12/28/23: Israeli Historian Raz Segal On Genocide And Gaza

Professor Siegel about what we're seeing, what's going on. So, first of all, thank you so much for joining us and lending your expertise here.

would say, very confusing. The world in twenty twenty three was not supposed to look like it looks like for people working in this field for a couple a few decades now, and you know, people in this field definitely never imagined I think that we would be seeing what we're seeing now in Israel's genocidal back on Gaza. And that's why we're also seeing a major crisis in Holocaust

and genocide studies today. I think there's the field is very divided between people who say that what we're seeing now, what we're witnessing this ISRAELI Attech on Gaza, requires that we really rethink perhaps various assumptions that we've had in the field, and then there are others who unfortunately say, no, you know, there's nothing here that requires any rethinking and

basically business as usual. I mean, among the people in the first group, and I include myself in them, who think that this requires major rethinking, we can you can think about the statement of Scholars of sixty scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies that was published last week, which I coordinated and organized and helped draft the statement that we put together about Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and

its meanings and implications. And among the second group, there was a statement several weeks ago that was circulated primarily by scholars of the Holocaust, and that one for instance, did not mention any kind of crime but in Israel's attack on Gaza, not genocide, of course, but not any other crime, and also engaged in this dehumanization of Palestinians who appear in that statement by Holocaust scholars really only

as quote unquote human shields. Right, So there their humanity is recognized, but actually not really recognized only when they

appear as human shields. And it's actually in some part in response to that statement by Holocaust scholars that the second statement by Holocaust and Genocide studies scholars against sixty scholars, you know, some of the some of them really central figures in the field, very influential scholars for decades in the field, have signed our statement that you know, it's meaning, as I said, is that business as usual in Holocaust and genocide studies is not possible moving forward.

to that in a second. But it's important to mention that this misconception about what genocide is is also based on a misconception of actually what the Holocaust was, because this misconception is basically based on the idea that genocide is supposed to look like the Holocaust, and for many people, the Holocaust is about just the Nazis killing all the Jews immediately, which was not the case the Holocaust. Actually, when you really look at the history of the Holocaust,

it shows us that genocide is a process. The Holocaust was a process, and the process involved two and a half years actually of the Nazis experience attacking Jews, including killing Jews, but various forms of mass milids against Jews and experimenting mostly with forced displacement, with what we call more commonly quote ethnic cleansing, right that is, pushing as many Jews as possible out of German controlled territories, expanding

told territories during the war. So from the fall of nineteen thirty nine, for two and a half years until the spring of nineteen forty two, this process of ethnic cleansing intensified in various ways in the context, primarily in the context of the war, so that by the spring of nineteen forty two, the Germans arrive at their final version of what this final solution of the German of the Jewish question, that is, to kill every Jew within German reach. But it takes two and a half years.

It involves many other forms of mass violence, gatilization, starvation for slabor, but again mostly force displacement at nic cleansing. So it's important to say that this misconception about what genocide is is actually rooted in a misconception of what

the Holocaust was. But when we look at the convention, at the Genocide Convention, it's also important to say that an international law, by the way, there is no hierarchy, right, So this popular idea that there is a hierarchy of international crimes is simply not true an international law, there are different crimes with different elements to them, and when we look at genocide, there are indeed a number of elements that differentiated from other crimes. One of them is intent.

So the language of the convention is that genocide is a crime that has intent to destroy a group that's defined in national, ethnic, religious, or racial terms as such, meaning that the members of the group need to be targeted as members of the group, right and not for any individual region, for any other reason, right as members of the group, and certainly as the perpetrators imagine their

group membership. And there needs to be an intent. Now, intent is a very high thrishold, right, and that's the reason that we don't have many cases of mass violence since nineteen forty eight that are recognized as genocide. We can think about the Randa genocide. Of course, in all the wars and violence in the former Yugoslavian the nineteen nineties, only Sir Bernitza is recognized as an act of genocide, But there's very few Why because perpetrators don't walk around

pressing their intent explicitly and clearly. Here in this case they do again, we can think why. This is why we have such unashamed, clear, explicit, direct statements of intent that also happened. By the way, it's important to say over time. Right, It's not, as has been argued just in the first week after the seventh of October the hamas Led attack and massacre of about twelve hundred Israeli is. No, it's over time, and it actually also uses various mechanisms

of expressing this intent and also dehumanizing Palestinians. Right. So intent is one thing that differentiates genocide from other crimes, but also very importantly in the UN Genocide Convention, so intent is explained an Article two where genocide is defined in international law.

different than other crimes and international law. Another issue that again we can elaborate more on, perhaps is incitement, right, which is again a different crime in the Genocide Convention, that's Article three, but related so incitement to genocide, which usually happens actually in media discourses but also in political discourses or in just sometimes in public spaces, in various ways.

And it's important to say that is real today and anyone who follows Hebrew language sources and they're all over social media today, and the Israeli media, Israel is, you know, very deeply immersed in a genocidal discourse. We see this in the media since in the Israeli media since seventh

of October. We see this in politics, We see this in public spaces, and I'm talking about, you know, huge signs hanging on the bridges of the Tel Aviv Freeway right after the seventh of October calling to flatten Gaza, to destroy Gaza. Uh written on them directly that the image of triumph would be zero people in Gaza, so

very direct, again, very explicit. Does not you know, you don't need a degree in comparative literature to interpret these kinds of signs and statements and so but in the media discourse and in the political discourse in Israel after seventh of October, we see clear incitement to genocide, right, clear, clear incitement to genocide. And all this has been widely published and I can repeat some of the quotes here

if needed. But it's important to say that, you know, one of the cases that comes close to this kind of society immersed in a genocidal discourse perhaps is Rhonda and the Rwanda genocide in nineteen ninety four, that as the genocide was unfolding, right, we had journalists and radio people inciting for genocide for the murder of Tutsis in

that case. And it's important to say that in the ICTR, in the post genocide trials in the case of Rwanda, there was also a media case where journalists indeed stood trial and were convicted for incitement to genocide. So that's another element that actually differentiates genocide from other crimes in international law. And again we see here like the issue of intent, which is an article too and refers to

people with what's called command authority in international law. So state leaders, war cabinetmitterers, a ministers, and senior army officers. Also their statements are very clear, explicit and unashamed. Also,

incitement in Israel is clear, explicit and unashamed. I mean just yesterday or the day before, just to give a recent example, a journalist at Zvirgraskelli on Channel thirteen on the TV in Israel just openly, outright said that he thinks that at the beginning, Israel made a mistake because it should have the Israeli attack on guys, it should have been much more actually violent and severe, and it

should have killed one hundred thousand Palestinians. Right now, only the TV anchor there, you know, said are you sure that that's what you're saying? There was some exchange between them, you know, is this All the other people they're sitting had nothing to say, And the official response of thirteen of days Reelly to V to that was that it's you know that we're just expressing the plurality of you know,

positions in Israeli society. Right, So this is outright, unashamed, right, It's very common today, it's in Israel, and it's something I think we should all be paying attention to.

in genicidal intentionality? Are they engaged in genocidal discourse? I know they're not a state actor in the same way, and maybe that's a sort of difference by the UN definition, I'm curious about that. But also countries like Iran in the way that they approach just Jewish people who live around the world, who live in Israel? Does that by the definition the UN definition in nineteen forty eight, does that sort of fit into it? How should we think about the way they discuss Jews.

But it's very clear that genocide also requires capacity to carry it out, right, and if you don't have that capacity, so it's not intent itself is not enough, right, you have to show the dynamics of violence on the ground in order to show genocide, and I think that in Israel's attack on Gaza. Now we have, you know, enough evidence so far that the attack, as many experts now have said, is unprecedented, its intensity and its levels of

killing and destruction unprecedented, that is since World War two. Right, we have, as you said at the beginning, more than twenty thousand Palestinians who have been killed so far. I mean, the north of Gaza is basically destroyed completely. And it's important to say that Israel's attack targets everything. They're schools, mosques, universities, churches,

agricultural fields. Right, Israel has bombs from the beginning, agricultural fields. Well, there is nothing there except agricultural fields, which tells us something of course about the intention of the attack. The levels of destruction. More than half of all the buildings and Gaza have been destroyed, the infrastructure have been destroyed. More than two million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced. Right,

specific groups are targeted. Right journalists, as we know very clearly, are targeted at least one or two on average a day, So that you know, so the very part for Palestinians to actually document the attack against them healthcare professionals and

doctors are targeted. Hospitals specifically are targeted, which is very very important when we think about genocide and the total siege policy of Israel, so deliberately creating conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group and whole in part, which is one of the acts of genocide in the convention. Targeting of hospitals shows us that very clearly. But for all of these things you need capacity, right, and it's clear that the Hamas Ramas has no capacity

to carry out a genocidal assault on Israel. D seventh. It's important to say that the Ramas led attack on seventh of October was a horrific and horrendous act of mass murder. It was a massive terrorist attack. It definitely involved war crimes and crimes against humanity that are also ongoing in the sense of hostage taking. Right, There's no doubt about any of this. But Ramas has no capacity

to carry out genocide. And also we don't see in the case of Hamas this kind of the way that intention has been expressed and is being expressed in the case of Israel over time, using various mechanisms in an unashamed way. We don't see this actually in the case of Ramas. Yes, there are some statements in the case of Haramas about destroying Israel, absolutely, but do we see in a kind of systematic way as we see in Israel's attack, together with the dynamics of violence, together with

the capacity to carry out genocidal assault. No, we don't see it in the case of Hamas. It's also very important to mention, by the way, that there is a military response that is genocidal, right, that is what Israel did after the seventh of October. Right, So a military response that is genocidal is illegal in any case under international law. Right, genocide is an illegal response under international law.

Even if the Ramas attack would be considered genocide, and as I just explained, it cannot actually be considered genocidal.

That's firstly. Now in part that's a good question, and there's there's a lot of discussion about this, but I think that we're beyond that in a way actually in the case of Gaiza, because Israel's aim there, the physical destruction of Palestinian society and life at Gaza now is

total the idea. And actually you know from the from the very first days and the certain things of October, there was a document that was leaked by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry that outlined the complete ethnic lensing basically of Palestinians from Gaiza, so their removal to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. And of course there is repeated calls in

Israeli politics and society and media. As I said about quote a second Knakba, right, referring to the nineteen forty eight Nakba, during the nineteen forty eight war, when Israel was created and seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians were expelled, fifteen thousand Palestinians were victims of massacres, hundreds of Palestinians towns and villages were destroyed completely and erased, so the Palestinian Nakba, and then of course the ongoing Palestinian nacua

since then, in various forms of Israeli mass vilus an attack against Palestinians, including military occupation, siege and terment, torture, you know, ongoing since then, and now indeed, right, a second nakba as that has been called for from the seventh of October. And actually it's important to say that in many cases the statements about creating a second Nakba

are calling for nakba. That quote will overshadow, right, the nineteen forty eight Knappa, which indeed is what we're seeing actually also in terms of numbers, but in terms of again the intensity of killing and destruction. So the destruction

that we're now seeing in Gaza. Right, and again there's numerous experts who are telling us that the levels of destruction, this carpet bombing from the sky, from the ground, right, the levels of killing twenty thousand, more than twenty thousand people, and there are furse thousands buried under the rubble in a bit more than two months. Right. This takes us now into really we have to understand in the sphere of total destruction of Palestinian society and culture, because also

cultural archeological sites are bombed, cultural sites are bombed. Right. The idea is to destroy and erase right Palestinian life and society and Gaza and remove Palestinians from there completely. And this is again expressed in various ways in Israeli media and culture and society in public space is unashamed. Right, this calling for a second Nakaba, and as I said, force displacement, as we're seeing now in Gaza about two millions, so virtually almost all the population in Gaza is forcibly

displaced under conditions of total siege. Israel's ninth of October Israeli Defense Ministry i've Gone's total siege proclamation no food, no water, so starvation policies. There's no clean water. We've seen, we're already seeing the outbreak of infectious disease, right, So deliberately creating conditions of life calculated to bring about destruction of the group. So force displacement indeed, as in the Nazi case, by the way, right, in many cases, escalates

into basically outright mass murder, right, so genocide. So we're seeing this now and unfolding in front of our eyes. But it's also important, by the way to say that the discourse about deporting millions of people into a desert, which is what we're hearing now in the case of Palestinians and guys, of deporting them to the Sinai desert is also should also raise all the alarms that we have because we know historically that deserts have been used

as a weapon of genocide. Historically. We can think about the Armenian genocide, the deportations of the Armenians to the Syriani Rock desert, right, the massacres on the way, but the idea that they would reach the desert and they would die there. Right. We can think about the herero Inama genocide and German Southeast Africa in the early twentieth century, where the Germans put down by the way a rebellion by the colonized Herero by chasing them into the desert

where they died of starvation and dehydration. Right, almost all the Herero actually were destroyed. Eighty percent of the group were destroyed in this case of genocide. So I think that in the case of Gaza, we have to be clear we're actually beyond the in hoole or in part. You are now witnessing right the destruction of Palestinian life and society and Gaza and whole.

here in the United States versus Israel. Oftentimes United States politicians. We had Ted cruz On here making this claim here that you know, nobody tries harder to protect civilian life than the Israelis. But then you follow the discourse in Israel, you don't see those claims being made, you know, you see claims to the opposite, that we need you know, damage is more important than precision, for instance. So I'm curious how that translates when it comes to the question

of genocide. Is what is the debate like in the Hebrew language media and Israeli media over the question of whether the Israel is carrying out a genocidal attack? Does that does that get discussed? Is it rejected because it's it's saying now that that it's that that is outrageous and canning be discussed. Or are there people who are saying, you know, you know, yes we are and we ought to be because it's justified.

very common mechanism. The Ottoman authorities in World War One saw them saw the state as under attack by Armenians who are actually agents of the Russian enemies during World War One. So deporting them to the desert was merely an active self defense of removing them from the front so that they don't collaborate with the Russian enemy. This is a very very typical mechanism of perpetrators and societies immerged in genocidal violence. There's nothing very special here. So

of course that's what we're seeing. That's what we're hearing now in Israel, that this is basically just this is really in Israel, we're actually seeing a heightened sort of this kind of discourse. Right, this is actually war in defense of Western civilization. Right, this is a war of course against Ramas and so on and so forth. But again, so this would be in the social setting. And I do have to say that there is a minority of people in Israel still very committed to a different kind

of discourse, including in the media. So if we think about nine plus nine seven two Jewish Palestinian media outlet, which I urge all your listeners and viewers to check it out plus nine seven two definitely publishes continuously a lot of critique, including discussions about the discourse of related

to the issue of genocide. But there Israel, you know, media, mainstream media, and society and discuss across political device left right, center, whatever it is, right is very immersed in a discourse that this isn't this is self defense, right, This genocidal assault is self defense, even though we have and again just yesterday, I think there was an officer in the Israeli Army that outright in a public event, right, referring actually to a biblical story, which is important because one

of the mechanisms of intent was, as expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamintanielle, was the invocation of the biblical story of a maleek, right, one of the expressions of genocidal intent. So this officer in the Israeli Army spoke about what his unit did under his command right in Gaza as

an act of genocidal revenge. Basically, he framed it as you know, the seventh of October attack was uh was an attack against the honor of the Israeli nation, and his acts in Gaza, his unit reacted as genocidal revenge, and he said that this should be extended to all of Gaza, right to restore this, you know, this the

honor of the nation. So even though we have these kinds of things, and of course actually a lot of videos that Israeli soldiers and officers themselves have taken and posted on social media that mirror the language of intent by people with command authority in Israeli in Israel, and

then the language of incitement in Israeli media. So we have soldiers talking about the fact that they understand that they're in Gaza to root out the seat of a Malek quote, or soldiers singing that there's the slogan of their unit is there are no innocent civilians. Right again, explicitly,

I'm ashamed. We have all of this, right, it's in front of our eyes constantly, right, or we have so another video that was went very viral on social media, the soldiers burning the truck with food and water in it, right, and explaining as they're doing it right, that Palestinian children are all terrorists, right, for example, so one point one people, a million people in Guys under the age of eighteen, right,

all terrorists, right, No innocent civilians, all these things. Even though we have all of this right, we still have a discourse which is basically a denialist discourse. And this is again very common. States and societies engaged in genocide usually deny it already as it's unfolding. They also deny it later, but the denial starts as the genocide unfolds.

So even though we have these now we live in this media age and the social media age, even though everything is in our face right, we're still in this common mechanism of denying what is in our face. We should start facing this real reality.

of that. There's a not insignificant portion of the Israeli population that is Muslim, and I think a lot of people and probably a lot of people in Israel who look at what they're doing is primarily self defense to your point, would say, well, that's kind of the difference here is that we're not trying to eliminate our own Muslim population outside of these contested territories outside of Gaza

and the West Bank we protect. And we could have a whole conversation about the difference in rights between Muslim Israelis and Jewish Israelis, but the bottom line is that question of dominating the sort of lives of Muslims who

live in Israel. Is that part of the disconnect here that the UN definition functions in a different way than a lot of people who maybe are in Israel or defend Israel here in the US and say it's not if it we were a genocide Israel would be, you know, putting Muslim Israelis in you know, the same that they would be attacking them in the same way.

two million people. So again it's important to say that genocide is a process, and what we're seeing now this process of the attack in Gaza, and especially in the frame of incitement, the acute incitement in Israel. It's definitely part of the genocide Convention is a convention of the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. If we think about prevention. Yesstinian Israelis are in raved danger now and we see it, by the way, in the West

Bank with an unbelievable intensified attack. In any case, twenty twenty three, even before the seventh of October, by the way, was the most lethal year for Palestinians in the West Bank. Right, Amass does not control the West Bank. By the way, right, we still see unbelievable ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. I mean Area C, which is sixty percent of the West Bank is basically all of it is now under

Israel settler control and full of Israeli settlements. Right. Israel has killed now hundreds of Palestinians only since the seventh of October. There's also hundreds in the West Bank and East Rulism have been killed before the seventh of October in twenty twenty three, but hundreds thousands have been arrested, sixteen whole communities and probably war have been completely forcibly displayed in the West Bank since the seventh of October.

Again no Jamas, right. So in the West Bank and East Jerusalem we definitely see a very quickly escalating right violence which was already intense against Palestinians. That's one thing if we think about genocide as the process that it always is, also in the case of the Holocaust, but with Israel Palestinians we also see very very worrying signs. So just a couple of minutes on this, because you

asked and it's actually very, very very important. We have to remember that historically, the one hundred and fifty six thousand Palestinians who survived in k Band remained within what became Israel in nineteen forty eight, were immediately placed under a military rule until nineteen sixty six, so almost twenty

years of military rule. That is, they were immediately seen as potential enemies basically, and the most dangerous kind of enemies, because the enemies within right like Armenians in the Yanoman Empire during World War One in that sense. Now this is very important because in twenty eighteen, Israel enacted a

new basic law, the Jewish Nation state law. Israel doesn't have a constitution, so basic laws replaced a constitution, and that basic law explicitly relegated Israeli Palestinian so twenty one percent of the citizens of the state to second class

citizenship within an explicit framework of settler colonialism. By the way, and it's important to say that three years afterwards, in May twenty twenty one, the events of May twenty twenty one, when Israeli Palestinians came out to protest and in support against Israeli violence in East Jerusalem, in the Palestinian neighborhood of Cherjerra, but also against yet another attack on Guiza.

Right because in these sixteen years of siege of Israel on Gaza, before the seventh of October, there were repeated attacks, right, Israeli Palestinians came out in support. The response of the state this time was unbelievably violent, a lot of violence, a lot of oppress across Israel. But this time also Jewish citizens of the state joined the police in attacking Palestinian citizens, in some cases as in Haifa, even breaking into the houses of Palestinian citizens in Haiphen, attacking them

in their houses. This is May twenty twenty one. So we have the nation state line twenty eighteen. We have this in twenty twenty one. We have the background of how the state looks at Palestinian citizens right from the beginning as basically potential enemies. And now we have unbelievable media incitement right against Palestinians as a whole. Right, So yes, if we think about prevention and if we think genocide is a process, Israeli Palestinians, certainly Palestinians in the occupied

West Manganese Jerusalem are in grave, brave danger. This in no way makes things better in the case of Israel, as some people might say, quite the contrary, It makes the urgency of talking about genocide right of forefront of the genocidal assaulting Gazza in order to think about, as I said, incitement, the obligation to intervene and to prevent, right, and what's going on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and what is going.

supposed to be working to prevent genocide. And then if we think about the international legal framework, right, of course there's issues of accountability. That's not only for genocide, by the way, that's for the very well documented war crimes now in this case, and crimes against humanity. And yes, should the Hamas perpetrators and planners for the seventh of

October should be put on trial as well. Absolutely, international law should apply to everyone, but should apply to everyone, right, so also to the many many israel Is now involved

in israel genocidal attack on Gaza. So there are definitely very important applications right in terms of prevention, in terms of stopping the violence, in terms of holding the perpetures accountable, and then also in terms of thinking how we got to the seventh of October, right, So, as I said, the larger context of Israeli mass violence from the nineteen forty eight Nakoba until today, Israeli settler colonialism, and how we move forward right from here, all this is also very important.