Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, professor and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli--Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust.
Showing posts with label gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaza. Show all posts
3 Sept 2015
29 Jan 2015
Being An Antiwar Activist In Israel Is Dangerous
Being an antiwar activist in Israel is dangerous. Israelis who protested against the 2014 Gaza offensive were threatened, harassed and attacked. Some even lost their jobs.
17 Aug 2014
Israel Unleashes Death Ray on Gaza
Reports, including photographic evidence reveal that Israel is using an energy weapon to attack targets in Gaza. The destructive beam, thought to be a high energy laser, is emitted from a plane identified as a Boeing KC707 “Re’em,” originally configured for Electronic Warfare.
Those observing the attacks cite a beam from a 4 engine jet hitting a target which immediately turns “white hot.” After these attacks, the target area is then hit with either bombs or artillery to destroy evidence of the use of an American designed and built energy weapon illegally given to Israel.
1 Aug 2014
CrossTalk: Target-Gaza
As Israel appears to be preparing for yet another assault on the Gaza Strip, what does it want to achieve? Is the goal to completely destroy Hamas? And should we expect Washington to stand by and watch the killing of civilians? CrossTalking with Dan Arbell, Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani.
20 Jul 2014
Thousands Flee Major Battle In Gaza
Escalating their ground offensive, Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes battled Hamas militants in a crowded neighborhood of Gaza City early Sunday. The fighting, including heavy Israeli tank fire, killed scores of Palestinians, forced thousands to flee and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes. Palestinian health officials reported at least 65 people killed as air and artillery strikes echoed across the city for hours. They put the number of displaced at 35,000, with at least 435 people killed in the nearly two-week conflict.
Israeli military casualties spiked in the fighting, with 13 killed Sunday, raising the total number of dead soldiers to 18. Two civilians also have died in mortar and rocket attacks. Sunday's battle in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood was the deadliest so far in Israel's 3-day-old ground offensive, which followed 10 days of heavy airstrikes on targets linked to Gaza's Hamas rulers. Israel has said it sent thousands of troops into Gaza to destroy Hamas rocket launchers and tunnels dug by the Islamic militants to sneak into Israel.
The Israeli military said 8 percent of more than 1,700 rockets fired at Israel since July 8 came from Shijaiyah and that its troops faced heavy resistance there. Residents of the neighborhood said Israeli tanks entered after midnight and fired heavily. "The gate of hell has opened, and shrapnel came through the windows," Shijaiyah resident Jawad Hassanain said by phone. He said he and his family sought shelter in a nearby building after their house shook from the explosions.
12 Jul 2014
Israeli troops mass on Gaza border in preparation for ground attack
Israel was today massing its troops on the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground attack - just hours after its airforce struck a mosque that was allegedly being used to hide Hamas's weapons. Donning military gear and carrying rifles, thousands of soldiers moved into a new position on the border on the fifth day of the deadly conflict, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 120 people.
They were spotted transporting armoured vehicles along the border, before setting up and firing shells towards members of the militant group Hamas. The latest move is in preparation for a potential ground offensive, with some 33,000 reservists mobilised out of 40,000 approved by Israel's cabinet.
Traumatised: Social worker Selva, 63, was badly injured after her employer Beit Lahia Disability and Rehabilitation Services' headquarters were destroyed in an airstrike.
Meanwhile in Israel…
23 Apr 2014
PLO and Hamas agree landmark pact, Israel responds with air strikes
The two main rival Palestinian factions have signed an accord designed to end seven years of sometimes violent division, paving the way for elections later in the year and the formation of a unity government within weeks.
The move, after a day of talks between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza that lasted until three in the morning, comes less than a week before the expiry of the deadline for US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on 29 April and is certain to complicate US efforts to seek another nine-month extension to those talks. Israel immediately responded by saying the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was moving to peace with Hamas instead of peace with Israel. "He has to choose," said the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. "Does he want peace with Hamas or peace with Israel? You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace, so far he hasn't done so."
After the agreement was announced, Israel cancelled a planned session of peace negotiations with the Palestinians. It also launched an air strike on a site in the north of the Gaza Strip, wounding 12 people including children, which underscored the deep mutual suspicion and hostility that persists.
30 Dec 2013
Israeli troops fire on Palestinian farmers
International activists have been accompanying Palestinian farmers to their lands near the separation barrier between the territories occupied in 1948 and the Gaza Strip. We have noticed, in recent days, an increase in the presence of the Zionist occupation forces. A few days ago, we felt more drones and F-16, then Jeeps and bulldozers began to move near the barrier more often. On Sunday, 22nd December, two Jeeps were stationed in front of the area where farmers were seeding and tractors plowing. They fired shots into the air and one the the ground. This video shows the last episode.
Olive, orange and lemon trees grew in these fields until the second Intifada. Then bulldozers and tanks of the occupying forces uprooted them. After “Operation Cast Lead,” the no-go zone was established at 300 meters, but aggression towards Palestinians was not limited to that area. According to UN reports, high-risk areas in some places reach two kilometers from the barrier, and included 35% of all arable land in Gaza.
15 Feb 2013
World Press Photo 2012
Photo by Paul Hansen, Sweden, Dagens Nyheter
Two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and his older brother Muhammad were killed when their house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. Their father Fouad was also killed and their mother was put in intensive care. Fouad’s brothers carry his children to the mosque for the burial ceremony as his body is carried behind on a stretcher.
8 Dec 2012
17 Nov 2012
Deaths as Israel expands air assaults on Gaza
An Israeli air strike killed four Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip, medics said, with Palestinian security sources confirming that at least three of them were Hamas fighters. The Israeli army, meanwhile, said that three soldiers were injured by a rocket fired from Gaza, with military sources adding they were "inside a building" when it happened.
Saturday's deaths raised the overall death toll in Gaza to 38 as a relentless Israeli air campaign against Gaza fighters entered its fourth straight day. "Three men died in an Israeli air strike on Maghazi camp in central Gaza," said emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya. A Palestinian security source told AFP that all three were from the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Medics said another person was killed in a strike on a motorcycle in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood of the southern city of Rafah.
Israel expanded its fierce air assault on rocket operations in the Gaza Strip, striking Hamas government and security compounds, tunnels and electricity sources after an unprecedented rocket attack aimed at the holy city of Jerusalem raised the stakes in its violent confrontation with armed Palestinians. Israeli aircraft on Saturday also kept pounding their initial targets, weapons-storage facilities and underground rocket-launching sites.
15 Nov 2012
The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
Israel Escalates Assault On Gaza Strip after Assassination Of Top Hamas Commander. Jihan Hafiz reports on the on-going military action in Gaza
22 Oct 2012
Palestinian Children Shot in Their Heads
The atrocity of a young girl in Pakistan being shot in the head by a Taliban has been featured widely in the news. There are similar atrocities in the Middle East, but somehow these don't make it to the news.
Doctors operating the only brain-scanning machine at an Egyptian hospital near Gaza have been almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children arriving with bullet wounds to the head.
20 Oct 2012
Israeli navy surrounds Gaza bound ship
AFP reports soldiers already on board The Estelle ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists seeking to break Israeli blockade on Gaza; CNN reports ships surround vessel; IDF yet to release statement.
A ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists looking to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza has "come under attack" after being approached by the navy, AFP quoted a spokeswoman of the Estelle ship as saying on Saturday.
"The Estelle is now under attack -- I have just had a message from them by phone," AFP quoted Victoria Strand, a Stockholm-based spokeswoman for the Ship to Gaza Sweden campaign as saying.
Palestinian activists told CNN Israeli ships have surrounded the vessel. The IDF have yet to comment on the report. The report follows the failure of diplomatic efforts to stop the ship, after Israel’s United Nations envoy Ron Prosor wrote UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week asking for international intervention to “stop the provocation” of a small ship sailing to Gaza.
7 Oct 2011
Livni Visits Britain After Law Change
Israel's former foreign minister Tzipi Livni has met her British counterpart in London, just weeks after a controversial law seeking to prevent political arrest warrants was passed. Livni, currently the leader of Israel's opposition, arrived in Britain on Thursday to discuss recent events in the Middle East and British-Israeli relations with William Hague.
Her visit to the UK is the first since a court issued a warrant for her arrest on war crimes charges in 2009, over the conflict in Gaza. The warrant took issue with her role in the offensive, called Operation Cast Lead, which caused the death of at least 1,400 Palestinians.
6 Sept 2011
Israel allows shooting at Palestine protesters
Israel allows security forces to shoot at Palestinian protesters who are preparing to march in support of their bid for statehood at the UN later this month. Tel Aviv claims its trying to prevent bloodshed by arming settlers in the West Bank for self-defence. RussiaToday
2 Sept 2011
Turkey expels Israel's ambassador over Gaza flotilla row
Turkey says it is expelling the Israeli ambassador and cutting military ties with Israel over the country's refusal to apologise for last year's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. The foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Turkey was downgrading diplomatic ties to the level of second secretary and the ambassador would leave Turkey by Wednesday.
Davutoglu also said Turkey was suspending all military agreements signed between the former allies, saying "it is time Israel pays a price". The long-awaited UN report on the raid, made public on Thursday, declared that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, but that the Jewish state used unreasonable force. Davutoglu said some of the report's findings were unacceptable. Turkey had earlier demanded an apology from Israel by the time the report was published. Guardian.co.uk
Also see: MK Zoabi: Try Israel's leaders over flotilla raid - Arab politician unimpressed by UN report on flotilla incident, insists Gaza blockade illegal (ynetnews.com)
10 Jul 2011
Paris 'flytilla' activists grounded
Nearly 100 French activists en route to Israel have been stopped from boarding their flights by French authorities in Paris. Stranded at Charles De Gaulle Airport, the activists have staged a protest denouncing the French authorities' action.
"They have staged a noisy protests at the airport, shouting 'Collaborators, collaborators!' to condemn the French authorities for their action," our correspondent said on Friday.
The Welcome to Palestine campaign planned to send an estimated 600 people to the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Around half of the activists involved are reportedly French nationals.
Al Jazeera's Cal Perry, reporting from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion international airport, said: "Across airports in Europe, we understand that a blacklist of passengers has been released. The Israelis are asking airlines to stop people from boarding planes. But the Israelis are saying those people will be deported anyway." Following the warnings, airlines had "already refused to take on board around 200 of these passengers", Sabine Hadad, an Israeli immigration spokeswoman, told the AFP news agency.
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