Peter LaVelle’s “CrossTalk” at Russia Today has Professor Norman Finkelstein, Chris Guiness and Mitchell Barak on the panel (26:02):

The program begins with a report from Chris Guiness, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency’s director in Gaza, before the panel discusses Israel’s denial of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the flotilla hijacking itself.

“There is no question here that we have a serious humanitarian problem, there is no question here that Israel is purposely creating a serious humanitarian problem,” Professor Norman Finkelstein remarked. “This is not an accident. Israel is not trying to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel wants a humanitarian crisis in order to encourage the people of Gaza to dispose of a regime it doesn’t like—and Israel has not made any secret of this [calling the blockade] ‘economic warfare’.”

Mitchell Barak, the Israel apologist on the panel, notes that “if Israel really wanted to create a humanitarian crisis, they would not allow any” goods through the border. Another way would be to incinerate women and children over a 22-day span while engaging in “wanton destruction” of their homes—to collectively “punish” and “terrorize” the population, according to the Goldstone Report—as you force the exchange “economy to its knees” enforcing a blockade that, according to Amnesty International, is “suffocating” the Gazan people

Mr. Barak also refutes the “occupation” of Gaza because Israel removed its troops, but also tries to sell the legitimacy of its blockade. Mr. Guiness quickly points to the fact that controlling foreign borders and seashores define an occupation. To which, Mr. Barak says is purely “semantics”. Lunacy, dammit.

The reason why the occupation is denied, as Mr. Guiness indirectly points out, is that occupation legitimizes resistance, according to international law.