Omer Bartov, genocide scholarship, and the betrayal of truth

Remember this headline from the New York Times last month?

It was an op-ed by Omer Bartov - the second since the Gaza war started - declaring that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

But here's what Bartov said at a lecture a few months earlier:

“Genocide is a legal term… I use that term in debates now because I know, I see the immense urge to deny… But for the people in Gaza, do you think it really matters if you call it genocide or war crimes? We need to use that terminology because we are talking to another public… For the people in Gaza… who cares what you call it.”

In other words: he adjusts his use of the word “genocide” based on the rhetorical impact he wants. forget legal precision or academic consistency. He wants impact ..

That’s a serious red flag - especially from someone who titled his article “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”

Bartov has now published two New York Times op-eds arguing that Israel is committing or is on the verge of committing genocide. He uses the same selective quotes from Israeli officials - ripped from context - that we've seen before and ignores the extensive counter-evidence. The second article even got him a featured interview in the same newspaper about the “fallout.” In other words: it made a splash.

And that’s the point.

The New York Times op-ed page is the holy grail for pundits. Bartov didn’t land there twice because he made a nuanced legal argument. He got there because he’s an Israeli Jew willing to say Israel is guilty of the worst crime imaginable, only decades after the Holocaust. That breaks the narrative, flips expectations, and generates buzz.

Had he held the mainstream position shared by most genocide scholars, that Israel's actions don’t meet the legal threshold, he wouldn’t be published in the Times at all. In fact, the only op-ed the NYT published saying that the accusations of genocide were wrong came from their regular columnist Bret Stephens. No Holocaust scholar was approached or approved to write an opposing opinion. (A rare counterexample is this op-ed in the Washington Post by scholars Norman J.W. Goda and Jeffrey Herf.)

This is the media-intellectual feedback loop: and it’s not about truth.

Media outlets chase clicks. Pundits chase prestige. When those goals align, the system rewards hot takes, outrage, and moral drama, especially when it comes from someone “unexpected.” The more a claim subverts group identity or shocks the audience, the better it performs.

The result? Truth becomes a liability.

Nuance doesn’t go viral. Careful legal arguments don’t get op-ed space at the NYT. What rises instead are loud, emotionally loaded, and often distorted takes, especially when they break ideological or tribal norms.

This isn’t an isolated case. It’s a media-wide problem.

Decades ago, journalism was built on trust, reputation, and accuracy. Now it runs on per-article performance metrics. That means buzz, not balance. Reporters and editors are rewarded for virality, not verification. And scholars willing to bend or amplify their message to fit the emotional needs of the moment find themselves with platforms - no matter the cost to their credibility.

Bartov himself once recognized this dynamic. In a 2000 review of Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry, he wrote:

“Finkelstein views himself as innocent of any desire to exploit 'The Holocaust' for his own ends… The fact that his sensational 'revelations' and outrageous accusations draw a great deal of public and media attention is no fault of his own... From his Mount Sinai, everything is clear and obvious. It's just that his voice is too faint to be heard in the valley.”

Bartov isn’t as dishonest as Finkelstein - but the echo is unmistakable. He once critiqued the exact performative dynamic he now appears to be enacting. That’s not just ironic. It’s a warning sign of how the pursuit of visibility can erode the very integrity that once anchored public scholarship.

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There are "As-A-Jews.." There are also "As-A-Genocide-Historians" in the pages of the @NYTimes - like @BartovOmer - who lie about Israel with impunity.

The New York Times published a guest essay from Omer Bartov,  a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. The article is entitled, "What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide."

While he doesn't quite accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza, he claims that Israel's intent to commit genocide is clear, quoting statements by Israeli officials:

My greatest concern watching the Israel-Gaza war unfold is that there is genocidal intent, which can easily tip into genocidal action. On Oct. 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Gazans would pay a “huge price” for the actions of Hamas and that the Israel Defense Forces, or I.D.F., would turn parts of Gaza’s densely populated urban centers “into rubble.” On Oct. 28, he added, citing Deuteronomy, “You must remember what Amalek did to you.” As many Israelis know, in revenge for the attack by Amalek, the Bible calls to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings.”

Yet in that same speech, notably not linked, Netanyahu said, "Whoever dares to accuse our soldiers of war crimes are hypocritical liars who lack so much as one drop of morality. The IDF is the most moral army in the world. The IDF does everything to avoid harming non-combatants. I again call on the civilian population to evacuate to a safe area in the southern Gaza Strip."

Intent is a necessary component of determining genocide. Bartov cherry picks a Biblical quote to hint at genocidal intent, and ignores the explicit statement in the same speech that shows that  there is absolutely  no intent to harm civilians. 

That is a pretty damning indictment of a professor who is pretending to prove a point.

He brings other "evidence" that is just s bogus:

The deeply alarming language does not end there. On Oct. 9, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” a statement indicating dehumanization, which has genocidal echoes.

Gallant is clearly talking about Hamas and other terror groups, since that's who Israel is fighting. 

The next day, the head of the Israeli Army’s coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed the population of Gaza in Arabic: “Human animals must be treated as such,” he said, adding: “There will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

Right before that, Alian said, "Kidnapping, torturing and murdering children, women and the elderly isn't human." It is clear that his "human animals" statement is referring to Hamas, not all Gazans.

This historian of genocide sure doesn't check his sources. Or he does, and is purposefully lying. Either way, this should discredit him as any sort of scholar. 

And the New York Times proves once again that it doesn't do even a basic fact check when publishing anti-Israel pieces. Bartov links to secondary sources for each of his supposedly damning statements - and he does this on purpose, because the primary sources all prove otherwise. As a scholar, he knows this. 

It isn't as if he is the only Holocaust scholar in the world. The NYT published a very short rebuttal of Bartov's article as a letter to the editor:

To the Editor:

Re “What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide,” by Omer Bartov (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Nov. 10):

Mr. Bartov, a Holocaust scholar, warns that Israel is very likely committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza that can devolve into genocide. To show “genocidal intent,” he cites furious Israeli statements made immediately after Oct. 7.

But these do not reflect actual Israeli policies toward civilians. Israel’s targets are military: Hamas’s soldiers, tunnels, headquarters and weapons stocks. By placing military targets in and under civilian structures, it is Hamas that violates laws of war.

The 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention mentions demonstrable intent to destroy a national, racial or religious group. Mr. Bartov is mute about Israel’s hundreds of phone calls to Gazans warning them to leave buildings in which Hamas fighters were located.  Israel has urged civilians to evacuate to the south to escape battle. A government intent on genocide would do the opposite.

A cease-fire now would leave Hamas’s leadership and its massive tunnel structures intact. Hamas would declare victory and prepare for the next round of killing. Mr. Bartov’s article and the demonstrations around the world accusing Israel of genocide would, intentionally or not, have the effect of consigning Israel to live next to a terrorist state committed to its destruction. No state in the world would accept such a situation.

Norman J.W. Goda

Jeffrey Herf

Mr. Goda is a professor of Holocaust studies at the Center for Jewish Studies, University of Florida. Mr. Herf is professor emeritus of history at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Just as we see with "Jewish Voice for Peace" and other groups, Jews who do not represent the vast majority of Jews get outsized attention. And the same goes for people like Bartov, who has accused Israel of "apartheid" multiple times - something that indicates his bias against Israel outside his field of study.  The Times would never publish an entire op-ed by a genocide scholar who supports Israel. 

NYT editors relish finding and promoting Jews who hate Israel, and give them more deference and coverage than they do to the vast majority of Jews. 

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"Scholars" defense of Fransesca Albanese's antisemitism reveals astounding hypocrisy

A statement was just released by "64 scholars denouncing the smear campaign against UN human rights rapporteur Francesca Albanese."

Of course, they have to somehow skate around the fact that she wrote that America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby, a classic antisemitic trope.

So they try to gaslight the world:

Once again, a high-ranking UN official defending the human rights of the Palestinians is being castigated, based on disingenuous allegations of antisemitism. This time, the trigger for such allegations is a statement Ms. Albanese made in 2014, excavated from a personal letter about Israel’s attack on Gaza she had shared on Facebook. 

Indeed, Ms. Albanese said therein ‘America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby’. But first, she has rightly distanced herself from this inappropriate choice of words, and second, it is clear from the context of her statement that she was referring to pressure groups that are commonly referred to as the ‘Israel lobby’. Books have been written including by Jewish scholars about such groups. They legitimately exist and their influence, however effective, on American foreign policy towards Israel is real, in particular when it comes to blocking any initiatives aimed at holding Israel accountable for its inhumane treatment of the Palestinians.

When Special Rapporteur Albanese is delegitimized and stigmatized as an antisemite based on isolated and decontextualized statements, this amounts to political abuse of antisemitism, which fundamentally harms the urgent and important fight against antisemitism.

Let's look at their defense of Albanese.

First, they claim that it was "excavated" from a "personal letter" she shared. No, by definition, sharing a letter makes it an open letter, written to the world, to raise funds for UNWRA. 

Then they claim that she  "distanced herself" from that choice of words. Yes, but only when she was called on it - and even then, she denied that the phrase was antisemitic.

Third, they claim that in the context of the statement she was clearly talking about the "Israel lobby," not the "Jewish lobby," and that her critics are taking it out of context. This is another lie: in context, she wrote, "America and Europe, subjugated by both the Jewish lobby and the guilt for the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed - the Palestinians - who defend themselves with the only means they have..."

She is saying that Europe is "subjugated" by guilt for the Holocaust in the same breath that America is "subjugated" by the "Jewish lobby." She is saying that America and Europe are both beholden to not upsetting Jews. In context, it is very obvious that her "Jewish lobby" comment refers to Jews, not AIPAC, or else the Europe part of the sentence makes no sense.

But let's pretend that Albanese really meant "Israel Lobby," not "Jewish Lobby." It is still antisemitic - even according to these "scholars!"

You see, many of the same "scholars" who signed this letter also signed the  Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which is meant as an anti-Zionst alternative to the IHRA Working Definition. Aleida Assmann, Leora Auslander, Angelika Bammer, Omer Bartov, Peter Beinart, Michael Berkowitz, Daniel Boyarin, Jose Brunner, Stephen Clingman, Raya Cohen, Alon Confino, all signed  both - and that is only through "C." There is a very large overlap between the signatories to this statement and the JDA.

Now, what does the Jerusalem Declaration say about examples of speech about Israel "that, on the face of it, are antisemitic"?  The first one is, "Applying the symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical antisemitism (see guidelines 2 and 3) to the State of Israel."

Guideline 2 says, "What is particular in classic antisemitism is the idea that Jews are linked to the forces of evil. This stands at the core of many anti-Jewish fantasies, such as the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in which “the Jews” possess hidden power that they use to promote their own collective agenda at the expense of other people. This linkage between Jews and evil continues in the present: in the fantasy that “the Jews” control governments with a “hidden hand,”... 

Albanese is saying that Jews/Israelis have power over both the US and Europe, power that she is exposing in her letter. Note that she didn't say that the US and Europe are "influenced"  (as the statement claims) or even "pressured" by the Lobby - she says that they are subjugated. That means that Jews/"Zionists" control the US and Europe. 

Even dedicated anti-Zionists are on the record as saying that this is antisemitic - including many of the people who signed this statement!

These hypocritical scholars are ignoring their own definition of antisemitism in their zeal to exonerate Albanese.

Ironically, the JDA was written to allow people to freely attack (and boycott) Israel without being called antisemitic, but Albanese even crossed their own extraordinarily high bar for when attacking Israel is considered antisemitic.  

They themselves are guilty of what they accuse Albanese's critics of: "this amounts to political abuse of antisemitism, which fundamentally harms the urgent and important fight against antisemitism."

Which shows the level of integrity of the anti-Israel crowd: Exactly zero.

(h/t GnasherJew)

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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