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Living in Gaza under the current circumstances is akin to being “sealed off from the world in the huge concentration camp,” American political scientist Norman Finkelstein told Al Arabiya English.
Speaking to Riz Khan in an exclusive interview, Finkelstein said the population of Gaza “sealed off from the world” is facing a “death sentence” following the long-time denial of aid – primarily food, water, fuel and medical supply.
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“If you deny any food, fuel, water or electricity to a captive population sealed off from the world in the huge concentration camp, then you are in effect issuing a death sentence on that population,” Finkelstein said.
“I would say personally that the Palestinians do not need recourse to the Nazi Holocaust, or any need to appropriate its terminology in order to demonstrate the magnitude of the horror that's being inflicted on Gaza,” he added.
The Holocaust was deemed a genocide against the European Jewish community during World War II on the hands of the German Nazis.
The term ‘Holocaust’ has been increasingly used by Israel to describe the event of October 7, which Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, calls a methodical cheapening of the word.
“Israel has systematically, methodically cheapened by over usage, by promiscuous usage, by politically driven usage of the term holocaust and the actual event of the Holocaust to the point that it has, I would say in my personal case, it doesn't even affect me anymore,” the American activist said.
“…the whole usage of the term holocaust has been reduced to a complete and total trivialization of what Jews endured during World War two,” he added.
The war, now nearly eight months in, erupted after the Palestinian militant group Hamas conducted a raid into an Israeli border town, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking over 200 hostage.
In retaliation, Israel has leveled city blocks and killed over 36,000 Palestinians, many of whom are reportedly civilian women and children.
In Finkelstein's view, the October 7 attack was an “inevitable” and “inexorable consequence” of keeping a millions-large population in a “concentration camp and leaving them there.”
Acknowledging that the Hamas attack was a “horror,” he added: “…after what Israel has done to the people of Gaza, it has forfeited its moral right to self-defense.”
Finkelstein is an American academic whose forthright analysis of the Israel-Gaza conflict has provoked strong opinions over many years. He's no less outspoken in this exclusive interview, in which he delivers his own hard talking judgment on the international courts, the ICJ and the ICC.
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