Dr. Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, has concluded that what Israel is doing in Gaza is indeed genocide. Bartov wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Times yesterday. Bartov’s 3,600 word column is a milestone of admission among U.S. holocaust scholars, and also for the New York Times.
Bartov said that at first, he saw war crimes by Israel in their retaliation after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, but then it worsened. “By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about 1 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah—the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip—to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August.
“At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of IDF operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack.”
Bartov cites numerous statements of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers—such as Netanyahu’s invoking of “what Amalek did to you,” showcasing their genocidal intent.
