Bartov, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, offers a frank, sure-to-be-controversial analysis of Israel\u2019s past and present, arguing that the country has \u201cengaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal actions\u201d in Gaza in response to Hamas\u2019 brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The native Israeli and Israel Defense Force veteran\u2019s conclusions arise from historical research, personal observation, and scrutiny of international law. His years in the IDF had him question the role he and other soldiers were playing in Gaza. \u201cI saw firsthand the poverty and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees eking out a living in congested, decrepit neighborhoods,\u201d he writes. \u201cFor the first time, I understood what it meant to occupy another people.\u201d Visiting in June 2024, he notes \u201cthe utter inability of Israeli society to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza.\u201d He links this to Israel\u2019s earliest days. Had the nation adopted a constitution and \u201ca bill of rights for all human beings,\u201d he writes, \u201cthe creeping racism of Israeli society might have been tempered.\u201d He asserts that the country has \u201cabused\u201d its \u201cstatus as a unique state rooted in a unique Holocaust,\u201d which frees it \u201cfrom the constraints imposed on all other nations.\u201d Bartov, worried that \u201cthe exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians\u201d will trigger Israel\u2019s \u201cimplosion,\u201d means to \u201ccontribute to an opening of minds.\u201d Most explosively, he claims Israel has become \u201cthe best excuse for antisemites everywhere,\u201d its \u201caddiction to violence and oppression, reliance on great powers and financial clout, and constant harping on the horrors of the Holocaust as an excuse for untethered violence against Palestinians\u201d provoking \u201chorror and disgust.\u201d Bartov writes that Israel, is, \u201cin multiple senses, my home and my homeland.\u201d Poignantly, however, he now feels \u201cincreasingly estranged from it. It seems to be a different, strange, and threatening place, whose people, including some of my friends, have been transformed, perhaps irretrievably.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bartov, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, offers a frank, sure-to-be-controversial analysis of Israel\u2019s past and present, arguing that the country has \u201cengaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal actions\u201d in Gaza in response to Hamas\u2019 brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The native Israeli and Israel Defense Force veteran\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}