MY SAY: IS GLENN LOURY NOW AN ISRAEL BASHER?RSK
What could explain his recent posting? He has been eloquent in denouncing racists, libelers and rioters. Why this abhorrent posting?
Omer Bartov – Israel’s Hard Right Turn
My guest this week is the Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov, who is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the outbreak of the war, most of them civilians. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Food, water, and adequate medical services are in short supply. Still, grim as those facts are, Omer does not think they amount to genocide. At least not yet. He does worry that, with right-wing hardliners holding sway in Israel’s government, genocide is a distinct possibility.
In this conversation, Omer tells me about some of the history that led up to the current war before delving into the political pressures that he believes are driving the campaign forward. He believes that Benjamin Netanyahu has pieced together a hard right coalition that he protects because, among other reasons, it keeps him in power and out of court, where he is embroiled in an ongoing corruption trial that could lead to jail time. In the meantime, according to Omer, Netanyahu’s coalition functions as a “mirror image of Hamas” that encourages violence against Palestinians and threatens democracy in Israel. Omer believes that Israel’s current government is neither capable of nor interested in addressing humanitarian concerns in Gaza and finding a political solution to the conflict. That will require a US-led international effort.
Omer knows whereof he speaks—he’s a noted scholar in the field and a passionate public advocate. That’s why I wanted to hear from him. You may disagree with his read on the situation, but he can’t simply be shrugged off.
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