Latest news with #OmerBartov
New Straits Times
4 days ago
- Health
- New Straits Times
No intervention means Gaza genocide continues
RIGHTS groups, lawyers and some governments are describing the Gaza war as "genocide" and calling for a ceasefire but Israel, created in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews, vehemently rejects the explosive term. Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 2023 has killed 54,677 people, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry in the occupied Palestinian territory. The United Nations has said the territory's entire population of more than two million people is at risk of famine, even if Israel said last month it was partially easing the complete blockade on aid it imposed on Gaza on March 2. Despite international calls for an end to the war, a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas remains elusive. In December 2023, South Africa brought a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' highest judicial organ, alleging that Israel's Gaza offensive breached the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In rulings in January, March and May 2024, the ICJ told Israel to do everything possible to "prevent" acts of genocide during its military operations in Gaza, including by providing urgently needed humanitarian aid to prevent famine. Amnesty International has accused Israel of carrying out a "live-streamed genocide" in Gaza, while Human Rights Watch has alleged it is responsible for "acts of genocide". A UN committee in November found Israel's warfare in Gaza was "consistent with the characteristics of genocide". And a UN investigation concluded in March that Israel carried out "genocidal acts" in Gaza through the destruction of the strip's main IVF (in vitro fertilisation) clinic and other reproductive healthcare facilities. Omer Bartov, an Israeli scholar of the Holocaust, wrote in August last year that "Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions". Fellow Israeli historians Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman in January co-wrote an article in which they said: "Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza." France's President Emmanuel Macron has said it is not up to a "political leader to use the term but up to historians to do so when the time comes". But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used it and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has accused Israel of "premeditated genocide". The International Criminal Court (ICC) in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Israel's war in Gaza — including starvation as a method of warfare. In the case of Rwanda, in which the UN said extremist Hutus killed some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, it took a decade for the International Criminal Tribunal to conclude genocide had happened. It was not until 2007 that the ICJ recognised as genocide the murder by Bosnian Serb forces of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 during the Bosnian war. French-Israeli lawyer Omer Shatz said "there is no doubt that war crimes, crimes against humanity are being committed" in Gaza. But the international law expert agreed intent was more difficult to prove. That is why, after the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant, Shatz filed a report with the court in December arguing they were among eight Israeli officials responsible for "incitement to genocide in Gaza". "If incitement is established, that establishes intent," he said. His 170-page report lists such alleged incitements, including Gallant at the start of the war saying Israel was fighting "human animals" in Gaza and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urging "total extermination" in the Palestinian territory. Mathilde Philip-Gay, an international law expert, warned: "International law cannot stop a war. The judiciary will intervene after the war. "The qualification (of genocide) is very important for victims but it will come later." The 1948 Genocide Convention says signatories can call on UN organs "to take such action... for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide".
Al Jazeera
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Gaza: Recording attacks as an act of resistance
The renewal of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza has unleashed yet more death, destruction and displacement, but Palestinians remain determined to make the world witness their plight. Contributors: Shahd Abusalama – Palestinian scholar and artist Omer Bartov – Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Brown University Abdaljawad Omar – Lecturer, Birzeit University; writer and analyst The 2024 United States presidential race was the first 'podcast' election – and given the millions of views and votes a podcast appearance can bring, it won't be the last. Ryan Kohls reports on the allure of – and the problems with – the political podcast interview. Featuring: Susie Banikarim – Media strategist and consultant Max Tani – Media editor, Semafor Cenk Uygur – Creator and host, The Young Turks
New York Times
06-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Beneath Trump's Plan for Gaza, Painful Echoes of Forced Displacement
President Trump has described his proposal to seize control of Gaza and displace the Palestinian population as a humanitarian imperative, a gesture that would allow people living in what he called a 'hellhole' to finally find peace somewhere else. But beneath his astonishing plan were echoes of forced displacement that have shaped Palestinian society since 1948. The establishment of Israel that year in the Arab-Israeli war is known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or 'catastrophe,' because of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes. 'It's ethnic cleansing,' said Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University who has been critical of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza. Mr. Trump's statement, he said, was 'camouflaged as this humanitarian act.' After an immediate backlash, top Trump administration officials tried to soften elements of the plan on Wednesday. They insisted that any relocation of Palestinians would be temporary and that Mr. Trump had not committed to putting U.S. troops on the ground. Mr. Trump said Tuesday that he envisioned 'long-term ownership' of Gaza and that he would send troops 'if necessary.' 'The president made this decision with a humanitarian heart,' Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters as she stood alongside images of destruction in Gaza. Mr. Trump had said that 'everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs.' 'All they see,' he added, 'is death and destruction and rubble and demolished buildings falling all over.' Still, the declaration of intent for the mass relocation of Palestinians amplified calls by members of Israel's far-right cabinet, to get Palestinians to leave Gaza. Itamar Ben-Gvir, until recently the country's hard-line national security minister, said Mr. Trump's plan to move Gazans en masse echoed his own idea of 'encouraging' Palestinians to emigrate. Forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is a war crime and a crime against humanity. Despite Mr. Trump's argument that Palestinians would welcome the chance to live in another place, Palestinians provided a reminder of their commitment to rebuilding their homes after the most recent cease-fire was reached. Thousands set out on foot back to northern Gaza, picking their way through mounds of rubble and debris. For months, they had heard Israeli calls to settle the north of Gaza with Israeli civilians. Instead, they would return to their homes, or whatever was left of them. Riyad Mansour, the leader of the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations, insisted there was no way Palestinians or neighboring Arab states would accept Mr. Trump's proposals. 'Our homeland is our homeland if part of it is destroyed,' he wrote on social media. Israel's military offensive in Gaza, launched after Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, leveled entire swaths of the enclave and forced some 90 percent of the population from their homes. Israel's military operation has killed more than 47,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, whose count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Many Gazans were displaced not once, but several times, as each area they fled to then came under bombardment. U.S. lawmakers and others expressed outrage over Mr. Trump's idea. 'Palestinians aren't going anywhere,' said Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and the lone Palestinian American in Congress. 'Trump's proposal to push two million Palestinians out of Gaza and take 'ownership' by force, if necessary, is simply ethnic cleansing by another name,' Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said in a statement on Tuesday. On Wednesday, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general warned against 'any form of ethnic cleansing' in Gaza. Unlike genocide, ethnic cleansing is not recognized as a specific crime under international law. A United Nations commission of experts tasked with assessing violations of humanitarian laws committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia defined ethnic cleansing 'as a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.'
