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Middle East Eye
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Renowned Israeli professor says Israel committing genocide in Gaza
A renowned professor of Holocaust and genocide studies has called Israel's war on Gaza an "inescapable" case of genocide, joining a chorus of prominent Israeli and Jewish scholars coming to the same conclusion about Israel's 21-month war on the besieged enclave. Omer Bartov, a professor at Brown University and a former Israeli army soldier, wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday that after deliberating and examining Israel's war, his "inescapable conclusion… [is] that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people". "Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could," he wrote. "But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one," he added. Bartov is considered one of the world's leading scholars of the WWII Holocaust and an expert on genocide. One of his most well-known books is Anatomy of a Genocide. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Bartov's article comes on the heels of a report by Dutch newspaper NRC, which interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers from six countries - including Israel - all of whom described the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocidal. Leading human rights organisations have also reached the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. In December 2024, Amnesty International became the first major organisation to conclude that Israel had committed genocide during its war on Gaza, while Human Rights Watch more conservatively concluded that "genocidal acts" had been committed. UN rapporteur: Tech firms and corporations profiting from Israeli 'economy of genocide' Read More » Francesca Albanese, the UN's top expert on Palestine, authored two reports last year suggesting that genocide was taking place in Gaza. Other prominent Israeli academics, including the historian Avi Shlaim, have argued that Israel's war on Gaza constitutes a genocide. Bartov said his decision was based on identifying the intent of Israeli officials to conduct genocide and action on the ground. "In Israel's case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 - and has since become ever clearer - as the IDF has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip," he said. Bartov noted that Israel denies all allegations that it is conducting a genocide in the Gaza Strip, but he said that "the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure - government buildings, hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, cultural heritage sites, water treatment plants, agriculture areas, and parks - reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely". At least 58,479 Palestinians - mainly women and children - have been killed by Israel's offensive on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. In June, a UN Commission of Inquiry found that Israeli air strikes, shelling, burning and controlled demolitions had damaged or destroyed more than 90 percent of schools and university buildings across the Gaza Strip. A study earlier this year found that 80 percent of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure had been destroyed. Bartov also criticised some historians who have called critics of Israel's war on Gaza "antisemitic". He said he was concerned about the broader ramifications of this rift "between genocide scholars and Holocaust historians". "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," he wrote. "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," he added.
Al-Ahram Weekly
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
In NYT Op Ed: Israeli Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov says Israel committing genocide in Gaza - War on Gaza
Professor Omer Bartov, one of the world's most prominent Holocaust historians and a leading expert on genocide, has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, marking a rare and unprecedented condemnation from within Israel's own academic establishment. In an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times, Bartov—an Israeli-born professor at Brown University who has spent over two decades researching the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, and mass violence—wrote: 'My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.' Bartov, who served in the Israeli army and grew up in a Zionist household, said he resisted the label for months after the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. But by May 2024, following Israel's mass displacement of civilians in Rafah and the systematic levelling of much of the Gaza Strip, he wrote that 'it appeared no longer possible to deny' the genocidal nature of Israel's campaign. According to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 138,000 wounded since the war began, with women and children making up two-thirds of the dead and injured. Bartov cited a Haaretz investigation estimating that 174,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed, including homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, agricultural land, and water treatment facilities. 'In fact, the systematic destruction in Gaza not only of housing but also of other infrastructure… reflects a policy aimed at making the revival of Palestinian life in the territory highly unlikely,' he wrote. He added that the enclave had become home to 'the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world,' warning of long-term physical and psychological damage to an entire generation. Bartov argued that both intent and execution—the two legal pillars of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention—are now evident. He pointed to statements by senior Israeli officials expressing aims to render Gaza uninhabitable, calling for 'total annihilation,' and comparing Palestinians to biblical enemies or 'human animals.' 'Israel's actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population,' he wrote. Bartov joins a growing number of legal scholars, rights groups, and international bodies—including the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese—who have characterized the campaign in similar terms. In January 2024, in a case brought by South Africa, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel was committing acts tantamount to genocide in its war in Gaza. Later, in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in the Gaza war. Bartov also warned of the moral consequences for Holocaust commemoration and genocide studies if Israel's actions are met with silence or denial. 'To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust… have issued a warning that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide,' he wrote. 'This silence has made a mockery of the slogan 'Never again.'' Bartov cautioned that Holocaust memory, if used as cover for the destruction of another people, risks retreating into an 'ethnic ghetto'—discredited, politicized, and stripped of its universal moral force. His remarks follow similar warnings from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who in May described the war as 'indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal,' and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of waging a private political war with no legitimate goals. There has been no official response from the Israeli government to Bartov's op-ed. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
The National
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Israeli Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov calls out 'genocide in Gaza'
Omer Bartov, the dean's professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at the Ivy-league Brown University in the US, penned a 3500-word essay for the New York Times on Tuesday outlining his reasoning. 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.
