Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-07-17 Thursday

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Headlines for July 17, 2025; “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It”: Prof. Omer Bartov on the Growing Consensus on Gaza; Writer Adam Shatz on How Oct. 7 & Israel’s Brutality in Gaza Reshaped the World

From New York, this is Democracy Now! Since October 7, Israel has seized upon the attack to pursue a series of supplementary wars which have resulted in Israel establishing itself as the uncontested hegemon in the region. As Israel's military continues to attack civilians across the Gaza Strip, it's also striking Syria and just concluded its so-called 12-day war with Iran. We'll look at the world since October 7th with journalist Adam Schatz of the London Review of Books. But first, Israeli-American historian Omar Barta is laid to stop Ed in the New York Times.

I'm a genocide scholar. I know it when I see it. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's military is continuing to attack civilians across the Gaza Strip, with at least 93 Palestinians killed over the last 24 hours.

Overnight, Israel bombed the Abu Hulusi School in the Berej refugee camp, killing at least four people sheltering there. Another three Palestinians died when Israel struck near the Imam Shafi school in Gaza City. Meanwhile, Gaza medics say two women were killed when an Israeli tank fired on the Holy Family Church in northern Gaza, where Christians and Muslims were sheltering. The attack injured several others, including a child with disabilities and Father Gabriel Rominelli, the Gaza parish priest who was close to the

late Pope Francis. He suffered leg injuries. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has issued a statement blaming Hamas provocateurs without evidence for the deaths of 21 Palestinians killed at its aid distribution site in Khan Yunus Wednesday. Survivors blame GHF guards, who they say triggered a deadly stampede by firing tear gas into a crowd of starving Palestinians lined up for parcels of food. This aid, I swear to God, is a trap.

This is not aid. They fire at us. They throw bombs at us. Spray us with pepper spray to burn our eyes. The alternative is to open the border crossing. Let the goods in so the prices go down in the market. This is the alternative for this aid. This is the alternative.

Open the crossing and everything will be cheaper in the market. They're depending on this aid for their livelihood at the trap, the trap of the Israelis. Syrian forces have withdrawn from the southern city of Soweta after reaching a new ceasefire deal with armed groups in the Druze-majority region. Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharah, said the deal seeks to end days of sectarian violence that was exacerbated when Israel attacked Syrian forces in Soweta, siding with Druze fighters. Meanwhile, the death toll from the Israeli attacks on the capital Damascus Wednesday rose

to three people, with dozens of others wounded. The strikes blew up part of the Syrian Defense Ministry, sending a huge column of debris and smoke high into the air and scenes that were broadcast on live TV. Israel also bombed a facility near the presidential palace. President Shara condemned the Israeli strikes. Israel, which has been targeting our stability and creating discord among us since the fall of the former regime, is now seeking to once again transform our pure land into an arena

of endless chaos. It seeks to dismantle the unity of our people and weaken our ability to move forward in the process of reconstruction. This comes amidst mounting political turmoil in Israel's government, after two ultra-Orthodox parties announced their leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fragile coalition, leaving him short of a 61-seat majority in the Knesset. Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, made an appearance Wednesday

at the Tel Aviv court, where Netanyahu is on trial for corruption. Ahead of his appearance, Huckabee joined President Trump's call for prosecutors to drop charges against the Israeli leader, calling the judges overseeing his case totally unfair. A group of 30 countries announced a series of measures aimed at halting Israel's attacks on Palestine and ending the, quote, era of impunity, as they wrapped up a two-day summit in Colombia's capital, Bogota. Those measures include banning arms sales to Israel and reviewing ties with companies

that profit from the occupation. But only 12 countries have agreed to implement the steps so far. Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., called the Hague Group summit a turning point. We are beginning the process in which there will be a massive wave of countries, of civil society organizations, of companies, of individuals, of all who cherish international law and justice, to start taking practical steps in order to force Israel to stop the genocide against our people, especially in the Gaza Strip. In related news, Brazil, a member of the Haid group, recently confirmed with Al Jazeera.

It will soon announce it's formally joining South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. This is the Brazilian foreign minister. We made a huge effort to try to call for negotiations. And the developments, the last developments of this war made us take the decision to join the South Africa—the ICJ. Here in the United States, the Republican-led Senate has voted in favor of Trump's plan to claw back $9 billion in already approved funding for foreign aid and public media.

The cuts would have a minimal impact on the national debt, but could be a death knell to vital programs addressing global health, emergency food and shelter assistance, peacekeeping and economic development, as well as to public broadcasters. Two Republicans, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in opposing the rescission bill in an early morning vote of 51 to 48. The legislation now heads to the Republican-controlled House. The U.S. and Indonesia announced a new trade deal Wednesday that would see Trump's threatened tariff of 32 percent reduced to 19 percent.

The U.S. will not pay any tariffs for its exports to Indonesia. Indonesia's president, Proboa Subianto, also said he'd agreed to purchase Boeing jets. Trump told reporters Wednesday he'll soon announce a blanket tariff for 150 other countries, saying the rate will be, quote, probably 10 or 15 percent, adding, quote, we haven't decided yet. The Trump administration has begun making a series of voting-related requests to states, stoking fears of federal interference ahead of next year's midterm elections. That's according to The Washington Post, which reports the Justice Department has asked at least nine states to turn over their voter rolls.

Two states have reportedly complied so far. Meanwhile, election officials in Colorado said a consultant who claims to be working with the White House has made an extraordinary request to directly examine voting machines. In related news, Republican lawmakers are reviving a push to exclude non-U.S. citizens from the official headcount in the 2030 census, which would dramatically impact how congressional districts are drawn. Meanwhile, President Trump is pressuring Republicans in Texas to gerrymander their state's congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms in ways that would yield

five new Republican seats. The U.S. has expelled five immigrant men to Eswatini in southern Africa, where local authorities say they're holding them in jail before they deport them back to their home countries of Vietnam, Laos, Jamaica, Cuba and Yemen. This comes after the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to send immigrants to third countries. Under new rules, ICE can send people to countries they have no ties to with as little as six hours' notice, or in some cases, no advance notice.

This comes as immigration lawyers in Hawaii say an increasing number of immigrants detained in the continental United States are being transferred to prisons in Hawaii say an increasing number of immigrants detained in the continental United States are being transferred to prisons in Hawaii and are being deprived of access to legal counsel. In California, Narciso Barranco, a landscaper who was brutally beaten before being detained by ICE last month, was released en bond from the Adelanto Detention Center. He's the father of three U.S. Marines and has been living and working in the U.S. for over 30 years. Meanwhile, a U.S. citizen and disabled Army veteran is demanding a full investigation

after he was detained by Ice for three days without explanation. George Retis was arrested last week during the immigration raid at the cannabis farm in Camarillo, California, where he works as a security guard. He described the ordeal following his release. They had no coordination going on whatsoever. They were just kind of helping people and just sending them away without any information at all. So they arrested me. They asked. They just asked what I was doing. Eventually, then they asked me if I was a citizen, and I told them yes. They didn't allow me to shower.

They didn't give me a phone call. They didn't let me speak to an attorney. They never told me what I was arrested for. Meanwhile, Mexico's president, Claudia Schoenbaum, says her government is considering filing a legal complaint against Trump and ICE over the death of Jaime Alanis, a farm worker who died after falling from the roof of the greenhouse during that immigration raid in Camarillo, California. The Trump administration said Wednesday it fired longtime U.S. attorney Maureen Comey, who helped lead the prosecution of serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and

his former girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Maureen Comey is also the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, who became a prominent critic of the president after Trump fired him in 2017. On Wednesday, Trump dismissed questions about whether he would order the release of Justice Department files on Epstein as boring and said he'd back the release of any credible documents related to Epstein's case. Trump later lashed out against his own MAGA supporters over their demands he release the Epstein files, writing on social media, let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats' work.

Don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don't want their support anymore," Trump wrote. A federal judge has struck down a Biden-era rule that would have removed $49 billion in medical debt from credit reports. The rule affected some 15 million people and would have allowed roughly 22,000 people burdened with medical debts to still be able to access a mortgage. A group called Writers Against the War on Gaza has published a dossier accusing The New York Times of pro-Israel anti-Palestinian bias.

The coalition's research builds on decades of analyses showing how many high-ranking New York Times editors, journalists and executive officers hold material and ideological ties to Israeli occupation and apartheid. They also report Times editors have ordered reporters to avoid so-called inflammatory terms, including genocide, ethnic cleansing and occupied territory, and even to avoid so-called inflammatory terms, including genocide, ethnic cleansing and occupied territory, and even to avoid saying Palestine. In Iraq, a massive fire broke out at a newly opened mall in the eastern city of Al-Qut, killing at least 69 people.

The cause of the fire has not been confirmed, but authorities said legal proceedings have been launched against the owners of the building and the mall. And protests are planned across the United States today under the banner Good Trouble Lives On, a reference to the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis, who died five years ago today. The coordinated actions will protest the Trump administration's attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community, free speech and its cuts to education and social programs. And those are some of the headlines.

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we'll be joined by the Israeli-American Holocaust and genocide historian Omar Bartoff. Stay with us. You really loved me But I was too blind But when you left me And oh how I cried You don't miss your water, renditioned by Zeeshan B in our Democracy Now! studio. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Narmeen Shaikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

Israel's military is continuing to attack civilians across the Gaza Strip, with at least 93 Palestinians killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths in Gaza to 58,000, most of them women and children. This number is believed to be a vast undercount. At least 10,000 are believed to be buried under the rubble. The UN estimates approximately 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza, around 436,000 homes, have been damaged or destroyed. As the situation continues to deteriorate,

an emergency meeting of the Hague Group convened in Bogota, Colombia to discuss the conflict. It concluded with the announcement of a series of measures aimed at halting Israel's attacks on Palestine and ending the quote, era of impunity. The Hague Group came together in January as a block of global south countries committed to coordinating legal and diplomatic measures in defense of international law and solidarity with the

Palestinian people. There are now 30 member states. The action steps announced at the conclusion of the summit include banning arms sales to Israel and reviewing ties with companies who profit from the occupation of Palestine. So far, only 12 states have agreed to implement the steps. The summit was co-chaired by South Africa and Colombia. This is Colombia's president, Gustavo Petro. We need to leave NATO.

We need to form an army of light with all the peoples of the world who want to. And we need to tell Europe that if it wants to be with Latin America or Africa, it must stop helping the Nazis. And we need to tell the American people, of all colors, because they are now of all colors, to stop helping the Nazis. The Hague Group's joint statement affirms the commitment to, quote, comply with our obligations to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes under international law through robust, impartial and independent investigations and prosecutions at national or international levels, in compliance with our obligation to

ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes." End quote. Well, there's perhaps no greater crime than genocide. Our next guest, Omer Bartof, is professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. He is an Israeli-American scholar who's been described as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as one of the world's leading specialists on the subject of genocide.

And he's just written an op-ed for The New York Times headlined, I'm a Genocide Scholar. I know it when I see it. Professor Bartoff joins us from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Well, why don't you, Professor Bartoff—and thanks for joining us again—lay out your case? Well, thanks for having me again. The case that I made in the article and that I've been making for a while is that at the beginning, immediately after October 7th, the Hamas attack on October 7th, Israeli political and military leaders made a series of pronouncements which could be interpreted as calling for genocide.

But there was still no, at that point, there was no evidence that this was being implemented. Over time, and I would say by May of 2024, it became apparent that these statements were not only made in the heat of the moment, following the massacre by Hamas, but were actually being implemented in a manner that would make it impossible for people to live in Gaza, make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable and make life there impossible as well as destroy all the institutions that would be there for that group to reconstitute itself as a social, cultural, political group once the violence was over. Of course, it's not over yet. I started thinking that in May, in August that year, I wrote an article that explained that.

But the violence has only continued and the attempt, as you just reported, to destroy Gaza entirely has continued since. And it is now clear that Israel is trying to concentrate the population of Gaza in the southernmost parts of the Strip, to enclose them, and to enforce eventually either that they would just die out there or that they would be removed from the Gaza Strip altogether. And, I mean, obviously, the points that you've made, Professor Omer Barthov, makes it completely indisputable the argument that you make in the piece, indeed, that there is a genocide ongoing and that that is the long-term plan of Israel. You point out in the piece, though, that genocide scholars are often hesitant about applying the term genocide to contemporary events, in part because, as you write, quote, it often

serves more to express outrage than to identify a particular crime. Of course, there are people who believe that that's the case even today with respect to Gaza. If you could respond to that. Correct. So this is one reason that I did not come out right after October 7th and say, well, Israel is about to commit genocide, because despite those statements, one had to observe and see what was actually happening on the ground. And yes, it is true that the term genocide has been used more as an expression of outrage when seeing massacres, mass killings, but that

does not necessarily mean that what you're watching is genocide. Genocide is well-defined in a UN convention from 1948, and under international law, only events that conform to that definition can be seen as genocide. And that means that you have to show both that there is an intent to destroy a particular group in whole or in part as such, and that intent is being implemented. And that obviously, and unfortunately, takes time to adjudicate. I think that the term, while problematic,

is very important because it does identify a very particular crime. It talks about the attempt to destroy not simply people in large numbers, but to destroy them as members of a group. The intent is to destroy the group itself. And it doesn't mean that you have to kill everyone. It means that the group will be destroyed and that it will not be able to reconstitute itself as a group. And to my mind, this is precisely what Israel is trying to do. And many of its spokespersons to this day keep reiterating that, to the extent that

it's somewhat bizarre that so much of the rest of the world is not taking them seriously. Prof. Bakhtol, could you also talk about—I mean, you are an Israeli-American scholar and are in touch with people in Israel. How do you see perceptions of Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza changing within Israel? And where are people getting their information there? There's been talk of basically self-censorship of the mainstream media. But of course, so many of these images and information are circulating not in the mainstream press but on social media.

So, look, I should say, first, I am—I was born and raised in Israel. I spent the first half of my life in Israel. I served in the Israeli military. And for me to see what is happening is personally not only just as a mere human being but also as an Israeli heartbreaking. What I see in the Israeli public is an extraordinary indifference by large parts of the public to what Israel is doing and what is done in the name of Israeli citizens in Gaza.

In part it has to do with the fact that the Israeli media has decided not to report on the horrors that the IDF is perpetrating in Gaza. You simply will not see it on Israeli television. If some pictures happen to come in, they are presented only as material that might be used by foreign propaganda against Israel. Now, Israeli citizens can of course use other media resources. We can all do that. But most of them prefer not to. And I would say that while about 30% of the population in Israel is completely in favor of what is happening and in fact is egging the government and the army on, I think the vast majority of the

population simply does not want to know about it. And that goes back both to the inability to see anything on their own TVs, and a response to October 7th, a sense that after that—and that's a widespread sense in Israel—after that, there is no way of finding any solution with the Palestinians, and the only way to deal with that issue is to eradicate it. Professor Bartuff, can you talk about the genocide scholars across the world who have come to the same conclusion? Yes. So, as I wrote in the op-ed, over time, many genocide scholars and legal experts, experts in international law, who like me have been very cautious about applying this term,

have gradually come to the conclusion that what we're watching is genocide. And that's important in the sense that there is now, I think, a growing consensus over that view. As I wrote in the piece, unfortunately, scholars and institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating the Holocaust have generally, with a few very courageous exceptions have generally refused to say anything, to express themselves in any way about what is happening in Gaza. And to my mind, by doing that, they first of all betrayed the very idea of never again, because never again was never about never again the Holocaust, it was never again genocide

and such other crimes against humanity. So there's now a rift between genocide scholars, who have generally come to agree on Gaza being an Israeli genocidal operation, and Holocaust scholars in institutions that have remained mum. Can you talk about how the term genocide came into use? Can you talk about the Polish lawyer, Rafael Lemkin? Yes, so, Rafael Lemkin was a Polish-Jewish lawyer who, already in the 1930s, was trying

to find some kind of terminology that would describe and legally define that particular crime of trying to destroy a group. And the example that he had at the time was the Genocide of the Armenians during World War I by the Ottoman Empire. During World War II, he had to escape Poland as a Jew. Most of his family was murdered. He ended up in the United States. And in 1944, he published a book in which he defined what he understood as the crime of genocide,

a term that he coined, which is a combination of Greek and Latin, meaning killing a group or an ethnic group. And he struggled for a few more years to have the UN, the United Nations, just established in 1945 to recognize that crime, and he succeeded in doing so in 1948. Professor Bakhtov, I want to ask you about a question, indeed, that you ask in your piece, which is, quote, How will Israel's future be affected by the inevitable demolition of its incontestable morality derived from its birth in the ashes of the Holocaust? What's the answer to that question? Look, I mean, this is beside the horrific killing of human beings in Gaza, and I should just say, because you mentioned the distribution points of food, that between late May, when

this so-called humanitarian group started distributing food. And today, more Palestinian civilians are being killed at these distribution groups than Israeli civilians were killed in the Hamas attack. Now, what does all this mean for Israel? As I suggested in the piece, first of all, I think Israel will no longer be able to draw on the credit, if you like, of having been the state that was created after the Holocaust as an answer to the Holocaust. It will no longer be able to say, we can do whatever we like because we were a nation subjected to genocide. You cannot continue to use this argument following the mass killing of another group.

I hope, and I write that too, I hope that future generations of Israelis who will not be clean of that stain, that stain will remain, but will at least be liberated from this shadow of the Holocaust and will start to look at reality as it is and start to think of how can they reconstitute their own nation, not as a response to the genocide against the Jews, as a response to the Holocaust, but rather as a nation that knows how to share this land, where seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians live side by side between the Jordan and the sea, to share it with them with equality and dignity and not with the use of bombs and violence.

Can you talk about this plan to make—build a so-called humanitarian city—the defense minister Israel Katz has proposed this idea—on the rubble of Ra'afa and the opposition of two former prime ministers. You have Ehud Olmert. You have Yair Lapid. They're saying if there is no exit, this is a concentration camp. The significance of these men saying this? Well, I think it's very important that Lapid, who has been sort of on all parts of this debate said something and that Olmert spoke out although Olmert no longer has any political power in Israel. The plan itself

again using the typical euphemisms that are used by organizations and states that carry out such crimes calling that a humanitarian, which would be a vast concentration camp, a sort of combination of ghetto and concentration camp that would be built, as he said, on the ruins of Rafah. Rafah has been completely destroyed. There's nothing there. Build a tent city on top of it, bring in initially 600,000 people who would be brought back from the Mawasi area, from the beach area, to which they were displaced when the IDF went in to destroy Rafah and close them there.

The plan does not say that Israel would supply them with any humanitarian assistance in the camp, but some other international organizations yet to be determined, but they would not be able to leave unless they leave the Gaza Strip altogether. So this is, and in continuation to that, the rest of the population is supposed to then join this camp with the goal of removing them. So this is extraordinary that the state of Israel publicly is speaking about the creation of a vast concentration camp whose goal is removal of the population to countries that have unanimously said they are not going to take them in.

Well, Professor Bakhtov, I want to ask about the U.S.'s position on this, of course, their continuing support for Israel, which has enabled the assault to continue. I want to go back to the former President Biden, his administration, the State Department spokesperson at the time, Matt Miller, who admitted earlier this year in May that he believes Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. This reversal came after more than a year, as the face of the Biden administration's foreign policy repeatedly defending Israel against allegations of war crimes and genocide. This was Miller speaking earlier this year.

Last year. We have been very clear that we want to see Israel do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties. We have made clear that they need to operate at all times in full compliance with international humanitarian law. At the same time, we are committed to Israel's right to self-defense. But during an interview with Sky News last month in June, Matt Miller says he believes Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and that Israeli soldiers are not being held accountable. I don't think it's a genocide, but I think it is without a doubt true that Israel has committed war crimes.

You wouldn't have said that at the podium. Yeah, look, because when you're at the podium, you're not expressing your personal opinion. You're expressing the conclusions of the United States government. So Professor Bakhtov, your response to that and also your perception of how the Trump administration has both broken with and continued Biden's policies on Gaza. Well, you know, in November 2023, I published an op-ed in the New York Times in which I said that war crimes and crimes against humanity were clearly happening in Gaza and that if this continued, it would become a genocidal operation.

I was hoping at the time that someone in the administration would actually pay attention because the United States in November or December 2023 could have stopped all of this. It was not very difficult to do. Israel cannot act as it has without constant supply of arms from the United States. In Germany, these are the two major suppliers. The U.S. supplies between 70 and 80% of all munitions to Israel, and without diplomatic cover. Israel has a diplomatic iron dome created by the US veto in the Security Council.

That did not happen. And, of course, the evidence was there. And so, first of all, one has to say that the Biden administration is complicit in what happened in Gaza. Secondly, when Trump came in, curiously, the first thing that happened the day before he came into office was that he forced a ceasefire on Israel. And that ceasefire in January this year made it possible to exchange Palestinian prisoners for a large number of hostages, but not all of them.

The plan was to complete that exchange and to stop the fighting, but in March Israel unilaterally broke that ceasefire without any interference from the United States. And since then has continued. And what is particularly galling is the fact that when Trump floated his plan, if you recall that, that the population of Gaza would be removed and then Gaza would be made into a beautiful resort area, he later on didn't really repeat that, but in Israel that was seen as license to do exactly what is being done now, that is using hundreds of bulldozers, engineers, explosives to systematically destroy every building in Gaza so that nobody would be able to live in, in that area, and

then, well, maybe turn it into a resort area or more likely be an area for Jewish settlers. I wanted to name names here that you do in your piece. In November, a little more than a year into the war, the Israeli genocide scholar Shmuel Letterman joined the growing chorus of opinion that Israel was engaged in genocidal actions. The Canadian international lawyer William Shabass came to the same conclusion and has recently described Israel's military campaign in Gaza as absolutely a genocide. Other genocide experts, like Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and the British specialist Martin Shaw, who's also said Hamas attack was genocidal, have reached the same conclusions, while the

Australian scholar Adir Mozes and City University of New York describe these events in the Dutch publication NRC as a mix of genocidal and military logic. In the same article, Uyghur Umit Ungor, a professor at the Amsterdam-based NIAID Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said, There are probably scholars who still do not think it's genocide, but I don't know them. Professor Bartuff, as we begin to wrap up, can you talk about this consensus and whether Holocaust museums, which often address a number of Holocaust, will be taking on what Israel has done in Gaza?

Well, so, as I said before, I think there is a growing consensus among genocide scholars and legal experts, William Chavez is a very good example because he's a highly respected expert. He's very conservative. He took a long time to reach that conclusion and he has. I just spoke with him recently in Europe and he very strongly believes that what Israel is doing now is genocide. But the other side of it, as you indicate, is the tragedy that most Holocaust scholars and all of the institutions that I know that are dedicated to commemorating and researching the Holocaust have refused to say anything, and some, again, a minority of Holocaust scholars

have come out and claimed that genocide scholars speaking about genocide in Gaza are anti-Semitic, that this is an anti-Semitic argument. And that use of the term anti-Semitism, which as you know of course that we spoke about was also a tool to silence any protests last spring on American campuses. This abuse of the term is now creating a rift between Holocaust scholars and genocide scholars. And what I fear, and that's what I write at the end of this piece, what I fear is that this will mean that the Holocaust, which has had come over decades to be recognized as an event of universal importance, as an event that we have to learn from, because of the silence, because of the

betrayal of the notion of never again, by these institutions and these scholars, will go back to become a sort of ethnic enclave, only something that the Jews talk about among themselves. Omer Bartof, I want to thank you for being with us, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and an Israeli-American scholar described by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as one of the world's leading specialists in the subject of genocide. His forthcoming book, Israel, What Went Wrong? His previous books, Genocide the Holocaust in Israel-Palestine.

We'll link to your piece in The New York Times. I'm a genocide scholar. I know it when I see it. Up next, Adam Schatz. Stay with us. So So The The late, great Brandy Weston playing the blues for Democracy Now! This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharah, says Israel's targeting of the country's

civilian and public institutions in order to undermine the region's stability has been thwarted for now, with the, quote, intervention of American, Arab and Turkish mediation, which saved the region from an unknown fate, unquote. President Sharah made the comment as Syrian forces have withdrawn from the southern city of Soweda after reaching a ceasefire deal with armed groups in the Druze-majority region. The deal seeks to end days of sectarian violence exacerbated by Israeli attacks on Syrian forces in Soweda, siding with Druze fighters. On Wednesday, Israeli strikes on Damascus killed three people and blew up part of the Syrian

defense ministry and a facility near the presidential palace. President Shara responded in a televised speech today. Israel, which has been targeting our stability and creating discord among us since the fall of the former regime, is now seeking to once again transform our pure land into an arena of endless chaos. It seeks to dismantle the unity of our people and weaken our ability to move forward in the process of reconstruction. Elsewhere in the region, President Trump said Wednesday that Iran wants to quote, negotiate

badly, but we are in no rush, after Israel and the U.S. struck Iran's nuclear facilities last month. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday the country is ready to respond to any new military attacks. For more, we're joined here in New York by Adam Schatz, U.S. editor of the London Review of Books. He has a new piece, The World Since October 7th. His latest book is The Revel's Clinic, The Revolutionary Lives of Franz Fanon.

He's reported from Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt and beyond. Welcome to Democracy Now! It's great to have you with us. You have a great beginning to this piece, a very provocative paragraph. On June 18th, the sixth day of Israel's attack on Iran, David Petraeus gave some unsolicited advice to Donald Trump in an interview with The New York Times. Trump he said should deliver an ultimatum to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordering him to dismantle Iran's uranium enrichment program or face the complete destruction of your country

and your regime and your people. If Khamenei were to refuse, he added, that improves our legitimacy, and then reluctantly we blow them to smithereens.'" You say that Petraeus was recommending Iran, a country of 90 million people, be reduced to Gaza-like conditions, hardly occasioned comment, murderous threats with U.S. officials against foreign leaders and their people people and no longer provoke shock, much less condemnation. They're simply part of the conversation about how the U.S. should manage its empire.

Why don't you take it from there? Sure. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a real pleasure to be here and an honor to follow the great historian, Omer Barthov. What I meant to underscore with that paragraph is that this kind of rhetoric has become utterly banal and it's not simply Trump and the far right who speak blithely about overthrowing foreign governments, about bombing for other foreign populations. It's people who have a reputation in the states for being liberals and moderates.

David Petraeus was a darling of liberal intellectuals, you'll recall. And he speaks very cavalierly about what is an offensive war, a war of aggression, an unprovoked war against another nation. And I think that this does reflect a kind of shift in American political culture. Obviously, American foreign policy has been very violent. I mean Vietnam, the wars against the wars in support of the death squads in Latin America in the 1980s, the Iraq War of 2003. But this normalization of this kind of rhetoric does seem striking to me. And the fact that we can talk about a war of aggression against Iran because of its supposed nuclear weapons program without talking about the fact that there is a country in the Middle East which does possess a major nuclear facility, although we don't talk about it, Dimona, which is

the state of Israel. It's simply not a part of the discussion. So, if you could say, Adam, you do talk in the piece about what you think was the ultimate rationale, both of the Israeli and then U.S. strikes on Iran, and what the impact of those strikes has been on the reform movement in Iran, because there was quite a vibrant, and what the impact of those strikes has been on the reform movement in Iran, because there was quite a vibrant and is opposition for many, many years, different movements that have come together in opposition to the regime. Well, I mean, I think it's important to recall that 10 years ago, 2015, there was the Iranian nuclear agreement signed by Iran, by countries

of the EU, by the United States, the Joint Comprehensive Agreement. And three years later, Donald Trump decided to withdraw from it, even though by all accounts the agreement was working so there was a diplomatic option for ensuring that Iran's nuclear enrichment program would be directed to peaceful ends and you know in my view the the The attack on Iran was a war of opportunity. After Israel decapitated the leadership of Hezbollah last fall, in a sense, a war with Iran was almost a foregone conclusion, because Hezbollah had provided a kind of shield, a bulwark,

against a potential Israeli strike. And in fact, arguably, the attack on Iran was modeled on the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in October of 2024, which led, of course, to the assassination of Hezbollah's general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah. I think that the primary motivation for attacking Iran has to do with Israel's determination to settle accounts with any force in the region that might challenge its domination, that might provide support for Palestinian organizations resisting the

occupation. And Iran had relationships with Hamas and with Islamic Jihad. I think that was a much more important factor than its uranium enrichment program. And what do you think, Adam? Because the American strikes also ostensibly—I mean, they did attack three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran. But according to a recent U.S. assessment, which was just reported today by NBC, these strikes—in these strikes, only one of the three nuclear enrichment strikes was mostly

destroyed, setting work there back significantly. But the two others were not as badly damaged, which raises the question of whether there will be additional strikes, either by Israel or the U.S. Well, the Israelis have threatened to carry out additional strikes. And it's possible that they, in fact, prefer this arrangement, where the mer mirror sign of an Iranian effort to enrich uranium beyond acceptable levels or to pursue a weapon will be met with further Israeli attacks. This situation may be preferable to the Israelis to any kind of diplomatic agreement. And just to return to the question that you raised earlier about the Iranian reform movement, during Israel's attack on Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu made a

public appeal, a video appeal to the Iranian people, claiming that Israel was a kind of liberating force and urging Iranians to overthrow the regime. There was even talk, of course, about assassinating the supreme leader, Khamenei. In the initial hours, perhaps even days, of Israel's attack, there were Iranians inside Iran who were pleased that certain members of Iran's leadership, of the Revolutionary Guard, were killed in targeted strikes because there

is tremendous discontent in Iran. The regime is widely hated. But when it became clear that Israel's campaign was extremely violent, was indiscriminate, and that hundreds of people, and eventually probably about 1,000 people, were to be killed in attacks in civilian neighborhoods, Iranians concluded that they had no wish to be liberated by Israel by a state that, moreover,

has been committing genocide in Gaza. And I think that perhaps the attack that most alarmed and disturbed Iranians was the attack on Evin Prison. I mean, the idea that Israel was attacking the very people who had suffered most under the Iranian regime. So, Adam, I want to go, I mean, let's talk more about, you know, what precisely Israel has been doing in Gaza and, you know, the regional implications that you've just spoken

of. But one of the things that you mentioned in the piece that is very interesting, which is the rise of organized crime in Gaza, encouraged by Israel, you quote Netanyahu as saying, quote, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What's wrong with that? He said. You write in your piece, quote, as much as forced displacement, killing, starvation and humiliation, the promotion of criminality of a lawless gray zone of the kind evoked

by Primo Levi, in which members of a persecuted group are enlisted to police, brutalize, and at times kill their own, has become a defining feature of Israel's rule inside Gaza. The reference to the gray zone by Primo Levi is, of course, from his collection of essays, The Drowned and the Saved, which is in fact an account of his time in Auschwitz. So, you know, this is not something that we hear about very often, what is happening by Palestinians to Palestinians under Israeli, I don't know what you would call it,

coercion, much like as Primo Levi, you make the comparison, gray zone. In Auschwitz, the Nazis made the Jews do to one another what the Nazis were doing also to the Jews. Well, I mean, I think it's important to see that the lawlessness in Gaza today is not... this is not a state of nature. This is something that is encouraged and promoted by the Israelis. As you just noted, Benjamin Netanyahu

has publicly defended this policy of supporting this criminal clan, essentially a kind of mafia organization, a racket, which has been involved in cross-border smuggling and is said to have ties to the Islamic State. And this, of course, falls into a long pattern of Israel providing support to any group that might be undermining its immediate antagonist in the Palestinian national camp. And so in this case to weaken Hamas they're going to support this local thug. And of course the appearance of criminality and lawlessness

ends up reinforcing the impression in the mainstream that Palestinians in Gaza are a lawless people. In fact they're suffering from a lawlessness which is an effect of specific policies which is an effect in a sense of a tyranny imposed on them. And I don't mean to suggest that the situation in Gaza is the same as the Auschwitz described by Primo Levi in his great book, but there are disturbing echoes. So I want to talk about the smear of anti-Semitism against those who raise what's going on in Gaza, for example. You quote Mark Masauer, saying, no one wanted to be called an anti-Semite.

This was after October 7th. And yet, if you believe the pundits, anti-Semites were everywhere, and it sounded like Manhattan was Berlin on the eve of Kristallnacht, you say that previously the fight against anti-Semitism was a left-liberal cause. How do you trace the trajectory from that moment to this one, when those leading the crusade against anti-Semitism are very much on the right and the appeal of Israel to places like, well, the far right in France and Hungary and other places. Not only are they on the right, Amy, but these are people who often themselves make highly

anti-Semitic statements and who consort with notorious anti-Semites like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. And somehow very shamelessly they get away with it. It's quite extraordinary. I mean, I think this has historical roots. This began really in the 1970s when pro-Israel organizations and writers began to promote the idea of a new anti-Semitism by which they meant criticism of Israel and there was a campaign to equate any criticism of Israel's policies of the occupation of Israel's expansionist wars to hatred to equate this with hatred of the Jewish people and to smear criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as inherently anti-Semitic.

So this has deep historical roots, but clearly it's been on steroids in the last decade or so. And far-right organizations and leaders, I think, have found that by weaponizing the charge of anti-Semitism, it's much easier to weaken the institutions that they already despise. Those institutions being the university, democracy, immigration, for example, anti-Semitism has become an incredibly potent tool to dismantle what remains of US democracy. And we see far-right organizations in Europe which have drawn inspiration. Of course there's a lot of overlap between these groups. There is a kind of right-wing international.

But I think what we also have to emphasize is that there is a deep attraction on the part of far-right leaders and movements to Israel as a state, because Israel is an ethno-national state based on racial exclusion, based on policies of oppression, of dispossession, of apartheid. And for that reason, Israel has a strong appeal to these right-wing organizations and leaders who love deportations, who love building walls.

Israel is seen as a kind of model. Well, Adam Schatz, we thank you so much for being with us, U.S. editor of the London Review of Books. We'll link to your piece, your latest one, The World Since October 7th. And we're going to have you back to talk about your book, The Rebels Clinic, The Revolutionary Lives of Franz Fanon. That does it for our show. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.

Thanks so much for joining us.