By: Verena Buser
Introduction
At the time of writing this article in the fall of 2025, a low point has been reached in the debate about the alleged genocide in Gaza. It is the accusation that the state of Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, seemingly legitimizing violent actions, boycotts against artists and intellectuals, and even murder.[1] Now it is sufficient to claim: “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It” (Omer Bartov).[2] Bartov’s extra-academic activism is symptomatic of a development within Holocaust and genocide research, within which attacks on recognized definitions have been taking place for more than ten years. In the wake of the Islamic State-style Islamist jihadist massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, these developments have gained momentum and acuteness.[3] Now the claim is that there is a consensus that the war in Gaza is genocide. This is not the case.[4] It was only in the late summer of 2025 that there was widespread criticism of a resolution by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, which concluded that there was genocide in Gaza.[5] Although the broad criticism, “Scholars for Truth about Genocide”, was signed by more than 500 researchers[6] , it has not yet been the subject of broad social debate.
The insinuation of genocide is also due to the fact that human rights organizations such as Amnesty International or B-tselem (Israel) have joined this assessment [7] , despite previous criticism and the fact that the “intent to destroy”, which is fundamental to the crime of genocide, is arbitrarily applied by both organizations without making a source-critical comparison. The United Nations (UN) and, in particular, its “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967”, Francesa Abanese, are also spreading this “blood libel of the 21st century”[8] , even though the latter has repeatedly drawn attention to herself with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.[9] The following is less concerned with deconstructing the genocide accusations, as this has already been done elsewhere. [10] The focus is on the broader scientific discourse in Holocaust and genocide research that led to the genocide accusation.
Scientific activism in Holocaust and genocide research
Researchers such as Ingo Elbe, Steffen Klävers and others have explained how “progressive attacks” on the German culture of remembrance, the memory of the Holocaust, the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism or the reinterpretation of the Holocaust – away from an ideological to a colonial genocide – are structured.[11] A “hard core” of researchers, who perceive themselves as progressive and in solidarity with Palestine[12] , has remained relatively constant in terms of personnel and has crossed every red line of legitimate criticism of Israel for more than two years. As a result, they fuel hatred of Israel, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. They are recruited from the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS), founded in Berlin in 2005, and their ideological platform is the Journal of Genocide Research, especially the Israel-Palestine Forum. Here, an explicitly political agenda is pursued, despite the self-definition of INoGS, which reads as follows: “[…] we aim to provide genocide research with a non-partisan community in which all aspects of (individually defined) genocide research can be explored and analyzed. Since our founding, we have supported research-led analysis rather than politically motivated agendas.”[13] INoGS is characterized by the fact that various mass crimes such as genocides, mass violence and thus war, massacres and others are placed side by side on an equal footing. It is always the same Holocaust and genocide researchers who want to shape a “new culture of remembrance” by working against the supposed omnipresence and over-representation of Holocaust remembrance.[14] Their activities include attacking scientifically recognized definitions of the Holocaust, genocide and anti-Semitism, reinterpreting them or introducing new definitions. The approach is questionable because, unlike usual in a scientific discourse, no criticism from other scientists is taken up or seriously discussed.[15] It is above all the influence of postcolonial theory that has promoted this development for more than 20 years. Representatives of postcolonial arguments within Holocaust and genocide research argue for the thesis of continuity, according to which the genocide in German South West Africa was the “source of ideas” for the Holocaust and there is a continuity “from Windhoek to Auschwitz”.[16] The most questionable aspect of the continuity thesis is that the role of anti-Semitism is trivialized or defined analogously as racism (or its sub-form). This was followed by Historikerstreit 2.0, i.e. the “catechism debate” initiated in 2021 by the genocide researcher A. Dirk Moses, in which similar lines of argumentation can be found between the extreme right and the pro-Palestinian, anti-imperialist left, both of whom reject the German culture of remembrance and its “fixation” on the Holocaust.[17] . Moses belongs to a small group within the discipline who repeatedly question the unprecedented nature of the Holocaust in its total, ideological and geographical dimension of a seemingly inclusive culture of remembrance or a “multidirectional memory” that is not characterized by a “competition of victims”.[18] Moses calls for the concept of genocide, which goes back to the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin and which includes the “intent to destroy” as a decisive criterion for the crime of genocide, to be replaced by the concept of “permanent security”. He formulates this seemingly humanistic idea as follows: “[…] but what do the civilian victims care whether the violence against them is carried out with genocidal or military intent?”[19] “Permanent security” is “more than genocide” and includes both “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” in order to achieve the goal of “illegitimate permanent security”. The actual “crime of crimes” should therefore no longer be genocide, but the “illegitimate” desire for “permanent security”, a concept which, when applied to the state of Israel in a template-like manner, delegitimizes not only the war in Gaza, but also its legitimate security policy.
His concept, which ignores anti-Semitism as an ideology underlying the Holocaust, is based on the protective claims of Otto Ohlendorf, SS Gruppenführer and commander of Einsatzgruppe D, which was responsible for the mass shootings of Jews and politically unpopular individuals. As early as 1950, the Würzburg Regional Court rejected his protective claim that the shootings were carried out for security policy reasons and emphasized the fact that they were ideologically motivated murder operations: “They [the task of the Einsatzgruppen] thus primarily encompassed the so-called ‘solution of the Jewish problem’ and the ‘solution of the Jewish problem’. ‘solution of the Jewish problem’ and the realization of the other objectives of the Nazi state leadership based on racial hatred and racial mania as well as on the ruthless dictatorship”.[20] Finally, for years, researchers such as Holocaust researcher Daniel Blatman have been attempting to discredit the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism by claiming that it is an “instrument” of the government Netanyahu to suppress unpopular criticism of Israel.[21] which led to the publication of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) in 2019, which does not correspond to the current state of research.[22] It is this accusation of antisemitism that is now being misused to implement a questionable definition with the JDA, which promotes antisemitic narratives by absolving Nazi comparisons and anti-Zionism per se from the accusation of antisemitism.
With these scientific-activist initiatives, the narrow ideological framework for perceiving the Israel-Hamas war through a tightly knit interpretative framework had already been created before October 7. The impression is created that the “blame” for October 7 and the majority of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts as a whole was already established at a time when the Israeli army had not yet begun its ground offensive in Gaza, and only ex post was evidence sought. A similar approach can be observed in the case of a “targeted starvation campaign” by Israel through the World Health Organization (WHO). [23]
The denial of anti-Semitism and October 7, 2023
However, it was mostly Holocaust and anti-Semitism researchers who quickly sought to interpret the massacres after 7 October as a reaction of the Palestinians and “contextualized” them as a reaction to Israel’s policy towards Palestinians.[24] Bartov declared: “The despicable Hamas attack must be seen as an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.”[25] . Furthermore, he activated – just six days after the massacres – the familiar mechanisms of perpetrator-victim inversion and rejected any historical analogy describing Jewish suffering: “Those who speak of pogroms refuse political analysis and portray the Jews as the eternal victims of history. Victims who are “allowed to do anything” to defend themselves against the forces of evil, including the oppression of millions of Palestinians and the killing of thousands of innocent civilians.”[26] In this way, the ideology underlying the clearly genocidal massacres[27] is completely ignored. Abu Marzouk, a leading member of the Hamas politburo, declared back in October 2023 that Hamas was not responsible for protecting civilians in Gaza.[28] Civilians as victims of Hamas therefore play no role.
The war as “genocide”
Bartov, Goldberg, Moses and other academics have not yet carried out a source-critical analysis in the context of the Gaza war.[29] In the absence of such an analysis, historical analogies from Holocaust and genocide research[30] are used to give the respective statements a scientific framework. This leads to strong distortions. Holocaust inversion, the equation of the state of Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians with those of Nazi Germany towards Jews[31] is one of the consequences of Omer Bartov’s interpretations, in whose argumentation elements from more than 20 years of Holocaust research are adopted in simplified form[32] or Bartov’s own research on the Wehrmacht[33] is applied uncritically.[34] Such Nazi analogies legitimize Nazi comparisons in the public perception and in academic debates, but are considered “criticism of Israel” through the application of JDA. This may be the reason why he is constantly interviewed, especially in Germany[35] and despite massive mistakes. Just like Raz Segal, Moses, Goldberg and others, he falsely claimed that the International Court of Justice in The Hague had certified the “plausibility” of a genocide in January 2024.[36] A further low point was reached on January 27, 2025, the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust, when Der Spiegel published an interview with Bartov under the headline: “Gaza equals Auschwitz?”. It reads: “The Holocaust serves Israel as a lesson in inhumanity.” Although the headline was later changed, the article remains a one-sided, defamatory attack on the state of Israel.[37] The Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main had invited Bartov for October 6, 2025, on the eve of the second anniversary of the massacres, to talk about his new book entitled “Genocide, the Holocaust, and Israel-Palestine. History, the present, and what went wrong”.[38] A corrective to his one-sided theses, which always omit Palestinian responsibility for their own history, is not planned. For two years, Bartov has been tirelessly busy blaming the state of Israel and the IDF for the October 7 massacres. In doing so, he makes massive mistakes, as do Raz Segal, A. Dirk Moses and others, by claiming that the International Court of Justice in The Hague has attested to the “plausibility” of a genocide in January 2024.[39] The event, which met with widespread criticism[40] , only resulted in an uninformed response from the institute’s management, which was unable to accept any criticism.[41]
Genocide inversion, analogous to Holocaust inversion, refers to the uncritical equation of the perpetrators of historical genocides with the war between Israel and Hamas. The activist scholars in question often refer to the genocide of the Herero and Nama in German Southwest Africa as a historical analogy for interpreting the war in Gaza. This genocide was a “counter-genocide”, i.e. the uprisings of the indigenous Herero and Nama against the German colonial power were the trigger for the extermination order of the German commander Lothar von Trotha. Hamas’ jihadist intention of destruction is deliberately reinterpreted and the fact of the human shields is dismissed as “Israeli propaganda”.[42] Thus, October 7 takes on the character of an indigenous resistance against “colonial Israel”.[43] This form of genocide inversion has the consequence that the “genocide in Gaza” is insinuated as a “third genocide” in a scientifically questionable and clearly ahistorical way. German Southwest Africa – Holocaust – Gaza. This form of “entangled history” is a consequence of the entry of post-colonial theory into Holocaust research. The German social scientist Ingo Elbe rightly describes this type of historical approach as a “progressive attack” and can provide comprehensive empirical evidence of this. On the other hand, the “three genocides” theory is also a consequence of the “victim of the victims” thesis, also promoted by Bartov and colleagues. In this world view, Palestinians are never perpetrators and always victims. This is also called racism of low expectations or “Palestinianism”, an over-identification with Palestinian narratives. The historian and sociologist Günther Jikeli explains in his study on anti-Semitism among Syrian refugees: “Some of the interviewees displayed a kind of ‘Palestinianism’. The overidentification with ‘the Palestinians’ as victims does not allow for differentiation and is combined with an automatic hostility towards ‘the Jews’ and Israel. We found this especially among interviewees with a Palestinian background. Yanes, 32, an Arab-Palestinian-Muslim man from Damascus, put it this way: ‘[A]s a Palestinian, I think that both [Jews and Israelis] are my enemies’.”
Conclusion
The constant interviewing of Bartov and supposedly progressive Israelis in Germany shows that One specifically chooses one’s Jews and Israelis and lets anti-Zionists or, with preference, extreme left-wing Israelis have their say. They see themselves as progressive because – it is rumored – “criticism of Israel” is not allowed and they are far too often and wrongly accused of anti-Semitism. Left-wing Israelis, who supported Palestinians for years and promoted coexistence and lost hope for peace after October 7, are not to be found there. The genocide accusation is not new in Israel’s history.[44] However, it is now apparent that the Israel-Hamas war has also become a war over the interpretation of history on an academic sideshow. Supposedly progressive academics are spreading clearly anti-Israeli narratives in the name of legitimate “criticism of Israel” and are pursuing a clearly political agenda to establish a “new” culture of remembrance by spreading revisionist world views. Their narratives are not progressive, but show an uncritical identification with a hegemonic discourse in the Middle East that determines everyday life in Palestinian society and whose basic assumption is that Israel is the cause of all problems, including those within Palestine. The accusation of genocide is a symptom of these science-activist developments that began long before October 7, 2023. History is then no longer negotiated discursively, but shaped by ideological convictions.
Paradigmatic for such “progressive criticism of Israel” is not only the Fritz Bauer Institute, but also the statements of the editor-in-chief of Deutschlandfunk Stephan Detjen, who recently interviewed the genocide researcher A. Dirk Moses.[45] The bottom line is that it is ALWAYS about portraying Israel as the perpetrator, for various motivations. Stephan Detjen’s comments on this are enlightening. After receiving criticism from the Jüdische Allgemeine for characterizing the state of Israel as analogous to Nazi Germany[46] , he now sees himself as a victim of the Central Council[47] and attests to a “blindness” in Germany and an unwillingness to see what is “actually” happening in Gaza. The word genocide is not used here, but you can guess. The blindness probably lies in what A. Dirk Moses says in the above interview, which also reflects Bartov’s argument . “Just because the genocide in Gaza is not like the Holocaust does not mean it is not genocide”. Detjen’s comments are intended to bring clarity, but indicate what this obsession with wanting to establish genocide with all one’s might is also about. “Also” the state of Israel – allegedly perceived one-sidedly in Germany as a victim country – is now a “perpetrator”. The “also” is significant here, as is the emphasis that it is not an equation with Nazi Germany. It is simply a “fact”. The social scientist Ingo Elbe calls this a “closing line debate from the left”.[48] Two days after the arrests of Hamas members in Berlin, Moses was allowed to insinuate that Hamas was not a threat. All in the name of Palestinian solidarity. In this interview, it is already clear what the future holds: It was “splitting hairs” to consider whether there was genocide in Gaza. It is much more important to name the mass violence against civilians. However; war is always mass violence, innocent people always die. This must stop immediately, but the demands on Hamas here are zero.
Dr. Verena Buser is a Berlin based historian and Associate researcher at Western Galilee College’s Holocaust Studies Program.
[1] Verena Buser, Akademischer Aktivismus, der Antisemitismus schürt, in: Hagalil, 5.10.2025, https://www.hagalil.com/2025/10/akademischer-aktivismus/, last accessed 10.11.2025; Kamil Majchrzak, Die Anatomie antisemitischer Normalisierung (Teil 1-3), in: Mena-Watch, https://www.mena-watch.com/anatomie-antisemitischer-normalisierung-teil-1/, last accessed 09.11.2025.
[2] Omer Bartov, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It“, in: New York Times, 15.7.2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html, last accessed 04.11.2025.
[3] “Targeting History: Holocaust, Antisemitism and Genocide” by the Holocaust Studies Program/Western Galilee College (Akko, Israel), 19.12.2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUW73fQOX8M&t=5220s, last accessed 09.11.2025; Buser, Targeting History: Anti-Israel Activism.
[4] Thomas Thiel, Völkermord als Meinung, 24.09.2025, in: FRankfurtter Allgemeine Zeitung, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/voelkermord-als-meinung-zum-genozid-vorwurf-gegen-israel-accg-110699635.html, last accessed 06.11.2025.
[5] IAGS Resolution on the Situation in Gaza, in: IAGS, https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS-Resolution-on-Gaza-FINAL.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email, last accessed 10.11.2025. On the undemocratic voting result: Sara E. Brown, Genocide scholar says group pushed through Israel condemnation without debate, in: Times of Israel, 02.09.2025, https://www.timesofisrael.com/genocide-scholar-says-group-pushed-through-israel-condemnation-without-debate/, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[6] Website: https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/, last accessed 15.11.2025.
[7] On the criticism of Amnesty International: Verena Buser; The Genocide Allegation: Amnesty, UN and Holocaust and Genocide Scholars, in: Jewish Journal, 7.1.2025, https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/378221/the-genocide-allegation-amnesty-un-and-holocaust-and-genocide-scholars/, last accessed 09.11.2025. Criticism of the report “Our Genocide” by B’Tselem: NGO Monitor, B’Tselem, 30.07.2025, https://ngo-monitor.org/ngos/b_tselem/, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[8] Avraham Russell Shalev, The Gaza ‘genocide’: a 21st-century blood libel, in: Spiked, 21.09.2025, https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/21/the-gaza-genocide-a-21st-century-blood-libel/, last accessed 11.11.2025.
[9] On Albanese: Buser, Anatomie eines Völkermordvorwurfs, in: Hagalil, 09.02.2025, https://www.hagalil.com/2025/02/anatomie-eines-voelkermordvorwurfs/, last accessed 08.11.2025.
[10] Verena Buser, “Anatomy of a genocide allegation. Der 7. Oktober 2023 und der Völkermordvorwurf aus der Holocaust- und Genozidforschung“, in: Olaf Glöckner/Günther Jikeli (eds.), Antisemitismus in Deutschland nach dem 7. Oktober 2023, Hildesheim 2024, pp. 257-291; this, Targeting History: Anti-Israel Activism among Progressive Holocaust and Genocide Scholars, in: Telos Insights, 01.08.2025, https://insights.telosinstitute.net/p/targeting-history-anti-israel-activism, last accessed 08.11.2025. An anthology is in preparation in collaboration with Holocaust researcher Norman J.W. Goda (Florida University/USA).
[11] Stephan Grigat/Jakob Hoffmann/Marc Seul/Andreas Stahl (eds.), Remembering as the highest form of forgetting? (Re-)Interpretations of the Holocaust and the “Historikerstreit 2.0”, Berlin 2023; Steffen Klävers, Decolonizing Auschwitz? Comparative-postcolonial approaches in Holocaust research, Berlin 2019; Ingo Elbe, Antisemitism and postcolonial theory. The Progressive Attack on Israel, Judaism and Holocaust Remembrance, Berlin 2024.
[12] Shira Klein, The Growing Rift between Holocaust Scholars over Israel/Palestine, in: Journal of Genocide Research, 08.01.2025, https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2024.2448061.
[13] Website INoGS, What we do: https://inogs.com/, last accessed 15.11.2025.
[14] Dirk Moses, After the Genocide. Foundations for a new culture of remembrance, Berlin 2023.
[15] Jeffrey Herf, Why it’s wrong to call Israel’s war in Gaza a ‘genocide’, in: Washington Post, 03.06.2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/03/israel-gaza-genocide-allegations/, last accessed 08.11.2025; Isaac Chotiner, The Holocaust Historian Defending Israel Against Charges of Genocide, 20.08.2025, in: The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-holocaust-historian-defending-israel-against-charges-of-genocide, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[16] For more details, see also: Grigat/ Hoffmann/ Seul /Stahl, Erinnern.
[17] Elke Rajal, ‘Schuldkult’ and ‘German Guilt’. Rechte und linke Abwehr durch Projektion im Kontext des 7. Oktobers, in: CARS Working Papers #31, https://kidoks.bsz-bw.de/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/5816/file/CARS_WorkingPaper_031.pdf, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[18] Yehuda Bauer, The Dark Side of History: The Shoah in Historical Perspective. Interpretations and Re-interpretations, Frankfurt am Main 2001; he, “The Holocaust was an ideological project.” Yehuda Bauer on the lack of precedent, the history of Holocaust research and the universality of remembrance, in: Grigat/Hoffmann/Seul/Stahl, Erinnern, pp. 151-166. In both publications, Bauer emphasizes that the Holocaust can of course be compared with other genocides.
[19] Dirk Moses, Nach dem Genozid: Grundlage für eine neue Erinnerungskultur, Berlin Seitz, 2023, p. 10.
[20] Verdict of the jury court at the Würzburg Regional Court in the criminal proceedings against Martin Weiss and August Hering, in: Yad Vashem Archives, P. 13, File Number 134.
[21] Yehuda Bauer, Daniel Blatman’s anti-Semitic Attack, in: Haaretz, 01.08.2019, https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2019-08-01/ty-article-opinion/.premium/daniel-blatmans-anti-semitic-attack/0000017f-e312-d7b2-a77f-e317d05d0000, last accessed 15.11.2025.
[22] Verena Buser, The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) and the One-Sided Perception of Palestinians, in: Jewish Journal, 11.06.2025, https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/382048/the-jerusalem-declaration-on-antisemitism-jda-and-the-one-sided-perception-of-palestinians/, last accessed 08.11.2025; on the JDA: Lars Rensmann, Keine Judenfeindschaft, nirgends?, in: Grigat/Hoffmann/Seul/Stahl, Erinnern, pp. 409-437.
[23] Annabel Sinclair, World Health Organization adviser says ‘famine’ term was used to pressure Israel, in: Jewish News, 28.10.2025, https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/world-health-organisation-adviser-says-famine-term-was-used-to-pressure-israel/, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[24] Raz Segal, A Textbook Case of Genocide, in: Jewish Currents, 13.10.2023, https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide, last accessed 11.11.2025; Ulrich Seidler, “Genozidforscher zu Hamas-Attacke: ‘Netanjahu hat den Wind gesät‘, in: Berliner Zeitung, 13.10.2025, https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/historiker-genozid-holocaust-forscher-omer-bartov-netanjahu-hat-den-wind-gesaet-den-israel-nun-als-sturm-ernten-musste-li.2148815, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Avraham Russell Shalev, Hamas’October 7thGenocide: Legal Analysis and the Weaponization of Reverse Accusations – A Study in Modern Geocide recognition and Denial, in: Israel Law Review, 08.08.2025, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021223725100009.
[28] Gianluca Pacchiana, Top Hamas official declares group is not responsible for defending Gazan civilians, in: Times of Israel, 31.10.2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-hamas-official-claims-group-is-not-responsible-for-defending-gazan-civilians/, last accessed 09.11.2025.
[29] Fundamental: Danny Orbach/Jonathan Boxman/Yagil Henkin, Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War (2023-2025). Executive Summary, Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 213/The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.Bar-Ilan University, 02.09.2025, https://besacenter.org/debunking-the-genocide-allegationsa-reexamination-of-the-israel-hamas-war-2023-2025 , last accessed 01.11.2025.
[30] In detail on this: Buser, Genocide Allegation.
[31] Alan Johnson, Antisemitism in the Guides of Anti-Nazism: Holocaust Inversion in the United Kingdom during Operation Protective Edge, in: Alvin Rosenfeld (ed.), Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism. The Dynamics of Delegitimization, Bloomington, IN 2019, pp. 175-199.
[32] Bartov’s claim that Gaza is a cumulatively radicalizing Israeli warfare, whose goal was “from the beginning” to make Gaza uninhabitable, but that it is “difficult” to prove this due to the lack of orders. The argument can be found, for example, in Christopher Browning, Unleashing the “Final Solution”. National Socialist Jewish Policy 1939-1942, Berlin 2006.
[33] Omer Bartov, “What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide “, in: New York Times, 11.11.2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html, last accessed 01.11.2025; ibid., ” As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel, in: The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov, last accessed 01.11.2025.
[34] Ibid.
[35] He, “The inability to see reality for what it is can be very damaging to Israel itself“, in: Der Spiegel, 28.1.2025, https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/historiker-omer-bartov-ueber-israels-traumata-die-unfaehigkeit-die-realitaet-als-das-zu-sehen-was-sie-ist-kann-israel-selbst-sehr-schaden-a-f361cdf4-a5db-4462-bfcc-eecfaf48fd94, last accessed 01.11.2025.
[36] Daniel Bax, Genocide researcher on Gaza: “Every genocide is different”, in: taz, 19.01.2024, https://taz.de/Genozidforscher-ueber-Gaza/!5984116/, last accessed 22.10.2025.
[37] Ders, “The inability to see reality for what it is can be very damaging to Israel itself“, in: Der Spiegel, 28.1.2025, https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/historiker-omer-bartov-ueber-israels-traumata-die-unfaehigkeit-die-realitaet-als-das-zu-sehen-was-sie-ist-kann-israel-selbst-sehr-schaden-a-f361cdf4-a5db-4462-bfcc-eecfaf48fd94, last accessed 01.11.2025.
[38] A recording can be found here: Fritz Bauer Institute, Omer Bartov – Genocide, the Holocaust, and Israel-Palestine, 06.10.2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VlPnxUWdtA&t=4068s, last accessed 08.11.2025.
[39] Daniel Bax, Genocide researcher on Gaza: “Every genocide is different” (interview with Omer Bartov), in: taz, 19.01.2024, https://taz.de/Genozidforscher-ueber-Gaza/!5984116/, last accessed 22.10.2025.
[40] Daniel Rotstein, Wie man den Holocaust durch Vergleiche relativiert, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 09.10.2025, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/gaza-und-der-holocaust-omer-bartov-am-fritz-bauer-institut-110723734.html, last accessed 10.11.2025. The Netzwerk Jüdischer Hochschullehrender also formulated a criticism of the institute’s management, which briefly referred to its response to Daniel Rotstein in the FAZ. See note 30.
[41] Sybille Steinbacher, Antisemitismus-Phantasien, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30.10.2025. The author’s criticism of 07.10.2025, sent again by e-mail about 14 days later due to a lack of response, has remained unanswered to this day. See also: Verena Buser, Akademischer Aktivismus, der Antisemitismus schürt, in: Hagalil, 05.10.2025, https://www.hagalil.com/2025/10/akademischer-aktivismus/, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[42] This wording was deleted from the original text; the original version is available. Paul Middelhoff/Christian Staas, “I am for a Jewish state. But against this one”, in: DIE ZEIT, 27.06.2025, https://www.zeit.de/2025/25/omer-bartov-benjamin-netanjahu-nahostkonflikt-kritiker-instrumentalisierung-holocaust, last accessed 10.11.2025.
[43] Moses, More than Genocide. This argument is also pursued in “A Cartography of Genocide: Israel’s Conduct in Gaza since October 2023” by the project “Forensic Architecture”, initiated by the British architect Eyal Weizman and funded by the BDS-affiliated organization Al Haq, among others: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/a-cartography-of-genocide, last accessed 12.11.2025.
[44] Norman J.W. Goda, The Genocide Libel. How the World Has Charged Israel with Genocide, in: Institute for the Study of Contemprary Antsemitism, Research Paper 2025-3, https://isca.indiana.edu/publication-research/research-paper-series/norman-jw-goda-research-paper.html, last accessed 11.11.2025.
[45] (https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/genozid-in-gaza-a-dirk-moses-zur-geschichte-und-aktualitaet-des-begriffs-100.html.
[46] www.juedische-allgemeine.de/meinung/wiederholungstaeter-2/.
[47] https://www.facebook.com/reel/1503158697477638
[48] https://bilder.deutschlandfunk.de/d2/d9/ef/21/d2d9ef21-9353-4fb2-bb03-8dbba6b96c26/ingo-elbe-antisemitismus-und-postkoloniale-theorie-100.pdf.
