Internationally-known scholar and author Norman Finkelstein made his second visit to a Dearborn college campus in a little over two months as he headlined an event entitled Freedom Denied: Palestine Under Siege that was co-hosted by Students for Islamic Awareness (SIA) and the Arab Student Union (ASU) at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
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| Above: Finkelstein addresses the crowd as moderator Tarek Baydoun listens. At right: The crowd at the University of Michigan – Dearborn waits to ask questions. |
Finkelstein focused on breaking down into fine details the major issues surrounding the siege on Palestine including the Israeli attacks on Gaza in late 2008-early 2009, the flotilla attacks in May 2010, and where things stand now in light of new developments.
The son of a Holocaust survivor, author, and critic of Israeli foreign policy also revealed that because the audience was packed with Arab Americans in contrast to many of his other crowds, he was excited to tackle new subjects and questions.
The attacks on Gaza
Regarding the attacks on Gaza, which Israel titled “Operation Cast Lead,” Finkelstein took issue with the media dubbing them the “Gaza War.”
“Amnesty International called it 22 days of death and destruction, but reputable human rights organizations still call it the ‘Gaza War,’” he said.
Finkelstein said that an Israeli strategic military analyst admitted that no actual battles were fought, and cited testimonials of various soldiers admitting that they had virtually no enemies on the streets of Gaza, which they called “ghost towns.”
Also during the attacks, not a single plane even came back damaged to Israel, and the soldiers had night vision allowing only them to see during night raids.
However, Finkelstein said troops used “insane” amounts of firepower, citing illegally-used white phosphorus that heats up to 1500 degrees fahrenheit, which he said has been used since the early 1980’s in Lebanon and was used against schools and hospitals, along with testimonials from soldiers saying that the ground shook and forced them to evacuate command posts in houses in Gaza; other soldiers said that the attacks were like “playing a Playstation game” or “burning ants with a magnifying glass in the sun.”
“It’s kind of a surreal…a war with only one side,” Finkelstein said. “Now Israel can say, we showed them, because we won the Gaza War.”
Finkselstein also brushed aside the long-time “defense” Israelis have offered up that many of their more than 1,400 victims during the attacks, which he said were about 4/5 civilians, used human shields.
He asked the crowd to raise their hands if they thought that no concrete evidence had been presented from human rights organizations that Gaza’s civilians had been used as human shields during the attacks. Six people raised their hands before Finkelstein revealed that they were correct. He cited an Amnesty report that found no evidence of the practice.
“This tells you how powerful the propaganda system is, that even people that are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause don’t know even the most elementary facts and are misinformed about the situation.”
The destruction launched against Gaza, Finkselstein argued, was part of its longstanding “deterrence capacity” in the region.
He said that two defeats suffered at the hands of Hizbullah in Lebanon caused Israel to pursue the infliction of widespread destruction so that Palestine’s Middle East neighbors would be afraid to stand up to them.
Flotilla attacks and the Turkel Report
Finkelstein also criticized the Mavi Marmara attacks and especially the recent Israeli-produced Turkel commission report that deemed them legal despite the slaying of nine activists in international waters.
He said the report identified a small group of alleged “terrorists” on the boat as the problem, not others on the Mavi Marmara with them.
“They essentially said that the middle-age people, and those with the greying hair prevented the Israeli elite commandos from being killed by what they described as these big, burly “terrorists,” like yeah, Grannies for peace, you know, they held back the crazy “terrorists.”
The list of weapons included slingshots, marbles and what Finkelstein said were most likely kitchen knives based on reports but were portrayed as legitimate weapons by the Turkel report. He cited a report that said the commandos fired live rounds of ammunition before any of their troops “hit the deck” as well.
Other subjects, including Zionism
Finkelstein touched on myriad other subjects as well, including the Wikileaks reports that Israel planned to keep Gaza “on the brink of starvation” which were not given attention in the U.S. but were dug up by a Norwegian newspaper.
He said that this admission’s results fell in the time period during which a cease-fire negotiated by Egypt in June 2008 called for Israel to gradually lift the blockade on Gaza. The actions by Israel in maintaining the blockade, along with the killing of six Palestinians about 4 ½ months later in airstrikes against Hamas, are what led to retaliatory rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel.
Finkelstein said that Israel wanted the attacks to occur so it had justification to continue with further attacks of its own in Gaza of a much more brutal nature.
During the question-and-answer segment of the talk, UM-Dearborn philosophy professor David Skrbina asked Finkelstein three questions about Zionism, including whether or not he actually considered himself a Zionist from a personal standpoint.
Finkelstein did not answer the questions directly, saying that he refused to use terms that pigeonhole people into specific ideologies because of the counterproductive nature of such terms in creating a movement, which is what he said Palestine needs most of all as opposed to a “cult.”
“Bearing in mind that we want to reach a broad public, that’s our goal, I don’t think it makes sense to talk about whether or not I’m a Zionist.”
Moderator Tarek Baydoun pressed Finkelstein further, telling Finkelstein that his own viewpoint was in fact relevant to the discussion for the purpose of putting his comments and works into the proper context, but he did not answer directly.
Finkelstein did say that he ultimately believed in a “no-state” solution, saying he was “old-fashioned,” and said that the “max possible” solution would be to force an Israeli withdrawal from the territories taken in June 1967. He also called for a just resolution of the refugee problem with Palestinians and compensation for them as well.
“The right of return and compensation is their right under international law,” he said, while also saying that not all of the seven million people expelled would likely want to go back.
After the talk, Skrbina said he was disappointed that Finkelstein didn’t answer the specific questions about Zionism including its “pervasiveness” in American culture and also his personal viewpoint.
Hasan Newash, head of the Michigan Palestine Office, said he was satisfied with the talk, however.
“I think he’s an always sharp, always insightful macro analyst to the first degree,” he said.
Newash said that he believes Finkelstein is usually spot-on with his analyses of the problems surrounding the conflict and said that some people mistake certain omissions based on what’s most relevant at the time to be flaws in his presentations.
Barbara Harvey of the Jewish Voice for Peace organization, which was a co-sponsor of the event along with Students United for Peace and Justice and the Humanitarian Organization for Palestine Equality, said she was “sympathetic” to some of the criticisms but still mostly satisfied.
“I was actually glad to see something in his comments that I thought was a healthy step, and that is staying away from hot-button words that close peoples’ minds to discussion. Zionism is the biggest of those hot-button words and if we stay stuck in ideology and the roots of the problem, it’ll never get solved, (personal ideologies) only impede because we need to be focused on reaching the broadest possible movement.”
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