Leaked audio from Israel’s former chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, reveals him saying “50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary” and that Palestinians “need a Nakba” to learn the cost of resistance. In this conversation, genocide scholar Omer Bartov unpacks the implications: the blurred line between war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide; the whataboutisms comparing Gaza to WWII bombings; and U.S. complicity through its weapons pipeline. We also explore how Holocaust memory has been wielded as shield and sword, whether Zionism can be salvaged, and the paradox of a state born from genocide now accused of committing one.

Guest bio: Omer Bartov is a historian and genocide scholar at Brown University, specializing in Holocaust studies, genocide, and modern warfare. Born in Israel, he has written extensively on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and ethnic violence, and is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on genocide.

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OMER BARTOV LINKS:

Twitter (X): https://x.com/bartov_omer

Genocide, the Holocaust, and Israel-Palestine: https://bit.ly/4n502Ey

Israel: What Went Wrong? (Pre-Order): https://amzn.to/47QaITd

Professor Page: https://history.brown.edu/people/omer-bartov

New York Times article: https://nyti.ms/3JGCWG4

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Website: https://www.auxoro.com/

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