than to die slowly under the inhumane siege 💔
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Sophia
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February 3, 2021
This book was the first I read about the Israel/Palestine conflict, and while I can’t recommend it as a good starting place due to its density and focus only on recent history, I can wholeheartedly recommend it for its thoroughness and the author’s incredible commitment to the truth. Finkelstein carefully sifts through human rights report on recent “operations” inflicted by the Israel Defense Forces on Palestine and exposes in minute, even excruciating detail the places where these reports obfuscate, fall short, or even flat-out lie about the situation on the ground in Gaza.

Support for the state of Israel is a given in American politics; it’s one of the only issues that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. Donald Trump proudly upheld Israel in American foreign policy, and Joe Biden has promised to do the very same. But the fact is that Israel regularly and systemically commits crimes against humanity on the civilian population of Gaza with nearly zero criticism from Western media. And that’s what makes a book like Finkelstein’s so important: we are seeing atrocities, actively aided by the US government, committed right in front of our noses and most of us don’t even know it’s happening.

This book is dense, it’s packed full of numbers, statistics, and complicated legal analyses, but all of the work Finkelstein does here shows us the myriad ways the truth can be corrupted and distorted for political goals and the horrific human costs of these obfuscations. In the process, he teaches us to be better readers and better people in the pursuit of social justice. This is not an easy read, but I cannot recommend it enough. Five stars.
social-justice



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