language in order to express their radical trauma. This rhetoric was the most culturally available to them to describe their trauma. On the other hand, Israel is committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. It also commits a slow pace ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and operates there and perhaps also within Israel an apartheid regime. All of this has already been determined by countless reports and studies. I will mention only the latest among them— the UN committee headed by Navi Pillay who was a judge in the Rwanda tribunal. This committee reached an unequivocal conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. So as Daniel Blatman and I wrote in January 2025 in the newspaper Haaretz: there is no Auschwitz and Treblinka in Gaza, but Israel is committing a crime from the same family— the crime of genocide.
5. Some thinkers, like Enzo Traverso, argue that invoking the memory of the Holocaust to justify acts of war can distort its true meaning and undermine the core values of modern democracies. In your view, to what extent can the political use of the Holocaust harm democracy and public debate today?
Unfortunately, I agree with Traverso. Holocaust memory and what is called " the fight against antisemitism " have been transformed from a tool that educates for human rights, emancipation, and equality into a tool that enables systematic violation of human rights, ethnic-nationalism, and today also genocide. In the study of mass violence, one always distinguishes between the causes that led to mass violence and the factors that enabled it. To my great horror and sorrow, Holocaust memory and " the fight against antisemitism " have become factors that enable the genocide in Gaza and its continuation. Holocaust memory that began as an emancipatory project of the left in the 1960s gradually migrated to the liberal center in the 1990s, and during the 2000s it positioned itself on the right and even the radical right. One dreadful outcome is that it enables genocide and prevents effective protest against it. Though I should also mention that some of the most vocal voices against the genocide come from the field of Holocaust studies.
6. The current situation in Gaza has sparked significant debate among genocide scholars, with divergent views on whether it constitutes genocide. What is the prevailing expert view, and what are the main points of disagreement? What criteria should be used to assess such cases rigorously?
I want to dispute again the symmetry inherent in the question. A genocide is currently taking place in Gaza. There are scholars who have recognized the genocide and those who are trying to deny it. Exactly like regarding the Armenian genocide and regarding the Holocaust. At Ariel University, which is located in the occupied West Bank, there is a " Center for Genocide Studies," so its head of course denies that genocide is taking place in Gaza, but they themselves violate international law every day and are partners in the apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territories. This is a matter of denial, not opinion. Almost all genocide scholars who expressed any opinion( and did not prefer to remain silent), including the International Association of Genocide Scholars itself, have recognized that genocide is taking place in Gaza. There are some Holocaust scholars, some of them very prominent, who joined the denialist camp for unclear reasons. And I want to clarify that by " denial " I am not referring to everyone who doesn ' t use the term“ genocide” but rather to all those who minimize the magnitude of the horror and try to deny, justify or belittle Israel ' s crimes.
Now, there is a legal question. The Genocide Convention establishes that legally there must be an " intent " to destroy in whole or in part a racial, national, ethnic, or religious group as such. Proof of special intent to destroy( and not an intent, for example, to solely harm a legitimate enemy even if causing collateral damage to many civilians) is very difficult, and international tribunals raised the standard of proof even higher in the 1990s. Among legal scholars there is disagreement whether it is possible to prove Israel ' s intent to destroy the
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