In his new book, Omer Bartov tracks how a liberatory strand of Zionism transformed into an extremist ideology that he sees as responsible for genocide in Gaza

Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, when asked to explain the apparent about-face that led him to advocate the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, quoted a beloved Israeli pop ballad. “What you can see from there, you can’t see from here,” he said, referring to the shift in perspective he had supposedly undergone since coming to power.

Israeli-born Holocaust historian Omer Bartov invoked the same line when he was asked how he had come to view Israel’s ferocious assault on Gaza as a genocide. Living in the US, where he has spent more than three decades, he said, had given him the necessary distance to see the annihilation of Gaza for what it was. “I think it’s very hard to be dispassionate when you’re there,” he said.

Bartov did more than simply apply the word genocide to Israel’s actions: he shouted it from the establishment-media rooftops, making the case in a lengthy July 2025 essay in the New York Times titled: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. (He had addressed some of the arguments in a Guardian essay the year prior.) Bartov’s declaration cost him several close relationships, he told me, even though subsequent events have not only validated his analysis but further demonstrated the lack of concern for Palestinian suffering that has become prevalent in Israeli society.

His new book, Israel: What Went Wrong?, is an attempt to explain that indifference. The book, which was published on Tuesday, is a detailed account of how Israel was transformed from a hopeful nation that in its founding document promised “complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex” into one intent on what he bluntly terms “settler colonialism and ethno-nationalism”.

  • ShotDonkey@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    2 days ago

    Nope, Jews were living peacefully side by side Muslims in Arab countries in pre-Israel times. This is confirmed by Holocaust scholars like Omer Bartov. Antisemitism is historically something deeply European. It has been exported to Arab countries. Most notoriously via Amin al-Husseini. Israel would never have been founded the way it was, i.e. as a jewish ethno-state or maybe would not have been founded at all without the Holocaust.

      • mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        8 hours ago

        it is NOT a European concept and never was.

        Yeah sure the nazis was Muslims and not Europeans. Yo are a dimwit

        Also, Amin al-Husseini, was NOT antisemitic because of Europe. He was antisemitic because the environment who grew up in was.

        Pure bullshit. Amin al-Husseini was pretty irrelevant , he wanted Arabs to fight for the axis but did not succeed most Arabs sided with the allies. 18k Palestinians volunteered . Yes discrimination existed but it is true that arab muslims and arab jews lived generally in good relation

        From an israeli source

        In 1884 the first Yemenites settled in Silwan and for 45 years lived peacefully and on very good terms with their Arab neighbors. It seemed that the people of Silwan, which was known to be a poor village, found common ground with the poor Jewish Yemenites that lived among them.

        Despite the attempt to depict the 1929 Arab Riot as a violent incident against the Jews in Silwan, it is clear that it was not the case. From a letter of gratitude that the Yemenite Jews sent to their Arab neighbors, we can learn about the devotion and benevolence that the Arabs have shown towards the Yemenites by undauntedly protecting them, and also about the amity and good neighborly relations that prevailed between the two communities.

        https://emekshaveh.org/en/yemenites/