Norman Finkelstein: contentious, controversial (Source: Ben Heine, Tlaxcala)
In the television channel of "Russia Today" recently was a fierce debate about "Gaza - who is to blame?" Broadcast:
It went up fro between Professor Norman Finkelstein , political scientist and son of Holocaust survivors, author of "The Holocaust Industry. As the suffering of the Jews is being exploited " and "anti-Semitism as a political weapon: Israel, America and the abuse of history" and (his latest book) "A Farewell to Israel: The coming break-up of American Zionism" (German: "A Farewell to Israel: The coming break-up of American Zionism ", not yet translated) and Daniel Pollak, Co-Director of the Zionist Organization of America for Government Relations.
Here are some key messages of the two counterparties:
Finkelstein (F): "Israel has serious Verbechen guilty. The Gaza blockade is a flagrant violation of international law. "
Pollak (P): "The embargo and the inspection of goods with target Gaza are completely legal." Israel has a legitimate right to defend itself, since the Hamas rule in Gaza and has called for the killing of Jews.
Known to be an aid convoy with 10,000 tonnes of aid and about 800 human rights activists on board had been boarded in international waters by special forces. It came from an Israeli perspective to provocations against the Israeli military, which ended with the death of nine activists. The movement "Free Gaza" had repeatedly stressed that it is completely illegal to besiege 1.5 million people to starve and be subjected to a collective punishment.
Q: "Israel has no right to prevent a humanitarian aid ship from trying a population to supply that sees itself in the words of Amnesty International humanitarian crisis over." He could not understand why the Navy for an armed robbery in the middle had opted in the night, instead of the ships to make it easy to maneuver and encirclement at sea.
P: "You had the vessels offered to drop their cargo at the Israeli port Aschod. If they had done that, there would have been no violence. Five of the six ships have the Israeli commandos made no resistance when they landed, and on these boats there was no violence. Actually we have absolutely no need to make any special investigations. "
The video recordings of the vessels showed that Israeli troops "color guns" (paint guns) on their backs and "were received by terrorists who they beat with knives and sticks and one deck down came an Israeli soldier seven meters to the underlying. Only after her life was in danger, the Israeli soldiers responded with violence. "Option that ship to make maneuver would have had the potential to be even more dangerous for the people on board.
Q: "You say that the videos clearly show this and show clearly the Whose videos.? There were a lot of people on this boat. Why their camera equipment confiscated? Why their video recordings were confiscated? Why their picture evidence was seized? What we have is only the Israeli version of what happened. We have the videos yet, but maybe tomorrow. We do not yet have the version or the video evidence of the passengers on the boat. If Israel has nothing to hide, why it seized all image evidence of the vessel passengers? "
Pollak maintains, however, the video could have been seized to prevent activists on the boat, the evidence could falsify. For uncontroversial point to the fact that the attack took place in international waters, Pollak said the ships had "refused the legitimate instructions" to follow the Israeli Navy.
Q: "You do not know. What we do know is that it was the attack of armed commandos in the middle of the night in international waters. What happened next, I can tell you. But I certainly would not believe a word of the Israeli government. "
Below the link to the above-summarized "slugfest": http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-06-04/flotilla-gaza-finkelstein-pollak.html
And here's a further interview of Russia Today with Professor Finkelstein, in which it is harder and the question arises whether the 200-300 nuclear bombs in Israel really "safe" yet.
Another violent slugfest here .
Finkelstein's official home page here .
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Tags: Finkelstein , Gaza , Pollak
[...] We recommend again the last published article by Uri Avnery and reading recommendations with the focus on Israel / Palestine. There you will find plenty of arguments and statements that expose the Mr. Kramer's remarks as the propaganda that it is now. In addition, as a kind of TAZ-internal dissenting vote, we also recommend the latest contribution to the "debate our Israel" by Muriel Asseburg entitled "German to Gaza?" (Each use of force should be sanctioned consistently). - Very interesting is also a "Russia Today" interview, in which there was a shouting match between Professor Norman Finkelstein and the "Co-Director of the Zionist Organization of America for Government Relations" (eloquent organization name, right?) Daniel Pollak ... found on Friederike's blog! [...]