Israel: what went wrong?

BISA lecture (recorded on 14/01/25) - In this talk, Professor Omer Bartov will explore the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. He traces the process whereby Israel—whose establishment received widespread international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust—now stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most crucially, Professor Bartov examines how and why, less than eight decades after its founding in 1948—the year in which the UN Genocide Convention was adopted in response to Nazi crimes—the Jewish state has become engaged in a genocidal undertaking in Gaza. What are the implications of Israel’s near total impunity for the post-1945 regime of international law? And how do we understand the almost universal support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens? This talk is taken from Omer Bartov’s forthcoming book, tentatively titled “Israel: What Went Wrong?”