IAGS Blog

Posted by jim in on Jun 22nd 2016 | 0 comment(s)

Scott Straus would like to announce the publication of his new book, Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, which was published earlier this year by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The book aims to provide a concise introduction to the field of genocide/atrocity studies and prevention. The book covers the history of genocide prevention, the causal dynamics of genocide, the tools of genocide prevention, and the aftermath of genocide. The volume is designed to be accessible to undergraduates, as well as to policymakers, those working for NGOs, and citizens interested in the topic but without an extensive background in genocide studies. In addition to taking stock of the field, the book highlights gaps in knowledge and areas for future research.

Hard copies or Kindle versions are available for purchase at amazon.com.  The volume also may be downloaded for free at https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/take-action-against-genocide/resources/fundamentals-of-genocide-and-mass-atrocity-prevention. You can find out more information about the book at this site as well.

Scott Straus is a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA), where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies in the Political Science Department. Prior to Fundamentals, his most recent book was Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa (Cornell University Press, 2015), which recently won the International Studies Association’s best book award in human rights. He has also published several books and articles on Rwanda. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he teaches courses on human rights, genocide, political violence, African Politics, international studies, and research design. You can find out more about him and his research here: https://faculty.polisci.wisc.edu/sstraus/.
Posted by jim in on May 29th 2016 | 0 comment(s)

Randall Fegley recently joined IAGS.  He is a political historian at Pennsylvania State University’s Berks College. Professor Fegley specializes in the study of mass trauma, especially long-term conflicts, gross human rights violations and prolonged disasters in Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan. He lived, taught and completed Ph.D. research in Sudan from 1980 to 1984 and has returned to work there and in other African countries numerous times. In November 2003, he received Penn State Berks’ Beaver Community Service Award for restoring schools in war-torn Kajo Keji County as part of a program of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem. He has been particularly active in the Sudan Studies Association, the leading scholarly organization on Sudan. Host of the SSA’s 22nd annual conference in May 2002 and a member of the association’s board from 2003 to 2007, he has also served as the organization’s president and executive director. As the coordinator of Penn State’s four-year degree program in Global Studies, he set up an internship program in Rwanda. His latest book is available in hardback and electronic formats at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498519441/A-History-of-Rwandan-Identity-and-Trauma-The-Mythmakers'-Victims. His other published works have examined Rwandan, Sudanese, Belgian and Equatorial Guinean political history, the mythologies that perpetuate conflict; elections and governance in post-trauma societies; and the rehabilitation of former slaves and child soldiers. He and his wife Connie live in Pennsylvania.

 

His book,   A History of Rwandan Identity and Trauma: The Mythmakers' Victims, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in March of this year.   The book’s introduction reviews literature on the concepts of myth and trauma; then introduces basic information on Rwanda and how it has been viewed by the outside world. Chapter One describes early Rwanda’s political and cultural development, traditional narratives, group migrations, the effects of German and later Belgian colonialism and the introduction of Christianity. It concludes with a look at how this early history has been interpreted and reinterpreted. The second chapter discusses the end of Tutsi dominance and the 1959 Hutu Revolution. It details Hutu Power ideology, Belgian domestic politics, early acts of genocide, refugee movements and economic and political stagnation. The text documents the development of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, its 1990 invasion and the Arusha peace process. An account of the 1994 genocide follows. However, as this has been covered in numerous other works, descriptions are limited to key events and general patterns. The chapter ends with a review of films, books and other publications that brought Rwanda’s plight to a worldwide audience, but have also created new myths. Chapter Three examines the country’s post-genocide reconstruction and attempts to bring justice and reconciliation through the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania and gacaca courts domestically. Rwanda’s impressive record of economic progress over the last two decades is detailed. However, prospects for democracy have diminished, as its leaders have become increasingly sensitive to criticism and fearful of renewed divisions. Descriptions of the process of developing school curriculums to explain past atrocities, the new myths it created and their possible consequences comprises most of Chapter Four. The final chapter offers conclusions on the effects of past mythologies and the trauma they have wrought. It draws comparisons with other divided societies and their approaches to dealing with the past. These include Burundi, Ethiopia, South Africa, the United States, Taiwan, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and Singapore. An extensive bibliography of books, theses, conference papers, official documents, articles, periodicals, journals, films, websites, other media and interviews includes translations of titles in Kinyarwanda, French, Dutch and German.
Posted by jim in on Mar 27th 2016 | 0 comment(s)

Editor's note:  All material on IAGS blog is solely the opinion of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the International Association of Genocide Scholars or the editors of the blog. If you would like to respond to this post submit your response to [email protected].  

The transformation of a seemingly normal human being

Karadzic was born on June 19, 1945 only a month after WWII officially ended but acts of deadly atrocities against the Croatian Ustasha and German allies were still in full swing.  Reprisals against his father for fighting with the Chetniks were moderated by his work for the Communist Partisans who took command and formed Yugoslavia.  In wartime Croatia, whose boundaries included the Bosnia and Sarajevo that was the locus of Karadzic’s genocide, a different genocide took place, one where, as best we can objectively tell, more than 100,000 Serbs were killed by Croats in a concentration camp, Jasenovac, alongside the Holocaust of 10,000 to 14,000 Croatian Jews.  Roughly equal numbers of Serbs were expelled from Croatia at the same time and as were forced to convert to Catholicism.  It is likely that Karadzic knew this racist history well from a familial recounting and he referred to it several times in his trial as evidence of the enduring racist hostility of the Croats and Bosniaks who were their allies in WWII, against his brethren Serbs, but it seems clear that Karadzic was not motivated exclusively by personal gain in power, prestige, or money; and truly had the best interests of his narrowly defined Serbian community at heart.  In other words, he seems to have been mostly motivated by a generous communitarian impulse, but somehow that empathetic feeling of humanity did not extend to his compatriots in Bosnia, the Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.  Yet, it is too simple to argue that this was and remains a religious divide, although religion is truly one of the strongest communitarian bonds.  He was smart, a poet, well-adjusted, with a family, and for many years followed a normal intellectual career.  How could he become the architect and leader of a genocide?

The notion that the Serbs are a holy ‘race’ with a historical destiny

A key characteristic that can help explain this transformation can be found in his enduring narcissistic mysticism.  Karadzic claimed at his trial in 2010 to be a well-known literary giant, Vuk Karadzic’s, blood relative, as if that gave him superior moral rights.  He also held that Montenegrins like him were a kind of “super-Serb”. This is a kind of racist view that compares directly to the Nazis’ ingrained belief in their superiority as a ‘race’ to the rest of the world. His poetry too was mystically cryptic with visions of forces beyond human rationality.  Specifically, Serbs were all connected with a bond that emerged in the mythical past.  This view of a Serbian ‘race’ with its echoes of Nazi heathenism formed the basis for his atrocities.   Karadzic himself provided as his defence the racist view that there were strong national bonds between the Bosnian Serbs and the former Yugoslavia, which had become reduced to greater Serbia, justified his actions and gave him a superior moral stance to the Croats and Bosniaks who were unfaithful to Yugoslavia and deserted/seceded from the union.  To him, this made it a just and holy cause to conduct a civil war against these renegades.   For him the Serbs were a ‘nation’/narod, whatever that means (think Nazi ‘Volk’ or ‘race’.)  I cannot bring myself to delve into the racist views that this implies, to try to understand them: it would mean going against my own beliefs too deeply.  But it seems, from listening to him and his testimonies throughout this lengthy trial that he truly believes that the Serbs are a holy ‘race’ and narcissistically believes that their destiny is superior to the others.  In fact, he suggests that the Bosniaks too are Serbs, and that only the best of them comes out when they are Serbs, as they were 500 years ago (that is to say before the Ottoman conquest of the region). This racist view of a Balkan ‘race’ colours his judgment intimately and was undoubtedly pre-existent before the civil war broke out.  Under the cover of war its worst attributes resulted in atrocities beyond our imagination, although they are all too common in genocides, just as WWII was deeply intertwined with the death camps of the Holocaust.  How racism and war interact to turn normal human beings into primeval beasts remains as much a mystery as ever.

It is alarming to note that so much evidence does not do much by way of advancing our understanding

As scholars, I think we can take little comfort in this conviction, unless it leads to better understanding of how a perfectly normal human being can be radically transformed, who from the outset appears truly to want peace but then is somehow corrupted into condoning and perhaps even ordering wanton atrocities against civilians.  The trial unfortunately, with its antagonistic format and high stakes, is no place for understanding to be developed, no more than a concentration camp is a fit place to learn ethics,  and the statements of the prosecutors and defence must all be taken circumspectly within the context of this competitive environment, but it seems clear that Karadzic was not motivated exclusively by personal gain in power, prestige, or money; and truly had the best interests of his narrowly defined community at heart.  So, in spite of hundreds of witnesses and perhaps 50,000 pages of documentation, what have we learned? If it is only that there is a banality to evil, that can integrate itself into the most democratic of procedures; then we have learned nothing because the concept of evil will never lead us to an understanding of these events.  Not that it is just subjective and indifferent to scientific standards, but it is not a theoretical framework that can encompass these events and on which we can hang empirical hypotheses. So we must agree on a standard that is plausible and more secure.  We are dealing with human motivation and changing identity, and so it is within psychology that a framework might be found.  Not in the racist and mystical folk psychology that motivated Karadzic into this atrocious genocide but a different psychology based on empirical research with hypotheses and experimental control groups.  We may still be far from such a theoretical framework, but some directions are clear.

Evolutionary psychology

Chimpanzees and bonobos are very much like us, about 90% or more similar in genetic components; and they offer perspective on our predilections for empathy and xenophobia.  Chimps too show empathy: the old and sick are comforted, as are the young and helpless.  There are many examples like the following: An elderly chimp suffering from bone and muscular degeneration is helped on her way to get water to drink by younger chimps who run ahead and return with mouthfuls of water.  Chimps also form hierarchical social groups with fixed territories.  When food sources are scarce, they may attack neighbouring groups to expand their territory, and even kill to eat their victims.  So, xenophobia and outgroup dehumanization are not unique to us.  Chimps of course will not engage in alliances to make the fight fair and roughly equal the way traditional human societies carefully arrange to reduce carnage and deaths, but modern warfare has made this traditional pattern irrelevant, and these alliances just increase fatalities and destruction.  The Bosnian Serbs were a minority in the beginning, with only two-thirds of the Bosniak manpower, but they got help from Milosevic’s thugs to create the context for Srebrenica.  The Bosniaks in turn sought alliances for stronger help to weaken this assistance.

So how do we counteract these fatal impulses for revenge and racist hatred, and augment the motives to help and provide succour?  It seems to me, only by confronting the truth about ourselves with greater understanding.  Above all to recognize that our best attribute, the one that makes us enjoy the comfort of communal identity and togetherness, that motivates us to fight for our kith and kin and country, is not an unadulterated good, but contains within it the intolerance of others that drives ethnic cleansing and genocide.  This Janus-like duality of good and bad intertwined in all our beliefs can perhaps best be controlled if we can overcome our bias of thinking that communal impulses are only good, and begin to understand the dangers of community and the protections of diversity.

Joe Ptoska, Ph.D

Retired Research Psychologist, U. S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioural and Social Sciences
Posted by jim in on Mar 7th 2016 | 0 comment(s)

I am pleased to announce the re-launching of the IAGS blog.  The blog is intended as an important venue for sharing information, viewpoints, and insights concerning genocide and related crimes against humanity.   As a community of scholars, jurists, practitioners, and students it is important to engage in sustained dialogue as we seek a deeper understanding of genocides both past and present, and at the same time explore strategies for genocide prevention.

Topics might include recent scholarship in the field of genocide studies, or news of developments in areas where genocidal violence is occurring.  As the number of memorials and other sites of memory continue to grow, the blog can also serve as a space to share information and commentary about those sites. The blog can serve as a space for commentary on conferences recently attended or other events relating to genocide and mass violence.  The blog is also an ideal platform for bringing to the attention of members films and recent studies.  I, along with other scholars, am working on how genocides are framed and reported in the media; it would be useful to hear from others who share this interest.

Contributions are encouraged from all members.  Contributions from students are especially welcome.  Contributions from non-members will be considered as well.

As the new blog administrator I will be working with a team actively soliciting posts from members and hope to be posting your commentary in a timely fashion and on a regular basis.  Please send your posts to me at [email protected]. And please include a brief bio that I can include along with your post.

Guidelines for submitting posts are available at http://www.genocidescholars.org/news/iags-blog-rules.  

 

James Snow Ph.D.

 Loyola University Maryland

 

 

 
Posted by ybauer in on Feb 7th 2013 | 210 comment(s)

Editor’s Note: The following comments by Professor Yehuda Bauer were initially posted on the Listserv of IAGS several days ago. Professor Bauer was contributing to debates among IAGS members in regard to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.  We thank Professor Bauer for allowing IAGS Blog Editors to post his reflections as the first Blog entry on the official Blog of the IAGS. We hope that other IAGS members will share their knowledge with our audiences across the globe. We particularly encourage Emerging Scholars of IAGS to actively use this platform to share with the world their insights about the prevention of genocide and mass violence. 

If you want to comment on this Blog entry, please login into the web site OR go to the IAGS Facebook Page OR the IAGS LinkedIn Page. You can also find IAGS on Twitter.  Visit here for more information about blog submissions to IAGS website. All material on IAGS blog is solely the opinion of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the International Association of Genocide Scholars or the editors of the blog.

Some Comments on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Please excuse this long paper. I may want to use it for other purposes, not only for my very esteemed and learned colleagues of the IAGS.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is basically a fight between two national movements over a small piece of real estate. There was no Palestinian people or nationality before the early 20th century – the first mention of “Falastin” was in a publication in Haifa in 1912. Before that, the area, in Arab eyes, was Southern Syria (Sooriyah djanoubiyah), Jerusalem was a small provincial town with a lot of history, and the majority of its inhabitants were Jews, but Jews were a small percentage of the population throughout what became Palestine. Palestinians are a nation, a people, because that is what they want to be and how they define themselves. They certainly have the right to national self-determination, on the territory they inhabit. Interestingly, they are in large part descendants of Jews who converted to Islam, either voluntarily or by force (see relevant DNA findings), though there has also been a distinct Jewish presence there since Roman times. Jews outside of Palestine are in part descendants of converts to Judaism who accepted not only the religion but also the ethnicity that came along with it. As Judaism, just like the other monotheistic religions, is basically patriarchal and misogynic, only males were considered, and converts were called ‘Abraham the son of Abraham’, indicating their acceptance of an ethnic tradition with which their ancestors had had no contact. The same applies to the Palestinians. A rather large core of Jews did come from Palestine, as – again – DNA probes clearly show. In fact, DNA probes have shown that Ramallah Palestinians’ closest relatives are Polish Jews. All this is in order to show that both ethnicities/nationalities have a legitimate claim to that small country.

Modern Israel is not, repeat not, the result of the Holocaust. The Holocaust nearly destroyed the chance of establishing a Jewish State because it killed off the vast majority of those who wanted to get to Palestine. The remnant, some 350.000 Jewish survivors in DP camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy, put immense pressure on the US and the UK to find a solution, and by that time most of them wanted to go only to Palestine. Had there been more survivors, i.e. less Holocaust, the pressure would have been greater. Had there been less survivors, i.e. more Holocaust, the chances of establishing Israel would have vanished. The UN resolution of November 29, 1947, did not establish a Jewish State, but provided an opportunity to do so. The Israeli War of Independence, a.k.a. Palestinian ‘Nakbah’ (=catastrophe) was the result of the refusal of the nationalistic Palestinian leadership (which had cooperated with the Nazis) to establish an Arab State of Palestine alongside a Jewish one. By March, 1948, the Jews were in trouble and it looked as though they would be defeated, because they were inferior in both numbers and military hardware to the Palestinian Arabs and the non-Palestinians who were getting involved. The Jews did not win the war because of immigration from Europe, which came, very largely, after the declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, but because of the fight put up by Palestinian Jews on the one hand, and small, but essential help from communist Czechoslovakia on the other hand. The Arabs were led in part by local leaders, basically the Husseini clan (whose leader, Amin el-Husseini, had returned from Nazi Germany, and lived in Egypt), and by Syrian and Iraqi military men (e.g. Fawzi el-Kawukji); later, the invasion of other Arab States and their defeat resulted in ‘temporary’ armistice borders, now known as the 1967 line. Arab Palestine was occupied by Jordan, under British influence, and by Egypt  - Gaza (then also under British influence). However, if you want to understand the current politics of Palestinian nationalism, you have to remember that much of the West Bank is still a largely agricultural society in which clans and descendants of feudal lords predominate. The opposition to the Husseinis and their allies were and to a degree still are the feudal families of the Nashashibis, the Nusseibahs, the Dajanis, and so on, people who were traditionally moderate, extremely well educated, and basically anti-radical. Palestinian society was always very religiously Moslem, though with a large Christian minority, most of whom have left Palestine in the last decades. Modern Palestinian nationalism is a fusion of this traditional society (Arafat was a Husseini) with radical Islamic concepts on the one hand, and with modern national ideas emerging from a radicalized middle class on the other hand.

The problem of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war has its basis in four different ways the Palestinian population reacted to the war. A part of that population was driven away by Israeli forces; another part – the largest – fled, just like most civilians flee when war approaches them, hoping to return (which often does not happen); another part was asked by the Jews to stay, but refused (Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa); and part of them stayed, and became the origin of the present Arab/Palestinian minority in Israel. There were no mass massacres on either side: in Dir Yassin Palestinians were murdered by dissident Jewish military groups, and the total number of victims were somewhere between 107 (a Palestinian estimate) and 250 (a Jewish estimate). There were no other similar massacres. 47 Jewish doctors and nurses were massacred in a convoy in Jerusalem by Arab groups, and a similar number of civilians south of Jerusalem. Both sides aimed at ethnic cleansing of the other, and the Jews won (wherever Arabs had the upper hand, Jews were ethnically cleansed: Jerusalem Old City, Etzion Bloc, etc.). It was ethnic cleansing, bad enough, but not genocide.  In the comments by some IAGS members there is the demand that the 1948 refugees – actually, their descendants - be allowed to return to the area of present-day Israel. This is so especially since in the Lebanon and in Syria, but also on the West Bank and even in Jordan, they were and are being kept apart from the locals. In the Lebanon and in Syria they were denied full citizenship – for well over sixty years – by their fellow Arabs/Moslems. The ‘right of return’ means the dismantlement of Israel, something that would be opposed by the six million Israeli Jews, and would result in uncontrollable violence. Whoever proposes a return of the refugees, in fact proposes a genocidal/politicidal solution. It is hard to understand why people claiming to be genocide scholars should propose a genocide. Mahmoud Abbas suggested some kind of compromise. Some genocide scholars are not satisfied with that. Also, no one seems to realize that well over half a million Jews were forced to abandon their homes in Arab countries, and were absorbed in Israel, and few genocide scholars argue that they should get a recompense for the property they lost. Only few genocide scholars will argue for some sort of recompense to Greek, Armenian and Assyrian refugees whose parents and grandparents were evicted or fled from Turkey after WWI. The conclusion is that these problems cannot be solved by force, but (hopefully) by compromise.

Jewish nationalism, to return to the major issue, is a product of an ancient ethnic consciousness that developed into a modern movement as a reaction to the rise of European nationalism in the 19th century. This stands in contradiction to the theories developed by Benedict Anderson (and Karl Marx before him), that sees modern nationalism as a product of modern capitalism, largely in the 19th century. This is, in my humble view, a Eurocentric and historically mistaken interpretation: collective ethnic/national consciousness can be shown to have developed in many places from so-called ancient times until modernity. Jewish nationalism, based on a well-developed ethno-religious culture since antiquity, had a number of variants, not only Zionism, but the Zionist movement won out. Zionism argues that the Jews are a people/ethnicity/nationality seeking political self-determination in Palestine/Israel; in the past it has argued for a Jewish political unit/State with a solid Jewish majority and equal rights for a non-Jewish minority. Clearly, the present Israeli government which seeks direct or indirect dominance over the whole area of Israel/Palestine in which Jews and Arabs are present in roughly similar numbers (and where, in Israel, minority rights are recognized only purely formally) is, paradoxically, radically anti-Zionist, because it wants a situation in which Jews will not be in anything like a solid majority. In fact, again paradoxically, the Netanyahu/Lieberman clique has given up on a Jewish State. It really does not matter whether the Jews constitute 55% or 45% of the population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan – the Zionist aspirations have been left behind. A Zionist solution, from a Jewish perspective, would demand an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, with appropriate territorial swaps. As far as Gaza is concerned, such an approach would demand a removal of the remnants of the blockade, and a willingness to negotiate a long-term armistice. This would run up against the Hamas aim to destroy the Jewish State and expel/exterminate its Jewish inhabitants, something one can hear almost daily in sermons and statements coming out of Gaza. Ideally, Israel should say – alright, you want to annihilate us, but you cannot do that. Your clearly genocidal and antisemitic stance is your problem, not ours. We will treat the Gaza/Israel border just as any state deals with its borders – we have the right to accept or reject any persons who want to enter into our territory, but we don’t object to normal trade. If you attack us, we will do what any state will do: we will respond by force. If you don’t attack us, we will adopt a live-and-let-live policy. At the moment, the right-wing nationalist leadership in Israel, supported by a majority of people because of fear of the neighbors will not adopt such a policy. Paradoxically, a large majority of Israeli Jews support both the nationalist-oppressive rule over the West Bank and, at the same time, favors a compromise. Paradoxically again, a very similar majority of Palestinians support both a compromise, and a struggle against the Jews, hoping to get rid of them.
 
Direct negotiations between the two sides cannot possibly succeed, because any compromise will inevitably be rejected by radicals on both sides. Or, to put it differently: the maximal offer of one side will not satisfy the minimum conditions of the other side. And yet, the solution is obvious: the borders of 1967 (actually, of 1948/9), territorial swaps, no right of return, a partly demilitarized Palestinian State, re-division of Jerusalem, Moslem/Arab control of the Temple Mount with free access for all, free Palestinian access to and from Gaza, and a major international loan to finance settlement of Palestinian refugees; free trade and a customs union between the two States. Jewish settlers to be able to choose Palestinian citizenship; the Arab/Palestinian minority in Israel to have cultural/ethnic autonomy within a Jewish State with a Jewish majority. This solution is not achievable today, as just stated, also because Israeli settlements, which are clearly illegal by international law, are intended by the right-wing government to prevent the creation of a Palestinian State.

None of the five veto Powers is interested in the perpetuation of the conflict. The surrounding states are undergoing radical Islamization, and Islamism is very radically antisemitic, not just anti-Israeli (Morsi declared in 2010 that there is no place for any negotiations with the descendants of apes and pigs – as Jews are defined in the Hadith and even, three times, in the Qur’an). I am therefore not a pacifist, and believe Israel must be able to defend itself. That does not mean that it should attack anyone, whether Iran or anyone else. That also means that if rockets are fired by Hamas, Jihad and El Qaida from Gaza, Israel has the duty to protect the million or so of its citizens who are targets by force of arms. It also means that Israel should totally end the blockade on Gaza, and be willing to negotiate a long-term truce, as a temporary arrangement. As an historian I know that there is nothing more permanent than temporary arrangements. If Hamas rejects that – well, that is their problem. They, and mainly the population they control by dictatorial means (despite the recent permission for Fatah to come out into the open), are paying for that refusal based on a genocidal ideology. Israel should not only support a Palestinian State, but also a rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas, so that there will be someone representing all Palestinian factions, if any negotiations will take place.

Is there a hope? Because of the interest of all major powers to end the conflict, a pragmatic alliance between the US, the EU, and Russia, to force the two sides into negotiations is possible, though difficult to achieve. Such an alliance would not dictate the solution, which in its outline is obvious in any case, but would force the two sides into serious negotiations, in the presence of representatives of the three Powers. This can very easily be achieved by economic pressure: the Palestinian Authority’s bureaucracy is paid by European money; it would be quite enough to indicate to Ramallah that there are problems with liquidity of such funds, to get them to sit down seriously. The Pentagon could for instance, find that there are technical problems in supplying the Israeli Air Force with spare parts, which would result in the IAF becoming an interesting collection of old metal within about six to eight months. But if the Israeli government sits down to negotiate seriously, then the spare parts would resume getting to the IAF.

Is this mere moonshine? I don’t think so. This in fact is what Shlomo Ben-Ami, foreign minister in the last Labor Government, proposed. Of course, the US government has to listen, mainly to the fundamentalist evangelical Right in America; less so, by the way, to AIPAC, because everyone now knows that most American Jews vote their pockets, like everyone else, and Israel is just one, and not the main, worry, for American Jews. But if that is overcome, an alliance with Britain, France, and Germany, all of whom are fed up with both Netanyahu and the Hamas, is possible. The Russians, being now defeated in Syria, may possibly be willing allies.

The IAGS discussion I am reading in e-mails is, frankly, not very enlightening. There is considerably more heat than light there. And, Israel/Palestine is a conflict, not a genocidal situation. Conflicts can escalate into genocides, true; I don’t think that is a real danger here, not because the two sides would be averse to killing off their ‘enemies’, but because it is practically out of the question. Instead of arguing, it might be useful for academics to exercise whatever influence they have in their countries to rescue both Jews and Arabs from further suffering by influencing their governments to help establish an international alliance to end the conflict.

Yehuda Bauer
Yad Vashem
Jerusalem, Israel