Gideon Levy on Israel in Gaza

Here's a Guardian review by Nicholas Lezard of the book, The Punishment of Gaza, by Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy:

This makes for painful reading, and it is with a heavy heart that you realise, while reading it, that someone who has decided that Israel's rights in this matter outweigh all other considerations will dismiss each of this book's 148 pages as emotive propaganda. And then there follows the even more depressing knowledge that anyone who raises any objections to Israel's behaviour and policies is going to be slandered as an antisemite. This was indeed the fate of Judge Richard Goldstone, whose massive and exhaustive report on the conflict, released under the auspices of the United Nations, was rejected out of hand.

You can find it on the net easily enough, but Levy's book acts as a passionate footnote to it. The details are harrowing. The most obscene development is the increasing number of children being killed. Almost 100 were killed in 2009 – "a pretty quiet year, relatively speaking", says Levy. (However, in the chronology at the end of the book it appears that Operation Cast Lead, a three-week operation from December 2008 to January 2009, resulted in the deaths of 1,330 Palestinians, 430 of whom were children.)

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