Genocide studies scholar Omer Bartov now believes that the Israeli government’s campaign in Gaza is genocidal:
But another part of my apprehension had to do with the fact that my view of what was happening in Gaza had shifted. On 10 November 2023, I wrote in the New York Times: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is now taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. […] We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.”
I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions [bold mine-DL]. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans – most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so-called safe zone – demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory [bold mine-DL]. In other words, the rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since 7 October was now being translated into reality – namely, as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, that Israel was acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm, or inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction”. [bold mine-DL]
The Israeli government has pursued a policy of severe collective punishment against the people of Gaza for ten and a half months. That includes indiscriminate bombing, forced displacement, deliberate starvation, and the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure (i.e., objects indispensable to survival). As a result, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, and the people of Gaza are now enduring one of the most intense man-made famines since the end of WWII.
According to some informed estimates, the death toll could already be close to 100,000. Many tens of thousands more will die from starvation and disease under these conditions if nothing is done to stop it. Virtually the entire territory of the Gaza Strip has been laid waste and its cities rendered uninhabitable. If this were being done anywhere else in the world by almost any other government, there is no question what we would call it.
This is a genocidal campaign. We shouldn’t need confirmation from experts to recognize what everyone can see, but in this case one of the leading authorities on genocide has provided that confirmation. That conclusion ought to spur our government to action, but we all know that it will have no effect.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.