296 - Norman Finkelstein: Gaza SHATTERED Israel’s Story | October 7, Three Years Later

Norman Finkelstein (0:01)

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Norman Finkelstein (0:56)

A significant dimension of what unfolded after October 7th was pure unadulterated bloodlust and revenge. Israel is a completely lunatic society, regrettably. It wasn't only that they carried out a genocide, they carried it out in broad daylight in real time. They were gleeful about it. In the case of Arendt, I would say, think twice before you play with a 5,000 year old civilization. That's Trump. In the forefront of his mind, he has only two sets of concerns. Number one, vanity and pageantry. Number two, money and deals. It's a nation of child killers. I don't see how you get around it. If I'm wrong in my reasoning, show me where I'm wrong.

Robinson Erhardt (1:52)

We've talked to a number of times over the last few years. One that's particularly memorable is we spoke just in advance of the first year anniversary of October 7th. Now we're talking just in advance of the third year. There have been a lot of developments that might change the way we look at October 7th, 2023

I'm wondering what sticks out in your mind as some of the biggest things that we've learned since then that have changed our perspective.

Norman Finkelstein (2:25)

Biggest things we've learned really depends on what level you're looking at. Let's start with the domestic and international level. Domestically, very surprisingly, Gaza became the cause of a cause in the mainstream of US life. If you were to take October 6th, the day before the event that brings me here today, if somebody had run on a political platform which include a plank in support of ending the medieval criminal blockade of Gaza, that plank would almost certainly—I won't even qualify as almost—that plank would have sunk the campaign. It was a deal-breaker. There was no way the campaign could survive a plank in support of Gaza.

It would sink the ship. Three years later, a plank in support of Gaza in a political campaign at a local level, even at the senatorial or gubernatorial level, a plank in support of Gaza not only doesn't sink the ship, it buoys the ship, it lifts it. That, I would say, nobody could have predicted this sea change with regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict, including and not trivially among American Jews. The most recent polls show that between 30 and 40 percent of American Jews believe that Israel has carried out a genocide in Gaza. I have to do a double take when I see figures like that, percentages like that. When you consider that American Jews are bombarded from day one with pro-Israel propaganda, from their immediate family, from relatives, from distant relatives, from their synagogue, from their day school, from the publications they read. And the fact that American Jews can sort of work themselves out of that bubble, I think it's very impressive. So, I don't think that was at all predictable. It took time, took about, I would say, roughly a year and a half because the alternative media was competing with the mainstream media. And the mainstream were sometimes called the legacy media, were just mouthpieces for Israel. They were organs of Israeli propaganda, places like the New York Times.

And they were in competition with the web media. And eventually the legacy media had to budge because too much was known. Too much had come out overwhelmingly on the web media, social media. So by the second year, you could say the legacy media was playing catch up with reality. And at some point, it's probably correct to say you were getting a significant amount of truth from the mainstream media.