Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom

Hard to read this intelligent and visceral account of Gaza’s destruction by Israel. Patient reading required to get through Finkelstein’s prosecution of Israel’s hubristic, unrelenting, enabled, maddening criminal obsession of the Gaza Strip in the past and present.

This is the first book I’ve attempted to read about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I heard of Norman Finkelstein after reading some books by Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky. I’ve finished three chapters, and so far I am impressed. Finkelstein is painstaking in detail yet still human with the occasional sarcasm or exasperation. I watched his recent interviews on The Real News Network, and on Democracy Now!, and I hope his book is able to have a wider impact immediately than having to wait a hundred years the way A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson did. Thank you, Professor Finkelstein. There’s at least one other person here in Utah I know who has ordered the book. After we finish reading, we look forward to discussing it and sharing your findings with our Mormon friends and neighbors who, for the most part, know nothing about what is going on in what they call “The Holy Land.” edit: I finished reading the book today. This passage from the final page moved me deeply: Perhaps one day in the remote future, when the tenor of the times is more receptive, someone will stumble across this book collecting dust on a library shelf, blow off the cobwebs, and be stung by outrage at the lot of a people, if not forsaken by God then betrayed by the cupidity and corruption, careerism and cynicism, cravenness and cowardice of mortal man. “There will come a time,” [Helen Hunt] Jackson anticipated, “when, to the student of American history, it will seem well-nigh incredible” what was done to the Cherokee. Is it not certain that one day the black record of Gaza’s martyrdom will in retrospect also seem well-nigh incredible?

Fantastic as usual, dense and unique. i adore this man.

Norman Finkelstein has written an exhaustive piece on the history and context of Gaza & explains how the situation got to today. Great book for understanding Gaza & that history has not been kind to the Palestinians.

I purchased after watching Norman Finkelstein on Candace Owen’s Show. I’ve about 20 pages deep and I’m absolutely fascinated by how little I knew about Gaza as someone who thought I knew a lot. He breaks it down so it’s easy to understand and follow and really understand how Gaza and Israel are at this position today. Excellent read.

Dr Norman Finklestein has chronicled a exceedingly well documented history on Gaza. All his research is so well focused that includes archival sources. It is indisputable. It is about an open prison and Israel is the warden, Israeli propaganda, illegal blockade and murderous "operations that happen regularly to mow the lawn. " No scholar has done more to shed light on Israel's ruthless treatment of the Palestinians." Quote from John Mearshimer. Also recommended buy Professor Rashid Khalidi.

This is an important book that zooms in on the recent history of suffering in the Gaza Strip. It's not an easy read, because it's dense with information, but it does an important service by gathering all that information into a single place, including some savage critiques of human rights organizations that have both produced needed work while also falling short of their actual duties.

Very well written, learned a lot about the suffering of the Palestinians, thank you for this beautiful gift.

Perhaps the best book written on Gaza and the occupation of Palestine. Full of sources this book reflects scholarship at its best.

Likely the most comprehensive and thorough review of the crisis in Gaza which includes a thorough analysis of the political background . Norman Finkelstein is one of the most courageous, compassionate champions of the oppressed Palestinians. Skillfully exposes the lies and propaganda used by Israel and its defenders to justify Israel's ongoing disregard of human rights. This is a must read to gain a thorough understanding of the present crisis which exposes the real reasons behind Israel's murderous blood baths and daily atrocities visited on Palestinians. I anticipate that it will inspire intense but ineffective efforts on the part of those who favor lies over truth to squelch its dissemination. Thorough, profound, clearly articulated and heart-felt.

El libro escrito en inglés cuenta de un modo didáctico ameno y riguroso la verdad de Gaza

6 years ago i set myself on a journey to find out what compels someone to do such an extreme thing as to blow yourself up. i finally found out. long live palestine and its unbreakable will.

As I turned the last page of Norman Finkelstein's GAZA: An inquest into its martyrdom, news poured in that Israel had bombed a Gaza food aid site where a crowd of thousands was waiting desperately for food assistance. 112 people were killed and 760 injured. 4 more kids also died of starvation and dehydration in the meantime. This fresh massacre helped breached the death toll mark of Gazans upwards of 30,000, taking the figure to 30,035 precisely. If the Gaza toll was listed on the stock market, the bulls would be raging ahead and the bears would be running for cover. Every single day. But what has that got to do with the book in question you may ask? Well, the book came out in 2018. It's a 408 page tome on carnage after carnage that Israel has perpetrated on Gazans throughout the last twenty years relentlessly. And every subsequent carnage was amped up to a degree that one would think was just not possible earlier. Finkelstein painstakingly documents how every Israeli operation, be it Operation Cast Lead (what a name to begin with) to the Mavi Marmara (Murder on High Seas) all the way to Operation Protective Edge and beyond, the Zionist talent for coldblooded butchery, subterfuge, Hasbara (the Hebrew word for propaganda), and 'playing the victim' taken collectively remains absolutely top-notch over the past 8 decades. You may find some country or the other excel in one or two attributes perhaps, but such astonishing versatility across all 4 disciplines would be well-nigh impossible to match. What we have witnessed over the past 5 months, is what they have prepared for since 2014. What the book also details very meticulously is the Israeli provocation at every single stage, right from the time Hamas was elected in a properly fought election that the Americans rued not fixing. (Hillary Clinton was actually caught on audio regretting that they couldn't 'fix' the election.) It is important to state that Hamas was never, NEVER, given a chance to prove its electoral creds from day 1. That's because the West blatantly decided to subvert the people's mandate by imposing an extremely harsh economic blockade which has continued to this day; a blockade which includes the ban on humanitarian goods, medical supplies and even chocolates and cookies at one point. In fact according to Haaretz, the items banned in 2009 had stuff such as books, candles, crayons, clothing, cups, cutlery, crockery, refrigerators, washing machines, glasses, light bulbs, matches, musical instruments, needles, sheets, blankets, shoes, mattresses and even thread. Lest someone faint of heart and weak of mind think Mr. Finkelstein is an apologist for Hamas or violent resistance, perish the thought. The book opens with a quote of Gandhi on remembrance and ends with the idea of Satyagraha by the apostle of peace. But unlike most Israeli apologists and 'neutral' bystanders who baulk at the very word 'Hamas', the author is also a trained scholar and a historian who applies his mind to the nitty-gritties that the rest of the world conveniently likes to forget or ignore. He obsessively trawls through document after document of every respectable human rights organisation, be it U.N committee reports, Red Cross, Amnesty case studies or the ICJ and knows how to join the dots on legal as well as moral obligations by exposing the impunity with which this lawless entity called the state of Israel has functioned throughout its egregious existence. In the process he also exposes the rot within the human rights organisations wherein quite a few under severe pressure from Israel wilted and started singing a different tune as the years went by. If you are shocked about what you see happening in Rafah right now, you only need to google the name of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin whose capture by Hamas provoked this crazed occupier state to go on a mad killing spree that deliberately wanted to exterminate not just the soldier himself (which they did, under the murderous Hannibal Directive which so many have now been slowly made aware of), but large swathes of Rafah itself. After days of bombing in what has gone down in history as the 'Black Friday' incident, Israel besides killing Goldin himself destroyed 2600 homes with over 200 civilians. I know what you are thinking though. This is small change compared to what we are witness to currently, and yet, it's enough to give us a peek into this so-called 'war' where one party is an 800 pound Gorilla and another can at best be described as a wild mongrel which is hungry for revenge but without the capacity to inflict 1% of the damage that Israel has committed throughout its existence. Where is the comparison? Let's remind ourselves that it wasn't a Palestinian who first said Gaza is the biggest Open Prison. That statement was made 13 years ago by British PM David Cameron. Perhaps he saw something the world has been missing ever since. As for 'Israel has the right to defend itself', good old Norman has devoted an entire chapter to this convenient self-attestation that has so far served as a most malignant cover to slaughter Palestinians by their thousands year after year, decade after decade; not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank where the Hamas writ is non-existent. If Hamas does not have the right to exist (and it shouldn't), Israel lost that right by the same condition many moons ago, ten times over. So long as we keep pussyfooting around processing this basic piece of information, we are nothing but history-fudgers who cannot call the pot black while we go to great lengths to blame the darned kettle. Towards the end, the book devotes a fair amount of pages in its appendix discussing how the civilised world successfully dealt with the challenges of apartheid in South Africa. This makes for fascinating reading because it enhances our understanding of the hypocritical West when it comes to the beleaguered Palestinians in ever more glaring detail. You just have to read the statements of world leaders from country after country now standing with the 'Israel has a right to defend itself' balderdash to understand that if the succession of Zionist leaders had been controlled by their US handlers ages ago, the tragedy of October 7 and its aftermath would perhaps never have come to pass. As we sit here watching mutely the indiscriminate annihilation that continues to play out in the theatre called Gaza, we must ask ourselves not why October 7 happened but why it was allowed to come to this point in the first place. Why is it that even during so-called periods of peace Palestinians; men, women and children across Gaza and West bank have continued to suffer daily humiliation, been jailed without major offences and even sporadically bumped off while a largely uncaring world wakes up only when an Israeli life is lost. Why is it that in news reports Palestinian babies and children just die as if by magic (and not by IDF bombs) while the other side's casualties are 'murdered' by Hamas. Why is it that over so many decades Israel has been wilfully allowed to continuously expand its settlements with the worst sort of human scum being given citizenship overnight, while a resident Palestinian who has lived through generations does not enjoy the most basic right of free movement, or a right to legal recourse, or a right to basic supplies or a right to merely exist without constant humiliation even when he is in dire need of medical help. What exactly is antisemitic about accepting these facts? This is a state which stands naked today in its abject hollowness on all counts. The mindset of a country which can bomb hungry, desperate people while they are waiting for food packets does not even need to be underlined anymore. There is something very repulsive and broken in that part of the world, and it starts with the Zionist state itself. Their crimes against humanity far outnumber anything that the opposite side has ever been capable of. No wonder young Jews around the world who are no longer being affected by Hasbara are horrified with what's happening in Gaza. Since the Israeli mind is colonized irredeemably by hatred, the urgency of heroes such as Finkelstein and Gideon Levy is even more keenly felt today. They break the silence on what's happening out there. Finkelstein's anger and outrage may not be shared by everyone but he shames us into understanding this story much better through his forensic extrication of chronological facts. This book is recommended reading for everyone who keeps crooning the global chartbuster 'Hamas, Hamas', without making the most basic effort to be empathetic or realistic about the average Palestinian's multifarious living hells that were made possible by every Israeli Prime Minister who lived from the days of David Ben-Gurion.