Israel Committing 'Textbook Case of Genocide,' Holocaust Historian Says

An Israeli historian and Holocaust scholar has called how Israel is treating Palestinians in Gaza "a textbook case of genocide."

Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip since Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, flattening buildings in the besieged territory of about 2.3 million. Israel has also cut off the flow of food, medicine, water and electricity into Gaza. More than a million people have fled their homes ahead of an expected Israeli invasion.

The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 2,778 people have been killed and 9,700 others wounded in the territory, the Associated Press reported. More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and militants have taken about 200 others captive in Gaza, according to the AP.

Israel's army has repeatedly said it is trying to avoid civilian casualties in its strikes in Gaza and accuses Hamas militants of using civilians as cover.

The assault on Gaza is "a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes," Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, wrote in a piece for Jewish Currents, a progressive Jewish magazine, published on October 13.

In the article and in an interview with Democracy Now!, Segal pointed out that genocide is defined in the December 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as five acts committed with "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

Segal wrote that Israeli leaders and officials have made their intent clear, noting Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's comments about "fighting human animals" and Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari saying the "emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy."

"We're seeing the special intent on full display," Segal told Democracy Now! "I have to say, if this is not special intent to commit genocide, I really don't know what is."

Israel's official account on X, formerly known as Twitter, said: "Unlike the barbaric enemy we are fighting, we do everything we can to keep innocent civilians safe."

Segal said Israel is perpetrating three of the five acts that fall under the U.N. convention's definition.

"The dropping of thousands and thousands of bombs in a couple of days, including phosphorus bombs, as we heard, on one of the most densely populated areas around the world, together with these proclamations of intent, this indeed constitutes genocidal killing, which is the first act," he said.

Israel "is also perpetrating act number two and three—that is, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating conditions designed to bring about the destruction of the group by cutting off water, food, supply of energy, bombing hospitals, ordering the fast evictions of hospitals," Segal added, noting that the World Health Organization has called the orders to evacuate hospitals "a death sentence for the sick and injured."

"So, we're seeing the combination of genocidal acts with special intent. This is indeed a textbook case of genocide," he said.

In his op-ed, Segal said leaders in the West had reinforced the "racist rhetoric" of Israeli leaders and officials by describing Hamas's attack as "evil."

"This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of 'evil,' in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation," he wrote.

Segal told Democracy Now! that the attack by Hamas was "a horrendous war crime," but using the term "evil" to describe the militant group is to "decontextualize" and "enhance the widespread fantasies of Israelis today that they're fighting Nazis."

He referred to a recent television interview where former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett lashed out at an anchor for asking about the Palestinian civilians suffering in Gaza by declaring, "We're fighting Nazis."

There is a "long history" of this "shameful use of Holocaust memory, which Israeli politicians have used to justify, rationalize, deny, distort, disavow mass violence against Palestinians," Segal said.

"And it has allowed also a view to develop that sees Israel as somehow exceptional, providing it impunity. The truth, however, is that all perpetrators of genocide actually see their victims as dangerous, as vicious, as inhuman, right? That's how the Nazis saw the Jews. And that's how today Israelis see Palestinians."

The lessons of the Holocaust "are now very, very urgent," he added. "We need to center the voices of those facing state violence and genocide, and we need to move to prevention as fast as possible. In order to do that, we need to recognize what's going on around us, what's unfolding in front of our eyes."

Newsweek reached out to Segal and other Holocaust historians for comment via email.

Updated 10/17/23, 5:14 p.m. ET: Adds background and quote from Israel's X account