Thank you to Lew Rockwell for this video interview between Russell Brand and Norman Finkelstein.
Israel imposed a brutal economic blockade in 2006 on Gaza. The effect of that blockade was that nothing could go into Gaza, and nothing could come out of Gaza; no person could go into Gaza, and no person could leave Gaza without Israel's permission. Israel imposed in the course of that blockade a regime of starvation plus a diet on the people of Gaza that literally calculated the caloric intake of the people of Gaza and then allowed food to enter Gaza at a starvation-plus level. Gaza has suffered from among the worst economic deprivation, in particular, unemployment in Gaza. Among Gaza in general, it's about 50% of the population. Among youth, namely the people who burst the gates of Gaza, the unemployment is at a level of about 70%. About 97% of the water in Gaza is poisonous; it can't be drunk by the people. Now, if you add up all of these factors what do you get? And I really just skimmed the surface I haven't mentioned that half the population of Gaza comprises children. I haven't mentioned that 70% of the population of Gaza comprises refugees who were expelled from Israel in 1948 and their descendants I haven't mentioned that Gaza is among the most densely populated places on God's Earth I haven't mentioned that the young people who burst the gates of Gaza. Most of them were born into that place, which suffered from this economic blockade since 2006. So what do we get when we put all these factors together? Well, we take your own former British Prime Minister David Cameron, who now I understand is your Foreign Secretary. David Cameron described Gaza as an open-air prison. If you take Israel's senior security establishment officials he was the head of Israel's National Security Council, his name is Giora Eiland. And in March 2004, Giora Eiland described Gaza as "a huge concentration camp." And so what you saw on October 7th was young men who had been born into a concentration camp and had lived for 20 years of their lives in that concentration camp. But that's only half the story. The other half of the story is Israel periodically "mows the lawn" in Gaza. And what is "mowing the lawn"? "Mowing the lawn" is these high-tech massacres that Israel launches against Gaza. And a lot of people nowadays express the opinion that if Israel is conducting such massive death and destruction in Gaza, it's because of what happened on October 7th. Well it is true, it is true that the quantitative magnitude of the death and destruction in Gaza is at a new level. I wouldn't argue with that. No sane person would argue with that. But it's not true that the methods that Israel is employing in Gaza are new or that they suddenly emerged after October 7th. So I asked your colleagues to just print out, you have in front of you, a list taken from not a human rights report, not from the United Nations, but just random testimonies of Israeli soldiers who fought in Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Now I want you to bear in mind that this list comprises not soldiers who are peacenicks, not soldiers who feel guilty or remorseful about their actions; on the contrary, these soldiers just randomly describe what they did in Gaza. And I want to reiterate for your listeners, this is before October 7th. This is Standard Operating Procedure for Israelis each time they "mow the lawn" in Gaza. So I'm going to ask you, Russell, because by profession you're an actor, so you have a much better voice than me. Just for each testimony I'm going to ask you to go Soldier. Read one soldier, read the next because I think it's important for listeners to understand what drove those young men to burst the gates of Gaza, and, we have to be honest, committed atrocities. So if you don't mind, just read it for the listeners.
9:02. Reading page 219 from This Is How We Fought in Gaza: Soldiers Testimonies' and Photographs from Operation Protective Edge 2014, Breaking the Silence. I'll be asking you with the oppositional of you to everything that we are discussing here is you know when people say that Israel is the only country that has ever shown any sort of clemency to Palestine that there never was a nation of Palestine free 1947 all all of the common arguments so that we can even if that come up so that we can even have a conversation that has some tenacity and integrity to it these are the sources that Norman has requested that I use it.
Soldier 18: When we left after the operation, it was just a barren stretch of desert. We spoke about it a lot amongst ourselves, the guys from the company, how crazy the amount of damage we did there was. I quote, "Listen man, it's crazy what went on in there. Listen man, we really missed them up, fuck, check it out, there is nothing at all left . . . , it's nothing but desert now. that's crazy."
