01/26/09

FOILING ANOTHER PALESTINIAN "PEACE OFFENSIVE": BEHIND THE BLOODBATH IN GAZA

Norman G. Finkelstein

Early speculation on the motive behind Israel's slaughter in Gaza that
began on 27 December 2008 and continued till 18 January 2009 centered on
the upcoming elections in Israel. The jockeying for votes was no doubt a
factor in this Sparta-like society consumed by "revenge and the thirst
for blood,"[1] where killing Arabs is a sure crowd-pleaser. (Polls
during the war showed that 80-90 percent of Israeli Jews supported
it.)[2] But as Israeli journalist Gideon Levy pointed out on Democracy
Now!, "Israel went through a very similar war...two-and-a-half years ago
[in Lebanon], when there were no elections."[3] When crucial state
interests are at stake, Israeli ruling elites seldom launch major
operations for narrowly electoral gains. It is true that Prime Minister
Menachem Begin's decision to bomb the Iraqi OSIRAK reactor in 1981 was
an electoral ploy, but the strategic stakes in the strike on Iraq were
puny; contrary to widespread belief, Saddam Hussein had not embarked on
a nuclear weapons program prior to the bombing.[4] The fundamental
motives behind the latest Israeli attack on Gaza lie elsewhere: (1) in
the need to restore Israel's "deterrence capacity," and (2) in the
threat posed by a new Palestinian "peace offensive."

Israel's "larger concern" in the current offensive, New York Times
Middle East correspondent Ethan Bronner reported, quoting Israeli
sources, was to "re-establish Israeli deterrence," because "its enemies
are less afraid of it than they once were, or should be."[5] Preserving
its deterrence capacity has always loomed large in Israeli strategic
doctrine. Indeed, it was the main impetus behind Israel's first-strike
against Egypt in June 1967 that resulted in Israel's occupation of Gaza
(and the West Bank). To justify the onslaught on Gaza, Israeli historian
Benny Morris wrote that "[m]any Israelis feel that the walls...are
closing in...much as they felt in early June 1967."[6] Ordinary Israelis
no doubt felt threatened in June 1967, but -- as Morris surely knows --
the Israeli leadership experienced no such trepidation. After Israel
threatened and laid plans to attack Syria, Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel Nasser declared the Straits of Tiran closed to Israeli shipping,
but Israel made almost no use of the Straits (apart from the passage of
oil, of which Israel then had ample stocks) and, anyhow, Nasser did not
in practice enforce the blockade, vessels passing freely through the
Straits within days of his announcement. In addition, multiple U.S.
intelligence agencies had concluded that the Egyptians did not intend to
attack Israel and that, in the improbable case that they did, alone or
in concert with other Arab countries, Israel would -- in President
Lyndon Johnson's words -- "whip the hell out of them." The head of the
Mossad told senior American officials on 1 June 1967 that "there were no
differences between the U.S. and the Israelis on the military
intelligence picture or its interpretation."[7] The predicament for
Israel was rather the growing perception in the Arab world, spurred by
Nasser's radical nationalism and climaxing in his defiant gestures in
May 1967, that it would no longer have to follow Israeli orders. Thus,
Divisional Commander Ariel Sharon admonished those in the Israeli
cabinet hesitant to launch a first-strike that Israel was losing its
"deterrence capability...our main weapon -- the fear of us."[8] Israel
unleashed the June 1967 war "to restore the credibility of Israeli
deterrence" (Israeli strategic analyst Zeev Maoz).[9]

The expulsion of the Israeli occupying army by Hezbollah in May 2000
posed a major new challenge to Israel's deterrence capacity. The fact
that Israel suffered a humiliating defeat, one celebrated throughout the
Arab world, made another war well-nigh inevitable. Israel almost
immediately began planning for the next round, and in summer 2006 found
a pretext when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers (several others
were killed in the firefight) and demanded in exchange the release of
Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. Although Israel unleashed the fury of
its air force and geared up for a ground invasion, it suffered yet
another ignominious defeat. A respected American military analyst
despite being partial to Israel nonetheless concluded, "the IAF, the arm
of the Israel military that had once destroyed whole air forces in a few
days, not only proved unable to stop Hezbollah rocket strikes but even
to do enough damage to prevent Hezbollah's rapid recovery"; that "once
ground forces did cross into Lebanon..., they failed to overtake
Hezbollah strongholds, even those close to the border"; that "in terms
of Israel's objectives, the kidnapped Israeli soldiers were neither
rescued nor released; Hezbollah's rocket fire was never suppressed, not
even its long-range fire...; and Israeli ground forces were badly shaken
and bogged down by a well-equipped and capable foe"; and that "more
troops and a massive ground invasion would indeed have produced a
different outcome, but the notion that somehow that effort would have
resulted in a more decisive victory over Hezbollah...has no basis in
historical example or logic." The juxtaposition of several figures
further highlights the magnitude of the setback: Israel deployed 30,000
troops as against 2,000 regular Hezbollah fighters and 4,000 irregular
Hezbollah and non-Hezbollah fighters; Israel delivered and fired 162,000
weapons whereas Hezbollah fired 5,000 weapons (4,000 rockets and
projectiles at Israel and 1,000 antitank missiles inside Lebanon).[10]
Moreover, "the vast majority of the fighters who defended villages such
as Ayta ash Shab, Bint Jbeil, and Maroun al-Ras were not, in fact,
regular Hezbollah fighters and in some cases were not even members of
Hezbollah," and "many of Hezbollah's best and most skilled fighters
never saw action, lying in wait along the Litani River with the
expectation that the IDF assault would be much deeper and arrive much
faster than it did."[11] Yet another indication of Israel's reversal of
fortune was that, unlike any of its previous armed conflicts, in the
final stages of the 2006 war it fought not in defiance of a U.N.
ceasefire resolution but in the hope of a U.N. resolution to rescue it.

After the 2006 Lebanon war Israel was itching to take on Hezbollah
again, but did not yet have a military option against it. In mid-2008
Israel desperately sought to conscript the U.S. for an attack on Iran,
which would also decapitate Hezbollah, and thereby humble the main
challengers to its regional hegemony. Israel and its quasi-official
emissaries such as Benny Morris threatened that if the U.S. did not go
along "then non-conventional weaponry will have to be used," and "many
innocent Iranians will die." To Israel's chagrin and humiliation, the
attack never materialized and Iran has gone its merry way, while the
credibility of Israel's capacity to terrorize slipped another notch. It
was high time to find a defenseless target to annihilate. Enter Gaza,
Israel's favorite shooting gallery. Even there the feebly armed Islamic
movement Hamas had defiantly resisted Israeli diktat, in June 2008 even
compelling Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

During the 2006 Lebanon war Israel flattened the southern suburb of
Beirut known as the Dahiya, where Hezbollah commanded much popular
support. In the war's aftermath Israeli military officers began
referring to the "Dahiya strategy": "We shall pulverize the 160 Shiite
villages [in Lebanon] that have turned into Shiite army bases," the IDF
Northern Command Chief explained, "and we shall not show mercy when it
comes to hitting the national infrastructure of a state that, in
practice, is controlled by Hezbollah." In the event of hostilities, a
reserve Colonel at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies
chimed in, Israel needs "to act immediately, decisively, and with force
that is disproportionate....Such a response aims at inflicting damage
and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and
expensive reconstruction processes." The new strategy was to be used
against all of Israel's regional adversaries who had waxed defiant --
"the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled Mashaal, the Lebanese are all
Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all Ahmadinejad" -- but Gaza was the
prime target for this blitzkrieg-cum-bloodbath strategy. "Too bad it did
not take hold immediately after the ‘disengagement' from Gaza and the
first rocket barrages," a respected Israeli columnist lamented. "Had we
immediately adopted the Dahiya strategy, we would have likely spared
ourselves much trouble." After a Palestinian rocket attack, Israel's
Interior Minister urged in late September 2008, "the IDF should...decide
on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it."[13] And, insofar as the Dahiya
strategy could not be inflicted just yet on Lebanon and Iran, it was
predictably pre-tested in Gaza.

The operative plan for the Gaza bloodbath can be gleaned from
authoritative statements after the war got underway: "What we have to do
is act systematically with the aim of punishing all the organizations
that are firing the rockets and mortars, as well as the civilians who
are enabling them to fire and hide" (reserve Major-General); "After this
operation there will not be one Hamas building left standing in Gaza"
(Deputy IDF Chief of Staff); "Anything affiliated with Hamas is a
legitimate target" (IDF Spokesperson's Office).[14] Whereas Israel
killed a mere 55 Lebanese during the first two days of the 2006 war, the
Israeli media exulted at Israel's "shock and awe" (Maariv)[15] as it
killed more than 300 Palestinians in the first two days of the attack on
Gaza. Several days into the slaughter an informed Israeli strategic
analyst observed, "The IDF, which planned to attack buildings and sites
populated by hundreds of people, did not warn them in advance to leave,
but intended to kill a great many of them, and succeeded."[16] Morris
could barely contain his pride at "Israel's highly efficient air assault
on Hamas."[17] The Israeli columnist B. Michael was less impressed by
the dispatch of helicopter gunships and jet planes "over a giant prison
and firing at its people"[18] -- for example, "70...traffic cops at
their graduation ceremony, young men in desperate search of a livelihood
who thought they'd found it in the police and instead found death from
the skies."[19]

As Israel targeted schools, mosques, hospitals, ambulances, and U.N.
sanctuaries, as it slaughtered and incinerated Gaza's defenseless
civilian population (one-third of the 1,200 reported casualties were
children), Israeli commentators gloated that "Gaza is to Lebanon as the
second sitting for an exam is to the first -- a second chance to get it
right," and that this time around Israel had "hurled [Gaza] back," not
20 years as it promised to do in Lebanon, but "into the 1940s.
Electricity is available only for a few hours a day"; that "Israel
regained its deterrence capabilities" because "the war in Gaza has
compensated for the shortcomings of the [2006] Second Lebanon War"; and
that "There is no doubt that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is upset
these days....There will no longer be anyone in the Arab world who can
claim that Israel is weak."[20]

New York Times foreign affairs expert Thomas Friedman joined in the
chorus of hallelujahs.[21] Israel in fact won the 2006 Lebanon war,
according to Friedman, because it had inflicted "substantial property
damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large," thereby
administering an "education" to Hezbollah: fearing the Lebanese people's
wrath, Hezbollah would "think three times next time" before defying
Israel. He expressed hope that Israel was likewise "trying to ‘educate'
Hamas by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain
on the Gaza population." To justify the targeting of Lebanese civilians
and civilian infrastructure Friedman asserted that Israel had no other
option because "Hezbollah created a very ‘flat' military
network...deeply embedded in the local towns and villages," and that
because "Hezbollah nested among civilians, the only long-term source of
deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians...to restrain
Hezbollah in the future."

Leaving aside Friedman's hollow coinages -- what does "flat" mean? --
and leaving aside that he alleged that the killing of civilians was
unavoidable but also recommends targeting civilians as a "deterrence"
strategy: is it even true that Hezbollah was "embedded in," "nested
among," and "intertwined" with the Lebanese civilian population? Here's
what Human Rights Watch concluded after an exhaustive investigation: "we
found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in
bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and
valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left
populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started, and that
Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared
positions outside villages." And again, "in all but a few of the cases
of civilian deaths we investigated, Hezbollah fighters had not mixed
with the civilian population or taken other actions to contribute to the
targeting of a particular home or vehicle by Israeli forces." Indeed,
"Israel's own firing patterns in Lebanon support the conclusion that
Hezbollah fired large numbers of its rockets from tobacco fields,
banana, olive and citrus groves, and more remote, unpopulated valleys."[22]

A U.S. Army War College study based largely on interviews with Israeli
participants in the Lebanon war similarly found that "the key
battlefields in the land campaign south of the Litani River were mostly
devoid of civilians, and IDF participants consistently report little or
no meaningful intermingling of Hezbollah fighters and noncombatants. Nor
is there any systematic reporting of Hezbollah using civilians in the
combat zone as shields." On a related note, the authors report that "the
great majority of Hezbollah's fighters wore uniforms. In fact, their
equipment and clothing were remarkably similar to many state militaries'
-- desert or green fatigues, helmets, web vests, body armor, dog tags,
and rank insignia."[23]

Friedman further asserted that, "rather than confronting Israel's Army
head-on," Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel's civilian population to
provoke Israeli retaliatory strikes, inevitably killing Lebanese
civilians and "inflaming the Arab-Muslim street." Yet, numerous studies
have shown,[24] and Israeli officials themselves conceded[25] that,
during its guerrilla war against the Israeli occupying army, Hezbollah
only targeted Israeli civilians after Israel targeted Lebanese
civilians. In conformity with past practice Hezbollah started firing
rockets toward Israeli civilian concentrations during the 2006 war only
after Israel inflicted heavy casualties on Lebanese civilians, while
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah avowed that it would target
Israeli civilians "as long as the enemy undertakes its aggression
without limits or red lines."[26]

If Israel targeted the Lebanese civilian population and infrastructure
during the 2006 war, it was not because it had no choice, and not
because Hezbollah had provoked it, but because terrorizing the civilian
population was a relatively cost-free method of "education," much to be
preferred over fighting a real foe and suffering heavy casualties,
although Hezbollah's unexpectedly fierce resistance prevented Israel
from achieving a victory on the battlefield. In the case of Gaza it was
able both to "educate" the population and achieve a military victory
because -- in the words of Gideon Levy -- the "fighting in Gaza" was

     "war deluxe." Compared with previous wars, it is child's play --
pilots bombing unimpeded as if on practice runs, tank and artillery
soldiers shelling houses and civilians from their armored vehicles,
combat engineering troops destroying entire streets in their ominous
protected vehicles without facing serious opposition. A large, broad
army is fighting against a helpless population and a weak, ragged
organization that has fled the conflict zones and is barely putting up a
fight.[27]

The justification put forth by Friedman in the pages of the Times for
targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure amounted to apologetics
for state terrorism.[28] It might be recalled that although Hitler had
stripped Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher of all his political power
by 1940, and his newspaper Der Stuermer had a circulation of only some
15,000 during the war, the International Tribunal at Nuremberg
nonetheless sentenced him to death for his murderous incitement.

Beyond restoring its deterrence capacity, Israel's main goal in the Gaza
slaughter was to fend off the latest threat posed by Palestinian
moderation. For the past three decades the international community has
consistently supported a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict
that calls for two states based on a full Israeli withdrawal to its June
1967 border, and a "just resolution" of the refugee question based on
the right of return and compensation. The vote on the annual U.N.
General Assembly resolution, "Peaceful Settlement of the Question of
Palestine," supporting these terms for resolving the conflict in 2008
was 164 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Marshall
Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau), and 3 abstentions. At the regional
level the Arab League in March 2002 unanimously put forth a peace
initiative on this basis, which it has subsequently reaffirmed. In
recent times Hamas has repeatedly signaled its own acceptance of such a
settlement. For example, in March 2008 Khalid Mishal, head of Hamas's
Political Bureau, stated in an interview:

     There is an opportunity to deal with this conflict in a manner
different than Israel and, behind it, the U.S. is dealing with it today.
There is an opportunity to achieve a Palestinian national consensus on a
political program based on the 1967 borders, and this is an exceptional
circumstance, in which most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept
a state on the 1967 borders....There is also an Arab consensus on this
demand, and this is a historic situation. But no one is taking advantage
of this opportunity. No one is moving to cooperate with this
opportunity. Even this minimum that has been accepted by the
Palestinians and the Arabs has been rejected by Israel and by the U.S.[29]

Israel is fully cognizant that the Hamas Charter is not an
insurmountable obstacle to a two-state settlement on the June 1967
border. "[T]he Hamas leadership has recognized that its ideological goal
is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future," a former
Mossad head recently observed. "[T]hey are ready and willing to see the
establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of
1967....They know that the moment a Palestinian state is established
with their cooperation, they will be obligated to change the rules of
the game: They will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from
their original ideological goals."[30]

In addition, Hamas was "careful to maintain the ceasefire" it entered
into with Israel in June 2008, according to an official Israeli
publication, despite Israel's reneging on the crucial component of the
truce that it ease the economic siege of Gaza. "The lull was
sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out by
rogue terrorist organizations," the source continues. "At the same time,
the [Hamas] movement tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement on
the other terrorist organizations and to prevent them from violating
it."[31] Moreover, Hamas was "interested in renewing the relative calm
with Israel" (Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin).[32] The Islamic movement
could thus be trusted to stand by its word, making it a credible
negotiating partner, while its apparent ability to extract concessions
from Israel, unlike the hapless Palestinian Authority doing Israel's
bidding but getting no returns, enhanced Hamas's stature among
Palestinians. For Israel these developments constituted a veritable
disaster. It could no longer justify shunning Hamas, and it would be
only a matter of time before international pressure in particular from
the Europeans would be exerted on it to negotiate. The prospect of an
incoming U.S. administration negotiating with Iran and Hamas, and moving
closer to the international consensus for settling the Israel-Palestine
conflict, which some U.S. policymakers now advocate,[33] would have
further highlighted Israel's intransigence. In an alternative scenario,
speculated on by Nasrallah, the incoming American administration plans
to convene an international peace conference of "Americans, Israelis,
Europeans and so-called Arab moderates" to impose a settlement. The one
obstacle is "Palestinian resistance and the Hamas government in Gaza,"
and "getting rid of this stumbling block is...the true goal of the
war."[34] In either case, Israel needed to provoke Hamas into breaking
the truce, and then radicalize or destroy it, thereby eliminating it as
a legitimate negotiating partner. It is not the first time Israel
confronted such a diabolical threat -- an Arab League peace initiative,
Palestinian support for a two-state settlement and a Palestinian
ceasefire -- and not the first time it embarked on provocation and war
to overcome it.

In the mid-1970s the PLO mainstream began supporting a two-state
settlement on the June 1967 border. In addition, the PLO, headquartered
in Lebanon, was strictly adhering to a truce with Israel that had been
negotiated in July 1981.[35] In August 1981 Saudi Arabia unveiled, and
the Arab League subsequently approved, a peace plan based on the
two-state settlement.[36] Israel reacted in September 1981 by stepping
up preparations to destroy the PLO.[37] In his analysis of the buildup
to the 1982 Lebanon war, Israeli strategic analyst Avner Yaniv reported
that Yasser Arafat was contemplating a historic compromise with the
"Zionist state," whereas "all Israeli cabinets since 1967" as well as
"leading mainstream doves" opposed a Palestinian state. Fearing
diplomatic pressures, Israel maneuvered to sabotage the two-state
settlement. It conducted punitive military raids "deliberately out of
proportion" against "Palestinian and Lebanese civilians" in order to
weaken "PLO moderates," strengthen the hand of Arafat's "radical
rivals," and guarantee the PLO's "inflexibility." However, Israel
eventually had to choose between a pair of stark options: "a political
move leading to a historic compromise with the PLO, or preemptive
military action against it." To fend off Arafat's "peace offensive" --
Yaniv's telling phrase -- Israel embarked on military action in June
1982. The Israeli invasion "had been preceded by more than a year of
effective ceasefire with the PLO," but after murderous Israeli
provocations, the last of which left as many as 200 civilians dead
(including 60 occupants of a Palestinian children's hospital), the PLO
finally retaliated, causing a single Israeli casualty.[38] Although
Israel used the PLO's resumption of attacks as the pretext for its
invasion, Yaniv concluded that the "raison d'être of the entire
operation" was "destroying the PLO as a political force capable of
claiming a Palestinian state on the West Bank."[39] It deserves passing
notice that in his new history of the "peace process," Martin Indyk,
former U.S. ambassador to Israel, provides this capsule summary of the
sequence of events just narrated: "In 1982, Arafat's terrorist
activities eventually provoked the Israeli government of Menachem Begin
and Ariel Sharon into a full-scale invasion of Lebanon."[40]

Fast forward to 2008. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated in
early December 2008 that although Israel wanted to create a temporary
period of calm with Hamas, an extended truce "harms the Israeli
strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel
recognizes the movement."[41] Translation: a protracted ceasefire that
enhanced Hamas's credibility would have undermined Israel's strategic
goal of retaining control of the West Bank. As far back as March 2007
Israel had decided on attacking Hamas, and only negotiated the June
truce because "the Israeli army needed time to prepare."[42] Once all
the pieces were in place, Israel only lacked a pretext. On 4 November,
while the American media were riveted on election day, Israel broke the
ceasefire by killing seven Palestinian militants, on the flimsy excuse
that Hamas was digging a tunnel to abduct Israeli soldiers, and knowing
full well that its operation would provoke Hamas into hitting back.
"Last week's ‘ticking tunnel,' dug ostensibly to facilitate the
abduction of Israeli soldiers," Haaretz reported in mid-November

     was not a clear and present danger: Its existence was always known
and its use could have been prevented on the Israeli side, or at least
the soldiers stationed beside it removed from harm's way. It is
impossible to claim that those who decided to blow up the tunnel were
simply being thoughtless. The military establishment was aware of the
immediate implications of the measure, as well as of the fact that the
policy of "controlled entry" into a narrow area of the Strip leads to
the same place: an end to the lull. That is policy -- not a tactical
decision by a commander on the ground.[43]

After Hamas predictably resumed its rocket attacks "[i]n retaliation"
(Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center),[44] Israel
could embark on yet another murderous invasion in order to foil yet
another Palestinian peace offensive.

Norman G. Finkelstein
New York City
19 January 2009

~~~~~~

1. Gideon Levy, "The Time of the Righteous," Haaretz (9 January 2009).

2. Ethan Bronner, "In Israel, A Consensus That Gaza War Is a Just One,"
New York Times (13 January 2009).

3. 29 December 2008;
www.democracynow.org/2008/12/29/israeli_attacks_kill_over_310_in.

4. Richard Wilson, "Incomplete or Inaccurate Information Can Lead to
Tragically Incorrect Decisions to Preempt: The example of OSIRAK," paper
presented at Erice, Sicily (18 May 2007; updated 9 February 2008;
www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1589).

5. Ethan Bronner, "Israel Reminds Foes That It Has Teeth," New York
Times (29 December 2008).

6. Benny Morris, "Why Israel Feels Threatened," New York Times (30
December 2008).

7. "Memorandum for the Record" (1 June 1967), Foreign Relations of the
United States, vol. XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967 (Washington,
DC: 2004).

8. Tom Segev, 1967: Israel, the war, and the year that transformed the
Middle East (New York: 2007), p. 293, my emphasis.

9. Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A critical analysis of Israel's
security and foreign policy (Ann Arbor: 2006), p. 89.

10. William Arkin, Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006
Israel-Hezbollah war (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: 2007), pp. xxi,
xxv-xxvi, 25, 54, 64, 135, 147-48.

11. Andrew Exum, Hizballah at War: A military assessment (Washington
Institute for Near East Policy: December 2006), pp. 9, 11-12.

12. Benny Morris, "A Second Holocaust? The Threat to Israel" (2 May
2008; www.mideastfreedomforum.org/de/node/66).

13. Yaron London, "The Dahiya Strategy" (6 October 2008;
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3605863,00.html); Gabriel Siboni,
"Disproportionate Force: Israel's concept of response in light of the
Second Lebanon War," Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), 2
October 2008. Attila Somfalvi, "Sheetrit: We should level Gaza
neighborhoods" (2 October 2008;
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3504922,00.html).

14. "Israeli General Says Hamas Must Not Be the Only Target in Gaza,"
IDF Radio, Tel Aviv, in Hebrew 0600 gmt (26 December 2008), BBC
Monitoring Middle East; Tova Dadon, "Deputy Chief of Staff: Worst still
ahead" (29 December 2008;
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-36466558,00.html);
www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20081231_Gaza_Letter_to_Mazuz.asp.

15. Seumas Milne, "Israel's Onslaught on Gaza is a Crime That Cannot
Succeed," Guardian (30 December 2008).

16. Reuven Pedatzur, "The Mistakes of Cast Lead," Haaretz(8 January 2009).

17. Morris, "Why Israel Feels Threatened."

18. B. Michael, "Déjà Vu in Gaza" (29 December 2008;
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3646558,00.html).

19. Gideon Levy, "Twilight Zone/Trumpeting for War," Haaretz (2 January
2009).

20. Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, "Israel and Hamas Are Both Paying a
Steep Price in Gaza," Haaretz (10 January 2009); Ari Shavit, "Analysis:
Israel's victories in Gaza make up for its failures in Lebanon," Haaretz
(12 January 2009); Guy Bechor, "A Dangerous Victory" (12 January 2009;
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3654505,00.html).

21. Thomas L. Friedman, "Israel's Goals in Gaza?," New York Times (14
January 2009).

22. Human Rights Watch, Why They Died: Civilian casualties in Lebanon
during the 2006 war (New York: 2007), pp. 5, 14, 40-41, 45-46, 48, 51, 53.

23. Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey A. Friedman, The 2006 Lebanon Campaign
and the Future of Warfare: Implications for army and defense policy
(Carlisle, PA: 2008), pp. 43-44, 45.

24. Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of war violations and the
use of weapons on the Israel-Lebanon border (New York: 1996); Maoz,
Defending the Holy Land, pp. 213-14, 224-25, 252; Augustus Richard
Norton, Hezbollah: A short history (Princeton: 2007), pp. 77, 86.

25. Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The changing face of terrorism
(London: 2004), pp. 167-68.

26. Human Rights Watch, Civilians Under Assault: Hezbollah's rocket
attacks on Israel in the 2006 war (New York: 2007), p. 100. HRW asserts
that Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli civilians were not retaliatory
but provides no supporting evidence.

27. Gideon Levy, "The IDF Has No Mercy for the Children in Gaza Nursery
Schools," Haaretz (15 January 2009).

28. Glenn Greenwald, "Tom Friedman Offers a Perfect Definition of
‘Terrorism'" (14 January 2009;
www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/14/friedman/).

29. Mouin Rabbani, "A Hamas Perspective on the Movement's Evolving Role:
An interview with Khalid Mishal, Part II," Journal of Palestine Studies
(Summer 2008).

30. "What Hamas Wants," Mideast Mirror (22 December 2008).

31. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel
Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, The Six Months of the
Lull Arrangement (December 2008), pp. 2, 6, 7.

32. "Hamas Wants Better Terms for Truce," Jerusalem Post (21 December
2008). Diskin told the Israeli cabinet that Hamas would renew the truce
if Israel lifted the siege of Gaza, stopped military attacks and
extended the truce to the West Bank.

33. Richard N. Haass and Martin Indyk, "Beyond Iraq: A new U.S. strategy
for the Middle East," and Walter Russell Mead, "Change They Can Believe
In: To make Israel safe, give Palestinians their due," in Foreign
Affairs, January-February 2009.

34. Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's Speech
Delivered at the Central Ashura Council, 31 December 2008.

35. Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel and
the Palestinians (Boston: 1983), chaps. 3, 5.

36. Yehuda Lukacs (ed), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: a documentary
record, 1967-1990 (Cambridge: 1992), pp. 477-79.

37. Yehoshaphat Harkabi, Israel's Fateful Hour (New York: 1988), p. 101.

38. Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The abduction of Lebanon (New York:
1990), pp. 197, 232.

39. Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security: Politics, strategy and the
Israeli experience in Lebanon (Oxford: 1987), pp. 20-23, 50-54, 67-70,
87-89, 100-1, 105-6, 113, 143.

40. Martin Indyk, Innocent Abroad: An intimate account of American peace
diplomacy in the Middle East (New York: 2009), p. 75.

41. Saed Bannoura, "Livni Calls for a Large Scale Military Offensive in
Gaza," IMEMC & Agencies (10 December 2008; www.imemc.org/article/57960).

42. Uri Blau, "IDF Sources: Conditions not yet optimal for Gaza exit,"
Haaretz (8 January 2009); Barak Ravid, "Disinformation, Secrecy, and
Lies: How the Gaza offensive came about," Haaretz (28 December 2008).

43. Zvi Bar'el, "Crushing the Tahadiyeh," Haaretz (16 November 2008).
Cf. Uri Avnery, "The Calculations behind Israel's Slaughter of
Palestinians in Gaza" (2 January 2009;
www.redress.cc/palestine/uavnery20080102).

44. The Six Months of the Lull Arrangement, p. 3.

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Source:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2542

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIr4lEIqTkM&eurl=http://www.911blogger.com/node/19198