This talk provides a gist of Omer Bartov’s forthcoming book on the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. It traces the process whereby Israel—whose establishment received widespread international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust—now stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most crucially, the talk examines how and why less than eight decades after its founding in 1948—the year in which the UN Genocide Convention was adopted in response to Nazi crimes—the Jewish state has become engaged in a genocidal undertaking in Gaza. What are the implications of Israel’s near total impunity for the post-1945 regime of international law? And how do we understand the almost universal support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens? Sponsored by the Dean Rusk International Studies Program and the Jewish Studies Lecture Series.

Omer Bartov is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. Among his many works are the award-winning Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz (2018), and Genocide, The Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis (2023). Bartov’s essays and commentaries on the current crisis in the Middle East have been featured in many national and international outlets, including the New York Times, New Yorker, The Guardian, and Le Monde.