Last week, the New York Times published an essay arguing that anti-Hamas rhetoric by Israel’s leaders is proof of genocide. According to author Omer Bartov, for example, Netanyahu’s unremarkable1 2 3 statement that Hamas would pay a price for its Oct 7 massacre is proof of “genocidal intent.”
So impressed were editors by this caliber of argumentation that they brought Bartov back for more.
And more is what they got. In an interview published in the Times a week after his Op-Ed appeared, Bartov offered another look at the sophistry that passes as scholarship.
The New York Times interviewer, Daniel J. Wakin, didn’t challenge Bartov on his argument that criticism of the brutish Hamas, again unremarkable, counts as evidence of genocide, though such misrepresentations undergird not just Bartov’s case but that of his fellow activists. But Bartov seized the opportunity to discredit himself, nonetheless.
Bartov, by virtue of his scholarliness, knows this is genocide because he knows — so he tells us — that Israel would kill every last Palestinian if only it was able to reach the small percentage of the Gaza Strip not under its control.
Wakin: And finally, critics of the piece have pointed out that in World War II, hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians were killed — the atomic bombings in Japan, the fire bombing of Dresden. Why was that not considered a genocide, and why is this case considered a genocide?
Bartov: That’s a question that’s often asked in World War II. Especially British and American bombers killed and firebombed in Germany alone about 600,000 civilians intentionally. Now, you could have said that was a war crime, why is it not genocide? Well, think about what happened when the Americans occupied Germany. Did they kill all the Germans? Did they say that Germany’s going to never exist again? Did they flatten Germany? No. They decided on the Marshall Plan.
In its headlines to both the Op-Ed and the interview, the New York Times makes a point of heralding Bartov as a “scholar.” And this is what is meant to pass as serious scholarship: I know there is an attempt to destroy the Palestinian people because I know that, in a hypothetical scenario not practically different from the current reality, Israel would attempt to destroy the Palestinian people. Such circular reasoning is neither serious nor scholarship.
Nor is it the only time in the interview that Bartov confuses his fever dreams about the future with evidence:
Wakin: One of the objections raised to your piece was that you’re blaming Israel for carrying out genocide in Gaza, when all that has to happen to stop this situation is for Hamas, which started the war, to surrender and let the hostages go. They could end this there, and they could have ended it at any time. So it’s somehow false to accuse Israel of a genocide when its actions are the result of Hamas’s failure to surrender.
Bartov: Yeah, that unfortunately is merely an indication of the success of Israeli propaganda. If Hamas were to surrender, to hand over the hostages, what do you think Israel and the I.D.F. on the ground would do? They would just wrap up their tents and put their tanks in reverse and leave Gaza? No. The only thing that is preventing the I.D.F. from completely demolishing Gaza, whatever is left of it, from taking over everything, is the presence of Israeli hostages there.
This is the “scholarship” on which the genocide charge rests.
Bartov does no better when he moves from hypotheticals about the future back to specific claims about the past. He claims:
And even with Japan — once America came to occupy Japan, it didn’t destroy Japan. Complaints were by the winners that the losers were doing so well economically that they lost the war, but won in the economic competition. Now, had Israel said: Look, we are fighting Hamas. We’re not fighting Palestinians. We’re not fighting the Palestinian people. We are on your side. Inhabitants, help us destroy Hamas and we will help you build a new society together with us. You won’t find such statements in Israel.
And yet here is Israel’s prime minister, speaking in January 2024: “Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population.”
“Our goal is to rid Gaza of Hamas terrorists and free our hostages,” he explained. “Once this is achieved Gaza can be demilitarized and deradicalized, thereby creating a possibility for a better future for Israel and Palestinians alike.”
On multiple occasions, the Israeli military has said the same: “Our war is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza.”
This second serving of Bartov in the New York Times was likely meant to promote his extreme anti-Israel narratives. And with its platform, the paper may have succeeded. But it came with a hidden cost: The more exposure he gets, the more he ends up exposing the intellectual failures of the genocide slur — and exposing those in the media who are so invested in pursuing the accusation over the truth.