Chapter One Self-Defense · Anthony Nuñez

pg. 3

Approximately 250,000 Palestinians driven out of their homes during the 1948 war fl ed to Gaza and overwhelmed the indigenous population of some 80,000.

Between 160,000 and 190,000 fled to the Gaza Strip. More than one-fifth of Palestinian Arabs left Palestine altogether. About 100,000 of these went to Lebanon, 100,000 to Jordan, between 75,000 and 90,000 to Syria, 7,000 to 10,000 to Egypt, and 4,000 to Iraq.
Palestine - Occupation, Refugees, Conflict | Britannica

by September 1949 the figure was reduced to 202,606 bonafide refugees
cheal1988, page 10 (file not included in this release)
cheal1988.pdf (file not included in this release)
Refugees in the Gaza Strip, December 1948-May 1950 on JSTOR

—

pg. 4

Egypt kept a tight rein on the activity of
Fedayeen (Palestinian guerrillas) in Gaza. But in early 1955, Israeli leaders plotted to lure Egypt into war in order to topple President Gamal Abdel Nasser. They launched a bloody cross-border raid into Gaza killing 40 Egyptian soldiers.

Tight rein on Fedayeen? Not what Benny says in the book necessarily

The Iron Wall_ Israel and the A - Avi Shlaim.pdf (file not included in this release)

The response came on the night of February 28. In Operation Black Arrow, two IDF paratroop companies raided an Egyptian army camp near Gaza and a nearby train station and subsequently ambushed an Egyptian relief column. About forty Egyptians died. The IDF suered eight dead and thirteen wounded. The shock and sense of humiliation in Cairo were acute. Egyptian arms had not sustained such a blow since the 1948 war. For months thereafter Nasser was to tell almost every Western and UN ocial he met that the Gaza raid had caused him radically to rethink his position vis-à-vis Israel, which, he maintained, was interested not in peace but in expansion. In part this was propaganda, designed to justify his subsequent moves, but it also reected genuine shock. Senior British Foreign Oce ocial Anthony Nutting understood at the time that the Gaza raid was not
something a military dictatorship such as Nasser’s could take lying down.67 In future, Nasser declared, it would be “an eye for an eye.”

Righteous Victims - Benny Morris, page 400 (file not included in this release)
Righteous Victims - Benny Morris, page 399 (file not included in this release)
Righteous Victims - Benny Morris.pdf (file not included in this release)

the “overriding concern” of Egypt “in its rela- (footnote)

Israel’s border wars, 1949-1956 Arab infiltration, Israeli — Morris, Benny, 1948- — 1993 — Oxford Clarendon Press ; New York_ Oxford University — 9780198278504 — e21fef13d854caa99637482a69c6df65 — Anna’s Archive.pdf (file not included in this release)

pg. 5

Footnotes

“Egypt generally sought tranquility along its border with Israel.” (footnote)

Before March 1955 Egypt generally sought tranquillity along its borders with Israel, the more freely to pursue its goals of banishing the British, gaining ascendancy in the Arab world, and developing its political, economic, and social structures. It was ‘far less concerned over the Palestine question’ than any of the other Arab states, reported the American ambassador in Cairo, Jefferson Caffery, at the end of 1954.*
In his programmatic—philosophical work, The Philosophy of the Revolu- tion, written, apparently, in late 1953, Nasser carefully avoided calling for Israel’s destruction and did not set it as a goal of Egyptian policy. He spoke only vaguely of the ‘common [Arab] struggle’ and described Israel as a ‘fruit of imperialism’ and Palestine as ‘a home stolen illegally from its owners’.° But Israel’s—and especially, Ben-Gurion’s—attitude towards
Egypt soured in the course of 1954 and January 1955. A major factor was the increasing violence, occasionally by Egyptian army-directed squads, along the Gaza frontier. Continuing Egyptian political and propaganda warfare against Israel also played a role. And so, somewhat paradoxically, did the Bat-Galim and Lavon affairs. But perhaps the single clinching, traumatic event that soured attitudes towards Cairo among Israeli policy- makers was the hanging of the two Jewish saboteurs in Cairo in January 1955. The hangings led almost directly to the IDF raid on Gaza in February 1955, which, in turn, led directly to both the Egyptian Fedayeen campaigns and the Egyptian Soviet arms deal (for this series of events, see Chapters 10 and 11, below).

wanted war, and periodically, he hoped that a given retaliatory strike would embar-rass or provoke the Arab state attacked into itself retaliating, giving Israel cause to escalate the shooting until war resulted.” Th e “policy of trapping Nasser into war was hammered out between [David] Ben-Gurion and Dayan.”

From the Israeli perspective, the retaliatory policy was also a matter of strategic deterrence against the possibility that the Arabs would launch a Second Round against Israel the moment they felt capable of winning. The retaliatory strikes, especially the larger ones of 1953-6, were in part designed to drive home the message—in recurrent, humiliating fashion— of Israel’s military superiority. The raids underlined to the Arab public— lest they had forgotien the military disasters of 1948—their military weakness. Or, as Dayan put it:
The retaliatory strikes compelled the Arabs to ask themselves from time to time: is the destruction of Israel a realistic programme, or a plan [whose fulfilment] one should despair of? … [Moreover,] the … clashes in the ‘border war’ would determine how the Israeli soldier was perceived by the Arab public and military, which, in turn, would affect the Arab soldier’s fighting spirit and the Arab public’s morale in wartime.’’ The retaliatory strikes thus helped prevent the outbreak of (Arab-initiated) war.
Paradoxically, from some point in 1954, the retaliatory strikes were also designed with a directly contrary purpose, at least as seen by the new IDF CGS, Dayan-——and that was to help prod this or that Arab state into a premature war with Israel. Dayan wanted war, and, periodically, he hoped > that a given retaliatory strike would embarrass or provoke the Arab state attacked into itself retaliating, giving Israel cause to escalate the shooting until war resulted—a war in which Israel could realize such major strategic objectives as the conquest of the West Bank or Sinai, or the destructionof the Egyptian army. Such, certainly, was the main motive behind the IDF strikes against Egypt in October-November 1955 at Kuntilla and the Sabha, and against Syria, in December 1955.’

The “policy of trapping Nasser into war was hammered out between [David] Ben-Gurion and Dayan.”

Israel could not launch an unprovoked all-out assault on the Egyptian army. It would be branded the aggressor and lose Western support: who would then resupply Israel for a Third Round? Rather, responding to real Egyptian violations of the armistice accords, Israel must launch powerful retaliatory strikes, including an assault on the Straits of Tiran (Sharm ash Sheikh), where the Egyptians were blockading shipping to Eilat. The attacks would trigger Egyptian reprisals, allowing Israel to launch a war in which the Egyptian army would be destroyed before it absorbed its new weaponry, and the Nasser regime would be toppled. The policy of trapping Nasser into war was hammered out between Ben-Gurion and Dayan at the meeting on 23 October 1955, when Ben-Gurion instructed Dayan to prepare to capture the Straits.
The policy was then enunciated by Dayan at a meeting of the IDF General Staff on 26 October. The main danger to Israel came from the Nasser regime; Nasser had to be toppled. To do this, Israel had to engage and defeat the Egyptian army decisively, before it absorbed its new arms. But, because Israel could not afford to be branded an aggressor, war would have to be reached by a process of gradual escalation, to be achieved through periodic, large-scale Israeli retaliatory attacks in response to Egyptian infractions of the armistice. Moreover, if Egypt continued to block passage through the Straits, Israel would attack and (temporarily) hold the Straits and the coastline down to Sharm ash Sheikh. Dayan spoke of attacking the Straits within six to eight weeks. He assumed that Egypt would be unable to hold back and that a full-scale war would ensue—‘no later than January [1956]’.’* Ben-Gurion hinted at the policy in his Knesset address on 2 November 1955.

“Egypt refused to fall into the successive traps set by Dayan,”

From the Gaza Raid onwards, events moved rapidly. The state-organized Fedayeen raiding and the threat of a potentially disastrous military imbalance wonderfully concentrated minds in Jerusalem. There was no more vague toying with expansionist proposals; the question was only when and in what circumstances. Overcoming the initial urge, in October-December 1955, to pre-empt Egypt, Ben-Gurion soberly weighed the problems of political isolation and military resupply. Besides, Egypt refused to fall into the successive traps set by Dayan. So the IDF hunkered down in a defensive posture while emissaries sought a major arms deal in the United States or France to offset Egypt’s new weaponry. Washington proved elusive. But in April-June 1956 France broached a plan to topple Nasser. Israel could go to war against Egypt with new weapons and Western allies at its side. It was an enticing prospect for politicians and generals used to international isolation and condemnation. Thus, from Jerusalem’s perspective, was the Sinai-Suez War conceived.

Israel colluded with Great Britain and France to attack Egypt outright

This seems to be correct as Norm wrote. Relook at it and see what Benny has said other than the book

Main

pg. 6

In December 1987, a traffic accident on the Gaza-Israel border that left four Palestinians dead triggered a mass rebellion, or intifada, against Israeli rule throughout the occupied territories. “It was not an armed rebellion,” Morris recalled, “but a massive, persistent campaign of civil resistance, with strikes and commercial shutdowns, accompanied by violent (though unarmed) dem-onstrations against the occupying forces. Th e stone and, occasionally, the Molotov cocktail and knife were its symbols and weapons, not guns and bombs.” It cannot be said, however, that Israel reacted in kind. Morris con-tinued: “Almost everything was tried: shooting to kill, shooting to injure, beatings, mass arrests, torture, trials, administrative detention, and economic sanctions”; “A large proportion of the Palestinian dead were not shot in life-threatening situations, and a great many of these were children”; “Only a small minority of [IDF] malefactors were brought to book by the army’s legal machinery—and were almost always let off with ludicrously light sentences.”

On the evening of November 25, 1987, two hang gliders own by members of the PFLP–General Command took o from a hilltop just north of Israel’s Security Zone in southern Lebanon. One of them made it over the zone into the Galilee Panhandle. He landed outside the headquarters camp of an IDF infantry brigade, ran past a somnolent guard, shot everyone in his path, and tossed grenades. Six soldiers died and seven were injured before he was shot dead.1 The courageous escapade red the imagination of the Palestinians, and the airborne raider was adopted as a national hero.2 Demonstrating youths later taunted Israeli troops with the cry “six to one,” and “6:1” soon also adorned the walls in the alleyways of Gaza.3
Two weeks later, the Intifada—Arabic for “shaking o,” like a dog shaking o a ea4—erupted. The uprising began on December 8–9, 1987, fully two decades after Yasser Arafat rst called for a revolt against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It came as a complete surprise to the PLO, and took a course totally dierent from that preached by the organization’s leaders. It was not an armed rebellion but a massive, persistent campaign of civil resistance, with strikes and commercial shutdowns, accompanied by violent (though unarmed) demonstrations against the occupying forces. The stone and, occasionally, the Molotov cocktail and knife were its symbols and weapons, not guns and bombs.

Righteous Victims - Benny Morris, page 780 (file not included in this release)

pg. 7

“One of the meanings of Oslo,” former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami observed, “was that the PLO was … Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the intifada and cutting short … an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence.”

The PLO had two ways of reasserting itself. One was to use its financial leverage and the local leadership’s fear of retribution should it fail to accept the PLO’s supremacy; another was that of seizing the first opportunity to lead the peace process. From that perspective the future Oslo accords should be seen not only as the major peace breakthrough that they certainly were, but also as a desperate move by the PLO to sideline the local Palestinian leadership, reassert its hegemony and stem the fundamentalist tide in the territories. Eventually, the Intifada helped recover Arafat’s and the PLO’s relevance.

Scars of War, Wounds of Peace The Israeli-Arab Tragedy — Ben-Ami, Shlomo(Author) — 2007 — Oxford University Press USA - OSO — b77323ba929acfafbb956d293b27c78f — Anna’s Archive, page 205 (file not included in this release)

Natan Sharansky - YouTube

The summit collapsed in mutual recrimination. But which side bore primary culpability for the aborted talks? “If I were a Palestinian,” Ben-Ami, one of Israel’s chief negotiators at Camp David, later commented, “I would have rejected Camp David as well,” while Israeli strategic analyst Zeev Maoz concluded that the “substantial concessions” Israel demanded of Palestinians at Camp David “were not acceptable and could not be acceptable.”

Baddar vs Destiny

Regarding the Shlomo Ben-Avi quote Axehole brought - I looked into it : r/Destiny

‘Arafat was right to turn down Camp David’ & The Death of A Quote : r/Destiny

Ben Ami Video

“For detailed analysis of the various phases in the 2000–2001
negotiations, see Norman G. Finkelstein, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish
romance with Israel is coming to an end (New York: 2012), pp. 229–48.”

pg. 8

Although both parties affirmed that “significant progress had been made” and they had “never been closer to agreement,” Prime Minister Barak unilaterally “called a halt” to these negotiations, and as a result “the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had ground to an indefi nite halt.”

Palestinian and Israeli delegations met for a last eort at Taba, in Sinai, during January 21–27 but the talks were continuously undermined by Palestinian acts of terrorism (such as the execution- style murder of two unarmed Israeli civilians by Tanzim operatives in Tulkarm on January 23) and by Palestinian unwillingness to budge from their xed positions on Jerusalem, the borders, and the refugees. The talks broke up on January 27 with a joint statement that in eect conceded that nothing had been concluded or agreed, though Abu Alaa and Ben-Ami armed that “signicant progress had been made” and that they had “never been closer to agreement.”25 Again, Arafat had either played Israel along, unwilling simply to make peace with the Jewish state, or, though willing, had simply failed to rise to the occasion and make the best deal he would ever be oered. In either case, the Palestinians, it would seem, had once again missed an historic opportunity in their century-long struggle for independence and statehood. The following day, January 28, Barak called a halt to all talks with the Palestinians (after Arafat’s hate-lled speech against Israel at Davos —see following) and devoted the remaining week to his election campaign. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process had ground to an indenite halt.

Righteous Victims - Benny Morris, page 931 (file not included in this release)

Seems like clear misconstruing the facts on this one

In September 2000, amid the diplomatic stalemate and after Israeli provocation, Palestinians in the occupied territories once again entered into open revolt. Like its 1987 precursor, this second intifada was at its inception overwhelmingly nonviolent. However, in Ben-Ami’s words, “Israel’s disproportionate response to what had started as a popular uprising, with young, unarmed men confronting Israeli soldiers armed with lethal weapons, fueled the [second] intifada beyond control and turned it into an all-out war.”14 It is largely forgotten that the first Hamas suicide bombing of the second intifada did not occur until five months into Israel’s relentless bloodletting. Israeli forces had fi red one million rounds of ammunition in just the first few days of the uprising, while the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed during the first weeks was 20:1

Israeli provocation meaning Second Intifada - Wikipedia Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount?

After the chief of Jerusalem’s police force was knocked unconscious by a stone, they switched to live ammunition and killed four Palestinian youths.53(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada#cite_note-FOOTNOTEShindler2013283-53)[[57]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada#cite_note-57)[[58]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada#cite_note-58)

(Ya’alon denies the 1.3 million figure, which was revealed by Amos Malka, then-director of Military Intelligence, and published by Ben Caspit in Maariv; he claims that the number reflected the demand of the command units for supplemental ammunition).
Deflater of defeatist discourse Israel News | Haaretz

This was one more case in Israel’s history where the overreaction of the military ended up defining the national agenda in terms that the politicians never planned. Nevertheless, the Intifada’s resort to armed struggle and suicide terrorism was to have fatal consequences for the peace process. Incapable of defining attainable objectives for the Intifada and unable to offer the Israelis the temptation of a political horizon they could not resist, Arafat’s desperately ambiguous and vague strategy only enhanced the drift to the right and even to the extreme right of Israel’s public.

Norman G. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the
abuse of history, expanded paperback edition (Berkeley: 2008), ch. 4. Th e fi rst suicide attack
during the second intifada occurred in March 2001.

Norm self-cites another one of his books. Is this acceptable if he had first hand knowledge or a primary source, but if you go to this book, will it just cite another source that he could of put here instead? Lets check:
1. For ratio, see Ben Kaspit, “When the intifada erupted, it was finally clear to all: Israel is not a state with an army but an army with a state,” Maariv (6 September 2002), citing “government and security officials.” Amnesty International, Broken Lives—A Year of Intifada (London, 2001), p. 14.

B’Tselem - Statistics - Fatalities
Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada - Wikipedia

In the warped memory of Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres, however, this period was “another mistake—we restrained ourselves for eight years and allowed [Gazans] to shoot thousands of rockets at us … restraint was a mistake.”

But there is erosion of public pro-Israel sentiment—at the universities, in the press. I’m not talking about the governments.
I’ll tell you why. On television there is an asymmetry that can’t be corrected. What the terrorists do is never broadcast. Only the response is broadcast. And then critics charge: “This is disproportionate.” You don’t see the terrorist act. When a lawful nation fights a lawless nation there is a problem in the media. When an open regime fights a secret regime there is a problem.
But we prevented items like cardamom from reaching Gaza.
OK, we made some mistakes. [But] we made another mistake—we restrained ourselves for eight years and allowed them to shoot thousands of rockets at us until the rage came out at one go [in the IDF assault on Hamas in Gaza in 2008-2009]. Had we done then what we do now, retaliate each time they fire a rocket—there would have been no problem. In the end, it turned out that restraint was a mistake.
Making History - Tablet Magazine

pg. 9

“If only it would just sink into the sea,” Rabin despaired.

During a WINEP conference in Jerusalem in September 1992 Yitzhak Rabin remarked, “I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but since that won’t happen we must find a solution to the problem of the Strip.”
Money, Media and Policy Consensus - MERIP

Israel subsequently purported that it was no longer the occupying power in Gaza. However, human rights organizations and international institutions rejected this contention; the fact was, in myriad ways Israel still preserved near-total dominance of the Strip. “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery,” Human Rights Watch concluded, “it remains in control.” Israel’s own leading authority on international law, Yoram Dinstein, aligned himself with the “prevalent opinion” that the Israeli occupation of Gaza was not over.

Disengaged_Occupiers_en.pdf (file not included in this release)
Israel-Palestine Occupation in Gaza Draft

The International Law of Belligerent Occupation — Dinstein, Yoram — 2009 — Cambridge University Press — 9780521896375 — b90ca515d4912b13eedbd83e5e1f8fae — Anna’s Archive.pdf (file not included in this release)

pg. 10

The barely disguised purpose of Oslo’s protracted interim period was not confidence building to facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace but collaboration building to facilitate a burden-free Israeli occupation. The operative premise was that aft er growing accustomed to the emoluments of power and privilege, the stratum of Palestinian beneficiaries would be averse to parting with them; however reluctantly, they would do the bidding of the power that meted out the largesse and “afforded them significant perquisites.”

The discrepancy should not come as a surprise. The Palestinian elite, which benefited both materially and politically from the PA’s creation, also grew dependent on the political process with Israel from which that institution sprang. The web of political and economic relations with Israel afforded them significant perquisites; they saw the ongoing diplomatic process, in and of itself, as both validating their strategy and justifying the status quo.8 But self-preservation was not all. Many PLO and PA leaders, involved in serious negotiations over the years, held the strong belief that – with a more assertive U.S. posture and more time – a fair peace deal could be achieved.
95-tipping-point-palestinians-and-the-search-for-a-new-strategy.pdf (file not included in this release)

pg. 11

By the end of the Oslo “peace process,” Israel could count among its many blessings that the number of Israeli troops serving in the occupied Palestinian territories was at the lowest level since the start of the first intifada.25

Wouldn’t this be a good thing? Norm tries to contort this into the PA working for Israel to enforce an apartheid

Since its establishment in 1988, Hamas had formally rejected the internationally endorsed terms for resolving the Israel-Palestine confl ict. However, its participation in the electoral contest signaled the possibility that the Islamic movement “was evolving and could evolve still more.”28 But Israel immediately tightened its siege, and “economic activity in Gaza came to a standstill, moving into survival mode.”29 Th e United States and European Union followed suit, as they infl icted “devastating” financial sanctions.

Seems like a whitewashing of Hamas

49-enter-hamas-the-challenges-of-political-integration_0.pdf (file not included in this release)

Major Palestinian Terror Attacks Since Oslo
Quartet Principles - Wikipedia

pg. 12

noose was tightened around Hamas alongside the people of Gaza, it was because they did as told: they participated in democratic elections… Hamas was obliged to lose.

Other states don’t have to approve of any government that is democratically elected. That’s not a pass to do anything you want.

31.John Dugard, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967 (A/HRC/2/5) (5 September 2006). Th e special rapporteur continued: “It is interesting to recall that the Western States refused to impose meaningful economic sanctions on South Africa to compel it to abandon apartheid on the grounds that this would harm the black people of South Africa. No such sympathy is extended to the Palestinian people or their human rights.”
A_HRC_2_5-EN.pdf (file not included in this release)
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act - Wikipedia

Sanctions Were Crucial to the Defeat of Apartheid - NYTimes.com

South Africa was sanctioned and punished by the international community for practicing apartheid. The United Nations Security Council and General Assembly imposed a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa and recommended a host of sanctions—economic, banking, financial, sporting, cultural, travel. You name it. Virtually every aspect of life in South Africa was subject to some form of sanction.
It’s important to stress that the Western states responded positively to these recommendations and then introduced sanctions and measures themselves. This included not only the Western European states but also the United States, which in 1986 passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act designed to compel South Africa to abandon the policy of apartheid.
2021 John Dugard: Holding South Africa, But Not Israel, Accountable – End U.S. Support for Israeli Apartheid? - WRMEA

pg. 13

“Hamas’s success in the Palestinian elections of January 2006,” a 2014 study concludes, could have augured a peaceful political evolution, “but only if the active interference of the United States and the passivity of the European Union had not sabotaged this experiment in government.”

DeSotoReport.pdf (file not included in this release)

Gaza_ A History — Jean-Pierre Filiu — 2014 — Oxford University Press — 1f6483e2a17168c23c7d43619f94ba3e — Anna’s Archive.pdf (file not included in this release)

The idea that Hamas would of been a perfect neighbor, but it was the US, EU and Israel that turned them into terrorists is pretty laughable.
Research Hamas comments around time of election and right after

Hamas - Victory with Ballots and Bullets.pdf (file not included in this release)

The Avalon Project : Hamas Covenant 1988

Hamas’s Genocidal Intentions Were Never a Secret - The Atlantic

Hamas: Words and Deeds… | Wilson Center

In 2007, Hamas consolidated its control of Gaza aft er foiling a coup attempt orchestrated by Washington in league with Israel and elements of the Palestinian old guard.37 “When Hamas preempts [a putsch],” a senior Israeli intelligence fi gure later scoff ed, “everyone cries foul, claiming it’s a military putsch by Hamas—but who did the putsch?”

vanityfair.com-The Gaza Bombshell.pdf (file not included in this release)

Hamas coup in Gaza.pdf (file not included in this release)

Gaza Under Hamas_ From Islamic Democracy to Islamist — Björn Brenner — 2017 — I.B. Tauris — 9781350986558 — 9cf8a90e284385302552eaff6bdb22d8 — Anna’s Archive.pdf (file not included in this release)

Kill Khalid_ Mossad’s Failed Hit and the Rise Hamas — Paul McGeough — 2009 — Allen Unwin — 9781741756005 — 31b3e72b81ebcd08692b621516de256a — Anna’s Archive.pdf (file not included in this release)

The United States and Israel reacted promptly to Hamas’s rejec-tion of this “democracy promotion” bid (i.e., the coup attempt) by further tightening the screws on Gaza.

The ballyhooed centerpiece of Bush’s foreign policy was “democracy promotion.”

In June 2008, Hamas and Israel entered into a cease-fi re brokered by Egypt, but in November of that year Israel violated the cease-fi re. It carried out a lethal border raid on Gaza reminiscent of its 1955 cross-border attack. Th en and now, the objective was to provoke retalia-tion and thus provide the pretext for a massive assault.

2008 Israel–Hamas ceasefire - Wikipedia

Last June, Israel and Hamas agreed to a six-month truce. This unsteady calm was periodically violated by armed factions in Gaza that lobbed rockets into Israel’s border settlements. Israel responded by periodically suspending shipments of supplies into Gaza.

In November and early December, Hamas stepped up the rocket attacks and then, unilaterally, formally announced the end of the truce. The Israeli public and government then gave Defense Minister Ehud Barak a free hand. Israel’s highly efficient air assault on Hamas, which began on Saturday, was his first move. Most of Hamas’s security and governmental compounds were turned into rubble and several hundred Hamas fighters were killed.
Opinion | Why Israel Feels Threatened - The New York Times

pg. 14

On the other side, Hamas launched several hundred rudimentary rockets and mortar shells into Israel.

He says this as if it happened AFTER Operation Cast Lead

But overwhelmingly, international public opinion (including wide swaths of Jewish public opinion) recoiled at Israel’s assault on a defenseless civilian population.

45.Norman G. Finkelstein, “Th is Time We Went Too Far”: Truth and consequences of the Gaza invasion, expanded paperback edition (New York: 2011), pp. 107–29.

If Israel wanted to avert Hamas rocket attacks, it would not have triggered them by breaching the 2008 ceasefire.

48.See Chapter 2.

pg. 15

Israel targeted not Hamas strongholds but “decidedly ‘non-terrorist,’ non-Hamas” sites.

090501ReportGaza.pdf (file not included in this release)

The 2008 annual report of B’Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) documented that between 1 January and 26 December 2008, Israeli security forces killed 455 Palestinians,
of whom at least 175 were civilians, while Palestinians killed 31 Israelis, of whom 21 were civilians. Hence, on the eve of Israel’s so-called war of self-defense, the ratio of total Palestinians to Israelis killed stood at almost 15:1,
while the ratio of Palestinian civilians to Israeli civilians killed was at least 8:1. In Gaza alone, Israel killed at least 158 noncombatants in 2008, while Hamas rocket attacks killed 7 Israeli civilians, a ratio of more than 22:1. Israel
deplored the detention by Hamas of one Israeli combatant captured in 2006, yet Israel detained some 8,000 Palestinian “political prisoners,” including 60 women and 390 children, of whom 548 were held in administrative detention without charge or trial (42 of them for more than two years).

200812_annual_report_eng.pdf (file not included in this release)

The blockade amounted to “collective punish-ment, a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

Israel/Gaza: Donors Should Press Israel to End Blockade | Human Rights Watch

In September 2008, the World Bank described Gaza as “starkly transform[ed] from a potential trade route to a walled hub of humanitarian donations.”

The Gaza Strip the political economy of de-development — Roy, Sara M., author — 2016 — Washington, DC Institute for Palestine Studies USA, Inc. — 9780887283215 — 7c81f7ed88b976176a24ca1b8eed43d2 — Anna’s Archive (file not included in this release)

If Gazans lacked electricity for as many as 16 hours each day; if Gazans received water only once a week for a few hours, and 80 percent of the water was unfi t for human consumption; if one of every two Gazans was unemployed and “food insecure”; if 20 percent of “essential drugs” in Gaza were “at zero level” and more than 20 percent of patients suff ering from cancer, heart disease, and other severe conditions were unable to get permits for medical care abroad—if Gazans clung to life by the thinnest of threads, it traced back, ultimately, to the Israeli siege.

Gaza humanitarian situation - Impact of blockade (December 2008) - OCHA report - Question of Palestine

To judge by the human rights balance sheet at the end of 2008, and setting aside that the cease-fi re was broken by Israel, didn’t Palestinians have a much stronger case than Israel for resorting to armed self-defense?

hmmm