One Massacre Too Many

24Mar10

My review of Norman Finkelstein’s new book on the Gaza massacre is up at New Left Project – read it here.

“Norman Finkelstein’s latest, This Time We Went Too Far: Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, is a damning chronicle of both the invasion itself and the cynicism and wilful blindness of those who defended it. He adopts a similar approach to that of his previous book, Beyond Chutzpah, using high-profile defences of Israel’s conduct as a foil to examine the realities of what Israel did. Finkelstein made his name as a ‘forensic scholar’, and he skewers a few of the more ridiculous of Israel’s defenders with his trademark sarcasm and wit. His dissection of influential military analyst Anthony Cordesman’s ‘strategic’ report on the invasion – essentially a regurgitation of Israeli press releases – is particularly satisfying. Throughout the book Finkelstein goes out of his way to rely on impeccable, mainstream sources – the Goldstone Report, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the testimonies of Israeli soldiers – and even official Israeli ones. His method is straightforward: he takes each claim made by Cordesman and others in Israel’s defence and juxtaposes them with what the mainstream, authoritative accounts conclude…”

Advertisement

Filed under: Israeli / Palestinian, meta   |  2 Comments
Tags: Gaza, meta, Norman Finkelstein, This Time We Went Too Far