Goldstone Recants

"Gaza is among the most densely populated places in the world. Two-thirds of its inhabitants are refugees, and more than half the population is under eighteen years of age. Since Israel occupied Gaza in 1967, it has systematically de-developed the economy. After Hamas won democratic elections in 2006, Israel intensified its blockade of Gaza, and after Hamas consolidated its control of the territory in 2007, Israel tightened its illegal siege another notch. In the meantime, Israel has launched no less than eight military operations against Gaza--culminating in Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014--that left behind over three million tons of rubble. Recent UN reports predict that Gaza will be unlivable by 2020. Norman G. Finkelstein presents a meticulously researched and devastating inquest into Israel's actions of the last decade. He argues that although Israel justified its blockade and violent assaults in the name of self-defense, in fact these actions were cynical exercises of brutal power against an essentially defenseless civilian population. Based on hundreds of human rights reports, the book scrutinizes multifarious violations of international law Israel committed both during its operations and in the course of its decade-long siege of Gaza. It is a monument to Gaza's martyrs and a scorching accusation against their tormentors"--Provided by publisher.

What is the life of a Palestinian worth to intellectuals in Canadian universities and news media? Analyzing the Israel Effect documents and analyzes the discursive and organizational methods by which public criticism of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is silenced in Canada, as experienced through ten episodes in the life of the author over a thirty-year period from 1990-2020 in interaction with his university and local and national Canadian news media. As a sociological work the book is a critical autoethnography. But it is also an atrocity tale, a horror story of institutional self-censorship amounting to the abrogation of intellectual responsibility by those specifically charged with upholding it. In the end, the book is a crossover between academic treatise and journalistic exposé, “a historical narrative written by an academic from the standpoint of a political participant-observer” (Rajan Philips). The Israel Effect itself is analyzed as a three-tier propaganda industry. Hasbara is produced in Israel (Tier 1), disseminated to Israel Lobby groups around the world (Tier 2) and independently re-produced, actively and passively, by the “intellectual” institutions – universities and news media (Tier 3). This book is about the non-Jewish, non-Zionist institutions of Tier 3, the onlookers to war crimes, ethnic cleansing and, arguably, genocide, as in Gaza in October-November 2023. This work stands as a compelling testament to the importance of preserving freedom of expression, and the vital role intellectuals play in challenging injustice and promoting transparency. It is ideal for scholars, activists, and anyone seeking to understand the complexities of political activism and the power dynamics behind public discourse.

A person can be brought into bondage in two different ways: by force or by his own will. Force is a crude way of bringing a person into submission, but using the persons own free will can be done sophistically and covertly. Under the banner of democracy and freedom, America has been under the bondage of what E. Michael Jones has aptly called sexual liberation and political control for over fifty years. In the first two volumes of the trilogy, Alexis explored these ideological themes. In this last volume, he expands on some of those pernicious ideas, emphasizing how Zionism, for over sixty years, has shaken the moral, philosophical, and intellectual foundation of much of Western culture. The Iraq War alone will cost America at least six trillion dollars, and as if to prove that America is still in bondage, the oppressors continue to use sophisticated means to seduce Americans so that perpetual wars will never cease to exist in the Middle East and in much of the world. This book will seek to address these and related issues and, in the process, tell us something about the fundamental nature of reality and how to approach this cosmic conflict, which has dominated the West for over a thousand years.

Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish "homeland". But, as Norman Finkelstein explains in an elegantly-argued and richly-textured new book, this is now beginning to change. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations, and books by commentators as prominent as President Jimmy Carter and as well-respected in the scholarly community as Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Peter Beinart, have increasingly pinpointed the fundamental illiberalism of the Israeli state. In the light of these exposes, the support of America Jews for Israel has begun to fray. This erosion has been particularly marked among younger members of the community. A 2010 Brandeis University poll found that only about one quarter of Jews aged under 40 today feel "very much" connected to Israel. In successive chapters that combine Finkelstein's customary meticulous research with polemical brio, Knowing Too Much sets the work of defenders of Israel such as Jeffrey Goldberg, Michael Oren, Dennis Ross and Benny Morris against the historical record, showing their claims to be increasingly tendentious. As growing numbers of American Jews come to see the speciousness of the arguments behind such apologias and recognize Israel's record as simply indefensible, Finkelstein points to the opening of new possibilities for political advancement in a region that for decades has been stuck fast in a gridlock of injustice and suffering.

Our way must be: never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies beginstep back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scale of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Enlightenment writer Voltaire was amazed that twelve fishermen, some of them unlettered, from an obscure place in the world called Galilee, challenged an empire through self-denial and patience and eventually established Christianity. He seriously thought that twelve philosophers or intellectuals, himself included, would do the opposite and crush Christianity. Voltaires self-appointed cheerleaders such as Diderot, Helvitius, dHolbach, DAlembert, Lametrie, and Baron Cloots, among others, tried to do just that and wrote volumes of work trying to tear down the basis of Christianity and erect an edifice of their own. Diderot in particular declared, I would sacrifice myself, perhaps, if I could annihilate forever the notion of God. Cloots wrote, We shall see the heavenly royalty condemned by the revolutionary tribunal of victorious Reason. Lametrie produced Man: A Machine, and an entire French encyclopedia was written between 1751 and 1772 by those philosophers because Christianity, to a large degree, had to go. Voltaire would send letters to his disciples and friends saying, crasez linfme. Rousseau, of course, was a disciple of Voltaire and declared that Voltaires work inspired me. The French Revolution failed. Yet like all significant revolutions before and after that period, the French Revolution indirectly had a theological root which was then a categorical and metaphysical rejection of Logos. That theological substratum has jumped from one era to the next and had and still has historical, political, economic, and spiritual ramifications. This book is about the historical and theological struggle of that conflict, which had its inception at the foot of the cross.

In the past five years Israel has mounted three major assaults on the 1.8 million Palestinians trapped behind its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Taken together, Operation Cast Lead (2008-9), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014), have resulted in the deaths of some 3,700 Palestinians. Meanwhile, a total of 90 Israelis were killed in the invasions. On the face of it, this succession of vastly disproportionate attacks has often seemed frenzied and pathological. Senior Israeli politicians have not discouraged such perceptions, indeed they have actively encouraged them. After the 2008-9 assault Israel’s then-foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, boasted, “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.” However, as Norman G. Finkelstein sets out in this concise, paradigm-shifting new book, a closer examination of Israel’s motives reveals a state whose repeated recourse to savage war is far from irrational. Rather, Israel’s attacks have been designed to sabotage the possibility of a compromise peace with the Palestinians, even on terms that are favorable to it. Looking also at machinations around the 2009 UN sponsored Goldstone report and Turkey’s forlorn attempt to seek redress in the UN for the killing of its citizens in the 2010 attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla, Finkelstein documents how Israel has repeatedly eluded accountability for what are now widely recognized as war crimes. Further, he shows that, though neither side can claim clear victory in these conflicts, the ensuing stalemate remains much more tolerable for Israelis than for the beleaguered citizens of Gaza. A strategy of mass non-violent protest might, he contends, hold more promise for a Palestinian victory than military resistance, however brave.

Walter Mosley is one of America’s bestselling novelists, known for his critically acclaimed series of mysteries featuring private investigator Easy Rawlins. His writing is hard-hitting, often limned with a political subtext, and aimed at a broad audience. Years ago, when Mosley was working on a doctorate in political theory, he envisioned writing very different kinds of books from those for which he has become celebrated. But once you’ve been tagged as a novelist, and in Mosley’s case, a genre writer, even a bestselling one, it is hard to get an airing for ideas that cross those boundaries. Folding the Red into the Black has grown out of Mosley’s public talks, which have gotten both enthusiastic and agitated responses, making him feel the ideas in those talks should be explored in greater depth. Mosley’s is an elastic mind, and in this short polemic he frees himself to explore some novel ideas. He draws on personal experiences and insights as an African-American, a Jew, and one of our great writers to present an alternative manifesto of sorts: “We need to throw off the unbearable weight of bureaucratic capitalist and socialist demands; demands that exist to perpetuate these systems, not to praise and raise humanity to its full promise. And so I propose the word, the term Untopia.”