Love of the Land: Finkelstein’s Slander Against Israel

Finkelstein’s Slander Against Israel

Joseph Klein
Frontpagemag.com
09 April '10

Norman Finkelstein, the professional Israel-basher, appeared before the United Nations Correspondents Association in New York on April 7th to hawk his newest diatribe against Israel entitled ‘This Time We Went Too Far.’ Finkelstein claimed in his book that he was providing “an accurate record” of the “suffering” that the Gazan population “endured” as a result of the “merciless Israeli assault.” He urged the UN correspondents to publicize his message about what he called the “bloodletting in Gaza.”

Finkelstein was referring to Operation Cast Lead, which Israel launched in December 2008 to put a stop to the incessant rocket attacks launched from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists against civilians living in Southern Israel.
In his remarks to the UN correspondents, Finkelstein said that it was inaccurate to characterize what happened in Gaza as a war. He described it as a “massacre” deliberately designed by the Israeli government and military to terrorize the people of Gaza with “disproportionate force.” The real reason for Israel’s invasion, Finkelstein asserted, was to teach Arabs a lesson after Israel’s “defeat” in Lebanon in 2006.

To support his thesis that Israel used unreasonably disproportionate force against a defenseless civilian population and engaged in a “massacre” rather than a war, Finkelstein cited testimony from unnamed Israeli soldiers who were quoted as saying that they did not engage any combatants on the Hamas side. He also referred, as an example of Israel’s true intentions, to former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who said at the time that “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.”

Often associated with rowdiness at soccer games, “hooliganism” is a slang word that in the worst dictionary definition of the term refers to willful wanton and malicious destruction of the property of others. Let us suppose for the moment that this is what Livni actually meant and that “willful wanton and malicious destruction of Palestinian property” in Gaza reflected Israel’s true intentions. Is Israel expected to stand by and let Hamas and its other terrorist allies shoot rockets into Israeli civilian centers all day and night long, day after day – following repeated Israeli warnings to stop or face the consequences – without finally inflicting real damage to Hamas’ infrastructure in return? The use of disproportionate force to inflict damage against the enemy’s infrastructure was the only means available to stop Hamas’ campaign of aggressive violence against Israeli civilians.

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Love of the Land: Finkelstein’s Slander Against Israel