A simple Ethics Dunce verdict doesn’t do justice to Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. There is so many things wrong with his New York Times column “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It” I may not have the time and patience to list them all. Here’s a gift link so you can analyze them yourself.
The major flaw in the piece is flagged by the headline: it’s a long appeal to authority, the writer’s own, but also other “experts.” “It’s true because we say it’s true.” He holds Israel guilty of genocide because he relies on his own analysis and he’s “been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century.” He’s also been marinating in the academic community’s intersectionalism bias and growing anti-Semitism for all those years. He needs to get out more.
It’s not just him, however. “A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide,” Bartov writes. Yeah, this is how the US started freaking out about climate change, how 50 national intelligence experts proved that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, and how the United States crippled its economy and the intellectual and social development of its children because experts kept lying about the Wuhan virus.
Sorry, I am no longer persuaded by “experts”; they have collectively proven incapable of objective analysis too many times. (Don’t get me started on legal ethics experts.) “So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International,” the author says, adding to his cherry-picked list of authorities who agree with him. “South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice,” Omar adds. Now there are three objective analysts!
The ability of Brown’s genocide-obsessed prof to completely ignore the obvious distinction between wanting to eliminate “a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (ethnical?) because you really, really hate it, and needing to eliminate the group because it wants to kill you, has repeatedly tried and will keep trying until it succeeds is mind-boggling. For decades, the Palestinians have never wavered from the declaration that it is their intention to wipe Israel from the map. Then, in 2023, the terrorist government of Hamas proved that as long as Gaza was a nest of genocide-minded fanatics, aka. Palestinians, no citizen of Israel could ever sleep at night. There are limited solutions to that problem, but they are all called “self-defense.” This is a war, started by the group that the IDF has to destroy. Hamas uses its own citizens as shields: too bad, but those citizens are responsible for their government and the consequences of electing it. There is a way to end the killing: surrender, and clear out of Gaza for some locale that doesn’t border on Israel. Where? Let the U.N. figure that out. Oh, the expert also cites the United Nations, currently as anti-Semitic an international body as there is, as authority for the proposition that Israel is genocidal.
The author keeps deflecting from the facts. Huh. Why is Israel being so mean? We get paragraphs of destruction, casualties, deaths, and of course, “think of the children” laments. “An entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long-term malnutrition will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives,” we are told. Whose fault is that? Here’s an idea, not to be redundant: surrender. “The version of Hamas that planned and carried out the attacks on Oct. 7 has been destroyed, though the weakened group continues to fight Israeli forces and retains control over the population in areas not held by the Israeli Army,” the professor writes. Yeah, I’m going to rely on an expert with such a clear bias when he says, “Nothing to see here, all is well.”
“As Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza and is exercising increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the moral and historical credit which the Jewish State has drawn on until now is running out,” the conclusion to this screed begins. By all means, Israel should set itself up for another sneak terror attack because people like this expert will condemn it.
When the Romans decided “Carthage must be destroyed,” they had an excellent reason: they wouldn’t have to fight Carthage any more. Committed enemies must be totally defeated or completely reform. The Palestinians still refuse to agree that Israel has a right to exist, and that leaves few rational options. It should not take an expert to figure out where the wrong is in the Gaza war.
Ethics Alarms 
When somebody, purporting to be an expert, tells us that a circle is actually a square, it does not prove that what we had thought was a circle is in fact a square. Rather, it proves that what we had thought was an expert is in fact a charlatan.
The Israeli left and their fellow travelers in the diaspora are an interesting, to the point of being sui generis, phenomenon.
So should Israel send Gaza the way of Carthage and completely obliterate everything? I asked what Israel could be doing differently on a history blog and the responses were interesting, and I think worth a.read:
https://acoup.blog/2025/06/27/fireside-friday-june-27-2025-on-the-limits-of-realism/comment-page-1/#comment-83329
One respondent cited the Battle of Mosul as the prime example on how to conduct urban warfare:
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project-case-study-2-battle-of-mosul/
Another linked to an article stating that Israel doesn’t give much warning before dropping ordinance:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210520-roof-knocking-israel-warning-system-under-scrutiny-in-gaza-conflict
I’m not trying to defend Hamas, but I’m wondering what the endgame really is, and what it’s worth to achieve it. From what I’ve read it seems the only way Israel can achieve total victory is indeed pursue open genocide. Otherwise there will always be Palestinian terrorists in some degree. Perhaps they could be reduced to the threat level of an organized crime racket; always around but not able to pose a military level threat.
I really do think that genocide occurs because what a group IS caused it to be targeted. Legitimate warfare is what a nation does based on what an adversary group DOES. Self defense isn’t genocide; genocide is based on hate. What Hamas wants to do to Jews is genocide. What Isreal has to do to the Gazans doesn’t require hate, just a commitment to survival…and thus is not genocide. It’s become another word the Left has blurred to weaponize it, like racist, sexism, violence, fascism, “Lies” and so many others.
I have no moral problem with Israel going full Carthage on Gaza, and ending that threat once and for all. The people of Gaza are in the same moral position as the Germans during World War II; both Hitler and Hamas came to power via elections. Hamas’s philosophy is sharia supremacism, which means that Sharia should be the supreme law and order in territory once ruled by the Islam. This means that there is no place for Israel in that philosophy, and zero room for compromise. So Hamas is an existential threat to Israel’s survival.
During World War II (almost) nobody in the USA and UK complained about carpet bombing cities in Germany and Japan; only after the war questions were raised about using the bombing of cities like Dresden, and the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After World War II various treaties were signed, and the UN and ICC were formed; many rules were put in place defining and prosecuting war crimes. One goal of all this is to protect civil populations.
In the past a city could be put to heel using a long siege, starving the city. Israel could have used that tactic against Gaza to force the release of the hostages and the end of Hamas. However, starvation of the population is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
There is also the doctrine of proportionality; in the context of war crimes this refers to the principle that the harm caused by a military attack must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. It’s a core principle of international humanitarian law, designed to minimize civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects during armed conflict.
Because of IHL Israel has not gone full out against Gaza. The result is that Israel is by international law prohibited to do what is necessary to eliminate this existential threat. And thus Hamas is kept alive and peace stays illusive. All the while Israel is vilified for war crimes in the international community, while Hamas has been winning public relation battles since October 7th, 2023. This makes no sense.
Another complication is Israel’s philosophy to leave no soldier behind. In 2011 Gilad Shalit was exchanged against 1027 Hamas fighters. Performing any military action that would kill Israeli hostages would result in an outcry in Israel against their own government. This empowers Hamas, and provides an incentive for hostage taking.
Without these moral and legal restraints Israel would have ended the war against Hamas a long time ago in their favor. My feeling is that now Iran is neutralized, Russia is occupied with the Ukraine, Europe is too worried about Russia and right wing populism, and with Ta friend as Trump in the White House, should Israel not simply do whatever it takes regardless the cost in human live to end the reign of Hamas in Gaza?
My belief is that ending a war in your favor if you have the means to do so is the most ethical thing to do. Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was ethically defensible for that reason. The international community will call out Israel for war crimes and genocide no matter what, so I do not understand why the opinions of the UN and ICC should be of any moral concern.
Agree 100% with this sentiment Cees – this conflict should have been ended years ago, but thanks to those elements in the West that have what Dr. Gad Saad labels as “suicidal empathy”. As a result, Israel as a country and an idea very much finds itself in a “it’s them or us” situation.
The commentary of experts like this is shallow to the point where it feels purposefully deceptive.
Take this for example:
“The crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by the United Nations as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” In determining what constitutes genocide, therefore, we must both establish intent and show that it is being carried out. In Israel’s case, that intent has been publicly expressed by numerous officials and leaders. But intent can also be derived from a pattern of operations on the ground, and this pattern became clear by May 2024 — and has since become ever clearer — as the I.D.F. has systematically destroyed the Gaza Strip.”
Well, if you follow his link to the UN definition:
“The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide[…]:
A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; […]
The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.
Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted – not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.” “
Back to me – Now, I’m not an expert, but it seems facially obvious that proponents of labelling what’s happening in Israel a genocide are going to have problems dealing with the special intent portion of the definition, which is probably why they’ll never mention it. Note that that didn’t make Bartov’s piece. I don’t think you can infer intent from the actions of Israel, because they’re obviously exerting some level of care not to randomly kill Palestinian civilians.
Back to Bartov:
“Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group.“
Straight from his article: This is what he believes, this is his entire justification on intent. But the UN definition, which he himself referred to as being definitive, specifically says that “Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group” And he knows this, this is literally his area of study. He is just lying to you.
What it feels like Bartov is trying to do is to adhere to the time-honored progressive tradition of labelling everything that’s bad as the worst thing possible, because their marble-smooth brains can’t handle differentiation or nuance. He has a narrative (Israel Bad) and so everything that Israel does deserves the most serious label possible, regardless of whether the label actually applies or not. If he were truly so tortured by his decision to label what’s happening in Israel as a genocide, all he’d merely have to do is not. Progressives never seem to have qualms about omitting, distorting, or outright lying about things to support their narrative, because the narrative is more important to them than the truth.