An Israeli historian now living in the United States concludes in a new book that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide in Gaza, and explains why it must quickly abandon the Zionist ideology before it is too late. In his new book, "Israel: What Went Wrong," published in English, Professor Omer Bartov, an Israeli historian specializing in genocide, states that he observes Israel committing genocide within the Gaza Strip.
It should be noted that Bartov concluded, in May 2024, that the events in the Gaza Strip, according to the 1948 United Nations Charter, fall under the definition of “genocide ,” thus causing a stir not only in academic circles, but also in Jewish communities in America and Israel.
On the occasion of the publication of his book, Bartov, in an extensive interview with the supplement of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, says that he was born in 1954 in an Israeli cooperative town called Ein HaHoresh. Bartov, the son of the Israel Prize-winning author Hanoch Bartov, participated in the 1973 war. After completing his studies at Tel Aviv University and Oxford University, he moved to the United States in 1989. Since 2000, Bartov has taught at Brown University, holding the Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies , and is considered one of the most cited Holocaust scholars in the world.
Bartov: Zionism as an ideology has exhausted itself, and it is paradoxical and tragic that a movement that began as an attempt to liberate Jews from persecution ends as a racist and violent movement.
Bartov explains his motives, saying that he is not against the existence of Israel, but that Zionism as an ideology has exhausted itself, and that it is paradoxical and tragic that a movement that began as an attempt to liberate Jews from persecution ends up as a racist and violent movement.
Will the book be translated into Hebrew? Bartov was asked, and he revealed the difficulty of publishing it in the language of Israelis and the obstacles he faces there. He said, “The book will be published in eight languages, even Chinese. In Israel, I contacted several acquaintances who introduced me to publishing houses, some of which are considered ‘left-wing.’ One of them wrote to me, ‘I don’t think this is the right time,’ and others said, ‘Yes, we’ll look at it, we’ll read it,’ and then they disappeared.” Two left-wing publishers wrote that the book was interesting, but they didn’t agree with everything in it, and one of them suggested publishing it alongside another book to create balance.
After the war in Gaza, voices are rising, especially on the anti-Zionist left, claiming that the Zionist project was fundamentally flawed. Is this the conclusion you have reached?
“I am not anti-Zionist. I grew up in a Zionist home, and it was obvious to me that Israel was my place. I do not oppose the existence of Israel, but Zionism as an ideology has not only exhausted itself, but has transformed into something I do not recognize. It has become the ideology of the state. It has become not only militaristic and expansionist, but also racist, and extremely violent, and ultimately an ideology that severely harms both the individual and the community. Such an ideology has no place. It is both ironic and tragic that a movement that began as an attempt to liberate Jews from persecution, to give them a place of their own—a process of liberation and a human aspiration—ends its way as a racist and violent movement.”
Do you think this was inevitable?
“I don’t believe in that kind of history, where we say at the end, ‘We always knew it would end this way.’ Perhaps there were some prophets who said so from the very beginning, but I don’t think it was inevitable. The biggest chapter in the book deals with Israel’s missing constitution. It’s not that things in 1948 were only going in one direction, but that it became increasingly clear that without a constitution that protects everyone’s rights, Zionism—once it became a state ideology—would forfeit the possibility of becoming a normal state for its citizens.”
In response to this question, the Israeli historian argues that this leaves Zionism facing an existential dilemma. He asserts that Israel cannot exist as a normal state under Zionist ideology, which must disappear. He adds, “The state will remain; it’s not going anywhere. The question is what kind of state it will be. It must fundamentally change. Under Zionist ideology, it cannot do that. If it doesn’t abandon this ideology and transform into something else, it will be a full-fledged apartheid state, an illiberal democracy at best, and extremely violent, and it will eventually lose a large part of its educated elite. Most of the population will remain because populations always remain. But it will become a pariah state, isolated and marginalized. It will lose the support of its most important allies, the European countries and the United States, who increasingly see it as a threat rather than a shield.”
Bartov: “It has become increasingly clear that without a constitution that protects the rights of all, Zionism – once it becomes a state ideology – will give up the possibility of becoming a normal state for its citizens.”
According to Bartov, Zionism began long before the Holocaust, but the Holocaust was retroactively used as the strongest justification for its existence and for the establishment of Israel.
He notes that the pretext was that if there had been a state, more Jews would have survived, and continues: “This is probably true. From the Eichmann trial onward, and especially since the late seventies and eighties, the Holocaust gradually became the glue that unites Israeli society. A historical event was politicized as an immediate existential threat: not something that happened in the past, but something that is always on the doorstep. There will be another Holocaust if we do not respond to every threat with full force and eradicate it from its roots.”
“After October 7th, these two things merged.” Regarding the accusation of antisemitism, he said that if Zionism is capable of leading to genocide in Gaza, it can no longer survive as an ideology, reminding everyone that other ideologies throughout history that justified genocide have no place. He refutes prevalent Israeli claims, saying, “The response to the Holocaust cannot be another genocide. When we talk about Israel becoming a pariah state, this is not a product of antisemitism. This is a product of Israel’s actions. These actions have stripped away the very foundation of its existential arguments.”Regarding the pretext of October 7, Bartov adds: “What Hamas did on October 7 was a war crime. It could easily be defined as a crime against humanity. I would have preferred to see Hamas leaders arrested and tried alongside some Israeli leaders – it would have been a trial worth watching. Instead, Israel did what it does and killed them.”
The Israeli historian argues that resistance to occupation, siege, and attempts to control a people striving for national self-determination is legitimate, recalling that the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi organizations did so, as did the French Resistance, the resistance within Germany, the revolutionaries, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He adds: “Armed resistance is perfectly legitimate, even under international law, but it does not give the right to commit massacres.”
Do you think this was Hamas's goal? Resistance to the occupation?
“Hamas leaders are dead, but what they wanted to achieve has been accomplished. Israel destroyed Gaza, but it did not eliminate Hamas. What the Hamas leadership wanted was to break the siege within the framework in which Netanyahu managed the conflict and no one cared – not the Arab states, not the international community, not even the electoral system in Israel. Hamas turned it into a regional conflict. This year, Israel fought in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Gaza, and the West Bank. From the perspective of Hamas’s radical wing, which is strikingly similar in thinking to Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, they achieved their goal. They knew the price would be terrible, but for messianic actors, the price is acceptable.”
Between genocide and catastrophe
Bartov directs his criticism at the United States regarding the occupation's crimes in Gaza , saying: “President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken did nothing. They could have easily ended it. They could have told Netanyahu: You have two weeks to shut down the event, or you alone. It would have stopped within hours.”
Bartov says that in May 2024, it was already clear that thepractice on the ground was a systematic destruction of Gaza, and its logic was ethnic cleansing.
In his comparison between genocide and the Nakba, Bartov argues that by May 2024, it was already clear that the practice on the ground was the systematic destruction of Gaza, its logic being ethnic cleansing. But unlike in 1948, ethnic cleansing was not possible because the people of Gaza had nowhere to flee. As in many cases in the past, including the Holocaust, when an attempt to remove an ethnic group from an area under your control fails because they have nowhere to go, the solution becomes killing them. This is genocide.”
In response to a question about the occupation's claims, the Israeli historian asserts that even if there were ten times as many Hamas fighters under every hospital, it wouldn't justify the genocide in Gaza. He also states that Hamas is an extremist movement that has used brutal methods not only against Israel but also against the Gazan population itself, and the real question is how to combat it – do we do what the Russians did in Chechnya and raze everything to the ground? This is what the Israeli army did, and it is, in fact, contrary to the very spirit of the Israeli army.
He continues: “The war in Gaza will go down as a colossal failure, along with the failure of October 7. Militarily speaking, the campaign in Gaza was a disaster. They came in from the north and pushed people south, hoping that Egypt would let them leave, or that Eritrea, Indonesia, or Somaliland would take them in. This was madness. The result was systematic destruction.”
He goes on to refute the occupation’s claims by saying that “it was already clear that the goal was not to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, but to systematically turn Gaza into an uninhabitable place. If the conflict cannot be managed, it can be ended.”
When did you first feel that Israel was heading towards a place from which it could not return?
“I started thinking about it in political terms during the First Intifada. I finished my PhD in 1983, published a book about the German army in 1985, and in 1987 the Intifada broke out. I was a reserve officer, and Rabin told us to break their hands and legs. I wrote to Rabin, saying that I had seen in the Israeli army behavior that I had learned about from my research on the Wehrmacht. To my surprise, he replied. He was furious at the comparison between Israeli soldiers and German soldiers.”
This, in his view, is also being repeated in Gaza: “The reports I’ve seen from Gaza describe what appear to be militias within the army—units operating according to the spirit of the local commander, who gives them messianic orders. They pray before battle, and the prayers aren’t particularly humane. Israeli society has experienced a profound religious radicalization. The same pattern has infiltrated the Shin Bet, and certainly the police. Nazism and Fascism had complex relationships with institutional religion. They wanted to monopolize power and didn’t want to share it with the Pope or the Protestant churches. But they transformed themselves into political religions, with a Duce or Führer at their head. In Israel, something parallel has happened: a radical transformation of Judaism into a political religion, interwoven with a particular interpretation of Zionism. Not the Ben-Gurion version, but a messianic Jewish ideology whose roots go back to Rabbi Kook.”
The legitimacy of genocide
He says he doesn't like to call what's happening in Israel fascism, and sees it as something else, just as what happened in Hungary, Poland, Turkey or Russia isn't exactly fascism.
He adds: “In Israel there is a divine or rabbinical legitimacy for genocide. This creates a deep and growing rift with world Jewry, especially with American Jews, who cannot accept this. You cannot be a liberal Jewish minority in America and at the same time support what Israel is doing.”
How do you see the change in the concept of antisemitism ? He answers this question by saying:
“There are two processes moving in opposite directions. The first, which began long before October 7, involved Israel and its supporters worldwide attempting to label all criticism of the state as antisemitism. After October 7, this was used to frame protests against the war as antisemitic. Of course, there were antisemitic expressions at these protests, but they were not the motivation of most participants. Part of the framing was absurd from the outset, such as the claim that ‘From the River to the Sea’ is a Palestinian call for the extermination of Jews. ‘From the River to the Sea’ is originally a Jewish slogan—Revisionists sang, ‘Two banks of the Jordan, this one is ours, and this one too.’ Nevertheless, the effect was real: silencing on American college campuses, intimidating students, lecturers, and administrators. This trend is about silencing critical voices, and not just those related to Israel.”
He argues that the opposite process is that weaponizing antisemitism serves as the best cover for genuine antisemitism. He adds: “Ideological antisemitism has always been on the right, not the left. The mass murder of Jews, by the Nazis or before that in Ukraine, was carried out by conservative, racist, and nationalist forces.”
Commenting on the profound transformations in America today, the Israeli historian arrives at a surprising conclusion: “Israel, in claiming to be the authentic representative of the Jews of the world, is turning itself into the best pretext for this resurgence, and this may have far-reaching consequences. Trump is racist, but whoever comes after him may be a true enemy of Israel who severs the close relationship between the two countries.
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