Review: <Bold>'This Time We Went Too Far': Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion (Revised and Expanded)<

RECENT BOOKS 79 “CAST LEAD” IN CONTEXT ‘This Time We Went Too Far’: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion (Revised and Expanded), by Norman G. Finkelstein. New York: OR Books, 2011. 203 pages. Appendices to p. 230. Notes to p. 313. Index to p. 343. $15.00 paper. JPS4104_06_Recent Books.indd 79 10/08/12 4:26 PM 80 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES Reviewed by Sara Roy In analyzing why Israel attacked Gaza, for example, Finkelstein shreds Palestinian life in Gaza and the West the of!cial argument that the invasion Bank is de!ned by Israel’s oppressive was intended to stop Hamas rocket !re. occupation, and this will not change un- (In fact, in the three years since Israel’s til the occupation ends. Yet, after more “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005, than two and a half decades of research the Israeli military killed approximately and writing on Israeli-Palestinian issues, 1,250 Palestinians—among them I remain stunned by the lack of atten- 222 children—while Palestinian rock- tion, indeed aversion, to context as an ets killed 11 Israelis [p. 26]). To the con- explanatory variable. By stripping is- trary, he shows that the objective was sues and events of their current and his- not to end rocket !re, but rather to pro- torical framework, many scholars have voke Hamas into resuming it. Finkel- failed to address the human dimensions stein argues there were two reasons for of the occupation, which are central attacking Gaza: to restore Israel’s deter- to understanding political, economic, rence power, particularly after the mili- and social behavior among Palestin- tary debacle of the 2006 Lebanon war, ians. Instead, dominant and essential- and to preclude both the emergence of izing conceptualizations of the con"ict Hamas as a legitimate political actor that ignore Palestinian suffering and the and the threat of a new “peace offen- reasons for it are constantly produced sive” that had started to take shape with and reproduced despite their failure to Hamas’s successful implementation of illuminate or resolve. And in Palestine the June 2008 cease!re and acceptance speci!cally these de!ning and recycled of a two-state solution along June 1967 paradigms are further characterized by borders. a willingness to legitimize Israel’s oc- A particularly compelling and illumi- cupation as long as there is no accepted nating feature is the juxtaposition of of!- agreement to end it. Even the word “oc- cial Israeli claims defending the attack on cupation” seems to have been expunged Gaza—and those of Israel’s supporters— from the lexicon of the con"ict as irrel- with the !ndings of various human evant and obsolete. rights reports (e.g., Amnesty Interna- The importance of Norman Finkel- tional, Human Rights Watch, United stein’s revised and expanded This Time Nations bodies), notably the Goldstone We Went Too Far (originally published Report. The result is powerful, espe- in 2010) is that it explains in powerful cially Finkelstein’s conclusion that per- and indisputable terms what it means haps for the !rst time, the “damning for Palestinians to constantly live with a !ndings of human rights organizations shattered sense of place and home, “still have now become politically consequen- watching the ruins of their own history,” tial” (p. 153, Finkelstein’s emphasis). to quote Edward Said. In its original ver- The new edition includes an exten- sion, the book focused on Israel’s dev- sive epilogue, “After the Mavi Mar- astating invasion of Gaza—commonly mara,” examining the reason for, and known as Operation Cast Lead—that be- aftermath of, Israel’s violent 31 May gan on 27 December 2008, and ended 2010 attack on the Gaza Freedom Flo- three weeks later. In this study, as in his tilla, a continuation of the policies that vast corpus of work, Finkelstein exam- precipitated the 2008–2009 attack. It ines in meticulously researched detail also includes a new appendix, Finkel- the history, context, and reasons for Is- stein’s searing analysis of the report israel’s massive assault and its impact on sued by the Turkel Commission, which Gaza’s people and society (much of the was appointed by the Israeli govern- data provided are truly stunning). ment (and chaired by former Israeli Su- preme Court justice Jacob Turkel) to examine the attack on the Freedom Flo- Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard, tilla and provide a legal analysis of Is- is the author of Hamas and Civil Society in rael’s blockade. Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector One example of how Finkelstein un- (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, covers the report’s skewed context is 2011). the following: JPS4104_06_Recent Books.indd 80 10/08/12 4:26 PM RECENT BOOKS 81 The Report states that “in October 2000 violent shameful that Finkelstein has been incidents broke out in the West Bank and the effectively barred from teaching in Gaza Strip, which were given the name ‘the the American academy. This injus- Second Intifada.’ . In these, suicide attacks tice speaks to the fact that despite were restarted in cities in Israeli territory.” Its capsule description of the second intifada omits the changing and widening discourse mention that Palestinians did not resort to sui- on the Israeli-Palestinian con"ict in cide attacks until !ve months after Israel had the United States that now allows for started using massive, indiscriminate and lethal greater dissent and legitimizes criti- !repower to quell largely nonviolent demonstra- cism of Israeli policy—something this tions. Similarly, the Report begins by highlight- book also examines in considerable ing that “since the beginning of 2001, thousands detail—the struggle remains acute. of mortars and rockets of various kinds have This work, among Finkelstein’s many been !red in ever growing numbers from the others, remains an essential and criti- Gaza Strip” at Israel. But this depiction ignores Israeli attacks on Gaza during the same period cal part of that struggle. that killed many times more Palestinians than projectiles launched from Gaza killed Israelis. (pp. 209–10) Even more striking is Finkelstein’s dis- section of the report’s claim that Israel was not guilty of in"icting “collective punishment” because “there is nothing in the evidence . that suggest[s] that Israel is inten- tionally placing restrictions on goods for the sole or primary purpose of denying them to the population of Gaza.” Yet, if the intent of the Israeli siege was to target Hamas’s military capabilities, and not to harm Gaza’s civilian population, surely it is cause for wonder why Israel severely restricted entry of goods “not considered essential for the basic subsistence of the population,” and why it allowed passage of only a “humanitarian minimum”—a benchmark that was arbitrarily determined, not sanctioned by international law and in fact fell below Gaza’s minimal humanitarian needs. It is also cause for puzzlement why Israeli of!cials kept repeating privately that “they intended to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.” (p. 213) Finkelstein "awlessly exposes the report’s failed arguments and inter- nal contradictions (as he does with other arguments throughout the book), casting light on a consistent and un- changed political agenda that aims, at its core, to destroy Palestinian aspira- tions for a state, a home, and a digni- !ed existence. The book also includes over eighty pages of endnotes, which alone consti- tute a valuable resource. They contain important substantive and bibliographic material that should be treated as seri- ously as the text itself. Given his exceptional and coura- geous scholarship, it is absolutely JPS4104_06_Recent Books.indd 81 10/08/12 4:26 PM.

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