Gaza’s Gravediggers: Finkelstein’s dissection of the institutions that enabled Israel’s genocide
Gaza’s Gravediggers
Ramona Wadi writes in The New Arab on 22 July, 2026:
Israel’s genocide in Gaza is heavily dependent upon rhetorical obfuscation of facts. From the highest echelons of international institutions and their officials to international human rights organisations, Palestinians in Gaza have been betrayed on several levels.
Norman Finkelstein’s latest book, Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places (OR Books, 2026) meticulously dissects reports and rhetoric to expose a corrupt web of impunity — one which would shame the UN, were it not an instrument of enabling, rather than preventing, Israel’s colonial violence.
Finkelstein commences with historical and political details that place Gaza under continuous scrutiny.
Noting Gaza’s obliteration since October 2023, Finkelstein writes, “But since Gaza emerged as a distinct entity after Israel’s ethnic cleansing in 1948, it’s always been a forbidding place.”
This detail in the book’s prologue is a stark reminder of how Gaza is perpetually portrayed. The more Gaza was portrayed as isolated, the easier it was for Israel to launch its periodic bombardments, which, as the author notes, each “typically picked up where the last one left off except at a qualitatively higher level of death and destruction.”
While Israel carried out its periodic ethnic cleansing, it was also able to sustain its narrative of Hamas as a threat, despite [the latter’s] attempts at diplomacy, cooperation with international law and endorsing popular peaceful resistance.