Palestina, erresilientzia (31)

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hello and welcome to another episode of India  & Global Left today we have with us a very 

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special guest professor Norman Finkelstein today  we’re going to discuss his magnum opus Gaza and 

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inquest into his martyrdom Norm welcome back to  Indian Global Left well thank you for having me 

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it’s always my pleasure to talk to you I wanted  to discuss your book and and it’s an incredible 

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privilege to to to discuss it with you for  obviously um you know on a lighter note I didn’t 

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want to give you a lot of opportunity to shame me  that I haven’t completed the book but on a more 

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serious note I think um it’s uh a lot of people  now know about your book a lot of people are 

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interested in your book but some of them might not  have the time or energy to go through the book so 

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I thought it would be a good video archive  of a book that you have produced and it’s so 

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so important at this moment I want to kick start  by asking you a little bit to reflect on your 

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title of the book because one of the things that  struck you begin by saying that this is not a book 

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on Gaza this is a book on what is done to Gaza so  the subject it feels is the perpetrators Israel 

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and you can add a bunch of allies and stuff  halfway through your book one doesn’t get a 

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sense of martyrdom and it’s only when you start  discussing the operation castlet and protective 

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edge one understands what that martyrdom is tell us a little bit about the making of the title 

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well the title came instinctively but that’s  because by the time I filed the book I had 

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a clear conception in my mind of what the book was  about now I’ll say as a as a preliminary remark 

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one of the referees the readers of the  book for university of California press 

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objected to the title he’s a person ostensibly  of the left but he didn’t think the term 

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the word martyrdom should be in the  title of a book from a university press 

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and I wasn’t in the least deterred or dissuaded  by that remark because the title is an indication 

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or reflects what I was trying to do in the book  inquest refers to a very systematic methodical 

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tedious manuscript I very much doubt many people  read it the last chapters when they go through 

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the chapters called betrayal one and betrayal  two where I analyze the misrepresentations 

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and falsifications in the human rights reporting  on Gaza it’s a very detailed very difficult 

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very difficult chapters to read I don’t  really write for people I write for history 

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I want the record to be there because I  don’t believe it may be hubris on my part 

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but I don’t believe maybe no persons have the 

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the discipline for detail that I  do and so if I don’t go through it 

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point by point line by line methodically  demonstrating the misrepresentation 

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I don’t believe anybody else will do it they  don’t either because they don’t have the patience 

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the discipline or because they don’t think it’s  important I believe it’s important I do believe 

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the devil is in the details and unless you master  the details you don’t really know what’s going on 

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so inquest refers to that to the forensic side  of the book but there’s another side of the book 

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there’s indignation there’s outrage there’s a lot  of disgust at what’s been done to those people 

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they have been martyred and I don’t believe  that I don’t believe in writing a book 

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that’s strictly clinical you are an economist by  training now and you will recognize the tradition 

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from where I come which is to say the tradition  beginning with marks very rigorous very methodical 

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very dry especially those first chapters of Das  Kapital extremely dry you know what is a commodity 

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and but on the other hand it  is replete with rage outrage 

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at what’s been done to the toiling classes  and the whole system of capitalism which 

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marks describes as coming into the world with  blood and dirt dripping from all its pores 

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that’s not clinical language that’s indignation  and that’s outrage and those were all those were 

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from a fairly young age the models for  me the ability to combine the forensic 

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aspect with the moral indignation so that  was what the title attempted to capture 

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it is an inquest it’s a it’s a 

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a coroner’s report but it’s also  as I said replete with outrage 

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yeah no outrage not only what was done  what has been done to those people 

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that’s only half the outrage the other half  is the lies right the force of falsifications 

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the betrayal of the human rights organizations  the cowardice of the human rights organizations 

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I was struck um this is a side note but it’s not  irrelevant so as all you as you know and as your 

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viewers no doubt know the current scandal  is how the Israeli secret services 

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attempted to blackmail the former chief  prosecutor of the ICC Fatou Bensouda 

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you’re aware of that story correct yes it’s  all over the place and I had to say I was 

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bemused and amused when Henry Roth the former  executive director of human rights watch 

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he wrote an article in yesterday’s guardian  newspaper celebrating the heroism and the 

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courage of Fatou Bensouda who  did not succumb to the blackmail 

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she was she was chief prosecutor I think for eight  years I think it’s eight years no it would be 

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maybe six years uh she was chief prosecutor  she had one case having to do with Gaza 

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which she systematically desperately tried  to quash in the most shameless embarrassing 

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absurd ways and then she had a second case  where she kept kicking the can down the block 

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and by the time it was time to move to  investigate this case which began in 2015 

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when it came time to finally investigate  the case she had three months left in office 

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this is courage yeah I think you’re  giving away a little bit which uh 

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I mean a lot of the readers of your book  would be very surprised who would often  hear you speaking because they will think oh  Norman keeps quoting human rights reports all 

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the time but your book is about actually being  very very critical about human rights reports 

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including Amnesty International which we would  discuss but I want to go a little bit more  systematically that’s an important point yeah no  we would definitely just a large part of my life 

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yes holding those reports but an as large part  of my life exposing the falsity of those reports 

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absolutely but before that I wanted to have a  comment on the subjectivity aspect of the book 

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because you start by saying that this story of  people of Gaza even though it’s not not directly 

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a story of people of Gaza it has very muted  agency so you say that my book is not about agency 

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because it’s people like you know people in Gaza  cannot have that kind of agency and I think this 

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was one of the remarkable aspect that I found  in your book you did tremendously well in not 

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fetishizing agency which is sometimes it becomes  an academic trend to talk about agency all the 

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time and at the same time not casting the  Palestinians as passive victims I mean your 

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discussion about what happens in 2009 but more  significantly 2012 these possibilities are opening 

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up there are you know things that they are doing  obviously there is resistance and stuff like that 

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so that was one comment and on on the examination  part so that’s the comment on martyrdom and 

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subjectivity and on on examination I think  obviously you were examining kind of two aspects 

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you’re examining the blatant Israeli propaganda  narrative on one hand but you are also examining 

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your sources at the same time so I just  wanted to hear your thoughts on that 

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well first of all there’s  always agency the question   is the limits the parameters on the agency if you take the case of the United States there  

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were slave revolts but actually there weren’t that many if you consider that the biggest was  

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Nat Turner and all of 60 white people were killed and it was all over in two days less than two  

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days it’s not exactly a impressive record of slave revolts and then the question is how  

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do you explain the lack of those revolts namely the very limited parameters slaves had to act and  

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it’s a complex question obviously how you explain that but I don’t think a true history of  

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African-American or true African-American history would at least with regard to the slaves attribute  

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a large amount of agency to them no it’s true there was the underground railroad and then there  

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was the abolitionist movement and all those sorts of things but the fact that the matter is within  

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that big picture the actual amount of agency of the slaves is rather limited in my opinion and I  

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think it’s the same thing with a situation in Gaza it was a concentration camp you know how much  

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agency do you have in a concentration camp it’s not realistic so they take the case of the Jews  

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during World War II there’s all sorts of example you know exaggeration about the amount of number  

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of revolt in the partisan  sister colonies practically  nothing there are reasons for it why I mean that’s  always been a big question why was there so little 

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resistance to the Nazis and one of the standard  answers is show me in the country where there was 

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a lot of resistance there really wasn’t much you  know in the case of France it was like nobody 

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the whole the whole notion of the French  resistance is a complete fabrication of a people 

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who’s given to very large fabrications about  themselves the French so by and large these 

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notions of resistance in the face of overwhelming  power tend I think to be very exaggerated that 

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was a ghetto uprising was very very limited  actually the greatest historian on the subject 

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of the Nazi extermination Raoul Hildberg he was  very severely criticized for saying there was 

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a ghetto uprising it was practically nothing and  my mother was very insistent my mother and father 

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were in Warsaw during the uprising and she said  we had like four guns what are you talking about 

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if the Red Army had a very large difficulty  defeating the Nazis what do you expect from 

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Jews who have four guns it’s not realistic  it’s just fantasy so I don’t think obviously 

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Hamas’s capabilities have increased over time  I think they’re vastly exaggerated even now 

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if you follow the news for example have you read  about one single battle in Gaza battle I mean a 

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battle where one side the other  side there’s no report of a battle 

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there may be a couple of people snipers  here and there and they kill two or  right now it’s seven months and I think  it’s 290 soldiers but I think that includes 

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well it doesn’t include you know it doesn’t  include but 290 soldiers in seven months is 

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not exactly a huge number so I tend to be  skeptical of these kind of Hollywood depictions 

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of resistance and agency obviously you have  certain within I gave the examples of Nelson 

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Mandela and Frederick Douglass who showed  a certain amount of agency Douglas escaped 

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slavery and Mandela managed eventually to  command the respect even of his jailers 

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so yeah there’s a certain amount of Asians  I consider it very limited the Palestinians 

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couldn’t do very much the Palestinians  in Gaza couldn’t do very much 

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I think one of the over-arching or very  central point to understand as I read your book 

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is your point about establishing in  fact re-establishing again and again 

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what you are calling the deterrence capacity I  think it would be like one would misread your 

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book completely or miss a significant part of the  main point because even with your diagnosis and 

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inquest of a lot of the human rights reports  and stuff that is a very central point so to 

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understand this conflict this this point is very  important in so far as your argument is concerned 

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so can you can you tell our viewers why is  it such an important point and what is it 

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well deterrence capacity or capability  deterrence capacity or capability is just 

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it’s a fancy technical term for instilling  the fear in Arabs of Israel the fear of their 

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military might the fear of their retaliatory  capacities the fear of their intelligence 

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capabilities to keep the Arabs in place to keep  them in check and that has been an overarching 

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thing of the Zionist and then the Israeli history  basically because it goes back to Ben-Gurion who 

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was the first prime minister of the state of  Israel he never believed that Arabs would accept 

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the state of Israel in their midst  he thought that was an impossibility 

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and therefore given that that’s an impossibility  there’s no possibility of peace agreements 

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between the Arab states in Israel or let’s  say permanent peace agreements between the 

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Arab states in Israel and for him the biggest  fear was always what he called an Egyptian 

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Ataturk would come I should say an Arab Ataturk  would come along modernize the country and then 

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become a formidable military deterrent and even at  some point aggressor so you had to keep the Arab 

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world backwards backward that was sent that  was a tenet of Zionist policy and that to me 

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is probably the most significant factor in all  of Israel’s wars the fear of looking weak because 

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the moment they look weak the Arab world will  exploit the moment to eradicate them because 

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the Arab world will never accept a Jewish state  in its midst that’s why it’s very in my opinion 

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it’s very unlikely we’re going to find an  early conclusion to the current situation 

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because the worst catastrophe of Israel in  October 7 was that it revealed to the world 

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its fundamental weakness that here was this  high-tech state cutting-edge technology 

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cutting-edge surveillance technology run by  the Israeli Uber mention these commandos who 

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carry out all of these raids which seem very  impressive and then come October 7th and this 

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ragtag army of Untermenschen not only carry  out the massacre that was a concern for sure 

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an outrage for sure but that wasn’t the  only outrage it was the technical competence 

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that the Hamas displayed and it quickly  transmitted the message throughout the Arab world 

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of hey Israel isn’t as invincible as we thought  it was Israel isn’t as strong as it was we thought 

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it was and what follows from that maybe we  have a military option and that’s that’s where 

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the deterrence capability sets in we have  to transmit the message to the Arab world 

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you don’t have a military option you have  to reinstill the fear in the Arab world 

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of ever  ever even contemplating the possibility  of defeating us militarily and sometimes 

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it takes strange forms for example Israel  suffered a major defeat in 2006 in Lebanon 

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on what Sayyid Nasrallah called the divine  victory and it was very clear that a critical 

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component of operation protective edge in  beginning December 26 2008 and ending January 17 

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2009 with Amnesty International called  the 22 days of death and destruction 

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one of the main purposes of protective edge  was to restore Israel’s deterrence capacity 

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after the defeat it suffered in Lebanon in  2006 in other words had nothing to do with Gaza 

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they were trying to restore their deterrence  capacity which had suffered a hit in Lebanon 

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by destroying Gaza because they didn’t want they  weren’t ready for a round two with party of God 

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yeah I think this is a very good segue into the  part two of your book so just four of yours part 

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one consists of a chapter called self-defense  the second chapters deterring Arabs and deterring 

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peace then spin-offs and human shields I think  where we are today at this point in time these 

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two chapters become very obvious so I’m just  skipping them because most of our viewers should 

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know like things like human shields and spin-offs  are essentially these are propaganda narratives 

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so I’m jumping to part two and I think  you must tell a little bit about the 

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Goldstone report but because I think the  significance of the gold Goldstone report if I 

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review correctly is that for the for the first  time the idea of human right was projected 

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uh to to the talks or public debates about  conflicts I mean even before that maybe human 

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rights has always been there but this is a  significant time you don’t you don’t use the  word hegemony but one can understand that where a  counter hegemony was established where Israel was 

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taken into account of its terror and violence and  then obviously there is a second part to it but 

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first tell us about the significance of the  Goldstone report well it wasn’t it was a very 

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dramatic moment I think it’s forgotten now  operation cast led was a real horror show 

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actually it’s amusing now in retrospect I wrote  a book on operation a cast led I took the title 

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from an article by Gideon Levy and the title was  this time we went too far it was believed back 

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then that a new threshold had been crossed and  a threshold so high that was almost unthinkable 

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it could be further crossed in fact I’ll get back  to your point in a moment but just for the sake 

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of your listeners um operation cast led was then  paled in comparison to operation protective edge 

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protective edge comes in 2014 july july  9th to august 26th 51 days operation 

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uh protective edge and that was thought  to be a new uncrossable threshold uh the 

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president the head of the icrc the international  committee of the red cross his name is peter 

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mora or was peter mora and he said never in his  life had he had seen the magnitude of destruction 

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as he saw in gaza well guess  what the estimate the estimate is 

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in operation protective edge there was  2.5 million tons of rubble left behind 

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do you know what the current estimate  now for gaza is 38 million tons of rubble 

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so each time we cross the threshold that we  think can be crossed and it gets crossed in 

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spectacular ways this time they estimate it’ll  take 10 to 15 years just to clear out the rubble 

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from gaza before you can begin the rebuilding  and was it somewhere around 300,000 tons or 

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something for cast lead around that rate 600,000  600,000 right um in any event so to get back to 

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that the first thing to remember is uh it’s  forgotten now cast lead didn’t provoke a huge 

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international outcry there were very large  demonstrations throughout the world in support 

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of the people of gaza and that in turn caused a  demand for accountability now the human rights 

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organizations happened to have been excellent  after caslet amnesty as i mentioned to you a 

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moment ago produced a very comprehensive and  compelling volume called 22 days of death and 

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destruction human rights watch put out seven  separate reports on things like um rain of fire 

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one was called on israel’s use of white phosphorus  during caslet another was called white flag 

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killings about palestinians who were shot dead  holding white flags another was on the drone 

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warfare so they were very good for sure after  caslet however they weren’t the turning point 

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the turning point was the human rights council  did something unprecedented the human rights 

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council is corrupt even though generally the  standards of its mission reports are quite high 

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in my opinion they decide to appoint richard  goldstone the head of the mission to investigate 

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what happened during caslet now richard  goldstone is a south african jurist 

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uh he was on one of the international uh uh  commissions on yugoslavia my memories yes yeah 

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and what made goldstone’s choice so unusual  was two things number one he’s jewish he’s a 

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self-identified zionist i  don’t like the term but he   calls himself so i’ll call him a self-identified zionist uh and he was active in many israel causes  

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he was he sat on the board of directors of the hebrew university in jerusalem  

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so that was one thing that  was unusual the other thing is  the human rights council said look you can write  your own terms of reference whatever you want to 

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do in terms of your mission we will accept  and that put goldstone in a peculiar position 

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because as he said later on i couldn’t in  good faith turn it down they were saying 

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i can write my own terms of reference so he  accepted the um appointment and then he and 

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three others uh travers not so important  for our purposes desmond travers and uh 

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other names will come to me we’ll go on to  hold their grounds later yes they produced an 

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extraordinary report it was about 400 pages and  uh it was very uh pulled no punches it said israel 

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was terrorizing attempting to terrorize the  palestinian population they committed multiple 

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war crimes plausible crimes against humanity uh  and it didn’t stop at cas led it described the 

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whole occupation and it talked about the west  bank it was very comprehensive and devastating 

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well uh richard goldstone came under uh  a torrent of abuse vituperation anger 

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indignation uh alan dershowitz the harvard law  professor compare compared him to dr mengala 

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in auschitz um it was very ugly the chief rabbi  in south africa said that he couldn’t attend his 

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grandson’s bar mitzvah um so he came under  a torrent of abuse but he held his ground 

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he held his ground until april 1st 2011 

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when we first read it he had an op-ed in the  washington post in which he recanted the whole 

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report and the first reaction was is this an  april fool’s it was april 1st april fool’s day 

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um but that that was quickly uh superseded by  the reality yeah this thing happened it was very 

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devastating i was i remember the day it happened i  was absolutely shattered this was a very powerful 

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weapon how can you question the bona fides of  richard goldstone he’s an internationally regarded 

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jurist he was jewish he was a zionist what  would be his motive for falsifying the record 

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uh so i remember i was quite shattered i i was  in communication at that point with john dugard 

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who currently heads up the south  african delegation before the icj 

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now he’s about 87 and he’s the one  for those of you listeners who watch 

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the hearings he’s the one person  with the red robe in the um hearings 

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and i wrote to him and i said you know  something just died in me and he said me too 

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he said me too because it was a  huge victory and then it was undone 

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my own view was he was probably blackmailed  because there was nothing in the 

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in his washington op-ed that could explain  why he did what he did he claimed there was 

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new information that caused him to reconsider  his conclusions but that was totally untenable 

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there was no new information i i go through it  very carefully in the book but there’s no point 

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in doing that now i’ll just quote you john dugard  who i mentioned a moment ago is also from south 

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africa he was actually the a family attorney for  nelson mandela’s family and also for bishop tutu’s 

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family he’s an extremely honorable guy no question  about that in my mind in any event he wrote 

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uh in an article in the new statesman he wrote  quote there are no new facts that exonerate 

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israel and that could possibly have led goldstone  to change his mind what made him change his mind 

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therefore remains a closely guarded secret  and i think he was blackmailed um that’s why 

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um i believe the same thing with uh what happened  with fatu bentsuda even though she’s completely 

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disreputable she was a complete crook the uh icc  takes people like you know at that point the icc 

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the international criminal court it was called  the international caucasian court because it only  prosecuted africans so it had to change its image  so they got a african to prosecute africans they 

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got fatu bentsuda and they purposely chose  her because she was so corrupt she had a very 

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notorious reputation in the gambia because when  she’s so corrupt it’s easy to manipulate her 

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you know we know the skeletons in your closet  and israel found the skeletons also it’s not so 

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difficult in any event to get back to the point  at hand yeah it was a a real moment of reckoning 

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my own view is uh you i’ve already mentioned  earlier i have two choppers in the book called 

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betrayal which refers to the silence and worse the  silence and worse of the human rights community 

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after operation protected edge and my own view  is everybody was afraid of being gold stoned 

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that became an expression to be gold stoned they  were afraid that israel would get the goods on 

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them and as you know you’re old enough i don’t  know how old you are but if you’re over 25 you’re 

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old enough to know everybody’s got skeletons in  their closet and if you don’t have skeletons in 

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your closet your friends do your relatives do i  actually don’t believe goldstone was blackmailed 

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for something he did because that would have  come out a long time earlier in my opinion 

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but his daughter uh lives in israel so tap the  phone she’s having an affair her husband’s having 

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an affair and you could just imagine the scene of  her pleading daddy please please do what they say 

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they’re going to destroy me destroy my family  destroy your grandchild it’s very easy to imagine 

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i remember talking to professor chompsky about  this situation and then he began to publicly say 

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you can’t really blame goldstone because  when you’re under those sorts of pressures 

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you know he’s a he was a family  man professor chompsky and his   wife his children his grandchildren and i’m sure in his own mind’s eye he  

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thought well if the same thing  was done to me and my wife or  my kids begged me i’d probably do it so um there  was another betrayal in april april 26th by the 

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former president of the icj the international  court of justice jone dunahue because it was 

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like goldstone we thought we had a big victory  when the court declared that israel is plausibly 

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committing genocide and then she went on this bbc  program hard talk and she said we never concluded 

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that but in her case a goldstone moment yeah it  was a goal it was very coincidental it was both 

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in august both occurred excuse me april both  occurred in april goldstone was april 1st she 

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was april 26th as elliot said the cruelest month  april and it was a cruel month um they both went 

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around their peers goldstone never told the three  other members of his mission that he was going to 

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do it she never told anybody in the court what  she was going to do she just went on uh the bbc 

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and rescinded the whole icj proceeding conclusions  but in her case it wasn’t blackmail it was pure 

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careers and nobody put a gun to her head it’s just  that she’s no longer president of the court she’s 

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looking for a job yeah um  i want to actually move to  

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um very quickly uh the operation pillar of defense um and just to keep uh just to  

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refresh um the timeline for our  viewers 2006 the second lebanon 

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war israel gets a bloody nose its deterrence  capacity is under challenge 2008 when uh you 

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know president obama i think it was november 4th  or something or obama was being soared in there 

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are these now yeah there was a ceasefire signed  in june and they provoked a break that to me is an 

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important point for the current situation  because as you as you know a critical part of the 

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negotiations between hamas and israel is this  whole issue of a ceasefire and in its current 

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uh in its current iteration i’m speaking now  today but you’ll explain to your viewers because 

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it could change tomorrow they’re talking about  a six-month ceasefire and then negotiations 

41:12

and i don’t believe there are easy alternatives  to that formula but i can’t see how it could 

41:19

possibly work because the moment the hostages  are returned israel always breaks ceasefires 

41:27

it figures ways to provoke a break in the  ceasefire it will assassinate some hamas leader 

41:35

uh it’ll eventually find out where sinwar is  assassinate some hamas leader and then it’ll 

41:41

have the pretext to go in again but this  time without any hostages to worry about 

41:48

uh so if you look at the history uh  the ceasefires are utterly meaningless 

41:56

uh if it’s intended they’re going to last  if you take lebanon in 1982 there was a 

42:02

fire that began in january excuse me i shouldn’t  talk so fast there was a ceasefire that began in 

42:10

july 1981 and israel used the ceasefire to  prepare for an attack on lebanon and then come 

42:25

may 1982 they began provoking and provoking and  provoking until finally the plo had to react 

42:37

um and they went into lebanon and same thing with  june 2008 there’s a ceasefire israel prepares for 

42:47

the attack on lebanon sesame the attacker in  gaza and then they provoke a um uh they provoke 

43:07

uh so i don’t see how you could  stop them the only possibility  i could see is if you have separating  them an international peacekeeping force 

43:17

which at least can monitor the situation and say  who’s responsible even though those never really 

43:24

work either israel is quite effective at drowning  out the findings of the peacekeeping forces 

43:33

when it wants to so i i’m very skeptical of this  notion of a ceasefire yeah so uh so so castlet 

43:43

happens the goldstone report comes in uh israel  loses a lot of its legitimacy later on it’s 

43:48

recanted but it seems like from 2009 to even  uh pillar of defense 2012 there is some sort of 

43:58

opening going on uh more journalists moved into  gaza there’s the arab spring then you know wake 

44:03

up 2012 that happens and the interesting thing  that i found in your discussion on the pillar 

44:10

of defense is that when there are regional support  significantly egypt but one can think about you 

44:16

know turkey and so on um even a lot of people  are not talking about jordan and and so on 

44:24

israel cannot act with the impunity that it acts  and your discussion on pillar of defense which 

44:31

is relatively shorter is a sort  of uh testimony to that so tell  

44:36

us a little bit about why pillar of defense was so unsuccessful as   far as israel was concerned well  first of all it’s an interesting 

44:46

moment because morrissey is in power the  muslim brotherhood is in power in egypt 

44:55

and um and hamas is a muslim brotherhood  organization for our viewers an offshoot yeah 

45:02

and um they were getting a lot of support  they were getting financial support from katar 

45:09

they were getting diplomatic support and  that’s not supposed to happen you see 

45:15

this is supposed to be a terrorist organization  that cheats its people steals all the money and 

45:23

all of that but in fact it was temporary as  server roy has pointed out it was temporary 

45:30

and it was built based on a housing boom but  actually the economy wasn’t doing very badly 

45:36

at that moment in fact many people in the west  bank envied the standard of living in gaza because 

45:45

things were falling into place and even on a  person not in the personal but on a humanist note 

45:54

professor chompsky goes to gaza and he gives  lectures at gaza university it was an optimistic 

46:02

moment and for israel that’s a total disaster  because that’s going to give hamas legitimacy 

46:09

and it will make hamas a an interlocutor  in any peace negotiations and a lot of 

46:17

journalists through the egyptian border uh into  gaza yes american um so uh it had to be stopped 

46:29

uh but there was a relatively limited operation  because both the egyptians and the turks 

46:37

both egyptian and egypt and turkey said we’re  not going to let you do another cast lead 

46:46

and the united states at that point under obama  was hoping to cultivate relations with egypt and 

46:53

turkey and so it gave the transmitted the message  to israel that this has to stop and turkey already 

47:02

had the mavi marmara incident that you discussed  in your books in your book actually i discussed 

47:08

mavi marmara at great length because you see  that’s what happens when you even have a medium 

47:13

amount of power turkey was not going to let that  incident pass and so there was a huge number of 

47:21

reports that came out and that’s my sort of  may ta analyzing these reports um so it was uh 

47:32

it was even though i don’t like to use the word  only but i’ll use it strictly relatively speaking 

47:39

only 10 people were killed aboard the mavi  marmara it nonetheless create an international 

47:45

i wouldn’t call it a crisis but certainly an  international scene that had to be accommodated 

47:53

and so there were banking moon appointed this  commission to investigate what was happening 

48:00

it was a completely a complete joke the  person who basically headed up the commission 

48:07

uh it was formerly a new zealander but it was  this guy alvaro uribe from columbia who’s probably 

48:16

one of the biggest murderers and crooks and gods  are a perfect choice by banking moon and he wrote 

48:23

a completely fraudulent report um but um because  turkey had the clout uh they had to address it 

48:35

and uh so come back to pillar of defense there  is turkey there is a muslim brotherhood in aj 

48:40

more american journalist professor chompsky makes  this visit uh yeah wrap up that uh pillar of 

48:46

defense yes so it was all it was over relatively  quickly and the number of people killed by the 

48:52

standards of israel’s uh high-tech murder sprees  um the number of people killed was relatively 

49:00

was on the low end i can’t remember was the  double or the triple digits right now um and then 

49:09

things went quickly from bad to worse  because the muslim brotherhood was overthrown 

49:16

and then cc came to power he closed the whole  tunnel economy that was at that point connecting 

49:25

hamas with the outside world and  the the situation was already um 

49:39

abysmal but then it turned radically worse when  hamas won the election in january 2006 and um 

49:53

uh let me just get the dates right pillar  of the pet pillar of defense is 2012 

50:05

so what happened was there was a relaxation in  the economy yeah now i remember i have to just 

50:10

get the dates clear my mind after the mavi mamara  incident all the international leaders said this 

50:18

situation is unsustainable the situation is  unsustainable so there was some relaxation 

50:25

of the blockade on gaza uh but then  after the muslim brotherhood was defeated 

50:34

the blockade uh it was tightened even more because  the uh tunnel economy uh for those of you who 

50:45

don’t know uh they had developed a very  sophisticated uh tunnel system between um 

50:55

uh gaza and egypt they were smuggling in  horses it was very fabulous huge tunnels 

51:05

um cars were smuggling through the tunnels uh  automobiles uh so uh once that was shut down 

51:18

uh the situation radically deteriorated in  gaza and then uh in uh 2012 and then in 2014 

51:33

i’m not going to go through the background because  there it’s a little bit more complicated what  happened but uh in 2014 israel launched operation  protective edge which was uh it was i remember 

51:47

the scenes the descriptions of what was going on  uh where as they say they pale in comparison to 

51:57

what happened after october 7 but it was  quite horrible it was um 2 200 people killed 

52:07

550 children 18 000 homes destroyed um 203 mosques  yeah it was horrible but even you take the homes 

52:22

at that point 18 000 seemed astronomical and now  the current figure according to the world bank 

52:32

for gaza is 300 000 so we’re talking  about a totally different magnitude 

52:40

um and after operation cast led  the the population was so shattered 

52:54

by just the sheer density and the density of  the israeli assault that the prospect of armed 

53:05

resistance seemed very remote and so the next  thing they tried was non-violent civil resistance 

53:15

the greater return which is not in the book which  yeah hold on a little bit because i think yeah 

53:20

that chapter um i want to discuss uh the two  reports that you discussed because just for 

53:28

our viewers 2014 protective edge happens and  this is the moment where things now starts 

53:34

going downhill right and what you argue in your  book is that you accuse amnesty international 

53:41

and also u.n human rights council reports  um so they played a big part i mean uh in 

53:49

in in in in sort of the downward uh trend that  started um obviously these are long chapters that 

53:57

you have written you have uh you know you have  gone into the most micro detail that’s possible 

54:04

you know including things like oh how many  palestinian ngo organizations they took into 

54:10

account when they were looking into the   reports and how many israeli  reports they took into account 

54:16

um but i think um i wanted to uh flag um two  things that essentially i figured out as the 

54:23

sort of big i’d like to make yeah i’d  like to make a few comments because 

54:29

first of all i don’t think not because of any  intention but i don’t think you gave the full 

54:35

picture with operation cas led in 2008-09 dennis  uh desmond travers told me the estimate was there 

54:45

were 300 human rights reports on cas led in the  case of protective edge it was almost nothing 

54:56

um human rights watch which produced seven  reports on cast led it produced one nothing 

55:06

report on attacks on schools when everybody  already agrees you know the talking schools  it was like 12 pages and that was it everybody  sat it out and as i said my speculation was it 

55:19

was fear so amnesty international was put in a  peculiar position you see because in the internet 

55:26

in the human rights community everybody’s watching  the others back so if you take for example the 

55:33

recent reports on israeli apartheid the first  report is by bet selam says israel is an apartheid 

55:41

state that’s quickly followed by a report by  human rights watch israel is an apartheid state 

55:48

which is then quickly followed by a report by  amnesty israel is an apartheid state and you see  that pattern all the time they’re watching out  for each other that if you’re going to go out on 

55:59

the limb we’ll go out with you but this didn’t  happen this time so amnesty got very scared 

56:07

because it was going out on the limb on its  own and so it produced this horrible report 

56:14

horrible horrible horrible i was so enraged by  what they did um human rights watch sat it out 

56:25

and then they pointed this  american judge from new york the un 

56:32

appointing this american  judge what was her name mary 

56:39

what was her name mary one second 

56:48

it slips my mind i think she was irish mary 

56:57

real fine yeah fine in the moment mary mcgowan davis yeah their point is and he knew 

57:12

the moment they appointed the american judge we  know it’s going to be a disaster and of course  i said at the time would be a disaster  and it was a disaster so they all wrote uh 

57:25

i should say not they all it was really only  two major reports on protective edge but there’s 

57:33

another interesting side note because the  history in itself is interesting but it’s always 

57:40

interesting to also compare it to the present  one of the interesting phenomena from the 

57:47

since october 7th is that the human rights  community has been almost completely effaced 

57:54

you very there are a couple of uh statements by  human rights watch and a couple of statements 

58:01

by amnesty but really nothing significant  it all came from the internal un system 

58:08

yeah the one well is everyone world health  organization world food program unesco 

58:19

um unicef it was a very interesting thing  that happened which is actually a hopeful sign 

58:32

that the whole un system aligned itself with the  people of gaza and they became very aggressive 

58:43

aggressive in their statements be it we  left out of course the most important unra 

58:51

the statements by philip lazarini the head of  unra the statements by all of those organizations 

59:00

it was a deeply moving sight to behold  that they finally found their backbone 

59:07

you usually use those reports from those  organizations you use them just for numbers 

59:14

infant mortality uh you know things like that  you want the figures you never use them as 

59:22

political documents and so this time if you for  example look at the south african application 

59:31

to the international court of justice it contains  literally hundreds of footnotes and each footnote 

59:37

often has 10 and 15 references and interestingly  there’s a conocasional reference to an amnesty 

59:47

report or human rights watch report but that’s  no longer the case in general it’s all the un 

59:55

agencies and i thought that was a a very hopeful  sign as i said they finally found their spine 

1:00:04

they finally found their backbone and they were  just pulling no punches the past seven months 

1:00:13

and they have proven to be a very formidable  force that israel has a lot of difficulty 

1:00:21

responding to so if you look at for  example the last provisional measures 

1:00:28

of the court the ones issued on may 24th the  core of the that particular moment it was the 

1:00:37

fourth time south africa went to the court asking  for provisional measures the core was who to 

1:00:45

believe the international agencies the whole un  system the entire un system says we’re facing 

1:00:54

a catastrophe a disaster apocalyptic conditions  there are no words to describe what’s going on in 

1:01:01

gaza on the other side is israel saying there’s  no catastrophe there’s no disaster there are few 

1:01:07

kinks but no big problems and the court had to  decide who to believe and they said we believe 

1:01:16

the agencies we believe the agencies um so for me  i find it morally uplifting that these so to speak 

1:01:27

bureaucrats in all of these organizations  finally saw the humanity of their subjects 

1:01:37

but not just doing bookkeeping on inanimate  objects but a people that’s being martyred 

1:01:45

and they found the courage to come what may you  know philip philip lazarini they were out to get 

1:01:56

him including the germans including the germans  probably especially the germans because they’re  all nazis uh they were out together lazarini  wouldn’t stop him that’s a crap i mean no one 

1:02:09

was an interesting reaction by me my reaction was  i’m so glad because i don’t have to do that work 

1:02:17

now it’s all been done it’s all been documented  normally that’s what i would do i would go through 

1:02:24

the human rights supports to try to present  an accurate depiction and i thought to myself 

1:02:33

thank god i’ve been rendered superfluous it’s  been done all you have to do is look at any of 

1:02:39

the reports coming from south any of the compendia  coming from south africa or any of the agencies 

1:02:45

or anybody who compiles and you have the whole  picture yeah um i i wanted to pick up two things 

1:02:54

i mean obviously no one can uh do it justice uh  on these uh two massive chapters where you take 

1:03:02

on amnesty international anyone human rights  council reports but i think to do some justice 

1:03:07

i wanted to pick up on two points which i think  kind of the bigger picture on on what you were 

1:03:14

saying so i think two essential point was that  one both amnesty international and human rights 

1:03:20

council did the mistake of treating the point  that we discussed earlier the deterrence capacity 

1:03:27

treating israel’s response in protective edge as  a military response so that’s one point they did 

1:03:34

the mistake on where maybe they didn’t need norm  Finkelstein and the second point i think the big 

1:03:39

point that you were making is that kind of the  balancing approach that these human rights uh 

1:03:47

organizations did that oh here is violence in  this case there is violence in that case and so  both are complicit in war crimes what you are  saying is that that’s not possible where the 

1:03:57

asymmetry is large and there is a table i would  plug in i mean my producer would obviously uh 

1:04:03

screenshot it it’s in page number 311 where you  give this sort of ratio and you’re saying that 

1:04:10

this ratio of killing of destruction is so high  and the kind of spaces that amnesty international 

1:04:19

human rights councils gives is like in the ratio  of three is to four while the destruction are in  the ratio like hundreds sometimes thousands and so  these are the two big points i think that came out 

1:04:29

of these two chapters for me one treating it as  protective as a military operation the other is 

1:04:35

the asymmetry so elaborate a little bit on that  because i think that was a very very powerful 

1:04:41

point you made through very rigorous analysis of  the two reports well i’ll make it again i’ll try 

1:04:55

to make it current but it makes the same point  immediately after october 7th israel won 99 of 

1:05:06

the propaganda war 99 beginning october 8th  because every single media outlet every single 

1:05:15

media outlet bar none used the headline  israel hamas war it was an israel hamas war 

1:05:28

namely it was a war to inflict the defeat  on hamas and the first attempt unsuccessful 

1:05:39

to recast what was actually happening was  what south africa did with its application 

1:05:47

this isn’t an israel hamas war this is a war  against the people of gaza this is a genocide 

1:05:56

it’s not a war it’s a genocide it’s something  very different now i will acknowledge because 

1:06:05

i don’t want to be dogmatic about these things  yes it had a component it wanted to inflict a 

1:06:14

military defeat on hamas and also it wanted to  get back to hostages i’m not going to dispute that 

1:06:25

but that was only a part of the  picture the big picture was that we are 

1:06:35

determined to once and for all put an  end to this uh gaza question this gaza 

1:06:46

thing has to end as i quote at the  very end of the book i quote from 2015 

1:06:58

i quote an israeli official as saying  um let’s just get the exact quote 

1:07:09

um one second 

1:07:19

just tell us also the page number  so that we can flash the quotation 

1:07:29

okay so 

1:07:55

here at the very end of the book i say i quote  an israeli a senior israeli official is saying 

1:08:04

another war with gaza is inevitable we  cannot conduct a constant war of attrition 

1:08:14

therefore the next conflict has to be the  last conflict and that’s exactly what happened 

1:08:22

that they said we can’t be uh we can’t  keep going in and mowing the lawn 

1:08:28

so they now were not going to mow the lawn they  were going to extirpate every one of the 2.1 

1:08:38

million blades of grass and in gaza so in their  minds to defeat hamas permanently to put an end 

1:08:52

to this we have to destroy gaza we  have to put an end to it um and so 

1:09:03

if you treat it as our press treated it and as  the human rights supports treated after operation 

1:09:10

protective edge as a military as a war you miss  what’s going on yes that’s an element i’m not 

1:09:21

going to deny that but uh there was also the  element back then of restoring our deterrence 

1:09:32

capacity putting the palestinians in their place  trying to uh prevent them from getting too uppity 

1:09:42

uh and so that involved massive death  and destruction that had nothing to do 

1:09:48

with the actual military aim the systematic  death and destruction actually uh 

1:09:58

the goldstone’s report was very good on that  the goldstone report was the first report 

1:10:07

to actually capture that so  let’s see if i can just find it 

1:10:22

just give me half a moment  because it’s it’s worth quoting 

1:10:38

here this is what the goldstone report said  about operation uh castlet it concludes 

1:10:46

it concluded that the israeli  assault constituted a deliberately 

1:10:55

disproportionate attack designed to punish  humiliate and terrorize a civilian population 

1:11:07

well that was what the real aim was and when  you cast it as a military confrontation strictly 

1:11:17

you’re missing the point that actually it was  being the the assault was targeting the civilian 

1:11:27

the civilian population to punish humiliate  and terrorize a civilian population 

1:11:38

yeah so uh that’s never stated in those human  rights supports that came after operation 

1:11:49

protective edge and everybody treated it as if  it were just a conventional war between two sides 

1:12:00

and that was the great lie what you  might call the foundational lie of 

1:12:07

post october 7th and that lie they tried to  shatter uh south africa tried to shatter it 

1:12:16

i don’t think it was very successful because  the media still continued to call it a 

1:12:22

israel hamas war every single article begins that  way israel hamas war yeah so um we are coming to 

1:12:32

an end but i still want a little bit of time um i  think i want to go back so yeah this is the last 

1:12:39

chapter uh betrayal 2 un human rights council  betrayal 1 was the preceding penultimate chapter 

1:12:45

amnesty international and then a conclusion to  which i will come to but i want to actually sort 

1:12:51

of round up this uh by going to the first  chapter in fact which is the self-defense 

1:12:58

and what i uh thought is that there are three  aspects one is the moral aspect of self-defense 

1:13:04

where which is like whether people of palestine  or hamas has the right to resist which is like  an unambiguous yes then there’s the legal aspect  where people under occupation can have the right 

1:13:17

to resist through arms which i think is also an  unambiguous yes but i wanted to ask you about the 

1:13:24

third aspect which is the political prudence or  the strategic aspect and i think that relates to 

1:13:31

where you end the book uh in a way where you  uh you you call for a kind of um because your 

1:13:38

diagnosis is that here is the sort of world’s most  powerful military machine one of the world’s most 

1:13:45

powerful military machine machine and there is a  mass which is not even a kind of proper army they  can defeat them militarily so the way out is  and that’s probably also tells a lot about your 

1:13:56

interest in gandhi uh to some extent maybe  professor chonsky you call for a mass sort of 

1:14:03

mobilization with support and so on so forth so i  think the question that comes to uh many people’s 

1:14:13

mind also keeping in mind the october 7 incident  um how do you evaluate uh the political prudence 

1:14:22

of a military resistance by people of palestine  uh against israel well there are two questions 

1:14:30

there are several questions there and i think  we’re going to leave it off with these several  questions because otherwise you will bear witness  to my demise maybe you would like that so you’ll 

1:14:41

get a lot of it’ll go viral especially among  zionists uh but i would prefer to we might get 

1:14:50

more views than lex friedman in  that case if you die you know 

1:14:59

um there was some there’s a legal  issue of the right to self-defense 

1:15:05

on the right to use armed force and there  is a um a uh there’s also a moral question 

1:15:16

and let’s say if you take the case of what  happened in october 7th one of the standard 

1:15:22

questions is what what did you expect israel to  do what could it have done and i will acknowledge 

1:15:30

that they had a legal right to self-defense i i  don’t think that’s a difficult question to answer 

1:15:37

because hamas continued to fire rockets in israel  and hamas kept uh hostages so uh legally they had 

1:15:46

a right to self-defense uh israel in this case  not hamas israel had a right to self-defense 

1:15:52

but in my opinion there’s a difference  between a legal right and a moral right  so what do i mean by that let’s take the  case of a husband who batters his wife 

1:16:04

and he batters her for 20 years okay and she’s  screaming and yelling and nobody does anything 

1:16:14

she calls the police the police say it’s a  domestic dispute we’re not going to interfere 

1:16:20

which was typical when i was growing up that was  you know was the adage a man’s home was his castle 

1:16:26

castle and cops didn’t interfere it’s a domestic  dispute and then finally this woman in a fit of 

1:16:34

desperation she picked picks up a uh a kitchen  knife and she charges headlong to her husband 

1:16:48

he has a gun handy and he shoots her dead now in  the court of law he would probably be acquitted 

1:16:56

even if all the description of what he had done  to her because technically his life was in danger 

1:17:04

he had a right of self-defense but my view is he  forfeited that right by what he did to that woman 

1:17:11

for 20 years maybe legally he had that right but  morally he forfeited that right he had no right 

1:17:17

to kill her she had the right to live he did  he lost he forfeited that right of self-defense 

1:17:25

and i believe the same thing is true with the  people of gaza israel yes legally had a right 

1:17:31

of self-defense did it have the right to go  in no in my opinion it forfeited that right 

1:17:37

after what it did done to the people of gaza for  20 years so uh that’s one aspect of your question 

1:17:45

the second aspect of your question when  they just tell you frankly i was wrong 

1:17:51

there wasn’t a non-violent option it was tested  on march 30th 2018 the great march of return 

1:18:01

that was non-violent overwhelmingly non-violent  for the first six weeks from march 30th to may 

1:18:08

14th when israel committed a massacre and then  things began to deteriorate uh the whole world 

1:18:16

ignored it even the palestine solidarity movement  totally ignored it they didn’t have a non-violent 

1:18:23

option i was wrong i thought it would work in  fact i was in touch with people there and i was 

1:18:31

one of the people encouraging it and i was very  embarrassed i would end it you know it’s it 

1:18:37

revealed my naiveté and my not just my  fallibility which everybody’s throwable 

1:18:43

it revealed my naiveté it was completely ignored  it had no nonviolent option and nobody will ever 

1:18:50

convince me otherwise in reaction to that  non-violent uh resistance according to a un 

1:18:59

mission they put out a 250 page report single  space single space 250 page report what did it 

1:19:08

find it found that israel the snipers they had  among their best snipers lined up along the 

1:19:13

perimeter fence with gaza the snipers were  targeting children the target snipers were 

1:19:20

targeting journalists medics who was even targeted  they were even targeting uh disabled people double 

1:19:27

amputees 300 meters from the uh perimeter fence is  this the point on which you call someone a moron 

1:19:39

no that was another well i called that person  the moron many times actually every opportunity 

1:19:45

that availed me i couldn’t resist sorry for the  distraction i couldn’t resist the reality check 

1:19:54

um so uh they didn’t have a nonviolent option  and that and that’s why i i feel that before you 

1:20:04

um render judgment on anybody be it putin  in february 2022 or hamas on october 6th 

1:20:15

before you render a judgment a legal judgment  okay legal judgments are beyond our control 

1:20:22

but before you render a moral judgment you have  to show me options what option did putin fail to 

1:20:30

exploit i’m curious i don’t know of any i don’t   know of any option i know he desperately just saw it not just him the whole sylvia leadership  

1:20:39

from 1990 was desperately seeking or 1991 was desperately seeking some resolution of this  

1:20:47

issue with nato um so uh you couldn’t appease the west there was no way they were determined  

1:21:00

as a lining up their chess pieces for the war with china they were determined to um 

1:21:12

humble is not the right word they were  determined to uh neutralize russia 

1:21:21

in preparation for this confrontation they’re  preparing with china there’s nothing to do 

1:21:28

and then it’s the same thing with the  people of gaza what were they supposed to do 

1:21:34

on october 6th gaza was a dead issue  dead as a doornail i know because i quit 

1:21:43

i know because i quit i stopped writing on gaza  in 2020 we had a show with you prior to this where 

1:21:49

you know the tone and tenor was very very uh i i  don’t know if we should use the word pessimistic 

1:21:57

but it was there was significant moment of  significant tone of uh helplessness in your voice 

1:22:04

yeah i was embarrassed i had given up i had  always said i’m not a quitter but this time i 

1:22:11

quit first time ever because i couldn’t see any  way out um that was the moment when it looked 

1:22:19

like there was going to be a deal with saudi  arabia everything was going to be done over  the heads of the people of gaza and it would be  everyone lives happily ever after and the people 

1:22:30

of gaza would be left to languish and die in the  concentration camp so oh whether it was prudent 

1:22:39

what they did in october 6th i don’t know and it’s  not for me to decide it’s for the people of gaza 

1:22:46

to decide whether it was worth it that that that  throw of the dice uh as mouin rabbani my colleague 

1:22:56

and comrade says the the main purpose of  october 6 was to shatter the status quo 

1:23:04

october 7th is to shatter the status quo  that this can’t go on now as to what ensued 

1:23:17

i’m not passing judgment 40 000 people are  dead there but for the grace of god go i 

1:23:25

so i’m not going to be glib and say it was worth  it that’s not going to happen i’m not doing that 

1:23:32

but on the other hand i think it’s within  the right of the people of gaza to decide 

1:23:38

whether whether it was worth it was  were crimes committed on october 6 sure 

1:23:46

uh going to october 7th you know my mind is not  going yeah i have so many dates in my dates in 

1:23:52

my head at this point i’m losing track of  everything uh i’m not going to deny horrific 

1:24:00

things happened october 7th but i never if you  look at the abolitionists after the slave revolts 

1:24:07

they never condemned the slaves for what they  did they just did not they said what happened was 

1:24:13

horrible but they never blamed them i mean how  could you blame a slave a slave is somebody who 

1:24:22

from birth to death is condemned to servitude and  if they decide they’re not going to accept that 

1:24:29

servitude and whatever crazy thing they do if it’s  crazy i don’t know it’s crazy but whatever they 

1:24:35

do i’m not going to condemn them i’ll say hey  beheading babies and here i’m referring to not 

1:24:40

turner not to hummus behavior beheading babies  not not a not a nice thing but i’m not going to 

1:24:48

condemn them and that’s not because i’m you know  a radical pose i’m not woke but i feel the same 

1:24:58

position as the abolitionists see the difference  between me and everybody else is in the case of 

1:25:06

the abolitionists they saw the slaves every  day of their lives they saw the slave auctions 

1:25:13

they knew about the humiliations and rapings of  the women everybody knew they saw the humiliation 

1:25:20

degradation of a slave every day so they didn’t  have it in them to condemn the slaves when there 

1:25:29

was the revolt or revolts um and with me i knew  gaza before october 7th i spent 15 years going 

1:25:41

through those human rights reports that’s  basically what i did for 15 years of my life 

1:25:48

so if you were as close to the material as  i was you would be as reluctant as i was 

1:25:55

to condemn them i know what  happened to those people  to let you i i i don’t address the prudence  because i don’t believe they had any options 

1:26:07

october 7th was a throw of the dice and it’s for  the people of gaza to decide whether it was worth 

1:26:13

it totally fair to let you go with this parting  um you know on a lighter note uh if i was your 

1:26:22

student in your one of your political science  classes uh how much mark or grade would you give 

1:26:28

me uh in terms of my reading of your book of  course there would be great back uh to the 

1:26:35

extent that i read your book way too late but  what would be that great well first of all i’m 

1:26:41

going to be honest with you and i don’t mean this  in any way the meaning way to my students i don’t 

1:26:47

assign books anymore nobody reads i don’t even  bother uh people think a tweet is an argument 

1:26:57

people think believe that they think a tweet is  an argument there’s no concept of what an argument 

1:27:03

is you know the construction of an argument is so  tough it’s so mentally exhausting to construct an 

1:27:11

argument the human mind uh you know a normal  human mind i’m not being a professor chamsky 

1:27:18

uh a human mind can construct an argument maybe  of a paragraph in length but anything more than 

1:27:25

a paragraph you have to work it out on paper in  order to see how things flow uh you know there 

1:27:33

was the great indian mathematician raman nuchen  and what they said was most remarkable thing about 

1:27:42

him is he was able to skip a thousand steps he  just could go from here to here and didn’t have 

1:27:51

to work all that out to get there but most people  they they have to work it out on paper go from 

1:27:57

step to step to step to step to step um so uh  they don’t read i i just assume they don’t read 

1:28:10

and i go over the material in class so like the  fact that you read the book though i’m dubious 

1:28:16

you read the last two chapters because they’re  so tough i had to reread the book you know after 

1:28:21

october 7 because i had forgotten a lot the book  came out in 2018 and i needed to as it were arm 

1:28:29

myself for the battles and head and i was amazed  at the level of detail and the complexity of the 

1:28:38

argument i i think it’s a great book i don’t care  what anyone says the mental investment you know 

1:28:44

most authors professor czapski said most  historians are good clerks they go through 

1:28:51

archives and then what do they do they arrange  in material logically what’s called nowadays a 

1:28:57

narrative there is no such thing as that in this  book every paragraph has an argument you know 

1:29:06

worked out trying to make sense of what’s going  on here was very wasn’t a labor of love it was 

1:29:16

a labor of you you write this in your uh preface  or introduction yeah uh it wasn’t the labor of 

1:29:23

love to complete this book so angry at the lies  you know right now i’m writing something on 

1:29:34

john donahue the icj president who claimed they  didn’t find israel as plausibly it’s so hard it’s 

1:29:44

so because a lot of the legal language is so  purposely opaque so as to pretend that they’re 

1:29:51

doing something profound which they’re not so  trying to work it through you know and i struggle 

1:29:59

because no she’s not going to get away with it  you know and i do believe i mean this may sound 

1:30:05

like hubris again i don’t believe anybody else  will ever do what i did do you know every report 

1:30:12

i read i had to read at least three times yeah i  can totally imagine that you know the first time 

1:30:19

you read it to see where the argument is going  that’s the first reading second reading is you’re 

1:30:26

looking for what are the gaps in the argument  now i know where it’s going to now i know where 

1:30:33

it’s going to end let me see what does it work and  the third reading is did i get it right or did i 

1:30:42

miss miss some of the arguments that i thought  were gaps so i didn’t have to check if i got it 

1:30:48

right so everything i read over the last 15 years  i read at least three times the fourth time would 

1:30:57

be the fact check time but by the end i start  to get people on the web who are supportive of 

1:31:04

me to do the fact checking because it was becoming  mentally impossible anymore i just couldn’t do it 

1:31:11

anymore and now it’s harder and harder  and harder and harder but it’s an enormous 

1:31:21

mental effort i could assure you thanks  for writing this book and also thanks for 

1:31:29

for this discussion i think a lot of people like  to consume things in video format these days i of  course assume i get approved for the discussion  and the reading but it’s too late there