Israeli Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov calls out 'genocide in Gaza'
Bartov, who was born in Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) but has taught in the US since 1989, said: 'I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognise one when I see one.'
READ MORE: 'Why must Palestinians pay?': Holocaust survivor speaks out on Gaza genocide
Noting that experts including Francesca Albanese – the UN special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories – and Amnesty International had come to the same conclusion, Bartov went on: 'The continued denial of this designation by states, international organizations and legal and scholarly experts will cause unmitigated damage not just to the people of Gaza and Israel but also to the system of international law established in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, designed to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again.
'It is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.'
Omer Bartov speaking at Frankfurt University in 2022 (Image: Bildungsstätte Anne Frank - Creative Commons Licence 3.0)The UK Government is among the countries to have refused to make a judgment on whether Israel is breaching international law or committing genocide, saying the determination is for the courts.
Writing in the New York Times, Bartov said the UK was among the nations to have 'feebly protested Israeli actions', noting that they have 'neither suspended arms shipments nor taken many concrete and meaningful economic or political steps'.
The genocide professor went on: 'For the last year, the IDF has not been fighting an organised military body. The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on October 7 has been destroyed … Today the IDF is primarily engaged in an operation of demolition and ethnic cleansing.'
He continued: 'Some might describe this campaign as ethnic cleansing, not genocide. But there is a link between the crimes. When an ethnic group has nowhere to go and is constantly displaced from one so-called safe zone to another, relentlessly bombed and starved, ethnic cleansing can morph into genocide.
READ MORE: MPs call on UK Government to publish Gaza 'genocide' papers
'This was the case in several well-known genocides of the 20th century, such as that of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa, now Namibia, that began in 1904; the Armenians in World War I; and, indeed, even in the Holocaust, which began with the German attempt to expel the Jews and ended up with their murder.
'To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust, and no institution dedicated to researching and commemorating it, has issued a warning that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide.
'This silence has made a mockery of the slogan 'Never again', transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one's own past victimhood.'
Bartiv further said: 'What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before.
READ MORE: Edinburgh University responds as students stage graduation walk out over Israel links
'Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the State of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the IDF, the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole.
'Just as worrisome is the prospect that the study of genocide as a whole will not survive the accusations of antisemitism, leaving us without the crucial community of scholars and international jurists to stand in the breach at a time when the rise of intolerance, racial hatred, populism and authoritarianism is threatening the values that were at the core of these scholarly, cultural and political endeavors of the 20th century.'
You can read the full essay in the New York Times.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges
Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor. Unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024. Also unresolved is an inquiry into the killing of 31 Palestinians going to pick up food at a distribution point in Rafah on 1 June. They were killed after Israeli forces opened fire, witnesses said. Shortly after, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the reports were 'false' but the IDF told the Guardian that the incident was 'still under review'. Iain Overton and Lucas Tsantzouris, the team at AOAV, said the statistics suggested Israel was seeking to create a 'pattern of impunity' by failing to conclude or find no fault in the vast majority of cases involving 'the most severe or public accusations of wrongdoing by their forces'. The IDF said it 'conducts examination and investigation processes regarding exceptional incidents that occurred during operational activity, in which there is a suspicion of a violation of the law' in accordance with its obligations under Israeli and international law. It operates internal systems to conduct examinations and allegations of war crimes, including criminal investigations by the military advocate general's police department and fact-finding assessments (FFA) by a separate team in the general staff. The relatively short passage of time, in investigatory and legal terms, means other unresolved cases may also result in prosecutions, though the two researchers said IDF inquiries had become 'more opaque and slow-moving' as the number of civilian casualties in Gaza has mounted. AOAV said it had found reports of 52 cases in English-language media where the Israeli military said it had conducted or would conduct an investigation after allegations of civilian harm or wrongdoing by its forces in Gaza or the West Bank between October 2023 and the end of June 2025. They involve the deaths of 1,303 Palestinians and the wounding of 1,880. One case resulted in a prison sentence for an Israeli soldier. An IDF reservist received a seven-month jail term in February after he was convicted by a military court of the aggravated abuse of Palestinian security detainees. He had repeatedly attacked bound and blindfolded prisoners with his fists, a baton and his assault rifle at the Sde Teiman detention centre. Five other cases ended with violations found. In one, an IDF colonel and a major were sacked in April 2024 and three other commanders reprimanded a few days after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an airstrike. The IDF said it was a 'grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification', though the charity said the rapid investigation lacked credibility. The remaining 46 cases, representing 88% of the total, seven were closed without any finding of fault, AOAV said. A further 39 remain under review or with no outcome reported, including four deadly incidents over the course of last month when Palestinians were killed near or at various food distribution points on the Gaza Strip. According to the IDF: 'Any report … complaint or allegation that suggests misconduct by IDF forces undergoes an initial examination process, irrespective of its source.' In some instances the evidence is such that a criminal investigation by military police is ordered, while in others an initial investigation takes place. These are referred to the IDF general staff's FFA mechanism to determine 'whether there is a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct'. Critics of the system, such as the Yesh Din human rights group, say FFA investigations can take years and have led to one known prosecution after 664 inquiries relating to previous IDF military operations in Gaza, in 2014, 2018-19 and 2021. In August 2024, the IDF said the FFA had collected information on 'hundreds of incidents' relating to the war in Gaza alone, while the military advocate general's office had launched 74 criminal investigations. Of these, 52 related to the deaths and mistreatment of detainees and 13 to the stealing of enemy ammunition, while a minority related to allegations of war crimes in combat situations. Three related to the 'destruction of civilian property without military necessity' and six concerning 'alleged illegal use of force'. The IDF statistics differ from the investigations tracked by AOAV because the research group used a different methodology. AOAV reviewed episodes where there were reports of an investigation being or having been conducted and also took in incidents on the West Bank as well as Gaza. The IDF said that 'dozens of military police investigations have been opened' and that 'most of these investigations are still ongoing'. The FFA mechanism, meanwhile, had 'completed its review in dozens of cases' and these had transferred to the military advocate general for possible criminal investigation.
STV News
an hour ago
- STV News
Swinney brands Gaza crisis ‘genocide' after Fringe show disrupted
Scottish First Minister John Swinney has described the ongoing crisis in Gaza as a 'genocide' after a Fringe show he appeared at was repeatedly disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters. Police were called to the Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh after the First Minister was interrupted seven times by six different groups of protesters during a conversation with comedian Susan Morrison. The protesters urged the First Minister to describe the crisis as a genocide and stop state funding for arms companies. Speaking to journalists after the event, the First Minister said: 'It's quite clear that there is a genocide in Palestine – it can't be disputed. 'I have seen reports of terrible atrocities which have the character of being genocide. PA Media First Minister John Swinney appeared on stage with comedian Susan Morrison 'I've expressed that and obviously it's not reached all those individuals, but that's my feeling.' The Scottish Government has also been criticised for – while not funding directly the manufacturing of munitions – providing money for apprenticeships at firms which build weapons. But the First Minister said the Government's commercial arm, Scottish Enterprise, has the 'strictest assessments imaginable about the purpose and the use of public expenditure in companies that may be related to defence industries'. Pushed on providing money for staff who could potentially build munitions, the First Minister added: 'We're trying to enable companies to diversify their activities, that's the purpose. 'That's why the due diligence checks are applied and they are applied unreservedly.' Throughout the show, groups of attendees stood up, holding signs which spelt the word 'genocide', and heckled the First Minister. PA Media Police were called in to remove pro-Palestinian protesters from the event As the event continued, the interruptions became more forceful, before two groups stood at the same time, angrily shouting at the First Minister and chanting slogans such as 'call it genocide'. Members of his security team stood in front of the stage, stopping protesters from approaching the First Minister, before three uniformed police officers arrived at the venue to usher the protesters out. During the tense exchange, which lasted several minutes, a number of the crowd – who were not protesting – appeared to be in tears. A final disruption came from one woman in the crowd, who asked the First Minister why he had not responded to her letter about heavy metal band Disturbed playing at the Hydro in Glasgow. The band's lead singer, David Draiman, has been criticised after being pictured signing an Israeli bomb. The woman asked the First Minister why he did not speak out on Disturbed playing at the city's biggest venue, when he said it would be inappropriate for Irish band Kneecap to play the TRNSMT festival after comments members of the band had made about Tory MPs. The First Minister said his comments on Kneecap had come due to questions from the media and he 'didn't particularly' want to speak about the band earlier this year, adding that he did not want to choose what art people do and do not consume. The woman became increasingly angry with the First Minister's response and was eventually dragged from the venue by a police officer, whom she branded a 'thug'. Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
North Wales Chronicle
2 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Swinney brands Gaza crisis ‘genocide' after Fringe show disrupted
Police were called to the Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh after the First Minister was interrupted seven times by six different groups of protesters during a conversation with comedian Susan Morrison. The protesters urged the First Minister to describe the crisis as a genocide and stop state funding for arms companies. Speaking to journalists after the event, the First Minister said: 'It's quite clear that there is a genocide in Palestine – it can't be disputed. 'I have seen reports of terrible atrocities which have the character of being genocide. 'I've expressed that and obviously it's not reached all those individuals, but that's my feeling.' The Scottish Government has also been criticised for – while not funding directly the manufacturing of munitions – providing money for apprenticeships at firms which build weapons. But the First Minister said the Government's commercial arm Scottish Enterprise has the 'strictest assessments imaginable about the purpose and the use of public expenditure in companies who may be related to defence industries'. Pushed on providing money for staff who could potentially build munitions, the First Minister added: 'We're trying to enable companies to diversify their activities, that's the purpose. 'That's why the due diligence checks are applied and they are applied unreservedly.' Throughout the show, groups of attendees stood up, holding signs which spelled the word 'genocide', and heckled the First Minister. As the event continued, the interruptions became more forceful, before two groups stood at the same time, angrily shouting at the First Minister and chanting slogans such as 'call it genocide'. Members of his security team stood in front of the stage, stopping protesters from approaching the First Minister, before three uniformed police officers arrived at the venue to usher the protesters out. I still remember the bus ride to my first Edinburgh Festival show as a teenager, with my late mother – not knowing it would spark a lifelong love of culture. As the Festival season starts, I want every community in Scotland to have that same access to a booming cultural scene. — John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) August 2, 2025 During the tense exchange, which lasted several minutes, a number of the crowd – who were not protesting – appeared to be in tears. A final disruption came from one woman in the crowd, who asked the First Minister why he had not responded to her letter about heavy metal band Disturbed playing at the Hydro in Glasgow. The band's lead singer David Draiman has been criticised after being pictured signing an Israeli bomb. The woman asked the First Minister why he did not speak out on Disturbed playing at the city's biggest venue, when he said it would be inappropriate for Irish band Kneecap to play the TRNSMT festival after comments members of the band had made about Tory MPs. The First Minister said his comments on Kneecap had come due to questions from the media and he 'didn't particularly' want to speak about the band earlier this year, adding that he did not want to choose what art people do and do not consume. The woman became increasingly angry with the First Minister's response and was eventually dragged from the venue by a police officer, whom she branded a 'thug'.
