so some commentators expressed doubt about politicians bringing props for their speeches iraq declared eighty five hundred leaders anthrax but aside from colin powells un security council justifications for mass killing in iraq it was iranians foreign minister speaking in munich who is keen for the world to note that netanyahu is participations about iran come at a tricky time for him israeli police are recommending that prime minister benjamin netanyahu be indicted on two corruption cases the recommendations follow a months long investigation into allegations of bribery well in the latest book by our next guest israeli prime minister netanyahu who denies all allegations comes under fire for more than just bribery joining me now i mean yet more bombing of palestine by the british armed israeli government is present moment finkelstein his latest book is called gaza an inquest into its martyrdom thanks so much norman coming back on the show israel back militarily by the u.k.

is again bombing gaza a sad time in this for the book. when i wrote the book i didn't expect that it would be timely i wrote it as a historic document because palestine and gaza in particular were falling off the news much to my surprise because the situation in gaza has reached the breaking point since two thousand and twelve the un reports have been saying it typically right will gaza be livable in twenty twenty then the next report i think it's going to be sooner than twenty twenty and now in the past month not just u.n. reports but israel has been saying gaza is on the brink of collapse we're reaching the point of no return and so there's a lot of desperation israelis fear that diseases break out in gaza they're going to spread to israel and so we're. turning point a crisis point not sure what you would want to call it to be essential fact as i

see it is this. seventy percent of the people of gaza are refugees more than half are children they're trapped there's no way up and the u.n. reports and even israel is saying the situation there is on livable now you use your own semantical imagination how would you describe a situation where people are paid into conditions which are literally on livable what word would you use i'm not going to use that word use your own imagination and that's the united nations relief and works agency put it it said gaza is unique in the world in this one regard wherever there is a natural catastrophe say there is drought. or a human made catastrophe say war in syria the people always have the option to

flee there's always the option to flee gaza is the one case the one instance in the world today where there are verging on an on livable situation that's not poetry that's a physical biological fact livable ninety five percent of the water in gaza is unfit for human consumption each day when a child drinks water the child is poisoning him or herself but they can't leave their caged in as your former prime minister put it gaza is an open air prison let's just skip through because i know you go through the day doctrine which is jewish lebanon and then explain who goldstone judge goldstone is and how initially he caused sadness than an uplifting feeling amongst those

who support the palestinians and then ultimately the tragic ending was an important moment and i hope you'll allow me to give you the time to explain under international law war crimes consist of three things disproportionate attacks indiscriminate attacks and targeting of civilians. those are equivalent under international law that is to say there is no hierarchy this proportionate force indiscriminate force and targeting of civilians are all considered equal war crimes along came goldstone goldstone had to resort to speak communities i mean even number one is a very respected international jurist i mean in the number two he's not only jewish but he's not jewish just by fortune he's proudly jewish he's very self identified as a jew number three he self identified this is zionist he doesn't run away from that label that's who i am he sits on the board of directors of the hebrew university in

jerusalem his daughter did what is called namely she when she went to israel for nationalistic reasons he is a bona fide zionist jewish respected jurist he produces a report and he crosses a red line it causes a red line he said the attacks were not in the sensually disproportionate and not essentially indiscriminate he said the purpose of operation cast lead was to punish humiliate and terrorize a civilian population in other words israel israel's objective was not military it was not targeting combatants it was not targeting military sites its objective was the civilian population that was a horse of a totally different color and just very briefly and then and then suddenly here we can judge well he came under huge attack personal attack professional attack

dredging up his past when he was a judge in south africa under the apartheid regime going for the moral juggler telling him he can't attend his grandson's bar mitzvah in south africa he's in south africa he was a south african citizen and still is comes under tremendous attack and then on. first two thousand and eleven which is a proof in the united states we all thought it was a prank open up the newspaper washington post he recounted the whole report because he said that he had underestimated the number of hamas military casualties because previously everyone had said how is it that hamas had been untouched by the british back warplane has strikes well killing songs goldstone claim that he recanted because of what he called new information that since he had published the report the report was published he came to new conclusions based on new information

i went through all the new so-called new information there was no new information it's very clear there was no new information i can even say i'll admit i can't prove it but i talked to a very respected jurist who knows goldstone very well very well he said there's no way he wrote that we can't in the washington post he knows his style this it was it was very murky calling from him because a large part of the book there goes on to write so i'm going to not let me get to the point after he recounted everybody got scared because in my opinion i can prove it again he recounted not because of the public pressure but because he was blackmailed the public pressure goes through the details it doesn't make sense i think it was blackmail he said of course. they found dirt on him everybody even the most you why amnesty international as well because after the goldstone

everybody got scared what is what is israel got enough because everybody's got a skeleton in their closet and even the most impeccable person has a relative who has a skeleton in their closet personal threats against i think over this i think there were personal threats or fear of personal threat and so what happens after. operation cast lead in two thousand and nine there were about three hundred human rights reports everybody was weighing in after operation protective edge in july august two thousand and fourteen which was many times worse in operation cast lead six thousand homes were destroyed during cast lead eighteen thousand during operation protective protective. three hundred fifty children killed during task led five hundred fifty children joined protective edge there were you know you could count on the fingers of two hands the number of human rights supports human rights watch put out

a substantial reports after operation cast lead after operation protective edge one skimpy forget about what i mean you do say it in the book planet of the national council and the state was the only one that actually weighed in after the operation protective five reports complete total disaster i want to just say because the city may be listening and i want to say i don't the book is not written with malice against amnesty i was so crush i was so devastated because i had depended on amnesty if you look at the first four chapters in operation cast lead a lot of it's based on amnesty they put out a very good report of the twenty two days of the. operation cast lead twenty to the death and destruction. stuff on protective edge you wanted to see you were like suffocating what are you doing here i'll give you one example. they put out

a report it's called families under the rubble and it describes israel's targeting of homes during operation protective and it says well israel destroyed all these homes many civilians were killed and they said attacks were disproportionate the attacks were indiscriminate but then they say we think there was a hamas militant in this house and we think it was a hamas militant in that house and we think it was a hamas militant as if as if this was a legitimate military attack that had become excessive but then you read the breaking the silence the israeli soldiers who were in gaza and they described what happened and what you see happened was. i'm using their words they go into a neighborhood they roped off the neighborhood they bring in the denying bulldozers and now this is the words they use they bring in the bulldozer they say the

bulldozer goes back and forth back and forth demolish is one house the now demolish is another house then it says demolish is a neighborhood back and forth twenty four seven back and forth they said it was as if there were enough sand box i don't know long comes amnesty and pretenses if there were legitimate military targets there was no one because i will just stop you there we're going to go to a break more from professional one because i'm in but you're going on the ground. elliston is getting international recognition with the help of israel at least in the world of zoos and to commission. you like you know that this is my

complicity is going to study all maybe you. know and i think that. the only palestinians is gets the most help from its jerusalem counterpart i don't think there's another israel in the world under that vision to look at it this way . and that is all of it that it's got to this lady of the most of the i know if you call tedium the custom she would do more. time piss off. welcome back we're still here with professor norman finkelstein and i just take us back to the eighty's the first intifada now that really we're now approaching the you quote you quote. yeah this is when britain labor and

tory governments were refunding them that they were trying shooting to kill shooting doing just beatings masseur rest torture trial detentions sanctions of course and yet they still keep on fighting a child is now in the news i had tamimi. hopes you think she getting a fair trial in the only democracy in the middle east there's no hope of her getting a fair trial if you look at the record in fact the that seldom. human rights organization for the occupied territories it has stopped cold water coordinate coordinating in code cooperating with the israeli military trials because it's just forces so we're not going to even bother anymore to go through the motions because all that does is provide a. smokescreen for israel that there's a legal. osas going on when there isn't so we can leave aside that it's a done deal she's not getting a fair trial but we have to look out the potential there is

a potential there the palestinians have basically tried three strategies they have tried to armed resistance that's gaza the fact of the matter is speaking honestly they want they went into combat with israel three times protected and most called pillar of the fence in the event by two thousand and twelve each time the goal was the same to end the siege then work it didn't work one of the and the brutal illegal immoral siege it didn't work the armed resistance is not produced the result the objective that they sought we all can agree it's now kind of not a discussion and a more diplomacy doesn't work it's a waste of time take all the fancy hotels they just talk and doesn't change and eventually america. seems to back that point about he'll still go to still go to the meetings because he likes the five star hotels but there his head has not the reason but that is the reason i'm not he is a complete imbecile which of this is

a serious possibility and he doesn't even realize that nothing is happening and sure he would say of a positive i write stories like. this. and then there's the third possibility which is mass nonviolent resistance and i do believe that there has potential in our live action or not i had to go after your book. and some people may wonder because obviously there was a one to one woman that hit israel and one against israel was always has will how will it what is no violence that you're talking about how does it fit in with gun the and with with military well let's be clear i am very in fact that in the book the palestinians have the right to arm resistance they have the right to fire. or so-called rockets at israel i do not waver i am not equal on that point i was. i would say they have the legal right

look at what the law says go through the law a very carefully they have the right to resist with armed force the israeli occupation and the israeli denial of their right to self-determination but there is a big has that separates what you legally have the right to do and what's politically prudent that is to say what works and i say in the book that although they have the legal right and i will not for a moment retreat in cowardice from that point i say politically it has not produced the results that were your announced objective namely to end the siege on the other hand i do believe that mass nonviolent resistance has the possibility let's take

a simple example the image that. illuminated the palestinian oppression during the first intifada was the little children with the stones the children of the stones as it was called and the national public opinion accepted the right of children to throw stones in the face of this is really killing machine they had the right to throw stones against israel the occupiers now imagine use your imagination for a moment the israelis were rage they were furious they were driven mad by this little girl i had them in me who smacks an israeli soldier how dare you smack and mention how they're the intermeshed in the subhuman smack and over mention and it's really. soldier and there were all these serious debates on israeli t.v. whether the soldier was showing i'm or over the shot whether the soldier was

showing how or this by not reacting to the girl imagine if the palestinians adopted the strategy every woman should smack a soldier smack a soldier today just like we have the meet to movement let them have a me too i snapped a soldier to the israelis would go mad they would kill men and i have an opportunity a possibility now that's according to gandhi by the way one of the things he says is if a woman is being raped and the woman to resist the rapist she smacks him she scratches him she pummels him gandhi says in my view that's not violence that's a person trying to summon the moral courage to die with dignity he says i don't call that violence he said when you have such a vast disproportion in power between the zero presser and the zero press when the

oppressed in cages and some kinds of what you might call symbolic resistance armed he said in my book that's not violence so he said in one nine hundred thirty nine the german vera mocked the army the aloof to invade poland. poland comes out with a few tanks a few artillery pieces to resist the german army and air force gandhi said that's not violence either now that is exactly what the palestinians a few token rockets or a young woman smacking a soldier who's been occupying humiliating degrading destroying the lives of people for fifty years five decades and she doesn't have the right to smack this person who invades her home kills her cousin you know you have that right even not leave

aside the international or even the apostle of nonviolence mahatma gandhi said you have that right i have no doubt none whatsoever if he were alive today and he was as you might know a strong proponent of what he called dr an arab rights and palestine it wasn't a palestinian rights arab rights in palestine and he was very emphatic in one nine hundred thirty six as you know there was the arab uprising against the british occupation of palestine and gandhi was asked about it and he said look i wish they would adopt the tactic of nonviolence i wish but he said according to the canons see an awareness according to the canons of right and wrong they have the right to use armed force in other words according to current legality and morality are people under occupation have the right he says i wish they would choose my strategy but they aren't under

a legal obligation to not resist the people of gaza they are under a legal obligation to just lay down and die. of blockade a blockade which is at the point of making the place on livable unlivable the whole international community knows it israel itself says it and they're supposed to lay down and die they don't have the right to resist now that makes no sense to me so i'm not going to fold them i'm going to say i don't think it's a wise or prudent strategy i think if you took the one million children of gaza you put them at the head of a mass demonstration and you marched in those checkpoints which are suffocating them which are strangling them strangulating them which are frightening them you

march in those checkpoints and you say we're going from room we're growing through i mean israel will have a very hard time when they kill children yes i'm not doubting it but the point is you're in operation protective and they killed five hundred fifty children people of gaza got nothing for it the blockade is still there the siege is still there i think if you bring a bring a million children and. you raise a legitimate demand. and the siege and the blockade this place is unliveable the water is poison this will kill maybe ten kids maybe i'll kill one where the way way before you reach five hundred fifty if they manage to stay nonviolent the people of gaza israel will be forced by international pressure to break the siege present on finkelstein thank you. joining me now to go through some of the

week's headlines is broke and former liberal democrat member of parliament lembit opec he wrote the headlines i have there some for you quick switcheroo u.k. prime minister meets the dutch pm today yes he last deserve foreign minister over putin so whether these connections that we've got between german corbin and something russian and salvi at and eastern and evil and evil you know that because it's in the mail online to reason made months jeremy corbyn authorized the release of his stars e-file after he was named in a foreign spy dossier as a contact for a check agent you can't get a much longer headline jack mate obviously you have it's just go i should because i was the first ever journalist in the style of the headquarters in the i didn't know in the brig through and told them to give the files safe so that we could find out things like keep them safe maybe you were trying to conceal the dirty secrets of jeremy court is your take on this story it's rubbish it's complete rubbish jeremy corbyn as never been afraid of his sympathy towards the left he was always

a peacenik in his past days before being an even meeting diplomats i mean sir oh of come to get the boris johnson story which we don't have here who's he me toyo this is the other point boris johnson's friend friend has been exposed as a spy too but that doesn't count because he's concerned if you imagine the russian hostage doesn't count it's just a little corbin because he did loves the russians well maybe boris johnson going to defend her father than day on friday to moscow and commemorate all the millions if fought against the nazis unlike was present to the. as a celebration of the bafta this event i want to get now enough ok anyway let's go to a bank seventy three percent owned by the u.k. taxpayer yesterday going well the herald reports r.b.s. never challenged infamous let customers memo says conduct report lots of secret documents have come out suggesting a certain lack of respect for customers including one suggesting that customers should be allowed to hang and another one saying that many of them are tiresome but

remain numerous have slightly embarrassing concern i was the head of the financial conduct of already not releasing this until the treasury committee in parliament ordered them to what exactly is going on with regulation involved here why don't you ask them because a lot of people are asking that same question this seems to be in the public interest because it suggests a certain attitude towards the customers who are bearing the brunt of the collapse of the british and frankly western banking industry they haven't really come forward yet there will be apologies there will be red faces but it does give an insight into how grateful the banks were for us bailing them out maybe if we took the twenty seven percent back as well the bank wouldn't be letting customers hang and i presume that wasn't literally let's not go to a tweet from a very senior figure in the turkish government yes this is a complicated story option colleen has tweeted he's a government spokesman jerkish an italian translate into english being chance they didn't says the news reports of people idea why p.t.

i'll explain that in a minute agreement with the regime on afrin or apparently for propaganda purposes however it does not mean there are not some secret and dirty bargains going on whatever happens zayton dali military action will continue taking place and it will reach its goal complicated to allow the turks in the truck that's right what's really underlying this is a web of intrigue which suggests that america's been fighting terror with terror there's another group called the p.k. k. which is regarded as a terrorist organization but american money american arms five thousand truckloads . weapons have somehow been poured into this mass presumably to fight assad but actually not really hasn't made much of an impact except to give the terrorists songs that's why it's so complex it's not that complex russia syria the united states working with the allies enough for and against britain and turkey no that's completely not the case nato civil war well it's nato civil war but it's not that

civil war within the civil war because it's not all clear why america is essentially backing both sides turkey is claiming that they're the ones who are sorting out the problem to some extent it looks like they're right but i'm telling you it's exactly the biased well i think it should be on the side of washington or mosco finally united accomplis you've just said it's against london now but anyway i meant ok self at the same time thank you that's it for the show will be back on saturday would be off the co-author of britain's twenty fifty modern slavery act the bishop of don't be jealous or redfern if the idea of modern slavery in a society now driven to use food banks and rules the poor till the social media what's your topic of the day of the death of marxist historian of the english revolution christopher hill author of the world turned upside down.

because an economy that's been created by financialization of everything and outsourcing manufacturing to countries like china totally at the ignore any nation that just made that word up means to ignore something. your local infrastructure bill now trumps saying we want to do infrastructure we've got to go borrow a trillion or two trillion dollars from whom our biggest creditor that would be china and china is owning all the cars in the twenty second century in america can't even get from point a to point b. yeah. there is now three hundred trillion dollars of sellable wealth in the world today when i look at how much money we spent in the world on military. we just talk

about a few more billion up. save the lives of people around the world in doing in such a way that doesn't create dependency it was that much wealth in the united states that much well. the rest of the world is a nice useable for any person in the world today you know to be out. of. it and.

the german tabloid is duped into publishing fake evidence of a russian troll farm supposedly meddling in germany's politics. as the hunt for russian votes continues twitter is believed to have blocked nearly a thousand accounts belonging to conservative americans. in medal winning up russian curlers who tested positive for a banned substance at the winter olympics decides not to take his case to sports high school. for the latest on the stories you can head to our team dot com the kaiser report is next looking at the expansion of china's high speed rail network and from watching in the u.k. stay with us for the financial news in. the mug.