2728 - Trump's Desperate Midterms Ploy; The Architects Of Israel's Genocide w/ Norman Finkelstein

0:00It is Thursday September 10th, 2026. My name is Emma Vigeland, Infrasam Cedar, and this is the Five-Time Award-winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gawanas Canal in the heartland of America downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Norman Finkelstein, political scientist and author whose new book is entitled The Gaza Grave Diggers and Inquiry into Corruption in High Places. Also on the program, Breaking Good News, the Supreme Court just, again, blocked Missouri's Jerry Mandered Maps, meaning there will be two Democratic-leaning districts instead of one. Rhode Island incumbents toppled in last night's primary, Governor Dan McKee losing

1:06Handley and DSI member David Morales, who we had on this program, wins in Providence. On promises a $5,000 payment for every American if Republicans retain Congress, adding to his running list of checks he touts that never seemed to materialize. He also says the Iran War is going to end right after the midterms. Trust me, bro. Meanwhile, global oil prices hit their highest marks since July. Brent crude is over $100 a barrel again. The Saudis are feeling the pain in their shipping routes. As the Iran-aligned Houthis disrupt them, Saudi oil experts have plummeted in recent days. August just tied July 2023 as the hottest month on record.

2:07Ocean temperatures also. Hit record highs. Trump wants to overhaul the 2030 census to exclude immigrants from population totals. Nothing about the prisoners incarcerated for life, felons who can't vote in those Ruby Red districts, though. That's an incentive for Republicans to keep up mass incarceration. House Democrats are considering starting a select committee on AI if they take back the majority. Meanwhile, in another ominous sign for the economy, the Treasury Department says it's tripling its US debt buybacks to $6 billion. A coalition of rights groups is suing the Trump administration to stop the deployment of ice at polling places this midterm cycle. And lastly, Israel killed a family of four, including two little girls in Gaza yesterday.

3:07Call this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show everybody. It's an M majority report Thursday. Brian is out today, which is a rarity. Brian works hard. I wouldn't say that to his face, but he does. So it's just myself and Matt today. Hello, Matt. Hello, Emma. We will get right into it. I'm excited to have Norm on. Obviously, Norm is a bit of a legend as a scholar, but also as a media personality. And so I'm very much looking forward to our discussion. But let's start here. Trump had a surprise for the rest of the Republican Party yesterday. A surprise midterm promise. And by promise, I mean lie. He at this non convention last night, the Republicans threw a fake convention in Dallas. Also, yes.

4:08Sort of Hassanabi Instagram picture viewing party. Oh, yes. The totally not gay Republicans decide to put one of Hassan's thirst traps on the jumbo tron. I cannot wait to get that story. I did blur out his underwear. Right. Right. Well, you know, I mean, you got to leave a little bit to the imaginase. Exactly. Exactly. Can you imagine whenever you want down there? Right. Well, and everybody on their iPhone, all of those straight Republican men just Googling more thirst traps from Hassan out of Dallas. I'm sure it was just like red hot down there. We should check on that grinder activity as well. But people already have it's blowing up. Oh, no way. It's a little like that happens every time. But this is not a real convention that they held. Conventions usually have like distinct set purposes to discuss party business, make rule changes. But this was essentially a rally. And it's a rally that a lot of Republicans in Congress don't want to be associated with because Trump's brand right now is toxic.

5:12Like he is losing his grip. You have frontline Republicans. We said this the other day, taking down mentions to Trump and his movement from their website, de-emphasizing it as well. And so what can Trump do here to try to salvage what is increasingly looking like a devastating midterm cycle for the Republican Party? Well, I'm going to promise Chex for every American here he is yesterday. But the only condition on the payment of this dividend that we're going to be making. It's $5,000 to every adult, the only caveat I have is that the dividend that we're making must be spent in the United States of America. We don't want you. We don't want you going to Canada to spend the money.

6:12We don't want you going to China, to Germany. China. You got to spend the money in the United States of America. In other words, if the Republicans win, if you win, we might not win. The reason the Democrats can't do that is because they don't do tariffs, they don't take in money. All they know is poverty and how to ruin our country. But we're making a fortune. So if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000, it will be called the Trump dividend. We'll call it the Trump dividend. Okay. I love when he says Democrats don't do that. He's lost control of the narrative because the Republicans are supposed to claim that the first Trump stimulus check under COVID with his name on it was good. But the Biden ones were inflationary. So both parties apparently do do these dividends and cash payments, but Biden did it wrong and he's about to do it right. We're publicly worth. With strings attached, how do these conditions work? Exactly.

7:12I want to take a vacation with that because of my hard work in America that doesn't get the opportunity to do that. But all of a sudden I got $5,000 in my bank account time to go someplace. I have to go to America. What are you going to use like AI to make sure I don't spend it on like, I don't know. Some import, that's cruel. I mean off to get more you go. Cool. I mean, I love, I would just like the practicalities of that. How they're going to make sure we spend it in America. That's my favorite thing is that Trump says Democrats don't do tariffs. So they don't know essentially how to take care of you. All they care about is poverty. Now, you might be getting into this, but the tariffs aren't going to be able to pay for a trillion dollar spending thing like giving every move. No, no, no. Like the first of all, let's just be clear. Trump has now lied I think four or five times about payments that are never coming at least three times because we'll see if Republicans retain the Senate and the House on these

8:13razor, razor than margins, perhaps he'll follow through on this. It's not happening. But he, the, the, he promised $5,000 stimulus checks via the doge dividend that never materialized, of course. He promised $1,000 stimulus checks or checks rather because of ACA subsidies expiring. Those never came. And then he was also promising $2,000 stimulus checks for the tariff dividend. And when you speak about those tariffs, like speaking of them, before the liberation day tariffs were overturned by the Supreme Court, the Yale Budget Lab estimated that that cost the average US household between $3,800 and $4,000, $4,700 annually. So $3,800 to $4,700. And now that he, those, most of them were deemed unconstitutional, it's a mere average of 1,300 to 1,400.

9:13But still, the CBL looked at it and it showed that the consumers are paying 95% of the domestic cost of these tariffs. So the idea here that Trump is in some way generating revenue from other countries to give back via these $5,000 is that will never come. It's just not the truth. He's already taken the money from the Americans. And the Supreme Court said that the money taken under the liberation day tariffs was supposed to be refunded. And that's not going to the American public. Those are going to the corporations. And that's what we're seeing right now. And so even Fox News had to point out that Trump might be lying once again. Here they are. And this is interesting, given what we've, the Janine Piro news, or an Achenine Piro, Maria Bartoromo, I'm sorry. You're going to get them confused. Yes. The Maria Bartoromo news where she leaked something to Trump and that they weren't going to cover

10:16one of his speeches. Yes. And Murdoch got caught wind of this and is like, okay, we love Trump because he's got to make us rich. But if we're I'm the boss. I'm the boss like, exactly. I mean, Rupert Murdoch sees himself as more important than Donald Trump. Yeah, that's quite simple. Yeah. And so I do think that this is something notable that Fox News is even fact checking Trump on this. Here is one of their anchors, Jackie Heinrich, who by the way is married to a Republican Congressman, Brian Fitzpatrick. So he was a former FBI agent. But I believe she's an objective journalist. Here she is. Republicans hold on to both chambers, $5,000. He characterized it as a dividend saying the only caveat is that it has to be spent in America. We should note though, it is not the first time he has promised a cash payment like this. He promised Americans $2,000 rebates during his tariff policy when that was enacted.

11:17After court challenges to the tariffs themselves, those $2,000 checks so far have not materialized trade. So far they haven't. The fact that she's married to a Republican who I think he's a more moderate and he might be in danger with this kind of thing is interesting that she's the one delivering this fact check on Fox News. At least when Democrats promise $2,000 checks you get like 70% of it. Right. No, they would say that as uncouth, we're bribing people, we're bribing people. But remember like the Georgia Senate races were won based on that. Yes. The $2,000 checks. Well, we're giving you $1,400. That's the top of your previous six. And I'm seeing some people even on the left character as this as a bribe. And I don't like that framework because promising material gains for people should be politics 101. The point is that he's just lying. Exactly. That's the thing is like this is a desperate attempt. But it is notionally in the right direction of we have an epit like a crisis of capitalism

12:18and inequality in this country. Yeah. And people are like, well, what if you give them people checks and they'll cause inflation? That means that those prices for those goods and the production for those goods was got artificially low because people couldn't afford them. That is no way to have an economy. There should be there might be a little bit of inflation in things like that everyone needs and then guess what? There'll be deflation in luxury goods because we'll tax rich people and won't have money to afford to drive prices up on that stuff. It will all balance out. Exactly right. And so here Fox News is asking Martha McCollum, sorry, asking JD Vance about this. This is Martha McCollum asking about the dividend. And if this is an acknowledgement that the Iran war is not going that well and that this gas price crisis that we're seeing as I mentioned, global oil prices hit their highest mark in six weeks. Brent crude is over $100 a barrel and the Houthis are disrupting Saudi oil flows, which is going to only further impact the price of gas.

13:20So this is a contributing obviously to the affordability crisis. And here is McCollum asking Vance about that. You know, is the rebate that's being discussed in some ways and an acknowledgement that the war is not going to be over for a while. Gas prices are likely to be elevated for some time. And this is sort of a way to alleviate some of that pain for Americans. I think it's what the president said exactly that we've created a lot of prosperity. If the American people give Republicans another chance to govern, we're going to create more prosperity. And we want the American people to share in that prosperity. Again, we have for 40 years, mind if there's so much prosperity, why aren't they sharing it? But anyway, life. The basic bipartisan economic policy consensus is that it didn't matter if we shipped American jobs overseas. What the president has done is say that if you want to undercut the wages of American workers, if you want to ship American factories overseas, you have to pay a big fat tariff to bring that stuff back into our country. That's done two things. One, it generates some revenue for the federal government.

14:21But more importantly, it's cost $20 trillion of new investment to come into our country. I don't think the dividend really is about Iran at all. I think it's about the American people and a recognition that when you create wealth and prosperity, we want all Americans to be able to participate in it. Mr. Vice President, thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. As I just laid out though, the tariffs are not generating the revenue that he says. And where it is generating that revenue is being born disproportionately by the American consumer, something as I, like 95% says the CBO. Of prices that are born by the American consumer from these tariffs. But yes, the economy is doing incredibly poorly, even though we're going to, we have this AI bubble and yeah, the stock market might still be roaring. There is this submerged labor issue. We talked about it last week, I believe, there was this report that the CBS streamer actually

15:25covered showing that something like 25% of Americans are functionally unemployed or 24% to 25% under employed, working gig jobs, not having a level of full employment, etc. Here is Sahil Kapoor of NBC. It is now the least rewarding time to be a worker in the U.S. economy since the government started keeping track when we look at there, the labor share. So business is taking home a disproportionate amount of returns and workers are getting less and less and Trump is trying to bribe people by lying. I mean, it's only a bribe because he's lying about it. What he can actually provide for people. One final point that we get to know. But like Rocon and Bernie Sanders have a bill to tax billionaires and give a family of $12,000. The party should be foregrounding voices like those instead of heming and hind, about how

16:27we're going to just undo everything that Trump is doing. Exactly right. In a moment, we'll be talking to Norm Finkelstein, but first a word from our sponsors here. Trust in Will is one of our favorite sponsors. Sam swears by Trust in Will because he's got kids, he had to start thinking about this kind of thing. And even if you don't have kids, you've got dependents and other loved ones that might have to deal with something, a situation that people don't want to think about, but we're all going to pass on. And it's such a relief to have peace of mind when you use trust in will. It's easy and convenient. Trust in Will offers affordable attorney design, state specific estate plans online that you can create in as little as 30 minutes. Trust in Will is the most trusted name in online estate planning. If you need expert input, attorney support is available as an add-on to your plan. The website is just super, the interface is super easy to use and functional. Trust in Will's platform makes it easy to create a will or trust.

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21:01We are back and we are joined now by Norman Finglesign, political scientist author whose new book is entitled Gaza Grave Diggers and Inquiry into Corruption in High Places. Norm thanks so much for coming on the show today. And I appreciate you sticking with us through some of the technical difficulties but we have you on audio. I just wanted to start really at the beginning of your book. You open with quotes from as far back as the 1950s, one from a UN official describing Gaza as a concentration camp and then you move on to the story of Nat Turner slave rebellion

22:04here in the US which resulted in the deaths of over 50 white people. And I was struck by how you write about how Turner was characterized by white people in this country in the aftermath as a kind of crazed religious fanatic. He reminds me of the characterization of Hamas and their motivations of course on October 7th. These are ways that oppressors can try to defang the legitimate claims of the oppress by saying they're motivated by this irrational zealotry. If you could describe that dynamic more broadly as it relates to Israel's genocide. The first thing to say is Nat Turner was a religious fanatic. So it was John Brown a religious fanatic. That doesn't in my opinion disqualify the legitimacy of their grievances and grievances

23:05obviously is the euphemism when you're enslaved or you're in mirrored in the concentration camp. It's the idiom that he used that's the idiom that came naturally to Nat Turner and it's the idiom that came naturally to the Hamas organization for expressing its indignation at the situation in which they found themselves. So that's one side. The other side is, as you've already mentioned, of course that's used as a pretext for dismissing the legitimate grievances namely that there are religious zealots, there are fanatics. But nobody takes that very seriously in situations where your interests are at stake. Many rational person, reasonable person would understand from when a spring not Turner's

24:06indignation or from when spring his actions wasn't some irrational to use current language religious fundamentalism. It was the situation in which he was born into in which he was languishing in and in which he was faded to die. That's anyone looking for the truth rather than trying to disguise the truth or distract from the truth. It's not complicated. Nat Turner's one of his biographers, he wrote that at its essence what motivated Nat Turner was this, Nat Turner by everybody's reckoning, black people, white people, he was a very

25:10smart guy. That's not in dispute. And his biographer writes, at core what motivated Nat Turner was the huge chasm that separated who he aspired to be in this is only earthly existence and what he was fated to be. Namely, a slave. And I don't believe that or I do believe that those words apply with comparable force to the militants who were, who burst the gates of Gaza on October 7th. This huge chasm between what each and all of them aspired to be and the fate that was

26:17the queeth to them to be born into the languishing and to die a slave or in the case of the militants born into a concentration camp languishing in a concentration camp and fated to die in it. And focusing on the character of the rebellion is a way to obscure the power dynamics that are inherent to the situation and say demonize, of course, those involved. I found also your emphasis here to be so applicable when we're skipping forward a little bit, but when we're looking at your book's investigation of the claims of Hamas using a mass rape as a weapon of war on October 7th.

27:20And your book looks particularly at the two UN inquiries, but it's hard not to think about how Southern papers in this country characterize black people as inherently violent and threats to white women as well. And that same framework of racism really was applied to these inquiries and this, the whole claim of mass rape on October 7th. So I guess let's skip to that part. What made those inquiries unique and what makes the nature of their conclusions so unusual? First of all, there's an oddity in this whole rape, the Hamas rape hoax. Israel already had a strong case on October 7th for agreements, namely around 1200 people

28:23were killed roughly of those about 850 were civilians, 350 were combatants. Israel didn't need the rape hoax in order to prosecute its case. It was in many ways it was gratuitous. But Israel's propaganda is never directed at its own population. Its own population is ready willing and able to commit genocide at the moment at the bed of a night. They aimed propaganda at the United States and they knew that the rape propaganda would quickly gain traction here, which it did and would quickly resonate for historical reasons here. So they decided to make the rape allegation, the red line, the litmus test.

29:26If you don't believe this allegation then you are akin to a Holocaust anir. So in many ways it was a kind of self-inflicted wound because the claim was false and now unfortunately I believe the fact that this claim has proven false will end up making everybody doubted anything happened on October 7th. But it did happen. My view when I said this to a member of Hamas, a senior member who I was occasionally in correspondence with over the years, not recently. I don't even know where he is or whether he's even still alive. But I said to him, don't go down the denial path because nobody is going to believe you. What you should do is try to explain what happened and why it happened.

30:33But now I think many people are going to conclude from the fact that Israel made the rape hoax, it's litmus test and it proved to be false. I believe many people are going to erroneously conclude that the whole thing was made up. The whole October 7th was made up by Israel as it's now claimed by marginal people and that it was Israel implemented a Hannibal directive and it was Israel that was responsible for overwhelmingly the deaths. Now there's no evidence that they implemented the Hannibal directive, yes that's correct. But one has to be clear I believe. 1200 people is a large number. It's a large number. And the idea that Israel killed all those people I find that implausible. So yes.

31:33So it was a hoax, it is a hoax and the more Israel tries to prove it wasn't a hoax as in its latest report put out by this body call the Israeli Civil Commission. The more it tries to prove that it happened, the more it ends up proving it didn't happen. This rape and other forms of sexual violence instrumentalized as a weapon of war never happened. And it is I think also striking how you saw different institutions here in the West pick up these claims quite aggressively. The New York Times was instrumental in furthering this narrative with their screams without word article that like the UN Commission inquiry did not include direct victim testimony.

32:41And then the subsequent Sheryl Sandberg screams before silence produced documentary which also use I think the filmmaker from the original New York Times reporting in the production of that documentary. What do you make of how quickly you know Western media institutions backed up this claim and ran with it for propaganda purposes? I think that you have to understand in my opinion it's a combination of factors. Everyone there's the woke element that in the era of me to believe women if you don't you must be some sort of demonic individual. It's very hard to fight back against those sorts of allegations without seeming to be somehow

33:45in the quote unquote Trump camp and being somehow indifferent to the allegations of rape and sexual violence. So that just kind of comes with the turf. I don't believe that's the whole explanation. Most of the human rights organizations and UN organizations. Most of them are headed by liberal secularist individuals. And they harbor a deep animus towards Islamic organizations or Islamic movements and so forth because of their practices and also their ideology when it comes to women gay rights and so forth. So there's already inherently a kind of animus towards organizations like Hamas.

34:56They assume I'm not saying wrongly but they assume that these organizations consist of wife beaters, people who treat women in an oppressive manner so they don't like them. You know I've found this stuff for longer than you care to know. And there's always been a different standard when it came to violations of human rights in the West Bank and in Gaza. When you go to the West Bank you go to Ramallah that's where all the NGOs go. It's very modern, it's very secular. It could be any Western city. Men are very quote unquote liberate, emancipate, secular and so forth. The human rights organizations immediately resonate with the Ramallah reality.

36:04But there've always been in my opinion, there've always been unduly condemnatory of Hamas where the facts just don't support it. I've written a lot about it, I go through the record with what they're saying is just not true. So there's that secular liberal bias that comes into play. There is the woke element that comes into play. There are other things but those are I believe are the principal reasons. Look, you could say Hamas is not enlightened when it comes to the rights of women and the rights of women and the rights of sexual minorities. Of course you could say that it's actually correct. I might have creed on life is you don't quarrel with facts.

37:06You don't quarrel with any facts. You could say they have benited views on the question of women and sexual minorities. But you also could say what was touted by Israel didn't happen. They didn't have the courage to do that because as I said you immediately get discredited as being benited yourself if you make the claim that it just didn't happen. Certainly. And I would should have meant that to say yes. There's no evidence that happened. And it could know that happened as they said it did. They claimed that Hamas and other Milton groups and instrumentalized rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. They repeatedly said that these acts of rape and sexual violence were widespread.

38:09That couldn't have happened. About that we could say with certainty because they themselves say we have 10,000 that's the current number. We have 10,000 photographs and digital segments from October 7. That includes CCTV, traffic cameras, body cams, dash cams from Hamas militants, Gulf Pros, iPhones, 10,000 segments and photographs, digital segments and photographs is not a small number. They say it would take 1,800 hours to view all of that digital photographic evidence. You know what 1,800 hours is? If you were to sit down 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, you know how long it would take

39:15you to look at all of that digital photographic evidence, it would take you more than 7 months. There is, now they claim that the rape and sexual violence was instrumentalized and widespread. But one basic fact, irrefutable fact, there is not one single image, not one, not one single photograph, not one single digital segment of Hamas committing rape or sexual violence, not one. But you conclude from that, there is no forensic evidence or the first person to give testimony. Yes, exactly. Okay, so then we get to personal testimony, if a survivor testimony, if we take October 7 itself, there is only one person, a male who stepped forward and said he was raped.

40:17The Israelis discount him. He's seen there is a grifter because he's suing the state for negligence for several tens of millions of dollars, along with others. So he's not taken seriously in Israel. So we don't have a single survivor of rape who has stepped forward. Now the arguments are of the sort, they're traumatized and this and that, well Israel is a very, it's self-described as a liberty sexually frank country. You would have to ask a self-obvious question, why did Palestinian men and women find it in them to testify that they were objects of sexual violence and rape, but allegedly Israelis couldn't do, couldn't find it in themselves to do that.

41:18That's very strange. Now Hamas, excuse me, Gaza is sexually very repressed, nobody disputes that. You could say it's repressed, you could say it's conservative, however you want to put it. But we have many testimonies from Hamas men and women about rape and sexual violence. We have many tests, but not one from an Israeli survivor of October 7th. Then we turn to the hostages. Only one person has stepped forward, her name is Anatsusana, who was touted, presented, paraded as the poster girl of Hamas rape. But when you read her actual testimony, she does not say she was rape.

42:18She said I experienced extreme sexual violence, okay fine, what is it, what happened? She doesn't say it. So I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows, but the bottom line is very clear. Only one survivor testimony claiming rape, but he has been dispute dismissed by the Israelis. Not only one survivor testimony from among the hostages, and when you read her testimony, she does not say she was rape. Yes, and the male part of it I think is important when we're talking, you're talking about the audience for this, being Americans. I mean, this is, you bringing up Nat Turner's Rebellion and writing about that at the beginning of your book is just a great framework to view this, where there is Israeli women are

43:24considered Western and white, and there is a concerted effort to portray Palestinians as savages motivated by an irrational religiosity, and you see the same framework as applied to Iran, even from our members of the administration here about how they can't negotiate with the Iranians because they're too irrational. And this, to me, at the very least, when you compare it to the Israeli sexual violence, the level of rape and sexual violence in Israeli prisons towards Palestinians, which has been extensively corroborated, you have to ask questions about the methodology, and you do so in your book. One part that stood out to me was when you were looking at the UN Commission and how they designated this kind of violence. There was one part in your book where these Hamas militants on October 7th, they were getting

44:27holding onto hostages on motorbikes, and that's described as coerced intimacy and gender-based violence. And you have to wonder, like, what is the assumption there is that being touched by, this is obviously a war crime, these kidnappings, it's horrendous, it's traumatizing, but the idea that that constitutes sexual violence, I think, gives away the game as to what they're trying to portray here. I think they're doing two things. Number one, it's an instinctive racism. I mean, I don't use the word racism very often. I find it's cheap and bite overuse, but this was just, it was just, maybe it was conscious, or maybe it was unconscious, conjuring up this image of being touched or physical proximity to this dark-hued Arab and Muslim. And secondly, so there's that, as I said, could be conscious, could be unconscious, I can't

45:31tell you. I'm not inside, not be police-head. She was the head of commission of inquiry. She is of Indian descent from South Africa. But the other thing is, look, the whole claim was completely ridiculous. The claim was when the Amas militants were leaving Gaza with the hostages, they seated a woman between two men. And just the mere fact of being in physical proximity with a man, constitutes sexual violence. So I write in the book, we all know, I write in the book, a hostage taking is a war crime. There's no argument about that. But that being said, if you're going to take hostages, is it a new rule of international law? You have you taking a woman hostage? You have to hire an over?

46:32I mean, it's just laughable. But the other thing is, what happened was the commission was grasping extras, because it felt intimidated by mislippness tests, either you acknowledge Hamas committed sexual violence or else you're one of those who don't believe women. So they knew there was no forensic evidence of sexual violence and rape. They knew there was no digital or photographic evidence of Hamas having committed sexual violence or rape. So how do you make the charge stick because you feel intimidated? You don't want to fail that mistest without evidence. So they had the contra or evidence. So there happens to be digital evidence of women between two Hamas meldans leaving on

47:37a motor scooter. We have our digital evidence. So let's call that sexual violence or gender based sexual and gender based items. So they were just grasping extras because they wanted to pass out mistest. And so they came up with just completely ridiculous examples. If you're a combatant, you don't get a special dispensation because you're a woman. So if you get roughed up as a combatant, that may constitute some sort of war crime. If you get roughed up. But you don't get to call that sexual violence. Like women don't get to be physically touched in a war. No. Other people don't get a special dispensation. I'm serious. No, I know. It's if you're an Asian, is there something in the Geneva Convention? It says Asians get a special dispensation because they're sure.

48:43Is there a special dispensation for older people? No. No. Once you've enlisted, you have to be bound by the Geneva Convention. But that doesn't mean special dispensations. Now it is true. It is true. Under international law, there are special protections for women. But not in combat. If you're a woman taken prisoner, that you have special, hygienic bodily needs, that those incarcerating you have to take into account. But you don't get not to be touched because you're a woman. You don't get not to be handcuffed because you're a woman. This is just as I said, it's the grasping at straws because they know there's no case. Yes. And also it's the racism.

49:44You see it. It's like suing the MTA, the Metropolitan Transit Association, which runs mass transit in New York City, suing the MTA for gender, sexual and gender-based violence because women have to stand in propensity in the presence of African-Americans at rush hour. I mean, that's what you're saying. Yeah. You have your forced, now they say, well, you're not really forced. Of course, you're forced. It's rush hour. You want to get to work. So it's coerced intimacy, isn't it? That's a, you're in a train in the subway car and you're surrounded by three African-American men. Do you get to sue the MTA for coerced intimacy? It's idiotic. And not delay knows better. She was the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

50:47They were desperate and they called them out because it was an abdication of responsibility. Certainly. Your book also goes on to also critique the ICJ dissent to South Africa's case. Talk a little bit about that and the one of the 17 judges that presented this dissent, this Ugandan judge. Speak a little bit about this judge's disagreement with essentially everything submitted by the South African legal team and what, how this judge seemingly came to that determination. Well, first of all, we have to set the context very surprisingly to me.

51:47When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I didn't think there was a snobull's chance in hell that the ICJ would find that is where it was plausibly committing genocide. I just missed the idea. It's completely ridiculous. A squandering of time. A waste of energy. Don't go there. I mean, we're talking about governments which would never, ever find Israel plausibly committing genocide. And on top of that, the president of the court, Joan Dunnehue, was an American. So how could it come to pass that this court, which was already in Israel's pocket, a large number of them? Not all, obviously, but a large number, the French judge, the British judge, the German judge, the American judge, didn't look good. And once they start applying the pressure, saying to other judges, you better fall along

52:51with us or you know there's going to be retaliation by our government. You figure the whole jury is rigged. I was very surprised. I was wrong. And I have to always acknowledge who I'm wrong. The vote was not even close. And the American judge went along with it. There was only one dissent about what the Israel's plausibly committing genocide. And that's this character named Julius Sevatindi from Uganda. I don't want to overburden your listeners now. I devote a hundred pages of the book, not a small number, in order to demonstrate that she was either a bribe or blackmailed by Israel or she's a crazed fanatic. Oh, one of those three.

53:52And it could easily obviously be a combination of the three. Now in answer to your question, here's the problem. You can't discuss her jurisprudence. You can't. I should point out there were many cases before the ICJ pretending to the Israeli genocide, just to go through them quickly for you. There was a case in January, March, and May on the genocide claim. Then there was a case before the court of whether Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza had become illegal under international law. For your listeners sake, I would point out that the court did decide that the occupation was illegal and it was quite a stunning verbal fact.

54:57I don't want to speak now about its practical consequences, a stunning verbal fact that the UK's foreign secretary Ed Miliband, he stated a couple of days ago, we concur, we agree with the ICJ advisory opinion that the occupation is illegal. That was a momentous verbal step. I'm not saying practical consequences. In any event, there was that case and then there was a more esoteric case. Whether Israel was bound to co-operate, legally bound to co-operate with UNRA, the United Nations relief and works agency, in its operations in Gaza, the court ruled that it was bound to co-operate with UNRA.

55:58So as you could see, the genocide case in January, it then continued to march, then continued to May, the legality of the occupation case, the UNRA case, you cannot characterize what Judge Sabatindi wrote, you cannot characterize it as jurisprudence. It was just completely crackpot. It was the equivalent of a Holocaust denier or a flat earther or somebody who's arguing now in 2026 that slavery is still legal in the United States. It was that out to lunch.

56:58But as Rahul Hilbert once said, the greatest story of the Nazi Holocaust, the greatest story of the Nazi Holocaust, the greatest scholar on the Nazi Holocaust, he once said the Holocaust did happen, however, trying to prove it is not easy. The Holocaust did happen, but trying to prove it is not easy. In the, he wrote the classic three-volume study of the Nazi Holocaust, a breathtaking, breathtaking piece of scholarship. In the same case with Judge Sabatindi, she is a crackpot or a crook, one or the other, a crackpot or a crook, and probably both a crackpot and a crook. But trying to prove it is not easy. And it took me about a hundred pages in order to leave her in no wiggle room.

58:00I won her ousted from the court. I mean, I should say, I believe she should be ousted from the court. And I believe that if I force it as a public issue, and that depends on me getting cooperation, she will be ousted because I didn't leave any wiggle room. I didn't, it took a hundred pages, but I left no wiggle room. And it's not an, it's not an irrelevant issue at this point because the court has not yet ruled on what's called the merits of the genocide allegation by South Africa. What it ruled so far in January, March and May is that it's plausible that Israel is perpetrating genocide. And therefore, we have to take some measures before we come to the merits face and this

59:01face and decide whether it's genocide. That we have because the merits face is going to take place many years later. Now we need the technical term is indicate provisional measures, which is just like the equivalent, you know, in the United States of a preliminary injunction. You haven't yet proven your case, but there seems to be enough evidence that we have to worry that it's true. So the man has to be separate from the woman, you know, a preliminary injunction in a spousal battery case. We haven't looked at the evidence closely, but there's enough evidence to indicate there may be a, this charge may be true. And it's the same thing. We've gone through the stage of indicating provisional measures like a preliminary injunction, but we now have to go to the merits face, whether or not on scrupulous analysis of all

1:00:02the evidence, we can conclude that Israel committed a genocide. And I would like to see Judge Sabitindi remove from the court before we get to that face, because I think that she is an Israeli agent. It seems like the evidence is overwhelming and you do make that case very thoroughly and compellingly in your book. We have a viewer writing in Kentucky leftist says that they, he just got your book two days ago and has only read the prologue thus far, but it's already blown away by the comparison between Hamas and the Nat Turner rebellion. So Norm, there's some audience members already enjoying your book and hopefully more as they listen to this interview. I just have a question or two for you, one or two more questions. I want to just go back a little bit because you touch on the campus protests here in the United States at the beginning of your book. You take the time to herald them and compare them to the Vietnam war protesters, but you

1:01:04lay out how this current group of students protesting the Gaza genocide are more likely to be deeply indebted with student loans facing a very precarious economic situation and they have been facing doxing by groups of private individuals, billionaires like Robert Kraft and Bill Ackman. These are mafia intimidation tactics, but would it be fair to describe this level of coordination by some of these wealthy Zionists as an act of organized but legitimized criminality against some of these students? I said over and over again, they resorted the black male weapon. You added some other elements, well overall, there are other elements, but overall it was black male. They told the universities in no uncertain terms either you crush the encampments or withdrawing our alumni contributions or we're not continuing with our alumni contributions and there was

1:02:05a lot of money. You know, in the case of Harvard, one alumni, one alumni gave Harvard $200 million. The alumni gave Harvard $300 million. Bill Ackman gave Harvard $50 million. So we're talking about significant sums of money that were being the withholding of which was threatened by these Jewish supremacists' billionaires. And then there was the other element which you alluded to which was the sorts of threats and realized threats against the students. Everything ranging from suspension or should say everything ranging from nothing able to prevent it from attending graduation, to suspension, to expulsion, to kidnapping.

1:03:08I asked the foreign students who were kidnapped. And then there was, those were the extreme, they'll not trivial extreme forms of repression. But then there were things like, they didn't just, let's say, if you take Harvard, they didn't just have a truck going around with pictures of the students who were participating in the encampments and calling them terrorists and giving them, giving information how to contact them. You know what they did? I mean, you're going to find just unbelievable. They had trucks go to the homes of the parents of the students, 500 miles away. And go through the neighborhoods with the pictures of the students. Now you know, my parents were on the far left of the political spectrum.

1:04:08They were all the spectrum. They were, you know, their politics. But if they had pictures of me going through the neighborhood, they would have killed me. They would have killed me. And then there were just the basic financial considerations, parents telling their children, hey, we're not giving you 80,000, we're not paying $80,000 in tuition for you to get expelled. That's not going to happen. So you have to decide, is it Gaza or is it God our college? It's going to be one for the other, but it's not going to be both. Yeah. Exactly. And that's why in the end, we have to be honest about the total picture, what they did was deeply heroic and moving. But the fact is they caved in very fast.

1:05:08The encampments disappeared and you know what else? Gaza disappeared for the next two years. The last two years in the college campus, nobody others would work about Gaza. You have to also say during the Vietnam War era, there was nowhere near that level of repression when it came to campus protests, nothing near it. I did know some students who were expelled, I have to be honest about that. But no, in general, we were able to fight for our right to protest. That right was lost in the spring of 2024. They lost the right to protest. It was a huge, a huge step back. Under the Democratic administration at that time. Yeah, I would mind going now. Trump weaponized it to go after DEI and all sorts of other things. But the core, the point of the spear was Biden.

1:06:10Absolutely. The Biden administration. Lastly, Professor, I just wanted to get your perspective on how, you know, this genocide has been so extensively documented, live streamed. I mean, in the day after October 7th, we were in tears here, just understanding what was about to happen and the hell that was going to be unleashed and how clear Israeli officials were being in their intentions and still somehow the level of sadism and destruction took me by surprise, even with that understanding. There's a lack of plausible deniability here that is so striking within and for Israeli society. I wonder how you can describe the uniqueness of that lack of plausible deniability and what Israeli society is doing with that very dynamic.

1:07:10There are two things to be said. Number one. It's not historically unprecedented. Look at our own country. The extermination of the Native Americans, which was in broad daylight, the expulsion and extermination, you would be very surprised, I believe, how little sympathy it evoked among white people. I'm talking about the best of white people. When you read Frederick Douglass, a Native Americans, it's not a pretty picture. When you read the great abolitionist Charles Summler, when it comes to Native Americans, not a pretty picture. The number of Americans who in the face of, or I should say, the user expression, without any plausible deniability, who went along with the expulsion extermination of American

1:08:16of the Native population. In the absence, with the exception of a handful of people, was nearly everybody. Do you know virtually every American president from George Washington up to Abraham Lincoln? No, no. Up to, it ends around 1911, 1912. Who was ever president? The Cherokee Indians were expelled in steps when it starts in the East Coast, and then they end up by the end after going to North Carolina. Mississippi, they end up in Arkansas, and then out of Arkansas is carved out Oklahoma. There was a protracted expulsion highlighted, or I should say, the higher low point of which was the trail of tears. Virtually every American president, I think every American president, my memory is right,

1:09:18participated in that. As you would guess, the images of the Native Americans as savages and so forth, not unlike the Israeli depiction of the Palestinians, and not unlike obviously the Nazi depiction of the Jews. So it's known without precedent. On the other hand, it is also true to say that as genocide's goal, this one was pretty shameless, it was broadcast by the Israelis themselves, by the perpetrators of genocide themselves. It was posted on their social media. They were proud of it. Now somebody will make saying, well, it's not all of them, actually it is all of them.

1:10:18You see, that's the problem. The problem is they weren't posted it. If they were confident, they would only have posted it if they were confident they would suffer no social retribution. I mean, people, I mean cases have you heard of Israeli stepping forward and saying these social media postings of blowing up homes, blowing up hospitals, there are outrageous why are they not really protested? They're bragging. They're bragging, but it's not just that they're bragging. They're bragging to an audience that they know will be receptive. They're bragging to an audience which they know will resonate to those images. They're bragging to themselves because Israel is a citizen army. It's representative of a cross section of Israeli Jewish society.

1:11:20It's not as if there is a demarcated contingent of people called soldiers who have been quote unquote brainwashed versus civilians who are, you know, a broad range from good people to bad people. No, that's not true. Israel, when you say Israel undertook a genocide, it was Israeli society as a whole that undertook it. It's a citizen army. So they had, I guess it's fair to say they had fewer alibis than in preceding genocides. It's an indictment of Israeli society as a whole.

1:12:23It's not an indictment of Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu is the longest running prime minister in Israeli history. There is a reason for it because he's in obnoxious, self-righteous, Jewish supremacists and Israelis keep voting for him for one basic reason. They see themselves. That's why they keep voting. They're voting because he is them and they are him. And the only seemingly crack in that armor for him is security issues and Israelis thinking that he isn't protecting them. And I'm not convinced that that is going to undo him in this upcoming election. It appears like it might be a better bet as he's clearly calculated to give the settlers whatever they want and to allow them to expand into the West Bank to shore up his coalition.

1:13:28On the basics, Vax, look, the Solomon Enterprise began in 1967 when they went into East Jerusalem and started to annex it. Everybody supports the Solomon Enterprise. Every Israeli prime minister, there are no exceptions. It's true that we have to be clear. What's happened since October 7 has a large number of antecedents. It didn't just come out of nowhere. But it's also true that this society has become crazier. That's true also. It's become more brazen, more lunatic. Not just pockets, this society writ large. I think a critical mass has been reached in its now completely lunatic society.

1:14:30So we have to balance two facts, both of which are true. One, everything that Israel has done since October 7, 2023, there are ample precedents for it. On the other hand, it's at a qualitatively different level now. And the same thing with the lunacy, the dementia in Israeli society. Every war is real. Every time Israel launched a high tech killing spree in Gaza, the Operation Castlet in 2008, 2009 Operation Protective Edge 2014, all of which are really horrible. Every single poll showed, every single event, 90 to 95% of Israeli Jews supported it. So mass support for these high tech killing sprees is not new. It's always been the case.

1:15:33But it's also true to say this is a protracted genocide. And the poll, poll show that 95% of Israelis, during a genocide, 95% of Israel's believes Israel was using too little or just enough force. Only 5% thought Israel was using too much force. So I won't say the picture is complicated. I would just say it has many aspects to it. As I start off the new book, my first words were, let me just get the very first words. Well, I don't have a PDF right here if you would like. There are very first words here in the prologue you would like. The 7th of October, 2023 didn't change everything.

1:16:34It did, however, change a lot. Yeah, as the stories like to say, there's continuity and there's change. It didn't change everything, but it changed a lot. I think we should leave it there because I'm way over time. Yeah. Absolutely. You read my mind. Apologies for the follow-ups, but I love getting to talk to you and really appreciate your time today. Professor Norman Finklstein, you can check out the book and we'll put a link down below. It's called Gaza Gravediggers and Inquiry Intercorruption. Gaza's Gravediggers and Inquiry Intercorruption in High Places. Thanks so much, Professor. Really appreciate your time today. Thank you. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this program and head into the fun half where we will take, maybe we'll take your calls. We shall see. We will certainly read your IMs. Kentucky left us apologies.

1:17:36You had a question for Norman. I wasn't able to get to it. No sleep till says, what if say Yao Ming were a victim of violence when they told Asian fine recourse? He could be the case in his own very specific way. You're like to drive a point home. He does. He does. He does. He does. He does. And has no compunction about being as frank as possible. Maybe it wouldn't have described it that way, but I'm also non-norm. His work speaks for itself, even when we have certain disagreements about things. I mean, like, I'm- Norm's a treasure, like you make the books. I'll disagreements among people who do this sort of work on certain discrete questions. But in terms of the body of work that Norm has put out on Israel and Palestine, he's unmatched. Exactly right. What is happening in the Matt Lecky and Media Universe? Yeah, we have a Jack Abinchio talking about some tech oligarchy stuff tomorrow.

1:18:37Actually, I'm going to be out here. So I'm going to North Dakota for a little bit this weekend. But so there won't be a left reckoning next week Tuesday, but you can check out David and I's from this week. And also, there will be a Sunday show for PatronsPatreon.com slash left reckoning. So October 4th, we'll have a link down below, BITUATION ROOM LIVE. I will be at the log room in LA. It's a Mattenay, me and Francesca, and likely some other special guests to be announced. Perhaps we'll have more on that tomorrow because I think Francesca is going to be joining us. And I should say, it is her birthday. So I had to make sure to get the plug in. Francesca, if you're in Teenie, my friend, happy, happy birthday, friend of the show. If you'd like to celebrate her birthday, I'm sure she'd be thrilled if you headed over to the log room on the 4th of October.

1:19:37We will be there. Say, Hadi, after the show, that kind of deal. So check it out, folks, if you are in Southern California. Do we have Brandon? I'm here. Hey, Brandon. I'm here. Hey, Brandon. How are you? Hello. I'm doing, how are you doing? I am doing well. What is happening over on the discourse? Well, we actually hit 27,000 over on the YouTube channel. I'm very proud of us. I'm very proud of you, the listener, who has not subscribed because you get to be the next person to subscribe to the discourse with Brandon on YouTube. And if you happen to have a Twitch account, I would recommend going over to Twitch and subscribing there, too, because we are almost at 10,000 followers. I know it's a big number, not as big as some numbers, like 11,000, but it is quite a big number. So definitely think about giving the show a try. We've been keeping up with the Russell brand, Saga.

1:20:39We've been keeping up with the Nigel Farage, Saga, a lot of British Saga we've been keeping up with. So I mean, also like a Rodic Bigfoot, a lot of great stuff going on at the discourse in the news. Check it out, folks, and hello, Matt Bender. What's happening over on your shows? Oh, you're me. Hello, how are you? There we go. I could tell that I was muted as I was talking. Yeah, youtube.com slash Matt Bender. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, because tonight, 8.30 PM Eastern time, we will be live for leftist mafia. So tune in then. All right, tune in then, folks. See you in the fun half. OK, Emma, please. Well, I just I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report. Wait. Whoa, look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show.

1:21:40It is Thursday. I like you to do the tempo for Sam. I love this place. Sir, I'm a, I'm a pause right there. I really do. You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered to work. So she and Alker would always work. So she and Alker would work. So it was offered to work. So she and Alker would work. So she and Alker had Tim's upset. To work. So she and Alker would work. So it's offered to work. So she and that's what we call this. To work. So she and Alker would do boys. Right. To work. So she and Alker were going to get demonetized. I just think that what you get to tip-whole was mean. Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Well, look at how sad he's become now. We shouldn't even talk about it. I know I think you're a sad person. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. To work. Oh, so she and Alker would do boys. Oh my god. Wow.

1:22:41So she, I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. You're just a thing. You're just a thing. You're just a thing. I'm trying to be a different right now. But like, I absolutely think the US should be providing me with a life and the kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job. Word?

1:23:41That's the real thing. That's that poker. That's a good job. Word? Sushi and poker with boy. Take it easy for a word. Sushi and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with boy's emotional. Word and looting. Sushi. You don't have a clue as to what's going on here. You two have to wait the way of the world I've shown you. Paul Gerset still want to do this show anymore. Do you? It was so much easier when the majority report was just you. We are happy. Let's change this object. Drip. Rangers and Nixigan, right? Shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts of this show. This is a pro killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet. Left is best. A little trunfilot. Word? Don't be foolish and don't fucking clean it. And don't get into the way that others cut all these people. Love it. Let's turn my heart it so I wrote my honor species out of it. Oh. My honor species. I guess I should hand the make mic to you now.

1:24:42You want to do it right off the outside? We already found this real dude. Are you against that? That's a tough question. I have a message. Incredible theme song. I bumbler. Emma Zieglin. Absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually not just in the game, like period.