(© WHO A severely malnourished girl in Gaza.)
Words matter, according to Professor Omer Bartov, one of the world’s most prominent scholars on Holocaust and Genocide studies.
Earlier today, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) walked back her comments where she accurately described Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “genocide.” In a statement to POLITICO, she said, “I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide,” even as a majority of Democratic voters and young people around the world believe that’s exactly what Israel is doing. Pete Buttigieg’s recent milquetoast comments on Gaza also revealed that the ground is rapidly shifting on this issue, and voters aren’t content with the status quo. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in NYC are still attacking Zohran Mamdani for not condemning a pro-Palestinian chant that he has never used.
In a recent New York Times article, Professor Bartov wrote about how Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza and why it’s important for the world, especially the United States of America, to acknowledge it. Bartov argues the world has a moral obligation to intervene and stop ongoing war crimes and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. The United States, with its special relationship to Israel, could use its leverage to stop it within a week.
Bartov, who is currently at Brown University, was born and raised in Israel and also served in the IDF during the early 70’s. He considers himself a Zionist, although he believes Israel, with its extremist regime and messianic expansionism, has betrayed the dream of establishing a democratic nation-state for Jews.
In his forthcoming book, Israel: What Went Wrong, Bartov unpacks how a country founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust by a marginalized people could now become a pariah state that is occupying and displacing the Palestinians with active support, or indifference, of so many of its Jewish citizens.
We discuss all of these issues in this 40-minute conversation with the hopes that the majority continue to use their voices, especially in the U.S. and Europe, to pressure our elected officials to help Palestinians and stop enabling Israel’s genocidal and self-destructive tendencies.
Give us a watch!
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