Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis, Lebanon, Hezbollah

FlashBack

O July 12, the Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Islamic movement of Lebanon, decided to take action.

They captured 2 Israeli soldiers, several others were killed in the course of a battle. Hizbullah's action, the capturing of 2 soldiers, was generally attributed to 2 causes. Number 1, Israel was also keeping Lebanese prisoner and the Hizbullah wanted its prisoners released. And Hezbollah said not directly but by indirection instead that we were taking this action in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza. And now I'll speak off the record and I'll just speak personally, I happen to think that's a noble gesture. I don't see any reason ...[inaudible]... why the Palestinians have to be starved to death, starved into submission, and the whole world has to sit silently by while this gang of murderers and monsters proceed on their way. And if Hezbollah wants to take an action of solidarity I don't know what international law says on that topic -- I'm right now reading international law, it gives me something of a headache -- and I finally don't care. I think they have a right to act in solidarity with a people who's being starved to death. Well, Hezbollah took the action, as I've described it and then the Israeli reaction set in.

On July 13th, I think, or 14th, Israel attacked Lebanon. The information we have was that Israel for a long time has been planning this invasion of Lebanon. Basically, had to teach Hezbollah a lesson because Hizbullah had inflicted a defeat on Israel in 2000 when after a guerilla war enduring about 18 years they drove Israel out of Lebanon. And Israel has to restore, what's called, a fancy phrase they use, they have to restore their "deterrence capacity." Deterrence capacity basically mean they have to restore the principle that what Israel says goes and to hold Arab neighbors in a state of terror. Israel used the attack by Hezbollah, the capture of its 2 soldiers, as the pretext to invade Lebanon and then Israel proceeded to use the tactics which it always does.

This is the 5th time Israel has invaded Lebanon -- major invasion. Operation Litani in 1978, Operation Peace in the Galilee in June 1982, Operation Accountability in 1993, Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996. They sometimes had Biblical names, as when .. was in charge, Operation Grapes of Wrath, 'cause he likes to think he's profound. And then there are certain beaurocratic names, Operation Accountability, that was Rabin, who was no nonsense. The one they're currently using for the Gaza, it's a very nice name, called -- as they starve the Palestinians to death -- they call it Operation Summer Rains. These are nice titles. I wonder which one the Germans dreamt up when they were destroying the Warsaw Ghetto.

In any case the tactics Israel used in the last war are pretty much typical. The tactic basically is -- Hezbollah is a guerilla army, and they want to separate the army from the people -- and the tactic basically is to fire, destroy indescriminately the civilian infrastructure and the civilians themselves in the hope that they will break with Hizbullah and blame Hizb'ullah for all of the destruction that's brought. That was the expectation during the first few days of the war.

Anyone who knows the history, every time Israel enters Lebanon it does 2 things. It carpet bombs the south because it wants to teach the civilians in the south, if you support Hezbollah, this is what you're going to get. And number 2, it drives the civilian population to take take root, hoping that enough pressure would be put on the government to disarm Hizbullah. It's the same tactic over and over again. There's a retired Israeli army colonel, he said, this past war: "the goal of Israel's military campaign is to create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters," which is exactly what they wanted to do. To the credit of Israelis, I have to say, there's a certain amount of candor about the kinds of tactics they're using. So the Defense Minister [Chief of Staff of the Israeli army] Halutz said at the very beginning of the war, "if the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years." "Nothing is safe in Lebanon, it's as simple as that." You can also add that it's as simple as that, that's a criminal statement. Under international law, the most basic principle, the principle of distinction, distinguishing between the civilians and combatants, civilian areas and military areas. When you make a statement that "nothing is safe in Lebanon" you are uttering a legally criminal statement.

On July 28, Israel's Justice Minister said "all those now in South Lebanon are terrorists." And who are the terrorists? By July 28, those who had money, those who had the wherewithal, they had already fled to Beirut. Those who remained, estimates were about 50,000, they were the old, the infirm, the poor. Those who remained were to whom Ramon, Justice Minister Haim Ramon, were terrorists. That is to say they are fair game. Ehud Olmert, the ...[video glitch]... he said, "All the population which is the power base of the Hezbollah in Lebanon was displaced. They lost their properties, they lost their possessions" (Matthew Tostevin, Reuters, 2 Aug 2006). He's boasting about it. This was the big achievement of the war and who are their power base? Most of you in this room know it because you saw the scenes when Hezbollah had its victory demonstration a few days ago, it's half the population of Lebanon. That's the estimate. About half support, that's the power base, which was displaced, they lost their properties, they lost their possessions. And then Mr. Olmert, the Prime Minister, then went on, got a little carried away, entered into fantasy land. He said "they are bitter, they are angry at Hezbollah and the power structure of Lebanon itself has been divided and Hezbollah is now entirely isolated in Lebanon." Easily, you can judge for yourself, from that demonstration, the biggest one ever in Lebanese history.

What was the result of the war? About 1200 Lebanese were killed, the estimate is that about 90% were civilians. On the Israeli side there were 160 Israelis killed, 43 of the civilians. So if we look at the numbers absolutely, about 1,000 Lebanese civilians to about 40 Israeli civilians. It's about a factor of 25. Or if you look at it relatively, on the Lebanese side 90% civilians, on the Israeli side 20% were civilians. However you look at it, the fact remains.

If Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, if you want to make that claim, I won't argue with you so long as you say further that Israel is a terrorist organization by probably, at least, 25-fold greater. That's what the numbers show. Whether absolutely or relatively, the record of Hezbollah is just much better than the record of Israel.

Human Rights Watch put out a report (Fatal Strikes) about 2 1/2 weeks into the war and this is what found. Let me recall a few passages. "In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target... Israel repeatedly attacked both individual vehicles and entire convoys of civilians who heeded the Israeli warnings [to abandon their villages]" ...[video glitch]... The also attacked "humanitarian convoys and ambulances" that were "clearly marked." While none "of the attacks on vehicles...resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons;" "in some cases...Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians."

And here's an interesting finding by Human Rights Watch, register it in your memory bank -- "no cases [were found] in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack." So all those claims that you heard in the media that Hezbollah was hiding among civialians, forcing Israel to target civilian areas against its will, because it was the only way to get the cowardly Hizbullah... Human Rights Watch, which is very far from a pro-Arab (whatever that means) perspective, very far -- Human Rights Watch gets most of its funding from Jews, or a large percentage, they're very touchy on this question -- they couldn't find ONE case, one, where Hezbollah was using the Lebanese population as shields.

They said [that] "on some limited occasions, Hezbollah fighters have attempted to store weapons near civilian homes and have fired rockets from areas where civilians live." They found 2 cases of that and they conclude that Israel committed war crimes.

Amnesty International, about 5 weeks after the war, around 30 of August also came out with a report (Israel/Lebanon: Deliberate destruction or "collateral damage"? Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure) that said "the country's [Lebanon] infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale," that much of this destruction constituted "war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility."

I mentioned a moment ago that however you look at the record, the record of Hezbollah is much better than the record of Israel in terms of numbers. But there's also a second issue.

Under the laws of war it's strictly prohibited to target civilians as reprisals. That is to say, if they target your civilians, you're not allowed to target theirs as a reprisal. Ok, we will grant that. Those are the laws of war and probably the laws of war are sensible, to the extent that "laws of war" has any meaning at all, I remain very confident that in a hundred or two hundred years, should humanity survive, that it will look back with sheer bewilderment and consternation at this notion of laws of war. It's sort of like -- etiquette of cannibals. It doesn't seem to work. But, granting the existence of the concept of laws of war, and granting the fact that it prohibits reprisals, the fact remains that, according to Hezbollah, and Amnesty in its report did not dispute this, it only targetted civilians after Israel initiated such attacks and was aimed at stopping them.

At one point, in one of his speeches, Nasrallah said (Amnesty report, 09.14.2006) "any time you decide to stop your attacks on our cities, villages and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city. Naturally, we would rather, in case of fighting, fight soldier to soldier on the ground and battlefield."

That's the war as seen through the eyes of its two belligerents.

There's another element that ought to be of special concern to us in the audience because by, I would say, the 3rd or the 4th day of the war it ceased to be an Israeli-Lebanese war and it became an American/Israeli war on the one side and the Lebanese on the other side.

It was very clear that the United States fought, that here was an opportunity to deliver a real blow to that "Axis of Evil," which has an element of truth. Just as, in my opinion, the domino theory has elements of truth. There is no doubt, no dispute, that there are forces in the Arab world which, to a lesser or greater degree, are opposing US hegemonic ambitions in the region. And those forces mainly manifest themselves now in terms of Iran, to much lesser degree Syria. There are some forces in Iraq, for example those represented by the fellow [Moqtada al-] Sadr. And then there is Hezbollah and Hamas. Hamas is obviously a very weak link and it's now being, as I've said, decimated. The hope was, by the Americans, that if Israel can inflict a significant enough blow against Hizbullah, it would set back the regional ambition of Iran, Syria and the Sadr forces in Iraq. That is to say, they hope that they can salvage something from the mess they created in the Arab world -- a mess in terms of their own interests, a mess they created...

And so then you have that horrifying scene of that freak from hell Condoleezza Rice saying that they're not just being incinerated, she said this is the "birth pangs of the new Middle East" [Special Briefing on Travel to the Middle East and Europe, 07.21.2006]. That's what they hope. They hope that they can set back, deliver a ...blow to the forces which oppose them.

........What's very striking about is, while it used to be the case that the Left would claim that it's US imperial interests that are behind what's going on in the Middle East and it was the Arab world which claimed "the Jews are behind it, the Jewish conspiracy." And now, oddly enough, there's been a reversal. While we here are debating the power of the Jewish Lobby, it was very striking to me, at any rate, to read Nasrallah's speech (BBC Monitoring International Reports/ Al-Manar, 09.23.2006). The last one, in which he said: "Brothers and sisters, we should today stress that this war was an American war in terms of decision, weapons, planning, and desire, and by giving several deadlines for the Zionists; one, two, three, and four weeks." So now, he's come around to the conventional leftist view. That it's not the tail wagging the dog, it's not Israel controlling the United States through the machinations of The Lobby. He's saying, no, this is a war of American interests and desires, and they're using Israel to do the demolition job.

I would say there are about 3 or 4 significant changes as a result of this war.

Number 1, Hezbollah demonstrated that you can defeat Israel. And you don't need a large conventional army of the kind that Egypt had in 1973. You can defeat Israel through a guerilla war. That much is pretty obvious.

There's a 2nd crucial lesson, which I think is much more important. Hezbollah showed not only that you can defeat Israel. It showed how to defeat Israel. It proposed a relatively simple, but to my thinking fundamental, formula. So in this speech, the last speech (09.23.2006), Nasrallah raised this issue: "what is the Hezbollah model?" He considers it as follows: "Resistance depends on planning, organization. This resistance experience, which should be conveyed to the world, depends - on the moral and spiritual level - on faith, certainty, reliance [on God], and readiness to make sacrifices." Ok, you have to be committed. You have to be willing to go the full nine yards. The next sentence I found remarkably interesting. It says: "It also depends on reason, planning, organization, armament, and, as is said, on taking all possible protective procedures.... The pious, God-reliant, loving, and knowledgeable resistance is also the conscious, wise, trained, and equipped resistance that has plans. This is the secret of the victory we are today celebrating, brothers and sisters." To most of you this doesn't sound like anything particularly profound but, in fact, it is because at the end of the day Israel always depended on the fact that its adversaries were stupid, incompetent, blowhards and windbags, and hot air baloons, and, in fact, they were right... That when they were dealing with a Nasser, he was a blowhard; a Saddam Hussein, he was a windbag; when they were dealing with Yasser Arafat, he was a hot air ballon. They were nothing of any substance... [inaudible]... That was Israel's ace in the hole. Now comes along an Arab leader who says we have to use "reason." It's a very remarkable thing to read. We have to use "reason." We have to think, plan, organize. And he didn't just say it ... [inaudible]... As I'm sure, as most of you know, that the Israelis were reporting that their [Israeli] population was waiting anxiously for each speech from Nasrallah to find out what's going on [Poll: Israelis believed Nasrallah over Peretz,Ynetnews.com, by Anat Breshkovsky, 09.03.2006]. They [Israelis] stopped believing their own media and they only believed what he had to say. No more of the Arab windbaggery -- on the second day of the war in '67 Nasser says 'we destroyed all of the Israeli Air Force.' Or when the hot air baloon Saddam Hussein, after defeat in 1991, gave out Victory Medals to the Iraqi Army. That era is over. This is a serious leadership whose commitment is matched by its intelligence and its incorruptibility. And that really is the formula. And now the United States and Israel are in living dread because they don't fear Hezbollah -- it's 3,000 fighters -- that's not what they fear. What they fear is, throughout the Arab world all the anti -- they call it American, I'll call imperialist -- all the anti-imperialist movements will now be emulating the Hizbullah model. Those who want to defeat the Americans, the American designs in the region, they're going to look for the Hezbollah model and the Hizbu'llah model says you have to "reason," you have to think, you have to "plan," you have to anticipate, and if you do that, you can win. And the fact is, it's true. If you do that, you can beat them.

Because as a fundamental fact, as Azmi Bishara (a leading member of the Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, an extremely smart fellow, he said -- I thought it ahead of time [audience laughter], I was glad he confirmed it -- he said, Israel can't win. They can't win because, for the older people in the room, there was an era of the proverbial farmer-fighter, the Israeli who was the farmer and the fighter, it was the equivalent of our own American West when you had the Settler-Fighter -- that era is over. Israel is, for better or for worse, it's a Westernized society and they don't have... they're interested in hi-tech, they're interested in a good time, they cannot fight and win against the types who embody Hezbollah values. It's just not going to happen. When they described in the newspapers how Hezbollah organizes, they said this is not an organization that you can knock on the door, can I join? No. They start from a quite young age and they learn discipline. What does discipline mean? [The Guardian, 07,29.2006] They tell a fellow, you go over there in that barn and you wait there until we call you. And sometimes they sit in that barn for 2, 3 and 4 days, waiting to be called and until they're called, they don't leave. You know, most people in the West can't do that. I'm not knocking it. May be it's for the better. I don't know. But that kind of mental discipline, commitment, it's not going to be replicated any longer.

The old Israel, yes, they could do it. That generation. The truth of the matter is, the old Zionist generation was completely incorruptible. They really were. They were totally dedicated on a level of dedication that is really quite awesome. Take someone like Abba Eban, he graduated with triple honors, triple A's, from either Oxford or C ...[inaudible]... and he goes to work for this crumby little organization called the Zionist Movement, you know, it was nothing then, when he joined. This is pre-'67. From commitment. From ideals. Now, the Israeli government, for those who follow, almost every single member of the government is now under indictment. [audience laughter] Who saw that article a couple of days ago, by Uri Avnery? He's going through it, every single member is under indictment. One for sticking his tongue down 6 women, one for... [inaudible]...it's now a level of moral corruption where they can't compete. At the end of the day they always depended that they're adversaries were corrupt, stupid blowhards who wanted to become part of the American system. Nasser wanted to be in the American system, the Americans rejected him. That's when he went to the Soviets. They all want to be part of the American system. Hezbollah doesn't. As far as one can tell now.

And that leads me to the last point because some people think that I am "anti-Israeli." Actually, I don't even know what the term means. Those concepts are totally alien to me.

But let's say, you're entitled to, I suppose, your first allegiance, your first commitment, your depest convictions are with Israel. My view is, if that's how you feel, then -- I'm not going to dispute it for the moment -- really, you have more reason than anyone else to want to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Because now, I think, Israel is facing a very serious threat.

Its old tactic -- the tactic has always been the same from the very first days of the Zionist movement -- "the Arabs only understand the language of force." So whenever they get out of line, take out the club and break it over their skull. That's been the Israeli approach. And the Americans have now pretty much internalized it -- that is the lunatics let loose, the Condoleeza Rices and the Rumsfelds that during the last war... take out the club and break it over their head -- that isn't gonna work. You know, the first day of the war, I'll never forget, Nasrallah said "the universe can blow up, the stars can crash, the planets can collide -- you are not getting back those two prisoners. There's going to be a prisoner exchange, you'll not get them back unilaterally from us." Well, Israel unleashed its Air Force, it unleashed its Army that went to work for 5 weeks. They didn't get them back.

Taking out the club and breaking it over their skull won't work. What's happening is very different. This time they attacked Haifa -- first time Israel's rear was hit. There's no question that next time it will be Tel Aviv. And then the time after that, well frankly, I don't know if we'll be around to see it.

So if your 100% commitment is to Israel, Israel Uber Alles, or whatever... I say, you should work with all of us to try to resolve this conflict peacefully, reasonably. Use the principles of international law and try to achieve, together with all of us, a just and lasting settlement to the conflict. Thank you.

COMMENT

Finkelstein is better than many palestinians, but at the end he is a Jew, and the son of Holocaust survivals,

For him and other Jews like Uri Aveneri, Israel has the right to exist, and they support 2 state solution, therfore, 22% is better than zero.

For him and every Jew Holocaust is a Jewish trade mark, therefore you may call the daily killings in Palestine anything otherthan HOLOCAUST.

Ton Tfuuuu used Finkelstein, article on Hizballah performance in July 2006 war, to attack Hamas...

I told him "the Palestinan Problem is unique, the Palestinians (Hamas, and others fighting for historical Palestine and one state solution are fighting against the world. I wonder if your one cell mind noticed that Finkelstein is saying in his way (DON'T COMPARE)

"The reports of the human rights organizations, the votes in the United Nations, the World Court advisory opinion are all premised on Israel being an occupying power and the two-state settlement being the desirable resolution of the conflict. You think you can undo that consensus? You think you can reverse it? You can create one state in the face of it? I don't see from where the power to do that comes. I haven't seen the supporters of the Palestinians able to force Israel to withdraw one inch. And now you want to defy the whole international community? Fine, show me how you're going to do it, apart from in somebody's living room.

WE KNOW THAT ALL ARAB LIVING ROOMS ARE BLOCKED WITH CEMENT, BUT, WE HALL NEVER GIVE UP.

I would tell Finkelstein

Palestinians forced Israel to recognize the existance of Palestinan people and forced the withdraw from Gaza, the tiny liberated part of Palestine

Blood shall defeat the sword, but I am not so Naive to expect that in my Life time, my children shall carry the cause.