This month's winner is 'Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom' by Norman Finkelstein (2018).

Synopsis: The Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated places in the world. More than two-thirds of its inhabitants are refugees, and more than half are under eighteen years of age. Since 2004, Israel has launched several devastating “operations” against Gaza’s largely defenceless population, killing thousands in the process. These events are meticulously documented in this book by Norman Finkelstein, who shines a light on the oppression of the Palestinian people, the Israeli lies of “self-defence”, and how international bodies such as the UN have failed Gaza.

Schedule: We're splitting this book into four segments and will post a discussion thread for each segment every other Saturday, the dates of these will be:

• July 17th - Preface & Part One: 'Operation Cast Lead'.
• July 31st - Part Two: 'The Goldstone Report' & Part Three: 'The Mavi Marmara'.
• August 14th - Part Four: 'Operation Protective Edge'.
• August 28th - Conclusion & Appendix

Supplementary Material:

• An interview with the author by The Intercept
• An interview with the author by Democracy Now
• A talk by Norman Finkelstein - 'The Martyrdom of Gaza and the Future of Palestine'
• Just a clip of Norman Finkelstein being cool af
• marxisthayaca will also be adding parts of the UN report on human rights in Israel to the Perusall assignments.

How to join the reading group on Perusall:

• Go to Perusall.com
• Create an Account
• Click on Enroll in a Course
• Enter this code: HAYACA-PVMCJ
• Use a throwaway account and do not use identifying information.

Once you've joined, you'll be able to read and annotate this text along with everyone else in the group. Everyone can see everyone else's annotations and respond to and upvote them. Alternatively, if you'd prefer to read something else, the library section on Perusall currently has 500 different texts on a broad range of topics and we regularly upload new content to expand the library even further. (Although the last time we went over 500 items the site shat itself and I had to re-upload a bunch of stuff so idk if we'll be able to add anymore).

And finally, for those of you that hate reading, the Perusall 'movie of the month' for July is 'The Power of Nightmares' series by Adam Curtis - you can watch and annotate this in the reading group the same as with the texts.