On Tuesday February 18th, Omer Bartov gave a lecture titled “Israel: What Went Wrong?” in the Tyler-Tallman Hall. Following the lecture, Professor Yaakov Lipsker assisted in leading a Q&A panel. Bartov is an Israeli-American historian and a Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. He has written several novels on the topics of Nazi ideologies and indoctrination regarding genocide一with a primary focus on the Holocaust. In his lecture, Bartov traced through the topic of his upcoming book of Zionism’s shift into a ethno-nationalist ideology that promotes the transformation of Israel from a “state for Jews” to “a Jewish state” (Bartov). He uses the lens of scarcity to bridge an understanding of how trauma and denial has impacted Israel’s shift from a revered state to one accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Bartov combines his delineation of the ideologies of anti-Semitism and Zionism through his family’s experience and the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestine. His grandfather, a Zionist, was from Poland一where he experienced anti-semtitism一and would later move to Palestine; Bartov uses his family as an example of the concept of the “diaspora mentality.” The fragmentation of Jewish people who have experienced severe anti-Semtitism, according to Bartov, would begin to manifest a fear of extinction within the state of Israel, facilitating a perfect environment for the strengthening of Zionist beliefs. Sentiments of constant threat that lie in the foundation of Israel are explained by Bartov to become the reason for the Zionist settler-colonialism mentality that is fueling the genocide of Palestinians. Bartov’s understanding of Israel’s mental landscape is that it is full of the urge to destroy and erase—these are the remnants of trauma that have turned into a brutish rage.
The enduring trauma from the Holocaust and the Nakba is said by Bartov to be perpetuated in the state’s memory politics where its citizens have ingrained a sense of denial and shock. While he is very clear that the two events are not comparable, he stresses how heavy their impact was on Jewish people. From the memory politics of Israel and Jewish people comes the “never again” agenda from which Bartov distinguishes into two different interpretations: ‘never again another genocide’ and ‘never again another genocide of Jewish people’ (Bartov). The former is understood by Bartov to be the general interpretation of the phrase while the other one is said to be Israel’s. If Israel perceives any state to be a threat to their comprehension of “never again,” they attack with disproportionate violence.
Themes of misunderstanding and disparity are reflected from Bartov’s lecture through his depiction of collective Jewish trauma and the Israeli state. In “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt” by Chris Hedges, scarcity is defined as “the gap between what people want, and indeed expect, and what they get” (p.14). The idea of a promised land from God is what is wanted by the Israelites. It is expected that the land be devoid of those that are not the “chosen people.” What they obtain is the land of Palestine, through “genocidal undertaking” as said by Bartov. His use of language is forthright; he does not allow for a misunderstanding to occur. Bartov deconstructed the concept of scarcity that controls Israel, he explained what went “wrong” without justifying or attempting to excuse the actions that he rendered “illegal occupation.” It is a perspective of someone from the Israeli and Jewish diaspora, one that I find crucial to hear as the Israeli Palestinian conflict continues to unfold.
Works Cited
Bartov, Omer. “Israel: What Went Wrong?” 18 Feb. 2025, Davidson College. Davidson College. Lecture.
Hedges, Chris. “Introduction.” Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt, Nation Books, New York, New York, 2015, pp. 10–19.
