A Brief Comparison of Bartov’s Screed to Federal Judge Roy Altman’s Serious Analysis in “Israel on Trial”; Brown Alumni Magazine Does Puff Piece on Supposed “Viewpoint Diversity” At Brown
Read Judge Altman’s book. Or listen to John Spencer formerly of West Point. Or go to YouTube and listen to the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor, Chief Prosecutor Khan, who has been investigating the Hamas-initiated war against Israel for 2 and 1/2 years, concede that after all that he and his staff have desperately done to try to find Israel guilty of genocide, they haven’t sufficient evidence to charge a single Israeli with genocide. You can find it on an outlet called Zeteo in an interview with Mehdi Hasan. I don’t doubt your emotions or even good faith, but facts, evidence and the law are what matter, not emotions and feelings.
To say that I’m impressed by your comments is an understatement. And you made them at 12:30 am to boot! I don’t read Hebrew and, to be honest, won’t take the time to read all the underlying docs and related sources in English. In Altman’s defense, and irrespective of all the very favorable reviews his book has received (including by academics and lawyers) and the arguments you make about the quality of his research and analysis, he’s not a historian (as I gather you are or a scholar in some field related to the Middle East?). He’s a sitting federal judge with a busy docket. He presumably wrote his book in response to the appalling degree of anti-Semitism not merely countenanced but in some ways directly or indirectly supported and encouraged on so many campuses by professors and administrators and by so many politicians (most of whom must know better but fear the wrath of their leadership, colleagues or constituents or being called out as Islamophobes or racists.) All of which stands in stark contrast to the horrific degree of bigotry and racism and actual genocide throughout the Muslim world these same people are perfectly comfortable with and about which have nothing to say. For that I believe he deserves a good deal of credit. Said otherwise, he wrote his book for an audience, a large one, that has been brainwashed as, I have said in various posts as in Berlin in 1933. To be sure, assuming you are right in your comments and observations, it would certainly have been a better scholarly work if Altman knew as much you do and researched as carefully as you suggest he should have. That said, it has been very well reviewed by many, including many academics and lawyers.
But none of the above changes certain undeniable facts. (1) I’m 79 years old and have experienced anti-Semitism personally but never imagined a world in which anti-Semitism would be blown off so casually by so many; (2) I think it undeniable that the entirety of the Islamist world wants Israel and all Jews to disappear. That is made clear by the verbatim translations of what is said in mosques and in the Arab press on virtually a daily basis, see, e.g., the MEMRI website including on Islamism in the Western world; (3) much of Islamic anti-Semitism derives directly from the Koran, see, e.g., the works of Andrew Bostom; (4) there is no genocide in Gaza, not even close; (5) while Israel is far from a perfect country and has made many mistakes including under the Netanyahu government and including in the West Bank, no country is perfect and by any standard Israel treats its citizens far, far better than any Muslim country. (Not making a “whataboutism” argument here - just stating the facts.) Suggesting that Israel is somehow comparable to apartheid South Africa is I think absurd, its West Bank conduct notwithstanding.
Based on your comments, perhaps Altman could have and should have done a better job with his research. Nevertheless, as noted above, it has been well reviewed and well received by many and I’m very glad he wrote it. And thank you again for your comments and observations.
1. I do happen to have an MA in Middle East studies, but that's irrelevant; the relevant skill for this level of research is reading fluency in English and the ability to compare and contrast fact-claims.
2. You're right about batcrap levels of eliminationist anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
3. It seems obvious to me that this requires an advocate for our side to have the facts down 100%.
What happens when some Jewish kid at Columbia cites Altman's book and says "Israel offered to return the WB in 1967" and then Mahmoud Khalil shows the Jewish kid that *his own source* is incorrect? And incorrect on dozens of important fact-claims? The kid will get annihilated in the debate (and hopefully only the debate) and the pro-Palestinian side will score yet another victory.
Meaning if Altman didn't have the time to do the research or stress-test his arguments on something that is almost literally a weapon in a crucial debate that affects the future of the Jewish people, he shouldn't have written the book. He would have helped Israel more by submitting a blank sheet of paper than a weapon that hurts our side.
4. Many academics and lawyers have indeed praised the book, from Jed Rubenfeld, to John Spencer, to Marco Rubio, to Clarence Thomas. And they are all wrong. This is a little like when From Time Immemorial came out - big names like Elie Wiesel, Saul Bellow, Barbara Tuchman, and Martin Peretz endorsed the book (not coincidentally on a similar subject to Altman's book) and all of them deservedly took hits to their reputations when the book was repeatedly discredited.
At bottom, I agree with pretty much everything you say. As to preparing a kid for a “debate” at Columbia, that’s kind of a moot point certainly as to Columbia and Brown and pretty much everywhere else. There are no debates. There are just rants and threats basically coming from the pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian/anti-Semites posing as anti-Zionists crowd among faculty and students. But if there were to be a debate, the debater on our side of the issue could and would presumably be prepped to deal with the issues you note and others you raised about the Altman book. For example, doing a quick ChatGPT search - fair to criticize me for resorting to that - it seems Israel was prepared to give up the bulk of, but not all of, the West Bank in 1967. That led to the famous three no’s (which I knew of without ChatGPT) - no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. A truly brilliant Arab strategy that served their own people so very well. Relatedly, I don’t know why it’s always acceptable for only the Palestinians to demand something crazy in return for having started and lost war after war after war, e.g., the West Bank. That’s another debating point for the kid on our side. You lose a war, especially one that you started (or were about to start), you pay a price. Notwithstanding the Altman book and the flaws in it that you point out, as noted above I think a good and well-prepared debater on our side could wipe the floor with a Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, after all, is not a scholar or even a student. He’s a community organizer or some such. He, like the Rashid Khalils in Congress, is of the type that doesn’t prepare for debates or addressing anything substantive. They just sloganize - no facts, no logic, no plan, no nothing.
You're right that a "good and well-prepared debater on our side could wipe the floor with a Mahmoud Khalil." But said debater would not become good and well-prepared by reading Altman's book, which (as I think I've shown) is riddled with mistakes of commission, omission, facts, and analysis.
I asked Gemini the same question, and needless to say, no source mentions an Israeli offer of withdrawal for peace w/ Jordan. It mentions 242 and the Allon plan, but that's very different from an Israeli offer to Jordan that was rejected, which is what Altman incorrectly claims.
The actual "AI overview" says "the Israeli government was prepared to return most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace, but not all of it" but this is obviously Gemini's summary and combination of 242 and the Allon plan, i.e. readiness in principle for a peace treaty based on withdrawal, while keeping part of the WB. I'm starting to have a bad feeling that Altman relied on some AI assistant instead of checking the sources himself.
As I think I mentioned above, if Altman is saying that accepting 242 is equivalent to offering to return the WB to Jordan in exchange for a peace treaty, then both Egypt and Jordan offered a peace treaty to Israel (which it then refused) in 1967, because they both accepted 242.
Are you saying that those on the side of antisemitism and anti-Zionism can spout their drivel and lies, but that those on the side of Israel cannot speak up (or publish) without making a mistake or two? Only our side should be held to 100% accuracy else stay quiet? That presupposes that the other side actually can point out discrepancies or inaccurate information, which is doubtful because all they seem to know is ideological propaganda rooted in hate. How would they even be able to argue facts that the judge may have mistaken? One error (forced or otherwise) does not invalidate the entire work.
No, I'm saying that Altman's book is riddled with dumb, easily-checkable mistakes, on crucial issues. Of course we should aim for "100% accuracy" - if we're advancing facts, the facts need to be correct, and relevant, and when detrimental to our side (as in the case of Palestine's historical demography), not completely ignored.
There are also plenty of dumb, easily-checkable mistakes on non-crucial issues too, like calling Sharif Hussein "King Hussein," and getting the reason Ben Gurion named the country "Israel" completely wrong, as evidenced by endnote 221. The book doesn't rise or fall on them, but they sure don't help.
Again, the book is riddled with mistakes of commission and omission and anyone using it in a debate will lose, on the facts. In World Cup lingo, using Altman's book will result in a series of gratuitous own goals. We can and need to do better.
And frankly a blank sheet of paper will do less damage than this book.
You write: "[Judge Altman] completely demolishes all the anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic arguments addressing the above issues with facts, data, and the writings and observations of people who, unlike Bartov, actually know what they’re talking about."
I don't think that's true.
1) A few of Altman's sources, on crucial issues, say the diametrical opposite of what he says they say. One such source virtually invalidates half the book, and in fact includes a disputed translation that *weakens* Altman's case - a gratuitous own goal that he would have discovered in five minutes of Googling, meaning he obviously did not look at (or didn't understand) the source document for the claim he made.
There may be more like this; I haven't checked.
2) Altman conspicuously does not list the historical demography of the region (for good reason: the numbers go against his case).
3) When asked about this in a public Q&A, Altman demonstrated gross ignorance of the numbers and claimed that most (or much) of the Palestinian Arab population was comprised of post-1881 immigrants, which is categorically, documentably, false.
4) In his chapter on colonialism, he completely ignores repeated statements from Herzl, Nordau, Jabotinsky, et al, referring to Zionism as "colonialism." These quotes are frequently cited by anti-Zionists, yet Altman doesn't bother to mention them, even to refute them (instead he relies on platitudes like "you can't colonize your own home").
There is much, much more to write about this - from Altman failing to mention that the Peel plan required the ethnic cleansing of 225,000 Arabs, to his cherry-picking a passage from the Quran saying Eretz Yisrael belongs to the Jews (as if he knows Islam better than two billion Muslims), to minor things like confusing and/or fabricating the dates of peace proposals (like when he references a non-existent offer of a Palestinian state made by Israel at Khartoum), and much, much more. The one-star Amazon reviews also make some salient points.
Happy to discuss this further and/or send specific references.
But know this: anyone using this book in a debate against a knowledgeable Israel hater will lose the debate.
I thank you for these carefully written and insightful comments. As I write this, no one has checked “like” on your comments but I will. You provide valuable information that, e.g., the fast-growing Institute for the Critical Study of Antizionism should be aware of. I am not in a position to check all of your (or Altman’s) research, and therefore have no basis to dispute your assertions or question his. But I will add that there is much disputed ancient (and relatively recent) history surrounding all that you and Altman say which, one might argue, is of little relevance to the current situation in the Middle East given the well-documented position of the Islamists as to what they believe to be their divinely inspired need to exterminate Jews and Israel. But your comments are of course relevant to Altman’s research.
But several things are clear beyond cavil. (1) this is precisely the sort of debate/discussion that should happen at a place like Brown but never does because people like Bartov speak off the top of their heads claiming the moral high ground and refuse to engage seriously with people who have differing points points of view. They are captive of the university’s Center for Middle East Studies and MESA more broadly and fearful of being deemed Islamophobic on a liberal campus. (I will try to attach an article by Professor Abraham Wyner of the University of Pennsylvania demolishing - I’ll use that word again - Bartov’s statistics for example. If I can’t manage to attach it to this, I’ll reply with it separately); (2) there can be no question that, especially among the Islamist fanatics who number in the multi-millions, their war against Israel is not only longstanding - pre-1948 - but has a singular goal - from the river to the sea the never in the course of human history “state” of “Palestine” should now come into being. If it does, it will be yet another apartheid Muslim state and, as Imans in the US and around the world repeatedly say, wipe not just Israel off the map but be part of the broader theological necessity to wipe all Jews off the map as well, see, e.g. the MEMRI website. Said otherwise, their position is based on the purest form of ancient anti-Semitism; (3) I’ve spoken to actual experts on genocide and read the works of many - what has happened in Gaza is not remotely genocide although, as in all wars, bad things happen from time to time and people suffer. You do not address the genocide chapter of Altman’s book because, I assume, you have no issues with the obvious and compelling legal arguments he makes buttressed, e.g., by many other commentators and the fact the ICC Chief Prosecutor has conceded there is insufficient evidence of Israeli genocide after his 2.5 years of investigation. Genocide claims are Bartov’s raison d’être. Nor for that matter do you comment on Professor Herf’s article which prompted my substack post; (4) however Israel came into being, via a UN resolution, and despite the issues you raise, it has every right to exist as a Jewish state no differently than the 50+ majority Muslim states have the right to exist as Muslim states all of which are, of course apartheid dictatorships - no churches, synagogues, Buddhist temples etc. None of the freedoms present in the Western world. (On the humorous side, FIFA the other day somewhat surprisingly rejected the demand of the Egyptian and Iranian soccer teams that gay pride flags be banned from the stadium in which they played each other.) does Israel is of course a raucous democracy, and I’m no fan of the current Netanyahu government, but there can be no reasonable human rights comparison between Israel and any Muslim state.
I haven't read your whole comment yet, but you'll notice I didn't mention Bartov.
I didn't mention him because:
1) I know that Israel didn't commit genocide and what I've read of Bartov didn't persuade me.
2) I also didn't read Altman's chapter on genocide. If the rest of his book is a guide, I fear that his arguments and sourcing will be so bad that a neutral observer will conclude that it *was* genocide.
I can't emphasize this enough: we need to get our arguments and facts straight, and Altman doesn't do that.
(1) sent my reply too soon by mistake. There’s at least one typo but it doesn’t change any of the substance I wrote;
(2) please do read the genocide chapter in the Altman book. I’m not fully familiar with all of the 200 or so sources he cites, but with enough of them to feel completely confident in his assessment. The false genocide claim is the main driver, by far, on campuses and for the predominant and growing anti-Semitism on campuses and in both political parties;
(3) you’re of course right that we need to get our facts straight, but some facts are more important than others, e.g. the facts about the imaginary “genocide” and the imaginary “apartheid” Jewish state of Israel.
The website won’t allow me to attach the Wyner article. It was published last February and is entitled “A Blood Libel at Penn - The oldest accusation against Jews gets repackaged as scholarship” (by Bartov). It appears in Tablet Magazine and on substack. Thank you again for your time and thoughtful commentary.
He spends half the chapter proving that there is no apartheid *within the green line* which is responding to a charge that only serious extremists make. And even here he omits crucial things. Like: 1) acceptance committees; 2) gross inequality in funds for municipal budgets and communities; 3) Historical and continuing land confiscations from Arab municipalities; 4) repeated statements along the lines that Israeli Arabs pose a demographic threat; 5) the same as (4) but focused on certain areas, such as the "Judaization of the Galilee" (with Israel literally using the term "Judaization" / "liyahed"); 6) there was no Arab Muslim minister until 2007; 7) No Arab party in a coalition until 2021; and much, much more.
The above does not exactly add up to Apartheid, but it's not good and Altman doesn't bother to mention it.
His thing on Gaza will take too much time to deal with here
His thing about no Apartheid in the West Bank is simply absurd. He writes: "Some five hundred thousand Israeli citizens live there - in areas controlled by Israel." Altman doesn't bother to mention that under black-letter Israeli law this land is occupied, and that according to the Supreme Court, the WB is held under Belligerent Occupation which prohibits civilian settlement. He doesn't mention that much of this land was confiscated from Palestinian owners. Doesn't mention Theodor Meron's 1967 legal memo stating that civilian settlement in the West Bank is illegal.
He then says that there can't be Apartheid because the Palestinians "don't live in Israel and aren't Israeli citizens" and "no country treats citizens the same as non-citizens" as if this were not exactly the point, as if it justifies 60 years of occupation, land confiscations, checkpoints, lack of political representation, systematic economic de-development, rule by military law (when the next hilltop contains a Jewish settlement governed under Israeli civil law protected by Israeli troops), plus much, much, much more. (really much, much more)
He also claims, incorrectly, that "Israel offered to return Judea and Samaria to Jordan—but only in exchange for a cessation of hostilities and Jordan’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist." But that didn't happen. His sources for this claim are endnotes 349 and 366:
Needless to say, neither of these say Israel offered to return the West Bank to Jordan. Citation 349 just doesn't say it, and citation 366 refers to UN Resolution 242, which does not mean Israel *offered* to withdraw from the WB for peace. It means Israel accepted the *principle* of doing so, as did Egypt and Jordan. Big difference. But Israel (and Egypt and Jordan) never made an offer to do so until 1977 and 1994, in radically different political circumstances.
In other words, I'm starting to think Altman's entire book is a farce. Badly sourced and badly argued. Arguments like "there's no Apartheid because they are not citizens" is casuistry, not good-faith analysis. And this is from a Federal judge and Yale Law School graduate.
Much much more to write about this. To be sure, there are some decent arguments that what the WB Palestinians are experiencing is not exactly Apartheid, but Altman doesn't seem aware of any of the relevant allegations, and accordingly he can't refute them.
In terms of checking research, Altman writes on page 112:
"Many Yishuv Jews urged their leadership to refuse the offer, but David Ben-Gurion, chair of the Zionist Executive and undisputed head of the Yishuv, accepted Peel’s proposal."
There is a clear subtext here that BG was making a painful, pragmatic sacrifice of most of Eretz Yisrael for the greater good of the Jewish people.
Altman's citation for the above is endnote 345, a 1937 letter from Ben Gurion to his son Amos:
Read it yourself and see if it substantiates Altman's contention.
I personally think Ben Gurion's statements like the following prove the diametrical opposite of Altman's contention, and come close to invalidating half the claims he makes in his book:
"We must expel Arabs and take their place"
"What is in our actual possession is a small portion, less than what they [the Peel Commission] are proposing for a Jewish state. If I were an Arab I would have been very indignant."
"Our ability to penetrate the country will increase if we have a state";
"But if we are compelled to use force – not in order to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev or Transjordan, but in order to guarantee our right to settle there – our force will enable us to do so."
"The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country."
And, of course, had Altman bothered to Google his source he would have realized that the first quote, "We must expel the Arabs and take their place" is strongly disputed. But he didn't Google it, adding a layer of farce on top of absurdity, a gratuitous own goal.
A Wikipedia article on the letter and disputed passages is here; I would examine the underlying sources in order to 1) be sure, and 2) to go beyond the evidence-seeking methodology of a sitting Federal judge:
Despite the fact that neither Wikipedia nor certainly Jewish Voice for Peace is reliable as to anything at all related to Israel, I don’t read the 1937 letter from BG to his son as perhaps you do. To be sure, he believes it is necessary for the Jews to have land, even a tiny portion of it. (That of course became more than clear in the ensuing years.) He was correct in noting that the Arabs had no interest in it as evidenced perhaps that they had done nothing with or about it (and also probably because it had no oil underneath it). But throughout he’s saying, in effect, we can work with Arabs if need be and do something that will benefit everyone. That is a concept that the Arabs reject forcefully to this day. It’s also difficult, if not impossible, to understand the BG letter without seeing the letter his son wrote to him. Net/net though, this was all part of cutting up the predominant empires and awarding land to all sorts of people. Why basically screw the Kurds in Syria and Turkey? Why draw the borders as they did? All of this was just the geopolitics of the 1930s as empires were broken up and not very thoughtfully. Some won for no reason at all, e.g. Syria and Turkey, some lost - the Jews lost their ancient homeland, a home a homeland they had hundreds and hundreds of years before Islam was even created.
Again, on Wikipedia: go to the citations and sources.
On JVP: yes, they are not reliable. They include the probably-incorrect "we must expel the Arabs and take their place." But that's my point: Altman didn't do any research on his source. The rest of the letter is translated correctly; you can go to the original sources or read it in the original Hebrew if you're able.
Again, Altman is saying that BG was willing to compromise, against the grain of the Zionist movement, by accepting the Peel plan, while every syllable of Altman's source talks at minimum about this being a tactical stage before expanding either Jewish control and/or Jewish presence (he's never clear on that, probably deliberately) throughout Palestine and into Transjordan(!). And of course Altman does not mention that this required, per the letter of the the Peel proposal, the transfer of 225,000 Arabs. Of course they rejected it. Altman completely fails to mention other cases of Zionist proposals for transferring Arabs before, during, and after this period, as ably described in Nur Masalha's book, which I assume Altman has never read or heard of.
I'll also note that in his book on Israel and the law, Judge Altman doesn't even mention the Absentee Property law (even to somehow justify it), which in itself is a serious omission. But this omission is made absurd by the fact that Altman eagerly discusses the doctrine of Adverse Possession, which is obviously relevant to a law by which Group A seizes most of the property of Group B.
One additional case among 10,000: On page 93, completely ignoring the political context, Altman cherry-picks quotes from both Sharif Hussein (whom he incorrectly refers to as "King Hussein") and his son Faisal supporting Jewish national rights in Israel, made in 1918.
Yet Altman fails to mention anything about the King-Crane commission, whose report was written in 1919 but published in 1922. He doesn't even mention it to refute it.
Here is a crucial quote from the commission's report:
""For 'a national home for the Jewish people' is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the 'civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase. ... If the principle of self-determination is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine—nearly nine-tenths of the whole—are emphatically against the entire Zionist program. ... The peace conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British officer, consulted by the Commission, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. ... For a further reason, the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a 'right' to Palestine, based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered."
I “liked” all of the recent replies because I think certain things all who replied said are beyond dispute: (1) it is absolutely true and easily provable (and repeatedly has been proven) that the pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian/anti-Semites masquerading as anti-Zionists have been lying on a regular basis in multiple ways and have been doing so for decades - facts, credible evidence etc etc are irrelevant to them because all they care about is pushing their political narratives whatever it takes. Their lies need to be forcefully and quickly called out at every opportunity; (2) it also is beyond dispute that responses to the liars noted above have to be made as fully and accurately as possible - one lie doesn’t justify a lie in response but I think there’s a difference between just making things up as the other side does as opposed to not being accurate, making mistakes or otherwise poorly researching/writing. That said, such errors, especially as to key points, cannot be so numerous or so easily shot down as to give the pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist crowd on campuses or among so many politicians reason or ammunition to defeat those of us on the right side of history factually, morally and in every other way imaginable; in addition (3) all history re the Middle East - especially post-1947/48 - is complex. Many scholars and others have differing views as to who said (or didn’t say) what, the intricacies of negotiations at and off the negotiating table(s), what documents really mean, whether it will ever be possible to find/review all the relevant documents etc etc. Thanks to you all.
Bartov isn't the only genocide scholar to conclude that Gaza is a genocide. There are many others and some top ones have said it's the consensus of the academic field. Going after Bartov over a book which is not about the genocide to try to discredit his professional opinion on the genocide is a clear attempt to ad hominem him.
Thanks for your comment. Bartov has repeatedly said specifically or by implication, including in his most recent book, that Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza. Criticizing him on the basis that he is dead wrong as to that assertion is hardly an ad hominem attack especially since he markets himself as having a unique insight into “genocide” given his background. Even the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, conceded that Israel was not engaged in genocide in an interview in late April with Mehdi Hasan. It’s available on YouTube in an outlet called Zeteo. Moreover, Khan arrived at his “no genocide” conclusion after 2.5 years of investigation by his office which, I think it’s fair to assume, was looking for any evidence at all to support the genocide claim. To the credit of the investigators in that office, they didn’t just jump on to the prevailing academic/politically popular bandwagon. Any “genocide scholar” who believes Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza is either unaware of the credible evidence or unwilling to accept it and/or unaware of the applicable law. Or perhaps willfully blind to both. Said otherwise, like Bartov, they are simply wrong. That these same people, including presumably Bartov, believe it’s “the consensus of the academic field”, whatever that means and whoever makes up the “top ones” in the field, are likewise wrong. The are hundreds of academics who take precisely the opposite position. It’s of course not the first time in the history of academia that multiple supposed “top” scholars got an important point completely wrong.
You're not a genocide scholar right? So you can criticise him and disagree with him until the cows come home but you're merely disagreeing with him as a layman. Now that doesn't make you wrong per se but it is a fact nonetheless. If you have managed to write a peer-reviewed criticism published in a respectable genocide journal then I wouldn't mind reading it.
But this issue is more than just about Bartov and your clear personal dislike of him. You must surely be aware that there are lots of genocide scholars calling this a genocide. The fact you call them "genocide scholars" once again points to an ad hominem attack on your part by suggesting they are lacking in due diligence or sufficient professionalism. That's an awful lot of academics you're waving to one side. I would have expected better from someone in law. This is exactly what young-Earth creationists do with scientists to attempt to discredit them. They love to point to academic consensus being revised as carte blanche to throw all current scientific theories out of the window but this is a really lame argument because it is a faulty epistemological move whereby one employs hyper-scepticism to throw any knowledge into doubt. It undermines itself because no-one could possibly ever make a truth claim which has good evidence for it ever again. So if you employ that epistemology you can never claim it has been shown that Israel did not commit a genocide. You've just created one hell of logical problem for yourself.
I also think you are misrepresenting Khan. I saw that interview and he merely said that he had insufficient evidence to prove genocide in court. There's a big difference with that statement and one which, you as a lawyer (or should I say "lawyer"?), ought to appreciate. He also made it clear the four arrest warrants they issued were because there was sufficient evidence to take all four people to court for various crimes (two of whom are Israeli). You will also know that the legal profession will take a long time over charges as serious as genocide. The ICJ found there was a case to be heard. The scholarship is also key here because it has less chance of being politically influenced. What is needed is an independent review to take place in Gaza and Israel still won't allow that to take place. But the latest UN report makes it clear that IDF soldiers are targeting children and they also use the language of genocide. (This is the point where you, no doubt, have some ad hominem attack to make on the UN.)
If you read Jeffrey Herf’s paper in my last post, and hopefully you will, you’ll understand the difference between when Bartov actually was a genocide scholar, i.e. in connection with his analysis of German atrocities and how that in no way makes him a “scholar” of what is transpiring in Gaza. As Herf so perfectly put it, Bartov plays on “prestige transfer”:
“Prestige transfer is an old and sorry phenomenon in modern intellectual history, whereby persons who have displayed achievements in one area claim that, for example, “as a historian” (and in [Bartov’s] case a historian of the Holocaust), they have insight into ongoing events unavailable to others. Bartov’s latest book [title quoted] released in April is an example of that problem.”
Said otherwise, since both Bartov and I can read and write the English language, view documents, films and photos, listen to others on both sides speaking of what is transpiring in Gaza etc etc., Bartov and I (and even perhaps you for that matter) stand on equal footing in assessing whether what is happening in Gaza is genocide. (You might read a substack piece by Abraham Wyner on Bartov’s ridiculous statistical “analysis” arguably an even worse case of Bartov pretending to be what he is not - in this case pretending to know something of value regarding statistics, how they are to be interpreted and what they mean. Wyner is a professor of statistics at Penn’s Wharton School.)
You are correct that there is a big difference between alleging genocide and proving it in court. That’s the problem with tossing around “Israel is engaging in genocide” as is so common today - it requires credible evidence measured against the applicable legal standards including the law relating to genocide and the laws of war. Many of the usual suspects in academia seem unable to grasp or accept that concept.
There are many theories about why Khan issued arrest warrants - a common one is that he was doing so to forestall the investigation into sex harassment charges against him for which he is now on suspension and may soon be fired. Another is the undeniable hostility of the UN toward Israel for decades as compared to real genocidal regimes - no even arguably serious person could or would contest that perfectly obvoius point. And assuming for the sake of argument that you are at least a somewhat serious person, you must concede that politics perhaps played just a tiny role in investigating South Africa’s (!) claim and the ICC pursuing it or do you think the Chief Prosecutor soon will be issuing arrest warrants against the IRGC, the Houthis, and Qatar? Hezbollah heads maybe? Never happening. Arrest warrants are pretty meaningless especially given the source. That the ICC to save face had to issue warrants to I believe two dead Hamas terrorists proves that those issued to the two Israelis were a joke (and I’m no fan of Netanyahu.) (There’s a reason our country and Israel have never been party to the ICC. Common sense.) Even grand jury indictments are pretty easy to get - my law school evidence professor was fond of saying that as a prosecutor he could indict a ham sandwich.
Read John Spencer on how the IDF has conducted itself. By any standard you choose, the IDF has conducted itself remarkably humanely, moreso than any army in the history of modern urban warfare and often putting its own soldiers at risk in doing so. Have some soldiers in the IDF acted contrary to the laws of war and Israeli law? Of course. Happens in every war. Targeting children doesn’t merit a response and you’re right, again given the source.
C'mon mate now you're getting plain silly. A genocide scholar is not restricted to expertise merely of one genocide. That's absurd. That's like claiming that, in my academic field, that as a philosopher I can only be an expert on one particular philosopher. Now a philosopher might focus to a period or even an individual philosopher for a PhD or a research paper but that does not make them any less a professional on the overall subject. I'm sorry but you sound extremely desperate to discredit him. This is NOT a case of "prestige transfer" in the slightest. On the contrary, as I already said, I think you are both guilty of attacking him ad hominem.
Again you're merely hand waving and gesturing at academics in the field of genocide scholarship. That's not an actual argument. It's exactly what conspiracy theorists do with experts. And you have not engaged with anything I said about the epistemological quandary you have put yourself in by doing so.
Hahahaha! Now you're going after Khan ad hominem too! Are you sure you're a bona fide lawyer? Were you away the week they taught basic logic? See how when Khan could be cited in support of your contention there was no mention of these accusation made against him. He was a solid source. But as soon as I mention the arrest warrants.... uh oh!! Now he's not someone who can be trusted to be professional and objective (as if he could issue those warrants merely himself anyway). So if you get to discredit ad hom then so do I for consistency. Maybe he won't personally come out and say genocide because he's afraid of further attacks on himself and his family by Israel. See... I can ad hom too if it's being allowed.
I am now having trouble believing you really are a lawyer. Maybe the standard is far less than for solicitors here in Europe I don't know. But you construct your arguments worse that most sophomore students do in my experience of nearly thirty years of lecturing. You really do need to pick up an introductory textbook on logical fallacies and critical thinking. I won't ever be coming to you should I need legal assistance that's for sure. Bye!
You can deny what we all see with our own eyes all you want, but it’s not going to turn the tide. And be careful because you will eventually be called out on your genocide advocacy.
Read Judge Altman’s book, if only the genocide chapter. Read and listen to the countless commentaries of John Spencer, who taught urban warfare at West Point, and so many others who have addressed and debunked the genocide claim. Listen to the YouTube interview of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan conducted by Mehdi Hasan around late April of this year. Khan concedes that despite 2.5 years of his investigators collecting mountains of information, likely trying to cook up claims of genocide against Israel, that his office has not found sufficient evidence to do so. I don’t question your feelings, emotions, what you think you’re seeing or that Gazans, the majority of whom support Hamas, have suffered in the Hamas-initiated religious war against Israel and the Jews. (Perhaps Hamas should have given that some thought before starting the still ongoing war.) Nor do I doubt your good faith, however misguided, in believing Israel is engaging in genocide in Gaza. But genocide is a legal concept where facts, evidence and the law as applied to the conduct of all parties to the conflict are dispositive. Emotions, feelings - including what’s popular politically and spread around by all sorts of media as the supposed “facts”- and the like count for nothing in analyzing what is or is not genocide.
Willis: This post takes care of the recent substack post "How Can We Rescue American Democracy & Push for a New US Middle East Policy" by Debra Shushan & Jess Craven that cites academic Omer Bartov as a credible source for accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. I will reference your narrative here in a reply to my comment there that Bartov has been discredited based on information from memory but citing two urban warfare experts whom I read, John Spencer and Andrew Fox. Thank you. Jeffrey Herf's article here introduced me to a new term "prestige transfer."
Read Judge Altman’s book. Or listen to John Spencer formerly of West Point. Or go to YouTube and listen to the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor, Chief Prosecutor Khan, who has been investigating the Hamas-initiated war against Israel for 2 and 1/2 years, concede that after all that he and his staff have desperately done to try to find Israel guilty of genocide, they haven’t sufficient evidence to charge a single Israeli with genocide. You can find it on an outlet called Zeteo in an interview with Mehdi Hasan. I don’t doubt your emotions or even good faith, but facts, evidence and the law are what matter, not emotions and feelings.
To say that I’m impressed by your comments is an understatement. And you made them at 12:30 am to boot! I don’t read Hebrew and, to be honest, won’t take the time to read all the underlying docs and related sources in English. In Altman’s defense, and irrespective of all the very favorable reviews his book has received (including by academics and lawyers) and the arguments you make about the quality of his research and analysis, he’s not a historian (as I gather you are or a scholar in some field related to the Middle East?). He’s a sitting federal judge with a busy docket. He presumably wrote his book in response to the appalling degree of anti-Semitism not merely countenanced but in some ways directly or indirectly supported and encouraged on so many campuses by professors and administrators and by so many politicians (most of whom must know better but fear the wrath of their leadership, colleagues or constituents or being called out as Islamophobes or racists.) All of which stands in stark contrast to the horrific degree of bigotry and racism and actual genocide throughout the Muslim world these same people are perfectly comfortable with and about which have nothing to say. For that I believe he deserves a good deal of credit. Said otherwise, he wrote his book for an audience, a large one, that has been brainwashed as, I have said in various posts as in Berlin in 1933. To be sure, assuming you are right in your comments and observations, it would certainly have been a better scholarly work if Altman knew as much you do and researched as carefully as you suggest he should have. That said, it has been very well reviewed by many, including many academics and lawyers.
But none of the above changes certain undeniable facts. (1) I’m 79 years old and have experienced anti-Semitism personally but never imagined a world in which anti-Semitism would be blown off so casually by so many; (2) I think it undeniable that the entirety of the Islamist world wants Israel and all Jews to disappear. That is made clear by the verbatim translations of what is said in mosques and in the Arab press on virtually a daily basis, see, e.g., the MEMRI website including on Islamism in the Western world; (3) much of Islamic anti-Semitism derives directly from the Koran, see, e.g., the works of Andrew Bostom; (4) there is no genocide in Gaza, not even close; (5) while Israel is far from a perfect country and has made many mistakes including under the Netanyahu government and including in the West Bank, no country is perfect and by any standard Israel treats its citizens far, far better than any Muslim country. (Not making a “whataboutism” argument here - just stating the facts.) Suggesting that Israel is somehow comparable to apartheid South Africa is I think absurd, its West Bank conduct notwithstanding.
Based on your comments, perhaps Altman could have and should have done a better job with his research. Nevertheless, as noted above, it has been well reviewed and well received by many and I’m very glad he wrote it. And thank you again for your comments and observations.
I appreciate your comments. A few things:
1. I do happen to have an MA in Middle East studies, but that's irrelevant; the relevant skill for this level of research is reading fluency in English and the ability to compare and contrast fact-claims.
2. You're right about batcrap levels of eliminationist anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
3. It seems obvious to me that this requires an advocate for our side to have the facts down 100%.
What happens when some Jewish kid at Columbia cites Altman's book and says "Israel offered to return the WB in 1967" and then Mahmoud Khalil shows the Jewish kid that *his own source* is incorrect? And incorrect on dozens of important fact-claims? The kid will get annihilated in the debate (and hopefully only the debate) and the pro-Palestinian side will score yet another victory.
Meaning if Altman didn't have the time to do the research or stress-test his arguments on something that is almost literally a weapon in a crucial debate that affects the future of the Jewish people, he shouldn't have written the book. He would have helped Israel more by submitting a blank sheet of paper than a weapon that hurts our side.
4. Many academics and lawyers have indeed praised the book, from Jed Rubenfeld, to John Spencer, to Marco Rubio, to Clarence Thomas. And they are all wrong. This is a little like when From Time Immemorial came out - big names like Elie Wiesel, Saul Bellow, Barbara Tuchman, and Martin Peretz endorsed the book (not coincidentally on a similar subject to Altman's book) and all of them deservedly took hits to their reputations when the book was repeatedly discredited.
At bottom, I agree with pretty much everything you say. As to preparing a kid for a “debate” at Columbia, that’s kind of a moot point certainly as to Columbia and Brown and pretty much everywhere else. There are no debates. There are just rants and threats basically coming from the pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian/anti-Semites posing as anti-Zionists crowd among faculty and students. But if there were to be a debate, the debater on our side of the issue could and would presumably be prepped to deal with the issues you note and others you raised about the Altman book. For example, doing a quick ChatGPT search - fair to criticize me for resorting to that - it seems Israel was prepared to give up the bulk of, but not all of, the West Bank in 1967. That led to the famous three no’s (which I knew of without ChatGPT) - no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. A truly brilliant Arab strategy that served their own people so very well. Relatedly, I don’t know why it’s always acceptable for only the Palestinians to demand something crazy in return for having started and lost war after war after war, e.g., the West Bank. That’s another debating point for the kid on our side. You lose a war, especially one that you started (or were about to start), you pay a price. Notwithstanding the Altman book and the flaws in it that you point out, as noted above I think a good and well-prepared debater on our side could wipe the floor with a Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, after all, is not a scholar or even a student. He’s a community organizer or some such. He, like the Rashid Khalils in Congress, is of the type that doesn’t prepare for debates or addressing anything substantive. They just sloganize - no facts, no logic, no plan, no nothing.
You're right that a "good and well-prepared debater on our side could wipe the floor with a Mahmoud Khalil." But said debater would not become good and well-prepared by reading Altman's book, which (as I think I've shown) is riddled with mistakes of commission, omission, facts, and analysis.
I asked Gemini the same question, and needless to say, no source mentions an Israeli offer of withdrawal for peace w/ Jordan. It mentions 242 and the Allon plan, but that's very different from an Israeli offer to Jordan that was rejected, which is what Altman incorrectly claims.
The actual "AI overview" says "the Israeli government was prepared to return most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace, but not all of it" but this is obviously Gemini's summary and combination of 242 and the Allon plan, i.e. readiness in principle for a peace treaty based on withdrawal, while keeping part of the WB. I'm starting to have a bad feeling that Altman relied on some AI assistant instead of checking the sources himself.
As I think I mentioned above, if Altman is saying that accepting 242 is equivalent to offering to return the WB to Jordan in exchange for a peace treaty, then both Egypt and Jordan offered a peace treaty to Israel (which it then refused) in 1967, because they both accepted 242.
Are you saying that those on the side of antisemitism and anti-Zionism can spout their drivel and lies, but that those on the side of Israel cannot speak up (or publish) without making a mistake or two? Only our side should be held to 100% accuracy else stay quiet? That presupposes that the other side actually can point out discrepancies or inaccurate information, which is doubtful because all they seem to know is ideological propaganda rooted in hate. How would they even be able to argue facts that the judge may have mistaken? One error (forced or otherwise) does not invalidate the entire work.
No, I'm saying that Altman's book is riddled with dumb, easily-checkable mistakes, on crucial issues. Of course we should aim for "100% accuracy" - if we're advancing facts, the facts need to be correct, and relevant, and when detrimental to our side (as in the case of Palestine's historical demography), not completely ignored.
There are also plenty of dumb, easily-checkable mistakes on non-crucial issues too, like calling Sharif Hussein "King Hussein," and getting the reason Ben Gurion named the country "Israel" completely wrong, as evidenced by endnote 221. The book doesn't rise or fall on them, but they sure don't help.
Again, the book is riddled with mistakes of commission and omission and anyone using it in a debate will lose, on the facts. In World Cup lingo, using Altman's book will result in a series of gratuitous own goals. We can and need to do better.
And frankly a blank sheet of paper will do less damage than this book.
You write: "[Judge Altman] completely demolishes all the anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic arguments addressing the above issues with facts, data, and the writings and observations of people who, unlike Bartov, actually know what they’re talking about."
I don't think that's true.
1) A few of Altman's sources, on crucial issues, say the diametrical opposite of what he says they say. One such source virtually invalidates half the book, and in fact includes a disputed translation that *weakens* Altman's case - a gratuitous own goal that he would have discovered in five minutes of Googling, meaning he obviously did not look at (or didn't understand) the source document for the claim he made.
There may be more like this; I haven't checked.
2) Altman conspicuously does not list the historical demography of the region (for good reason: the numbers go against his case).
3) When asked about this in a public Q&A, Altman demonstrated gross ignorance of the numbers and claimed that most (or much) of the Palestinian Arab population was comprised of post-1881 immigrants, which is categorically, documentably, false.
4) In his chapter on colonialism, he completely ignores repeated statements from Herzl, Nordau, Jabotinsky, et al, referring to Zionism as "colonialism." These quotes are frequently cited by anti-Zionists, yet Altman doesn't bother to mention them, even to refute them (instead he relies on platitudes like "you can't colonize your own home").
There is much, much more to write about this - from Altman failing to mention that the Peel plan required the ethnic cleansing of 225,000 Arabs, to his cherry-picking a passage from the Quran saying Eretz Yisrael belongs to the Jews (as if he knows Islam better than two billion Muslims), to minor things like confusing and/or fabricating the dates of peace proposals (like when he references a non-existent offer of a Palestinian state made by Israel at Khartoum), and much, much more. The one-star Amazon reviews also make some salient points.
Happy to discuss this further and/or send specific references.
But know this: anyone using this book in a debate against a knowledgeable Israel hater will lose the debate.
I thank you for these carefully written and insightful comments. As I write this, no one has checked “like” on your comments but I will. You provide valuable information that, e.g., the fast-growing Institute for the Critical Study of Antizionism should be aware of. I am not in a position to check all of your (or Altman’s) research, and therefore have no basis to dispute your assertions or question his. But I will add that there is much disputed ancient (and relatively recent) history surrounding all that you and Altman say which, one might argue, is of little relevance to the current situation in the Middle East given the well-documented position of the Islamists as to what they believe to be their divinely inspired need to exterminate Jews and Israel. But your comments are of course relevant to Altman’s research.
But several things are clear beyond cavil. (1) this is precisely the sort of debate/discussion that should happen at a place like Brown but never does because people like Bartov speak off the top of their heads claiming the moral high ground and refuse to engage seriously with people who have differing points points of view. They are captive of the university’s Center for Middle East Studies and MESA more broadly and fearful of being deemed Islamophobic on a liberal campus. (I will try to attach an article by Professor Abraham Wyner of the University of Pennsylvania demolishing - I’ll use that word again - Bartov’s statistics for example. If I can’t manage to attach it to this, I’ll reply with it separately); (2) there can be no question that, especially among the Islamist fanatics who number in the multi-millions, their war against Israel is not only longstanding - pre-1948 - but has a singular goal - from the river to the sea the never in the course of human history “state” of “Palestine” should now come into being. If it does, it will be yet another apartheid Muslim state and, as Imans in the US and around the world repeatedly say, wipe not just Israel off the map but be part of the broader theological necessity to wipe all Jews off the map as well, see, e.g. the MEMRI website. Said otherwise, their position is based on the purest form of ancient anti-Semitism; (3) I’ve spoken to actual experts on genocide and read the works of many - what has happened in Gaza is not remotely genocide although, as in all wars, bad things happen from time to time and people suffer. You do not address the genocide chapter of Altman’s book because, I assume, you have no issues with the obvious and compelling legal arguments he makes buttressed, e.g., by many other commentators and the fact the ICC Chief Prosecutor has conceded there is insufficient evidence of Israeli genocide after his 2.5 years of investigation. Genocide claims are Bartov’s raison d’être. Nor for that matter do you comment on Professor Herf’s article which prompted my substack post; (4) however Israel came into being, via a UN resolution, and despite the issues you raise, it has every right to exist as a Jewish state no differently than the 50+ majority Muslim states have the right to exist as Muslim states all of which are, of course apartheid dictatorships - no churches, synagogues, Buddhist temples etc. None of the freedoms present in the Western world. (On the humorous side, FIFA the other day somewhat surprisingly rejected the demand of the Egyptian and Iranian soccer teams that gay pride flags be banned from the stadium in which they played each other.) does Israel is of course a raucous democracy, and I’m no fan of the current Netanyahu government, but there can be no reasonable human rights comparison between Israel and any Muslim state.
I haven't read your whole comment yet, but you'll notice I didn't mention Bartov.
I didn't mention him because:
1) I know that Israel didn't commit genocide and what I've read of Bartov didn't persuade me.
2) I also didn't read Altman's chapter on genocide. If the rest of his book is a guide, I fear that his arguments and sourcing will be so bad that a neutral observer will conclude that it *was* genocide.
I can't emphasize this enough: we need to get our arguments and facts straight, and Altman doesn't do that.
(1) sent my reply too soon by mistake. There’s at least one typo but it doesn’t change any of the substance I wrote;
(2) please do read the genocide chapter in the Altman book. I’m not fully familiar with all of the 200 or so sources he cites, but with enough of them to feel completely confident in his assessment. The false genocide claim is the main driver, by far, on campuses and for the predominant and growing anti-Semitism on campuses and in both political parties;
(3) you’re of course right that we need to get our facts straight, but some facts are more important than others, e.g. the facts about the imaginary “genocide” and the imaginary “apartheid” Jewish state of Israel.
The website won’t allow me to attach the Wyner article. It was published last February and is entitled “A Blood Libel at Penn - The oldest accusation against Jews gets repackaged as scholarship” (by Bartov). It appears in Tablet Magazine and on substack. Thank you again for your time and thoughtful commentary.
I would look at his apartheid chapter. Even there Altman gets important things wrong.
What?
He spends half the chapter proving that there is no apartheid *within the green line* which is responding to a charge that only serious extremists make. And even here he omits crucial things. Like: 1) acceptance committees; 2) gross inequality in funds for municipal budgets and communities; 3) Historical and continuing land confiscations from Arab municipalities; 4) repeated statements along the lines that Israeli Arabs pose a demographic threat; 5) the same as (4) but focused on certain areas, such as the "Judaization of the Galilee" (with Israel literally using the term "Judaization" / "liyahed"); 6) there was no Arab Muslim minister until 2007; 7) No Arab party in a coalition until 2021; and much, much more.
The above does not exactly add up to Apartheid, but it's not good and Altman doesn't bother to mention it.
His thing on Gaza will take too much time to deal with here
His thing about no Apartheid in the West Bank is simply absurd. He writes: "Some five hundred thousand Israeli citizens live there - in areas controlled by Israel." Altman doesn't bother to mention that under black-letter Israeli law this land is occupied, and that according to the Supreme Court, the WB is held under Belligerent Occupation which prohibits civilian settlement. He doesn't mention that much of this land was confiscated from Palestinian owners. Doesn't mention Theodor Meron's 1967 legal memo stating that civilian settlement in the West Bank is illegal.
He then says that there can't be Apartheid because the Palestinians "don't live in Israel and aren't Israeli citizens" and "no country treats citizens the same as non-citizens" as if this were not exactly the point, as if it justifies 60 years of occupation, land confiscations, checkpoints, lack of political representation, systematic economic de-development, rule by military law (when the next hilltop contains a Jewish settlement governed under Israeli civil law protected by Israeli troops), plus much, much, much more. (really much, much more)
He also claims, incorrectly, that "Israel offered to return Judea and Samaria to Jordan—but only in exchange for a cessation of hostilities and Jordan’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist." But that didn't happen. His sources for this claim are endnotes 349 and 366:
349: https://www.adl.org/resources/fact-sheet/why-didnt-israel-withdraw-territory-it-gained-during-six-day-war
366: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/90717?v=pdf
Needless to say, neither of these say Israel offered to return the West Bank to Jordan. Citation 349 just doesn't say it, and citation 366 refers to UN Resolution 242, which does not mean Israel *offered* to withdraw from the WB for peace. It means Israel accepted the *principle* of doing so, as did Egypt and Jordan. Big difference. But Israel (and Egypt and Jordan) never made an offer to do so until 1977 and 1994, in radically different political circumstances.
In other words, I'm starting to think Altman's entire book is a farce. Badly sourced and badly argued. Arguments like "there's no Apartheid because they are not citizens" is casuistry, not good-faith analysis. And this is from a Federal judge and Yale Law School graduate.
Much much more to write about this. To be sure, there are some decent arguments that what the WB Palestinians are experiencing is not exactly Apartheid, but Altman doesn't seem aware of any of the relevant allegations, and accordingly he can't refute them.
In terms of checking research, Altman writes on page 112:
"Many Yishuv Jews urged their leadership to refuse the offer, but David Ben-Gurion, chair of the Zionist Executive and undisputed head of the Yishuv, accepted Peel’s proposal."
There is a clear subtext here that BG was making a painful, pragmatic sacrifice of most of Eretz Yisrael for the greater good of the Jewish people.
Altman's citation for the above is endnote 345, a 1937 letter from Ben Gurion to his son Amos:
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2013/04/06/the-ben-gurion-letter/
Read it yourself and see if it substantiates Altman's contention.
I personally think Ben Gurion's statements like the following prove the diametrical opposite of Altman's contention, and come close to invalidating half the claims he makes in his book:
"We must expel Arabs and take their place"
"What is in our actual possession is a small portion, less than what they [the Peel Commission] are proposing for a Jewish state. If I were an Arab I would have been very indignant."
"Our ability to penetrate the country will increase if we have a state";
"But if we are compelled to use force – not in order to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev or Transjordan, but in order to guarantee our right to settle there – our force will enable us to do so."
"The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country."
And, of course, had Altman bothered to Google his source he would have realized that the first quote, "We must expel the Arabs and take their place" is strongly disputed. But he didn't Google it, adding a layer of farce on top of absurdity, a gratuitous own goal.
A Wikipedia article on the letter and disputed passages is here; I would examine the underlying sources in order to 1) be sure, and 2) to go beyond the evidence-seeking methodology of a sitting Federal judge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter
Despite the fact that neither Wikipedia nor certainly Jewish Voice for Peace is reliable as to anything at all related to Israel, I don’t read the 1937 letter from BG to his son as perhaps you do. To be sure, he believes it is necessary for the Jews to have land, even a tiny portion of it. (That of course became more than clear in the ensuing years.) He was correct in noting that the Arabs had no interest in it as evidenced perhaps that they had done nothing with or about it (and also probably because it had no oil underneath it). But throughout he’s saying, in effect, we can work with Arabs if need be and do something that will benefit everyone. That is a concept that the Arabs reject forcefully to this day. It’s also difficult, if not impossible, to understand the BG letter without seeing the letter his son wrote to him. Net/net though, this was all part of cutting up the predominant empires and awarding land to all sorts of people. Why basically screw the Kurds in Syria and Turkey? Why draw the borders as they did? All of this was just the geopolitics of the 1930s as empires were broken up and not very thoughtfully. Some won for no reason at all, e.g. Syria and Turkey, some lost - the Jews lost their ancient homeland, a home a homeland they had hundreds and hundreds of years before Islam was even created.
Again, on Wikipedia: go to the citations and sources.
On JVP: yes, they are not reliable. They include the probably-incorrect "we must expel the Arabs and take their place." But that's my point: Altman didn't do any research on his source. The rest of the letter is translated correctly; you can go to the original sources or read it in the original Hebrew if you're able.
Again, Altman is saying that BG was willing to compromise, against the grain of the Zionist movement, by accepting the Peel plan, while every syllable of Altman's source talks at minimum about this being a tactical stage before expanding either Jewish control and/or Jewish presence (he's never clear on that, probably deliberately) throughout Palestine and into Transjordan(!). And of course Altman does not mention that this required, per the letter of the the Peel proposal, the transfer of 225,000 Arabs. Of course they rejected it. Altman completely fails to mention other cases of Zionist proposals for transferring Arabs before, during, and after this period, as ably described in Nur Masalha's book, which I assume Altman has never read or heard of.
I'll also note that in his book on Israel and the law, Judge Altman doesn't even mention the Absentee Property law (even to somehow justify it), which in itself is a serious omission. But this omission is made absurd by the fact that Altman eagerly discusses the doctrine of Adverse Possession, which is obviously relevant to a law by which Group A seizes most of the property of Group B.
One additional case among 10,000: On page 93, completely ignoring the political context, Altman cherry-picks quotes from both Sharif Hussein (whom he incorrectly refers to as "King Hussein") and his son Faisal supporting Jewish national rights in Israel, made in 1918.
Yet Altman fails to mention anything about the King-Crane commission, whose report was written in 1919 but published in 1922. He doesn't even mention it to refute it.
Here is a crucial quote from the commission's report:
""For 'a national home for the Jewish people' is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the 'civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase. ... If the principle of self-determination is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine—nearly nine-tenths of the whole—are emphatically against the entire Zionist program. ... The peace conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British officer, consulted by the Commission, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. ... For a further reason, the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a 'right' to Palestine, based on an occupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly be seriously considered."
I “liked” all of the recent replies because I think certain things all who replied said are beyond dispute: (1) it is absolutely true and easily provable (and repeatedly has been proven) that the pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian/anti-Semites masquerading as anti-Zionists have been lying on a regular basis in multiple ways and have been doing so for decades - facts, credible evidence etc etc are irrelevant to them because all they care about is pushing their political narratives whatever it takes. Their lies need to be forcefully and quickly called out at every opportunity; (2) it also is beyond dispute that responses to the liars noted above have to be made as fully and accurately as possible - one lie doesn’t justify a lie in response but I think there’s a difference between just making things up as the other side does as opposed to not being accurate, making mistakes or otherwise poorly researching/writing. That said, such errors, especially as to key points, cannot be so numerous or so easily shot down as to give the pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist crowd on campuses or among so many politicians reason or ammunition to defeat those of us on the right side of history factually, morally and in every other way imaginable; in addition (3) all history re the Middle East - especially post-1947/48 - is complex. Many scholars and others have differing views as to who said (or didn’t say) what, the intricacies of negotiations at and off the negotiating table(s), what documents really mean, whether it will ever be possible to find/review all the relevant documents etc etc. Thanks to you all.
Yet another Israeli academic who thinks he will be saved by libelling his country.
He couldn’t make it in Israel so he went to Brown.
Bartov isn't the only genocide scholar to conclude that Gaza is a genocide. There are many others and some top ones have said it's the consensus of the academic field. Going after Bartov over a book which is not about the genocide to try to discredit his professional opinion on the genocide is a clear attempt to ad hominem him.
Thanks for your comment. Bartov has repeatedly said specifically or by implication, including in his most recent book, that Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza. Criticizing him on the basis that he is dead wrong as to that assertion is hardly an ad hominem attack especially since he markets himself as having a unique insight into “genocide” given his background. Even the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, conceded that Israel was not engaged in genocide in an interview in late April with Mehdi Hasan. It’s available on YouTube in an outlet called Zeteo. Moreover, Khan arrived at his “no genocide” conclusion after 2.5 years of investigation by his office which, I think it’s fair to assume, was looking for any evidence at all to support the genocide claim. To the credit of the investigators in that office, they didn’t just jump on to the prevailing academic/politically popular bandwagon. Any “genocide scholar” who believes Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza is either unaware of the credible evidence or unwilling to accept it and/or unaware of the applicable law. Or perhaps willfully blind to both. Said otherwise, like Bartov, they are simply wrong. That these same people, including presumably Bartov, believe it’s “the consensus of the academic field”, whatever that means and whoever makes up the “top ones” in the field, are likewise wrong. The are hundreds of academics who take precisely the opposite position. It’s of course not the first time in the history of academia that multiple supposed “top” scholars got an important point completely wrong.
You're not a genocide scholar right? So you can criticise him and disagree with him until the cows come home but you're merely disagreeing with him as a layman. Now that doesn't make you wrong per se but it is a fact nonetheless. If you have managed to write a peer-reviewed criticism published in a respectable genocide journal then I wouldn't mind reading it.
But this issue is more than just about Bartov and your clear personal dislike of him. You must surely be aware that there are lots of genocide scholars calling this a genocide. The fact you call them "genocide scholars" once again points to an ad hominem attack on your part by suggesting they are lacking in due diligence or sufficient professionalism. That's an awful lot of academics you're waving to one side. I would have expected better from someone in law. This is exactly what young-Earth creationists do with scientists to attempt to discredit them. They love to point to academic consensus being revised as carte blanche to throw all current scientific theories out of the window but this is a really lame argument because it is a faulty epistemological move whereby one employs hyper-scepticism to throw any knowledge into doubt. It undermines itself because no-one could possibly ever make a truth claim which has good evidence for it ever again. So if you employ that epistemology you can never claim it has been shown that Israel did not commit a genocide. You've just created one hell of logical problem for yourself.
I also think you are misrepresenting Khan. I saw that interview and he merely said that he had insufficient evidence to prove genocide in court. There's a big difference with that statement and one which, you as a lawyer (or should I say "lawyer"?), ought to appreciate. He also made it clear the four arrest warrants they issued were because there was sufficient evidence to take all four people to court for various crimes (two of whom are Israeli). You will also know that the legal profession will take a long time over charges as serious as genocide. The ICJ found there was a case to be heard. The scholarship is also key here because it has less chance of being politically influenced. What is needed is an independent review to take place in Gaza and Israel still won't allow that to take place. But the latest UN report makes it clear that IDF soldiers are targeting children and they also use the language of genocide. (This is the point where you, no doubt, have some ad hominem attack to make on the UN.)
If you read Jeffrey Herf’s paper in my last post, and hopefully you will, you’ll understand the difference between when Bartov actually was a genocide scholar, i.e. in connection with his analysis of German atrocities and how that in no way makes him a “scholar” of what is transpiring in Gaza. As Herf so perfectly put it, Bartov plays on “prestige transfer”:
“Prestige transfer is an old and sorry phenomenon in modern intellectual history, whereby persons who have displayed achievements in one area claim that, for example, “as a historian” (and in [Bartov’s] case a historian of the Holocaust), they have insight into ongoing events unavailable to others. Bartov’s latest book [title quoted] released in April is an example of that problem.”
Said otherwise, since both Bartov and I can read and write the English language, view documents, films and photos, listen to others on both sides speaking of what is transpiring in Gaza etc etc., Bartov and I (and even perhaps you for that matter) stand on equal footing in assessing whether what is happening in Gaza is genocide. (You might read a substack piece by Abraham Wyner on Bartov’s ridiculous statistical “analysis” arguably an even worse case of Bartov pretending to be what he is not - in this case pretending to know something of value regarding statistics, how they are to be interpreted and what they mean. Wyner is a professor of statistics at Penn’s Wharton School.)
You are correct that there is a big difference between alleging genocide and proving it in court. That’s the problem with tossing around “Israel is engaging in genocide” as is so common today - it requires credible evidence measured against the applicable legal standards including the law relating to genocide and the laws of war. Many of the usual suspects in academia seem unable to grasp or accept that concept.
There are many theories about why Khan issued arrest warrants - a common one is that he was doing so to forestall the investigation into sex harassment charges against him for which he is now on suspension and may soon be fired. Another is the undeniable hostility of the UN toward Israel for decades as compared to real genocidal regimes - no even arguably serious person could or would contest that perfectly obvoius point. And assuming for the sake of argument that you are at least a somewhat serious person, you must concede that politics perhaps played just a tiny role in investigating South Africa’s (!) claim and the ICC pursuing it or do you think the Chief Prosecutor soon will be issuing arrest warrants against the IRGC, the Houthis, and Qatar? Hezbollah heads maybe? Never happening. Arrest warrants are pretty meaningless especially given the source. That the ICC to save face had to issue warrants to I believe two dead Hamas terrorists proves that those issued to the two Israelis were a joke (and I’m no fan of Netanyahu.) (There’s a reason our country and Israel have never been party to the ICC. Common sense.) Even grand jury indictments are pretty easy to get - my law school evidence professor was fond of saying that as a prosecutor he could indict a ham sandwich.
Read John Spencer on how the IDF has conducted itself. By any standard you choose, the IDF has conducted itself remarkably humanely, moreso than any army in the history of modern urban warfare and often putting its own soldiers at risk in doing so. Have some soldiers in the IDF acted contrary to the laws of war and Israeli law? Of course. Happens in every war. Targeting children doesn’t merit a response and you’re right, again given the source.
C'mon mate now you're getting plain silly. A genocide scholar is not restricted to expertise merely of one genocide. That's absurd. That's like claiming that, in my academic field, that as a philosopher I can only be an expert on one particular philosopher. Now a philosopher might focus to a period or even an individual philosopher for a PhD or a research paper but that does not make them any less a professional on the overall subject. I'm sorry but you sound extremely desperate to discredit him. This is NOT a case of "prestige transfer" in the slightest. On the contrary, as I already said, I think you are both guilty of attacking him ad hominem.
Again you're merely hand waving and gesturing at academics in the field of genocide scholarship. That's not an actual argument. It's exactly what conspiracy theorists do with experts. And you have not engaged with anything I said about the epistemological quandary you have put yourself in by doing so.
Hahahaha! Now you're going after Khan ad hominem too! Are you sure you're a bona fide lawyer? Were you away the week they taught basic logic? See how when Khan could be cited in support of your contention there was no mention of these accusation made against him. He was a solid source. But as soon as I mention the arrest warrants.... uh oh!! Now he's not someone who can be trusted to be professional and objective (as if he could issue those warrants merely himself anyway). So if you get to discredit ad hom then so do I for consistency. Maybe he won't personally come out and say genocide because he's afraid of further attacks on himself and his family by Israel. See... I can ad hom too if it's being allowed.
I am now having trouble believing you really are a lawyer. Maybe the standard is far less than for solicitors here in Europe I don't know. But you construct your arguments worse that most sophomore students do in my experience of nearly thirty years of lecturing. You really do need to pick up an introductory textbook on logical fallacies and critical thinking. I won't ever be coming to you should I need legal assistance that's for sure. Bye!
You can deny what we all see with our own eyes all you want, but it’s not going to turn the tide. And be careful because you will eventually be called out on your genocide advocacy.
Read Judge Altman’s book, if only the genocide chapter. Read and listen to the countless commentaries of John Spencer, who taught urban warfare at West Point, and so many others who have addressed and debunked the genocide claim. Listen to the YouTube interview of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan conducted by Mehdi Hasan around late April of this year. Khan concedes that despite 2.5 years of his investigators collecting mountains of information, likely trying to cook up claims of genocide against Israel, that his office has not found sufficient evidence to do so. I don’t question your feelings, emotions, what you think you’re seeing or that Gazans, the majority of whom support Hamas, have suffered in the Hamas-initiated religious war against Israel and the Jews. (Perhaps Hamas should have given that some thought before starting the still ongoing war.) Nor do I doubt your good faith, however misguided, in believing Israel is engaging in genocide in Gaza. But genocide is a legal concept where facts, evidence and the law as applied to the conduct of all parties to the conflict are dispositive. Emotions, feelings - including what’s popular politically and spread around by all sorts of media as the supposed “facts”- and the like count for nothing in analyzing what is or is not genocide.
This is great stuff.
Willis: This post takes care of the recent substack post "How Can We Rescue American Democracy & Push for a New US Middle East Policy" by Debra Shushan & Jess Craven that cites academic Omer Bartov as a credible source for accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. I will reference your narrative here in a reply to my comment there that Bartov has been discredited based on information from memory but citing two urban warfare experts whom I read, John Spencer and Andrew Fox. Thank you. Jeffrey Herf's article here introduced me to a new term "prestige transfer."