You Have a Head of State Who Happens to be a Maniac - Norman Finkelstein on Israel

Video - RT "Going Underground"

"We have a leader in Israel, who happens to be a maniac, going all around the world saying he represents all of world Jewry, so then are you going to fault people for taking him at his word?"
 

February 23, 2015

Norman Finkelstein, author of ‘Method and Madness - The hidden story of Israel's assaults on Gaza’, talks to Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi about Israel's assaults on the region. He thinks the Goldstone report was 'devastating' and concluded Israel was trying to punish and humiliate the civilian population of Gaza and was guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the report, Goldstone was denounced by many people, even being compared to Joseph Mengeles. He says that the Palestinians have tried non-violent protest before, in the first entifada, but Israel applied 'pretty brutal repression' and defeated it. Human Rights organisations estimated that between 1988-90 tens of thousands of Palestinian detainees were tortured. He contrasts this with the recent US Senate report on torture which is only talking about between 39 and 44 cases of torture, and aside from waterboarding, rectal hydration and stripping prisoners to humiliate them, the techniques used are essentially the same. Whilst reports of human rights abuses have reduced opinion of Israel across the world, this has not meant a positive opinion of Palestinians, and he thinks publics overwhelmingly choose Israel as the more decent party still. He says there is 'no evidence whatsoever' of an increase in anti-Semitism, rather, whenever Israel starts an assault on Gaza, there is a spike in reported incidents, but he questions whether they are actually anti-Semitic. He says the problem is the state of Israel and their 'maniac' head of state, claiming to represent all of world Jewry whenever they commit atrocities.

Watch the full episode here: http://bit.ly/GU178