This is what Israel always does.
Anybody who knows the history, it’s what the Israeli political scientist, the
mainstream political scientist—name was Avner Yaniv—he said it’s these
Palestinian "peace offensives." Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are
trying to reach a settlement of the conflict, which the unity government was, at
that point Israel does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction—in this
case, from Hamas—break up the unity government, and Israel has its pretext.
"Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are trying to reach a settlement of
the conflict — which the [Fatah-Hamas] unity government was — at that point
Israel does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction"
partial, rushed transcript:
![]() MY GOODMAN: For more, we’re
joined by Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar. His most recent books are
Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit’s Promised Land and Knowing
Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an
End. [one can hope] And we’re joined
by Mouin Rabbani, a Palestinian political analyst, formerly with the
International Crisis Group. Today, both Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani
have co-authored a forthcoming book, How to Solve the Israel-Palestine
Conflict.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mouin Rabbani, we’re speaking
to you over at The Hague. Can you respond to this latest news of the Egyptian
ceasefire, Israel accepting and Hamas weighing this?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I think Amira explained it quite well.
So far as we can tell, Hamas has been neither directly nor indirectly consulted
on a proposal that basically the Egyptians have concocted together with Tony
Blair and the Israelis and some other parties, the purpose of which appears to
be something that Hamas cannot accept and that can then be used to legitimize an
intensification of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
The problem for Hamas is twofold. On the one hand, as
Amira explained, it basically restores an acceptable status quo, while, on the
other hand, it has been endorsed by the Arab League, by the PA in Ramallah, by
most of the Western powers and so on. So it will be difficult for them to either
accept or reject it, so to speak, while at the same time I think the parties
that are proposing this ceasefire are making it clear that they’re not really
interested in any further negotiation of its terms.
AARON MATÉ:
Norman Finkelstein, give us a sketch of the broader context for how this latest
flare-up began.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, before I do, I’m going to just
briefly comment on the ceasefire. The ceasefire, first of all, says
nothing about the rampages by Israel against Hamas in the West Bank. And it was
those rampages which caused the current conflict to escalate. It gives Israel
a green light to continue arresting Hamas members, blowing up homes in the West
Bank, ransacking homes and killing Palestinians, which was the prelude to
the current fighting.
Secondly, if you look at the ceasefire, it’s exactly
what was agreed on in June—excuse me, June 2008 and the same ceasefire that
was agreed to in November 2012. Namely, in both cases, it was said that there
would be a relaxing of the illegal blockade of Gaza. In both cases, after the
ceasefire was signed, the blockade was maintained, and in fact the blockade was
escalated. So now, in the current version of the ceasefire, it said the blockade
will be lifted after there has been calm restored and the security situation has
been established. But if Israel says Hamas is a terrorist organization, then the
security situation can never be calm in the Gaza, and therefore there will be
never a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. So we’re right back to where we were in
June 2008, November 2012. Of course Hamas is going to reject that kind of
agreement. It means it legalizes, it legitimizes the brutal, merciless,
heartless, illegal blockade of Gaza.
As to how we got to where we are, the general context is
perfectly obvious for anyone who wants to see it. A unity government was formed
between the PA and Hamas. Netanyahu was enraged at this unity government. It
called on the U.S., it called on the EU, to break relations with the Palestinian
Authority. Surprisingly, the United States said, "No, we’re going to give this
unity government time. We’ll see whether it works or not." Then the EU came in
and said it will also give the unity government time. "Let’s see. Let’s see what
happens."
![]() At this point, Netanyahu virtually went berserk, and he was
determined to break up the unity government. When there was the abduction
of the three Israeli teenagers, he found his pretext. There isn’t a scratch of
evidence, not a jot of evidence, that Hamas had anything to do with the
kidnappings and the killings. Nobody even knows what the motive was, to this
point. Even if you look at the July 3rd report of Human Rights Watch, they said
nobody knows who was behind the abductions. Even the U.S. State Department, on
July 7th, there was a news conference, and the U.S. State Department said,
"We don’t have hard evidence about who was responsible." But that had nothing to
do with it. It was just a pretext. The pretext was to go into the West Bank,
attack Hamas, arrest 700 members of Hamas, blow up two homes, carry on these
rampages, these ransackings, and to try to evoke a reaction from Hamas. [false
flag/ hasbara]
This is what Israel always does. Anybody who knows
the history, it’s what the Israeli political scientist, the mainstream
political scientist—name was Avner Yaniv—he said it’s these Palestinian "peace
offensives." Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are trying to reach a
settlement of the conflict, which the unity government was, at that point Israel
does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction—in this case, from
Hamas—break up the unity government, and Israel has its pretext. "We can’t
negotiate with the Palestinian Authority because they only represent some of the
Palestinian people; they don’t represent all of the Palestinian people." And so
Netanyahu does what he always does—excuse me, what Israeli governments always
do: You keep pounding the Palestinians, in this case pounding Hamas, pounding
Hamas, trying to evoke a reaction, and when the reaction comes—well, when the
reaction comes, he said, "We can’t deal with these people. They’re
terrorists."
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, why do you think Israel
has hesitated to launch the invasion? Their, you know, thousands of soldiers are
lined up along the Gaza border.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, it’s interesting, because all
the—there are a large number of theories that are being spun, in particular in
the Israeli press. The answer, I think, to that question is pretty obvious. The
Israeli domestic population won’t tolerate a large number of Israeli combatant
casualties. That’s out. Israel likes to fight—not unlike President Obama, Israel
likes to fight high-tech—likes to commit high-tech massacres, and it doesn’t
want to fight a real war. And in 2008, Israel carried out, executed the big
high-tech massacre in Gaza, killed about 1,400 Palestinians, up to 1,200 of whom
were civilians, left behind 600,000 tons of rubble, dropped the white phosphorus
and so forth. And for the first time, the international community reacted very
harshly to it. The climax, of course, was the Goldstone Report.
And at that point, Israel was placed in a very difficult
position, because on the one hand, it can’t stop the rocket attacks unless it
conducts a ground invasion, which is exactly the situation it faced in Lebanon
in 2006 also. The air force can’t knock out these rockets. They’re short-range
rockets, mostly. They’re not even rockets, but we’ll call them that. The air
force can’t knock them out. The only way to get rid of them—exactly as in
Lebanon in 2006, the only way to get rid of them is by launching a ground
invasion. However, the domestic population won’t accept a large number of
casualties. And the only way you don’t have a large number of casualties is if
you blast everything in sight within a mile’s radius, which is what Israel did
in 2008, '09. There were only 10 Israeli military casualties; of those 10, half
of them were friendly fire, Israelis accidentally killing Israelis. But after
the Goldstone Report and after 2008, ’09, they can't do that again. They can’t
carry out that kind of massive destruction, the 22 days of death and
destruction, as Amnesty International called it. They can’t do that again. A new
constraint has been placed on Israel’s political and military echelon.
So, that’s the dilemma for them. Domestically, they
can’t tolerate large numbers of combatant casualties, but the only way to
prevent that is blasting everything in sight. The international community says
you can’t do that. You kill 150, even kill 200, Human Rights Watch said killing
200 Palestinians in Gaza, that’s not a war crime, they said. That’s just
collective punishment. Only Hamas commits war crimes, because one woman
apparently died of a heart attack while—Israeli woman apparently died of a heart
attack while trying to enter a shelter, so that’s horrible, awful: That’s a war
crime. But when you kill 200 Palestinians, 80 percent of whom are civilians,
about 20 percent of whom are children, according to Human Rights Watch, that’s
not a war crime. But the international community will accept that much, 200. But
even Human Rights Watch won’t accept if you go in and you do 2008, '09, again.
And so, the Israeli government is faced with a real dilemma. And that's the
problem for Netanyahu. Domestically, he loses if there are large number of
casualties, combatant casualties; internationally, he loses if he tries to do
2008, ’09, all over again.
AMY GOODMAN: Which resulted in how many deaths?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: 2008, '09, as I said, was about 1,400,
of whom about up to 1,200 were civilians, I say 600,000 tons of rubble. They
just left nothing there. And by the way, that was demanded by Tzipi Livni. On
June 8th—excuse me, on January 18th, Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister then, the
justice minister now, the person who's called a moderate by J Street, Tzipi
Livni boasted—she went on TV and boasted, "We demanded hooliganism in Gaza.
That’s what I demanded," she said, "and we got it." According to J Street, she’s
the moderate.
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