Defining Genocide: The Gaza Crisis Explained

Today's episode features a conversation with Professor Omer Bartov, a leading expert on genocide and Holocaust studies at Brown University. Areeka and Prof. Bartov discuss the unfolding of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The discussion covers the events leading to the genocide, and the implications of naming it as such. Bartov addresses issues such as the use of dehumanizing rhetoric, the framing of the conflict as a war, and the psychological challenges of recognizing genocide.Born in Israel and educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony's College, Oxford, Omer Bartov's early research concerned the Nazi indoctrination of the Wehrmacht and the crimes it committed in World War II, analyzed in his books, The Eastern Front, 1941-1945, and Hitler's Army. He then turned to the links between total war and genocide, discussed in his books Murder in Our Midst, Mirrors of Destruction, and Germany's War and the Holocaust. Bartov's interest in representation also led to his study, The "Jew" in Cinema, which examines the recycling of antisemitic stereotypes in film. His more recent work has focused on interethnic relations in the borderlands of Eastern Europe. Recent publications include Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (2007), Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz (2018), winner of the National Jewish Book Award, and Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past (2022). His many edited volumes include Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (2013), Voices on War and Genocide: Three Accounts of the World Wars in a Galician Town (2020), and Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples (2021). Bartov’s novel, The Butterfly and the Axe, will be published in 2023.The content featured in this podcast may be emotionally disturbing and intense. Listener discretion is advised. Please consult this document for mental health resources if needed.U.S.-Based Resources:• SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357• Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988• Open Path Collective: https://openpathcollective.org/• BIPOC Mental Health Resources: https://www.thementalhealthcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/BIPOC-Mental-Health-Resources.pdfGlobal Resources:• Befrienders: https://befrienders.org/• Find a Helpline: https://findahelpline.com/• I Call Helpline: https://icallhelpline.org/• 13 Yarn: https://www.13yarn.org.au/• Help Guide: https://www.helpguide.org/find-help.htm