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Three more Norman Finkelstein videos

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Just a few months ago, I published <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=6219">Two excellent lectures by Norman Finkelstein</a>. Since then, I've watched a few more that I found useful. <hr> First off, the article <a href="https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-the-houthis" author="Norman Finkelstein" source="Substack">In Praise of the Houthis</a> writes, <bq>In the 1930s, when the enlightened West abandoned the Spanish Republic, international brigades of volunteers went there to fight the nascent forces of fascist barbarism. They covered themselves with glory. (Fully three thousand Americans joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, more than a third of them Jewish.) This time around, Fate appointed the Party of God and the Houthis. The Houthis possessed intimate knowledge of exalted Western values, on the one hand, and Gaza’s martyrdom, on the other. The US had enabled Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen that left nearly one hundred thousand children dead and gone. Rousseau famously observed that the most—indeed, only— truly civilizing impulse in human beings is not reason but the natural, inborn capacity for pity, and that the more society “progresses,” the more refined its rational faculty, the more its natural capacity for pity is stifled. Who, in a decent world, would not choose one dagger-in-hand Houthi risking life and limb in defense of defenseless Gaza over ten thousand Harvard-educated, elegantly coiffed Antony Blinkens adroitly lubricating the gears of Israel’s murder machine?</bq> That article references the following relatively short exchange (7:00) between Finkelstein and an Israeli-supporting interlocutor, who asks a good question, and to which Norman provides a good answer, transcribed below. <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miIAl65-uJo" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/miIAl65-uJo" source="YouTube" width="560px" author="Xpoliton" caption="Finkelstein Responds to Heated Question About the Houthis."> <bq>From my first conscious moments in my own life, my parents loathed the Germans. They didn't loathe the Nazis. They loathed---they hated---the Germans. In fact, I vividly recall my father once recommended me a book on the Nazi Holocaust. And I asked him, you know, what makes this book special? And he said to me, I liked it that the author didn't talk about Nazis. He talked about Germans. Now, my parents were very decent human beings. The apple did not fall far from the tree. But I could understand that sentiment. The only Jews the Houthis have known are the Israelis. It's a regrettable fact that they don't know, have never experienced, any other kinds of Jews. I remember I once asked my mother, just out of curiosity, did you ever meet, did you ever come into contact with a German who was decent? And she said to me, she thought hard and she said, "I remember one German soldier. He had a kind of guilty look on his face." That was all she could remember. One. So it doesn't surprise me that she loathed all Germans. Do I wish the Houthis were more discriminating in their in their slogans? Of course I wish it. But do I understand where it comes from? Yes. And will that slogan of theirs color my appreciation of the fact that, alone among the world's peoples, they are resorting to armed force to stop the genocide in Gaza? I have to ask myself the question, how would my parents have felt if this rag tag army happened to be situated on a point in the world's map where they could inflect the outcome of the final solution. And these people---this rag-tag people hailing back to the Middle Ages---they were investing all of their physical resources and moral energy to stopping the extermination. How would my parents react? Would they ask, "What are their political slogans?" I don't think so.</bq> <hr> Next, this two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson is very good. I've included several citations below. <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmv2h1WYnNo" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/Jmv2h1WYnNo" source="YouTube" width="560px" author="Tucker Carlson" caption="Norman Finkelstein Reveals Shocking Discoveries While Researching History of Israel’s Gaza Obsession"> At about 3:47, <bq>in 2004, he's having a conversation with senior U.S. Officials, and he describes Gaza as, quote, a huge concentration camp. Now, bear in mind, the first individuals I mentioned, that's fifties, early mid-sixties. Concentration camp had a very definite resonance. And yet, those are the words that leapt to mind, or those are descriptions that leapt to mind. Giora Eiland is Israeli, he's Jewish, he is the chief of Israel's National Security counsel, as a Jew and as an Israeli, surely he knew. The resonance of describing a parcel of land as a concentration camp. That's the descriptive he used. Now. Here's the, not footnote, but here's the big qualifier. That was Gaza in its best days. That's a fact. That was in Gaza in it's best days.</bq> At about 12:10, <bq>When Operation Protective Edge Ended In 2014, it was 51 days, I believe it began July 7 and ended August 26, I'm pretty sure. When it ended, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, his name was Peter Moorer, he went to Gaza. Now bear in mind the job description of the head of the ICRC, the International Committee on the Red Cross. Is basically to tour war zones. He walked out of Gaza and he said, never in my life have I seen the level of destruction that I saw in Gaza. Now just to give your listeners, a juxtaposition. That means placing side by side. In Operation Protective Edge, 18,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged. Morris said, I've never seen levels of destruction like that. In Gaza now, 325,000 homes were destroyed since October 7th. In protective edge. There was left behind roughly 2.5 million tons of rubble. In Gaza now, 61 million tons of rubble. Back then, it was unparalleled in conflict zones in 2014. Now, it's not even a blip on the screen. Compared to what Israel has done.</bq> At about 20:22, <bq>Norman: If you take the accumulation, the cumulative effect of what Israel has done, you don't look at it discreetly—this action, this action, this action, this action. You take the total picture. Israel's, the density and the rate of Israel's bombing in Gaza, unprecedented in modern conflict. In some cases, even as far back as World War II, if you take the worst cases in World War II like Dresden, the intensity and rate of destruction is higher in Gaza. That's a fact. Tucker: Than Dresden? Norman: That's correct. That's correct. Not just Dresden, there's Dresden and a couple of other major cities, but they've slipped my mind. Number of children killed. Tucker: Oh, that's shocking what you just said. Norman: Number of Children killed. If you take all combat zones in the world, combine for the years, say, 2020, 2021, 2020, 2021, and combine them. All the combat zones, more children killed in Gaza. Amputees. Child amputees! I'm not sure if it's child or maybe it's all amputee. It's now the densest concentration of amputees anywhere in the world. Schools. 97% of Gaza's schools have been destroyed or severely damaged. Targeting of hospitals. Targeting of medical personnel, targeting of UN workers, targeting of journalists. They're all in a totally different category. They're in a total different universe than the closest second, closest third, closest fourth. So then what are you to conclude when you add up, as I said, you take the cumulative picture I don't see how you can possibly reach any other conclusion. The one qualification I would make is, it's not so much a qualification, it is a clarification. I don t believe Israel's goal is genocide. Its goal is empty out Gaza. They were very clear about that. They want to ethnically cleanse Gaza. But the means they are using their modus operandi is the destruction of the Gazan population until they leave. Now you could say, but they can't leave because the border is sealed and nobody wants them, and that's true. So they will continue killing until they achieve their goal. And if it's to kill everybody, they will kill everybody. They are dead set on, for once and for all, solving the Gaza question.</bq> At about 58:37, <bq>An argument is quite complex, it has major premises, minor premises, it's very complicated to work out, and it requires a classroom to do that, and requires a text to go over together. And so it's really a wondrous experience to be a college professor. It's a responsibility, but it's also an experience that I was significantly denied that opportunity. I don't take it so much personally, as I think I could have inspired many more young minds, not propagandized them. I'm totally against propaganda in the classroom. I'm pretty much a stickler about that. Not propagandize them, but trying to convey to them the choice. Of the life of the mind, and I think I was deprived of that right because of political considerations.</bq> <hr> Finally, while Tucker Carlson was a decent interviewer, there is no foil for Norman better than Briahna Joy Gray, who interviews Norman for 2.5 hours and holds his feet to the fire more than once, challenging him to formulate his positions better. I only included one citation, from over two hours in, but the whole video is well-worth watching (or listening to). <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKi-qaSmGZ8" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/AKi-qaSmGZ8" source="YouTube" width="560px" author="Briahna Joy Gray" caption="'PITIFUL!' - Norm Finkelstein's October 7th Reaction to Zohran's $26 Million Anti-Semitism Betrayal"> The title says it all. 2.5 hours of Norman Finkelstein lambasting the new funding. He explains how Brooklyn College could use the money a lot more. He explains how the ADL is in charge of deciding which acts are antisemitic. He says that they automatically have 365 antisemitic acts per year because they classify his arising each morning as an antisemitic act. <bq>Every morning when I get up and I am breathing, the ADL catalogues it as an antisemitic act. I swear to God.</bq> He is an acquired taste but he has a level of moral clarity and principle missing from all but a handful. At this point, one should be morally obligated to acquire that taste. <bq><pre>0:00 Debate highlights and Norman Finkelstein introduction 1:47 Mamdani’s Palestine commitments and political accountability 29:00 Antisemitism funding, statistics, and campus repression 57:19 Mamdani’s October 7 statement and appeasement 1:11:16 DSA victories and accountability after elections 1:17:19 UK Greens’ resolution and international-law strategy 1:27:45 Defining Zionism, racism, and Jewish supremacy 1:39:25 Political slogans: precision versus changing the conversation 1:51:49 One state, two states, and achievable demands 2:05:48 Finkelstein’s political ideals and short-term strategy 2:12:24 Finding Finkelstein’s work and reshaping Bad Faith 2:19:01 Media exclusion, resentment, and activism’s personal costs 2:29:51 Final reflections and podcast farewell</pre></bq> At around 02:10:00, <bq>Briahna: What do you what do you think should happen morally, politically, legally? What should be the outcome? Norman: It depends on what you mean in the short term or in the long term. In the long term, I believe in the abolition of states. In the short term, the essence of politics is you assess the balance of power at any particular moment and where things seem to be heading. You know, what you call the subterranean forces at play, in order to see what's the maximum that you can extract at any given moment which is consistent with your long-term goals. I remain a communist as a long-term goal. I still believe 'from each according to his ability to each according to his need' is the right slogan of a just society. I believe that 'the free development of each is a precondition for the free development of all.' I think that's an accurate description of a world in which I live. From each according to his ability to each according to her need, the free development of each is the free development of all. That's my long-term goal, which I'll obviously not live to see any of. But that's my fundamental beliefs. But then politics is about at any particular moment what you can wrest, the maximum that you can wrest that's consistent with your long-term goal.</bq>