A Department of History 1960s Scholars Talk by
Omer Bartov
Dean’s Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies
Brown University
Mon, Apr 28 – 4:15 pm
Griffin 3
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 credibly 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 became 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? How do we understand the almost universal support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens? What future scenarios can we envision?
Omer Bartov is the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. Educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony’s College, Oxford, he has written widely on war crimes, interethnic relations, and genocide. Recent books include Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz (2018), which won the National Jewish Book Award; Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past (2022), 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. He is currently engaged in two book projects tentatively titled “Israel: What Went Wrong?” and “The Broken Promise: A Personal-Political History of Israel and Palestine.” His novel, The Butterfly and the Axe, was published last year in the United States and Israel.
Sponsored by History Class of 1960s Scholars, Leadership Studies, and the Lecture Committee