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Norman Finkelstein’s new book indicts the International Criminal Court for whitewashing Israel

This May 31 marks 10 years since Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza Humanitarian Flotilla in international waters and killed 10 people. Norman Finkelstein, one of the world’s most effective critics of Israel, is observing the occasion with a persuasive indictment of Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC)  in The Hague, for refusing to take legal action over Israel’s lethal attack on the Mavi Marmara, the Flotilla’s flagship.

At first glance, Finkelstein’s new book resembles a legal brief. But start reading more closely, and you soon see his trademark indignation, intense and eloquent.

Read the full review here.

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a forensic examination of the ICC’s response to Israel’s attack on an aid convoy to Gaza in 2010

I ACCUSE is a demanding read, in every sense. Its indictment of the behaviour of Israel and the International Criminal Court is detailed and dense.Norman Finkelstein’s book concerns a specific incident in 2010 when the Mavi Marmara, flagship of a humanitarian flotilla carrying supplies to Gaza, was attacked by Israeli commandos.

Nine people were killed, one later died from his injuries, scores were injured and many more assaulted. The proof presented, textual and photographic, is harrowing. Half the book is taken up by evidential appendices and the explanatory notes are at a point size requiring the use of a magnifying glass.

These are observations, not complaints. Finkelstein’s assessment of a violent action by Israeli armed forces brims with controlled anger but is informed by meticulous analysis.

Read the full review here.

I ACCUSE! author Norman Finkelstein outlines the obstacles to holding Israel accountable for war crimes at the International Criminal Court on The Real News Network

I Accuse! – Letting Israel Off the Hook

In his previous book, the monumental Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom (2018), Norman Finkelstein depicted the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, on the night of May 31, 2010, as an integral part of the recent story of Israeli atrocities against Gaza, ranging from Operation Cast Lead in 2008 to Operation Protective Edge in 2014 – massacres committed against an imprisoned population already suffering from a humanitarian crisis caused by a blockade imposed in 2007.

Finkelstein described the victims of the assault on the Mavi Marmara – ten murdered, scores injured — as “the first casualties of the interment of the Goldstone Report” on Operation Cast Lead – referring to the backpedalling from that Report by the human rights community, including Goldstone himself, that had taken place even before his recantation on April 1, 2011.

In its turn, Finkelstein claims in his Conclusion to I Accuse!, the refusal of Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC ) — who evidently feared the vilification campaign experienced by Goldstone — to launch a full investigation into the Flotilla Incident “paved the way” for the atrocities committed against peaceful civilian demonstrators in the Great March of Return that began in the spring of 2018.

It is precisely because the Prosecutor (as Bensouda is referred to in the book) does NOT situate the Flotilla Incident within the ongoing agony of Gaza that Finkelstein has launched against her, in his new book, a devastating personal denunciation. Essentially, the book is a thunderbolt in the form of a legal document.

Read the full review here.