In a special event hosted by Busboys & Poets in Washington DC, Mehdi sat down in front of a live audience with Omer Bartov, the esteemed professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University to discuss Israel, Gaza, genocide, semantics, and how counter-productive it can be to weaponize anti-Semitism.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has described the Israeli-American academic as one of the world’s leading specialists on the subject of genocide and, in conversation with Mehdi as part of the ‘Gaza Lecture Series,’ he unpacks the meaning of the word “genocide,” why Bartov was initially hesitant to use the term when describing Israel’s attack on Gaza, and the exact moment he changed his mind.
“The Genocide Convention is not about whether you can accuse Israel of something or not. It gives a definition of what genocide is,” Bartov said. “And if you see any country that acts in this manner, and you don’t respond … then you are breaking the entire edifice of international law that was created in the wake of the Holocaust to prevent that from happening.”
For Bartov, the invasion of Rafah in May represented a turning point that convinced him that Israel wasn’t just committing war crimes — it was committing a genocidal campaign.
“You can say now that this is clearly an operation whose goal is to destroy the ability of Palestinians to live in that area as a group,” Bartov said. “And, in my definition, that is genocide.”
Watch the full fascinating interview to hear more about what he thinks about the extremist direction of the Israeli military, the current far-right Israeli government, the weaponization of antisemitism to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criticism, and how the United States could have prevented Israel from committing genocide against Palestinians.
This talk was part of Busboys & Poets’ The Gaza Lecture Series of 2024 organized in partnership with the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding of Georgetown University. Zeteo was proud to be involved in this important conversation.
If you are a paid subscriber, please do leave your feedback in the comments below!
In case you missed them, have a look at some of our other interviews and articles:
Share this post