Dr. Norman Finkelstein on Gaza and the Politics of Defining Violence
Dr. Norman Finkelstein argues that Gaza cannot be described as a “war” or an act of “self‑defense.” He says those labels hide what actually happened. In a war, armies fight each other. In Gaza, he notes, there were no real battles to point to. That absence, in his view, exposes the operation as something aimed at civilians, not combatants.
He compares this to how past uprisings—like Nat Turner’s rebellion—were stripped of context by those in power. The same pattern, he says, shapes how Palestinian resistance is framed. Violence by the oppressed is isolated and condemned, while the conditions…
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