Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!

According to Gaza expert Norm Finkelstein in this April 2024 interview (starting at 16:45):

“Immediately after they [Hamas] were elected, Israel then the US then the EU imposed a "brutal economic blockade on Gaza. Now if you study the record, Hamas was attempting a diplomatic solution to the conflict: it talked about recognizing Israel, two states, having a long-term ceasefire, it made many options. All of it was rebuffed, all of it was rejected.

“Then, in March 2018, they attempted the Great March of Return, a nonviolent civil resistance. What happened? Well we know exactly what happened. A UN investigative body produced a report it was 250 single-spaced pages. According to the report, Israel deliberately targeted children, Israel deliberately targeted medics, Israel deliberately targeted journalists. And here's the best one of all, Israel deliberately targeted disabled people, okay. And they have the descriptions in the report: a person in the distance on crutches 300 meters from the perimeter fence shot in the head; a person in the wheelchair 200 meters shot down. So of course nonviolence is going to fail if people are just being shot down like you know swatted down like flies and there's no International reaction, it can't work. The whole premise of nonviolent civil resistance is that if you're willing to incur the suffering then the International Community […] will be moved by the violence moved in sympathy to act. […] It didn't work in Gaza. It didn't work.

So now you're at the heart of the dilemma. If diplomacy didn't work—they tried. I'm not saying what they were saying was perfect, I'm not saying it wouldn't have required, you know, intense negotiations to make it work, but there were steps taken by Hamas. That didn't work. Nonviolent civil resistance didn't work. And by the time you got to October 6th, it was clear that a deal was going to be made with the Saudis, and then the whole conflict between Israel and the Arab world would have been resolved above the heads of the people of Gaza. And the only thing those two million people would have to look forward to is to languish and die in that concentration camp."

Amnesty International acknowledges that some of the protesters did engage in violence (like burning tire and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails towards soldiers). But witnesses state that the majority of the protesters were peaceful and that unarmed, nonthreatening people were shot dead by Israeli snipers.