GAZA’S GRAVEDIGGERS
An Inquiry Into Corruption in High Places
by Norman G. Finkelstein
409 pp; OR Books; $34.95
This is a hard book to read. Norman Finkelstein looks closely at Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and over 409 densely written pages, he is unsparing about some of the high-ranking and influential people who let it happen.
Finkelstein needs no introduction. He’s now in his 70s, the son of Holocaust survivors, and he’s spent 50 years chronicling Israel’s murderous apartheid policy toward Palestinians. He’s written 17 books, most of them about Israel/Palestine, and he sacrificed his academic career as the penalty for telling hard truths. He has never been successfully challenged on his major findings of fact. He is first and foremost a scholar, rigorous in his attention to detail, and this latest book is stuffed with evidence: hundreds of references and long, detailed, numbing-but-important documents.
In Gaza’s Gravediggers, he focuses not on the Israelis who actually carried out the mass killings, but on those “in high places” around the globe who enabled and continue to enable the genocide. He says at the beginning, “… this volume documents the complicity, born of cupidity and corruption, cowardice and careerism — of officials in high places. Its purpose is to send a firm warning to those occupying positions of public trust: We are watching you.”
Four detailed case studies illustrate his argument.
Charge Number 1 in Finkelstein’s indictment is demolishing the allegation that Hamas committed mass rape as a “weapon of war,” starting on October 7, 2026. He spends 52 pages scrutinizing and refuting the widely publicized rape allegations, such as the notorious New York Times article, “Screams Without Words,” and the subsequent documentary film hosted by Sheryl Sandberg, the former Facebook top executive, titled “Screams Before Silence,” which has 1.5 million views on YouTube.
Finkelstein’s summary and interpretation of the motives for the dishonesty are important. He does not deny that Palestinian armed groups committed certain war crimes on October 7, including killing civilians and taking hostages. So why manufacture the charge of widespread rape? He points out that “the target audience of Israeli hasbara has always been U.S. public opinion.” In other words, eliminate the false charges of systematic rape, and American opinion would probably have turned even more promptly and decisively against Israel’s genocide.
Finkelstein next indicts the United Nations Human Rights Council for issuing a report that he charges “watered down Israeli crimes.” The Council, in May 2021, had created an “Independent International Commission of Inquiry,” headed by Navi Pillay, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He looked closely at the Pillay Commission’s findings after October 7, and concluded that it had downplayed Israel’s crimes. He contrasted its findings with Amnesty International’s verdict, which said straightforwardly that Israel was committing a “genocide.”
Finkelstein’s third charge focuses on the International Court of Justice. First, after the Israeli onslaught started, South Africa immediately brought a case before the court, which promptly, in January 2024, issued an “Order” that found that “Israel was plausibly committing genocide and indicated provisional measures.” Of the court’s 17 voting judges, only one voted against the entire Order: Judge Julia Sebutinde, from Uganda.
He scrutinized Sebutinde’s opinion at enormous length, and concluded that “huge swaths” of her legal reasoning “were demonstrably plagiarized from publications by Israel’s stalwarts, [which] posed in stark form the question whether she was being bribed or blackmailed by Israel.” He substantiated his charge with a 48-page appendix, which lists long excerpts of Judge Sebutinde’s opinions alongside the sources that she all-too-apparently plagiarized from.
His zeal in this instance may at first seem somewhat excessive. After all, the overwhelming majority of the Court’s judges did find that Israel was plausibly committing genocide. But Finkelstein is understandably enraged that Israel and its sympathizers could apparently even reach into the Court and try to tarnish its findings. Again, his aim in this particular book is not to indict the Israeli military and the Netanyahu government directly, but to focus on the global figures and institutions that let them get away with the mass killings. (What’s more, if Americans learned that even a single Justice on our Supreme Court had been “bribed or blackmailed,” we would, of course, demand an investigation.)
Finkelstein’s last charge is briefer but still important. We’ve already seen how the International Court of Justice in January 2024 started issuing Orders that found that “Israel was plausibly committing genocide.” But then, on April 24 that same year, Joan Donaghue, the Court’s former president who had just stepped down, “dropped a bombshell” during an interview on the BBC. Donaghue off-handedly made comments that undermined the decision the Court had just reached. As Finkelstein points out, the pro-Israel media immediately jumped on her “off-the-cuff” comments to tarnish the Court’s finding of genocide. He painstakingly dissects the contortions in her television interview and charges that she had uttered “a shameful and shameless lie.”
On balance, Finkelstein’s intense scrutiny may seem excessive. After all, in this book he is not indicting Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s military leaders, or Israeli warplane pilots. Nor is he exposing President Biden, former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, or Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan — people whose responsibility for the mass killings in Gaza is also clear.
Norman Finkelstein again explains what motivated him to research this enormous indictment. Here is part of his Epilogue:
This book was written to expose lies and restore Truth. It will not save lives. The genocide in Gaza is too far gone. Is the book then pointless? For the dead, yes. But for the living, no. The demand sounded in the Book’s Prologue stands: not just the perpetuators in Israel but also their accomplices in high places — blood-soaked, all — must be held accountable.” 
