Great piece! The word, to me, also became a sign that people just either don’t know what they’re talking about or are intellectually lazy, like referring to the killing of Iranian protestors by the IRGC as a genocide. 🙄
I question why we still use the term antisemitism as an umbrella term, especially when you look at its origin. The term was coined by Wilhelm Marr, who founded the League of Antisemites in 1879, the first political organization in Germany created specifically to combat the alleged threat posed by Jews to German society. It’s like if the official term for hatred against Black people were a word invented by the Ku Klux Klan.
It’s time to stop using antisemitism as an umbrella term and focus on exposing and fighting antizionism, which is now the more dominant mutation of bigotry towards Jews: https://www.movementagainstantizionism.org/
Hi Rina, this article isn’t about the origins of the term antisemitism or debates about labels. It examines how some are using “genocide” as an antisemitic slur in contemporary discourse. Thanks for reading ☺️
I'm pretty sure that all the current genocide scholars and experts in international law who are using the word know its meaning better than most. And the number of them concluding this is a genocide is growing.
I think the attempt to ad hominem Bartov is really quite pathetic. He's clearly talking about the futility of this argument for those on the ground. When you have just witnessed your child being blown to pieces you are unlikely to care too much about how the international community classifies this event.
Similarly, appealing to 'founding charters' is equally ridiculous. Should we critique the current US Constitution on the basis of the founding documents which allowed slavery to continue and proposed the 3/5s clause? Would that be fair practice? Should current British law on gay marriage be judged on its laws prior to 2013? Of course not, that would be a laughable critique and yet that is exactly what you're proposing here.
It's hard to take this piece seriously given how sloppy the 'arguments' in it are.
Hi Michael, you mentioned that the number of experts concluding genocide is growing. Would a growing number concluding it isn’t change your view? And if not, why is the count evidence in one direction only?
That only responds to one part of my reply but it's not about the counting of how many per se. It's the fact that we're not talking about one individual genocide scholar who has gone rogue (which is how you make Bartov sound in your piece and whom you attempt to discredit via a logical fallacy and a very uncharitable interpretation of something he once said).
We all know there are professionals and experts who can have seriously weird views not to be take very seriously. There's at least one professional historian who denies the holocaust. There are PhDs in physics who hold to flat-earth theories. There are philosophers who defend solipsism. But when it starts being people who are considered highly-regarded in their fields of study and they become numerous and outspoken then I think that does command some serious attention as to why they have come to the conclusions they have. And, as you know (but didn't mention in your piece), there are many other such scholars and some of them also happen to be Israeli and/or Jewish.
So will you take any of these genocide scholars seriously or will they all receive dismissal on the same dubious grounds you dismiss Bartov?
Yes, I take them seriously. But taking a scholar seriously isn't the same as treating their standing, their numbers, or their identity as proof. I picked Bartov because he's eminent, not in spite of it.
You're right that one line of mine went too far. The quote shows him talking about the word's effect on the public... it doesn't, on its own, show he thinks the legal bar hasn't been met. That's fair. But when he says "we need to use that terminology because we are talking to another public," he's putting the legal call and the rhetorical effect in the same sentence. Pointing that out isn't an ad hominem. Bartov told us why he uses the term, and I'm working from the reason he gave.
The charter analogy doesn't really make sense. The examples you shared were repealed... the Constitution was amended, British marriage law was changed by statute. That's why judging by them would be unfair. The 1988 covenant was never actually rescinded, so citing it isn't the same thing. Sure, you can argue about how much it still counts, but that's different from saying it can't be raised.
I appreciate your questions, and they make me wonder where the disagreement actually lies. Would any evidence or argument lead you to reconsider whether specific intent has been established? If no conceivable evidence could count against the conclusion, then it's been insulated from revision, which is the issue I'm writing about here.
I'm encouraged you're willing to cede you went too far but I still think that whole line of approach was entirely ad hominem and does not extend the principle of charity to what he was saying. Even if one could find a legitimate contradiction in something someone has said this isn't an approach academics use to discredit people. This is a populist game and it's logically fallacious.
I'm not sure why you find the legal analogy problematic. Yes the American Constitution was amended and so, too, was the Hamas charter. So only citing the out of date one, with no reference to the current amended one (and, to be fair, it was a complete rewrite not merely amended), is misleading at best and duplicitous at worst. If the charter is irrelevant and out of date then why cite it? I think you and I both know why you cite it rather than the current, relevant, one. It's another attempt to discredit isn't it? If you really are a postgrad student and PhD candidate you ought to know better.
I'm unsure what you mean in your last paragraph by "specific intent" being established. Whose specific intent are you talking about exactly?
On the charter: the 2017 document didn’t replace the 1988 covenant. Hamas issued it separately as a “Document of General Principles and Policies” and never rescinded the original. Mashal said it reflected Hamas’s position “for now,” and al-Zahar said it didn’t contradict the 1988 Charter, which he called “the core of our position.” It also kept the commitment to armed struggle, the refusal to recognize Israel, and the claim to all of historic Palestine.
So this isn’t like amending the Constitution or changing British law, where the newer provision replaces the earlier one. I cited the founding charter as the founding charter. You can disagree about how relevant it is, but it doesn’t become irrelevant just because a later document exists… and citing it isn’t an attempt to discredit anyone.
On specific intent: I mean Israel’s—whether Israel intended to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in substantial part, as a protected group. That’s the specific intent genocide requires, and it’s different from the question of whether war crimes or crimes against humanity have occurred.
Again, I wonder whether there is any evidence or argument that could lead you to conclude that this specific intent has not been established. This is the third time I’ve asked, and you still haven’t answered. I don’t think continuing the exchange without an answer would be useful, so I’m going to leave it here.
I do not agree that it didn't replace the old charter. The commitment to an armed struggle against the occupation forces is a right they have in international law. The refusal to recognise Israel as a legitimate state is a position taken by some experts in international law. As is the case with the Palestinian case for their claim to all of historic Palestine. I do, and will continue to, disagree with the older charter having any relevance.
Okay well on specific intent there are a good number of genocide scholars who argue that Israel have met that threshold through both their words and actions. I suggest you start reading some of them and admitting to your audience that they exist.
On the question of evidence or arguments that might challenge my opinion on specific intent the answer is, of course, yes. If I read papers by independent genocide scholars or experts in international law who can make a better case than Melanie O'Brien, Ralph Wilde, Raz Segal, William Schabas, Amos Goldberg, Philippe Sands, A. Dirk Moses, B'Tselem, Martin Shaw, Daniel Blatman and 15 UN Special Rapporteurs (plus every single human rights group on the planet outside of Israel) then I would be willing to reconsider.
I wonder if anything would change your mind. I wonder if the ICC found Israel guilty in the future whether you would accept the judgement or whether you would attempt to discredit (or even ad hom) the judges or the court.
Great piece! The word, to me, also became a sign that people just either don’t know what they’re talking about or are intellectually lazy, like referring to the killing of Iranian protestors by the IRGC as a genocide. 🙄
Thank you :-) I just subscribed to The Shabbat Drop — looking forward to reading!
Thank you! It’s not as intellectual 😅 hope you like!
I'm just a suburban mom who intellectualizes her feelings instead of eating them...
https://www.academia.edu/165601881/Sometimes_Scholars_are_Wrong_Dr_Omar_Bartovs_Genocide_Accusation
Your argument is much more succinct than mine☺️ I had to go down a total rabbit hole! But hey, that’s why we’re friends.
I question why we still use the term antisemitism as an umbrella term, especially when you look at its origin. The term was coined by Wilhelm Marr, who founded the League of Antisemites in 1879, the first political organization in Germany created specifically to combat the alleged threat posed by Jews to German society. It’s like if the official term for hatred against Black people were a word invented by the Ku Klux Klan.
It’s time to stop using antisemitism as an umbrella term and focus on exposing and fighting antizionism, which is now the more dominant mutation of bigotry towards Jews: https://www.movementagainstantizionism.org/
Hi Rina, this article isn’t about the origins of the term antisemitism or debates about labels. It examines how some are using “genocide” as an antisemitic slur in contemporary discourse. Thanks for reading ☺️
I'm pretty sure that all the current genocide scholars and experts in international law who are using the word know its meaning better than most. And the number of them concluding this is a genocide is growing.
I think the attempt to ad hominem Bartov is really quite pathetic. He's clearly talking about the futility of this argument for those on the ground. When you have just witnessed your child being blown to pieces you are unlikely to care too much about how the international community classifies this event.
Similarly, appealing to 'founding charters' is equally ridiculous. Should we critique the current US Constitution on the basis of the founding documents which allowed slavery to continue and proposed the 3/5s clause? Would that be fair practice? Should current British law on gay marriage be judged on its laws prior to 2013? Of course not, that would be a laughable critique and yet that is exactly what you're proposing here.
It's hard to take this piece seriously given how sloppy the 'arguments' in it are.
Hi Michael, you mentioned that the number of experts concluding genocide is growing. Would a growing number concluding it isn’t change your view? And if not, why is the count evidence in one direction only?
That only responds to one part of my reply but it's not about the counting of how many per se. It's the fact that we're not talking about one individual genocide scholar who has gone rogue (which is how you make Bartov sound in your piece and whom you attempt to discredit via a logical fallacy and a very uncharitable interpretation of something he once said).
We all know there are professionals and experts who can have seriously weird views not to be take very seriously. There's at least one professional historian who denies the holocaust. There are PhDs in physics who hold to flat-earth theories. There are philosophers who defend solipsism. But when it starts being people who are considered highly-regarded in their fields of study and they become numerous and outspoken then I think that does command some serious attention as to why they have come to the conclusions they have. And, as you know (but didn't mention in your piece), there are many other such scholars and some of them also happen to be Israeli and/or Jewish.
So will you take any of these genocide scholars seriously or will they all receive dismissal on the same dubious grounds you dismiss Bartov?
Hi Michael,
Yes, I take them seriously. But taking a scholar seriously isn't the same as treating their standing, their numbers, or their identity as proof. I picked Bartov because he's eminent, not in spite of it.
You're right that one line of mine went too far. The quote shows him talking about the word's effect on the public... it doesn't, on its own, show he thinks the legal bar hasn't been met. That's fair. But when he says "we need to use that terminology because we are talking to another public," he's putting the legal call and the rhetorical effect in the same sentence. Pointing that out isn't an ad hominem. Bartov told us why he uses the term, and I'm working from the reason he gave.
The charter analogy doesn't really make sense. The examples you shared were repealed... the Constitution was amended, British marriage law was changed by statute. That's why judging by them would be unfair. The 1988 covenant was never actually rescinded, so citing it isn't the same thing. Sure, you can argue about how much it still counts, but that's different from saying it can't be raised.
I appreciate your questions, and they make me wonder where the disagreement actually lies. Would any evidence or argument lead you to reconsider whether specific intent has been established? If no conceivable evidence could count against the conclusion, then it's been insulated from revision, which is the issue I'm writing about here.
I'm encouraged you're willing to cede you went too far but I still think that whole line of approach was entirely ad hominem and does not extend the principle of charity to what he was saying. Even if one could find a legitimate contradiction in something someone has said this isn't an approach academics use to discredit people. This is a populist game and it's logically fallacious.
I'm not sure why you find the legal analogy problematic. Yes the American Constitution was amended and so, too, was the Hamas charter. So only citing the out of date one, with no reference to the current amended one (and, to be fair, it was a complete rewrite not merely amended), is misleading at best and duplicitous at worst. If the charter is irrelevant and out of date then why cite it? I think you and I both know why you cite it rather than the current, relevant, one. It's another attempt to discredit isn't it? If you really are a postgrad student and PhD candidate you ought to know better.
I'm unsure what you mean in your last paragraph by "specific intent" being established. Whose specific intent are you talking about exactly?
Hi Michael,
On the charter: the 2017 document didn’t replace the 1988 covenant. Hamas issued it separately as a “Document of General Principles and Policies” and never rescinded the original. Mashal said it reflected Hamas’s position “for now,” and al-Zahar said it didn’t contradict the 1988 Charter, which he called “the core of our position.” It also kept the commitment to armed struggle, the refusal to recognize Israel, and the claim to all of historic Palestine.
So this isn’t like amending the Constitution or changing British law, where the newer provision replaces the earlier one. I cited the founding charter as the founding charter. You can disagree about how relevant it is, but it doesn’t become irrelevant just because a later document exists… and citing it isn’t an attempt to discredit anyone.
On specific intent: I mean Israel’s—whether Israel intended to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in substantial part, as a protected group. That’s the specific intent genocide requires, and it’s different from the question of whether war crimes or crimes against humanity have occurred.
Again, I wonder whether there is any evidence or argument that could lead you to conclude that this specific intent has not been established. This is the third time I’ve asked, and you still haven’t answered. I don’t think continuing the exchange without an answer would be useful, so I’m going to leave it here.
Wishing you all the best.
I do not agree that it didn't replace the old charter. The commitment to an armed struggle against the occupation forces is a right they have in international law. The refusal to recognise Israel as a legitimate state is a position taken by some experts in international law. As is the case with the Palestinian case for their claim to all of historic Palestine. I do, and will continue to, disagree with the older charter having any relevance.
Okay well on specific intent there are a good number of genocide scholars who argue that Israel have met that threshold through both their words and actions. I suggest you start reading some of them and admitting to your audience that they exist.
On the question of evidence or arguments that might challenge my opinion on specific intent the answer is, of course, yes. If I read papers by independent genocide scholars or experts in international law who can make a better case than Melanie O'Brien, Ralph Wilde, Raz Segal, William Schabas, Amos Goldberg, Philippe Sands, A. Dirk Moses, B'Tselem, Martin Shaw, Daniel Blatman and 15 UN Special Rapporteurs (plus every single human rights group on the planet outside of Israel) then I would be willing to reconsider.
I wonder if anything would change your mind. I wonder if the ICC found Israel guilty in the future whether you would accept the judgement or whether you would attempt to discredit (or even ad hom) the judges or the court.