Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

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?

Finkelstein's scholarship is meticulous, and he keeps his rage in check as he details the serial betrayals of Gaza, from Goldstone, through major human rights organizations like Amnesty International, to the UN Human Rights Council. The only hope for Gaza is profound moral outrage on the part of civil society, leading to global non-cooperation. Start by buying the book.

I recently listened to BBC Hardtalk interviewing Nafthali Bennett (Nov 2018) of the far-right Jewish Home party. As an American expat living in Geneva, Switzerland with many more news and documentary resources than the average American, I know that much of what he says are lies, exaggerations, twisted reasoning and propaganda, dangerous for his country and mine.What I think doesn’t carry weight but fortunately Norman Finkelstein has put his academic and moral strength into this book to rebut all the lies that float around, carried on the wings of hasbara, about Gaza and especially the events of 2008 to the present: Cast Lead, the Goldstone Report, … Protective Edge.He meticulously documents and backs up what happened, and how it was treated in the press, the investigations, the reports, etc. Even if M Bennett will never read it or agree with it, it is important for the present and for the future to have this accurate and authoritative description of what Gaza has been through. Plus, the book is very readable with judicious separation of footnotes and text.I would also like to compliment the publisher for the physical quality of the book and especially the cover – paper that is nice to the touch and an excellent choice of cover photo.

Norman is a joy to read. HIs scholarship and integrity has been proven over and over again. The truth about the criminal occupation and the take over of Palestinian lands with brute military force is not to be found in our fake corporate media. NK is one of the few precious voices who dares to challenge the pro-Israeli propaganda that floods the American media. The Palestinian people are non-entities in all congressional debates. I feel blessed than Norman is not in the pockets of the Israeli lobby, as is the vast majority of all politicians in Washington. The massive destruction and killings of children and women in Gaze shames all of humanity. Norman is does his best to inform readers about the facts. Hopefully, the clarity of his writing can inform readers who can help spread the word and speak out, as he does, against the ongoing martyrdom in Gaza.

A thoroughly researched book, perhaps Norman Finkelstein's most solid work, that I hope the world will acknowledge, which describes the hopeless plight of the residents of Gaza. This in-depth expose of Israel's crimes against humanity (yes, the Palestinians are also human) should be read by all US government leaders as this issue is the root of all Middle Eastern conflicts.

Norman Finkelstein authors an absolutely devastating account of Israel's treatment of Gaza, and the epic and maddening failures of human rights organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, etc.) to present an objective assessment of the Gaza situation. It alternates between heartbreaking and frustrating.The book is thoroughly and well written, with an enormous amount of source material (unlike anything Israel or human rights organizations have ever put forward on the Gaza situation).It would be impossible to read this book with an open mind and not come away thinking that Israel is simply another terrorist organization with no regard for international rules of law or any respect of human rights.Unfortunately, most people don't have open minds, so...9/10

Finkelstein has done a masterful job of sorting out the events of Isreal's Cast Led offensive of 2009 and its' Protective Edge offensive of 2014. This should be required reading for all in Congress serving our nation. Everyone in a leadership position needs to be able to distinguish between Israel's right to existence, and the violation of human rights and International law. The documentation in Finkelstein's work is valuable to any one interested in being able to separate political propaganda from truth.

Great book if you wish to be more knowledgeable on the ins and outs of the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts in the modern era. Sheds light on the international community and its swaddling of Israel.

Norman Finkelstein has always been driven by what he himself calls "a visceral detestation of falsehood, in particular when it is put in the service of power and human life hangs in the balance".Right from the beginning when Norman first appeared in print I have been in awe of his extraordinary analytical power with its great attention to detail. I will never forget how as a young scholar doing his doctoral dissertation on the theory of Zionism he demolished Joan Peters's "From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine". This book, published in 1983, promising to revolutionize our understanding of the conflict, received glowing praise from the Who's Who of American Arts and Letters (Saul Bellow, Elie Wiesel, Barbara Tuchman, Lucy Dawidowicz, and others). and became a national best seller in the USA.The central thesis of Peters's book, apparently supported by nearly two thousand notes and a recondite demographic study, was that Palestine had been virtually empty on the eve of Zionist colonization and that, after Jews made the deserted parts of Palestine they settled bloom, Arabs from the neighbouring states and other parts of Palestine migrated to the Jewish areas and pretended to be indigenous. Here was the, as it were, scientific proof that Golda Meir had been right after all: there was no such thing as Palestinians.As it happened "From Time Immemorial" was a colossal hoax. Cited sources were mangled, key numbers in the demographic study falsified and large swaths plagiarized from Zionist propaganda tracts. Documenting the hoax and the rather more onerous challenge of publicizing these findings in the media proved to be a turning point in Norman Finkelstein's life. From then on, his life in many ways became centered on the Israel-Palestine conflict.Norman paid the price for his courageous truth seeking, but he has never given up in the face of hostility and petty vindictiveness.His latest book "Gaza: an Inquest into its Martyrdom" is a detailed investigation and analysis of what has been done to the people of Gaza over the last 10 years. "What has befallen Gaza is a human-made human disaster. In its protractedness and in its starkness, in its unfolding not in the fog of war or in the obscurity of remoteness but in broad daylight and in full sight, in the complicity of so many, not just via acts of commission but also, and especially, of omisson it is moreover a distinctively evil crime."The only thing I want to add to the previous 7 reviewers is, that "Gaza: an Inquest Into Its Martyrdom" provides indispensable documentation of the war crimes that have been committed and will be of great help to the prosecutors of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.A few days ago I listened to Normal Finkelstein addressing a Norwegian audience in Oslo as part of the tour publicizing his book. Recounting the horrors of "Cast Lead" and "Protective Edge" obviously affects him emotionally. He is trying to preserve the memories of all those innocent women, children and men in Gaza, whose lives were snuffed out. But emotions are never allowed to cloud the facts, because the facts provide the solid evidence base of this important book.Here is a thoroughly decent human being, a truth seeker, who deserves our respect and admiration.

Dense with citations and passionate prose, Finkelstein throws light on the scandalous, decades-long policies of an occupying power, which somehow manages to bamboozle Western politicians and press into engaging in propaganda on its behalf.For those that dismiss the author as a blinkered, self-hating Jew, I suggest you consider the occupying force’s own statements (which Finkelstein provides in abundance): that the attacks on the impoverished and malnourished prisoners of Gaza are specifically designed for provocation.This book does not contend that Israel has no right to self defence per se, only that it loses that right once it targets civilian sites, with the inevitable consequences.As for the argument that the enemy embeds itself within the aforementioned sites, Finkelstein offers U.N., Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and even Isreali army reports to the contrary.This reader, for one, is outraged.

For people who underwent the most vile ethnic cleansing in ww2 its shocking to see the same tactics used on Palestinians. When u use the word terrorists ask yourself who really you are talking about.

Superb book which unpicks the long litany of obfuscations and outright lies with which the Israel propaganda machine and it's stooges within Western establishment circles have attempted to obscure the massive crimes committed by the apartheid terrorist state of Israel, from Operation Cast Lead, the attack on the Mavi Mamara flotilla, and Operation Protective Edge. Essential reading for anybody with even the slightest interest in the Palestine-Israel conflict (conquest).The book is a page turner and will cause you to yell from the rooftops.

Mr Finkelstein tells it as it is. No exaggerations. Just the facts. This is yet another brilliant book by one of the few brave writers with the courage to put the fight for justice in Gaza and the West Bank before his own personal well being. Few people will ever be as resilient to the pressure placed upon them than Norman Finkelstein and long may it continue.