When Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Omer Bartov was growing up in Tel Aviv, he played among the rubble of abandoned cemeteries, Arab houses and Palestinian property.
But as a child, “we had no idea what it was, and nobody really told us,” Bartov recalled in an interview with The Herald. Decades later, he learned that they were remnants of the Nakba — a period of mass displacement of Palestinians that occurred during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
These lost histories shaped his scholarship of Jewish civilization and influenced his most recent book, “Israel: What Went Wrong?” which was released this week.
Bartov told The Herald his book explores how Zionism has evolved from a humanitarian, nationalist movement to a state ideology that has “become increasingly militaristic, increasingly expansionist (and) increasingly racist.”
Bartov has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in southern Israel.
“What Hamas did (on Oct. 7) was a war crime and a crime against humanity,” Bartov told The Herald. “I had members of my family who became victims of what happened on Oct. 7.”
In a November 2023 essay, Bartov asserted that Israeli leaders indicated a “genocidal intent” but had not committed genocide in Gaza. But by July 2025, Bartov wrote that he was confident that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bartov told The Herald that Zionism originated in the late 19th century as a response to “growing antisemitism and growing exclusion of and violence against Jews … It appealed to humanitarianism, it appealed to human rights.”
But, according to Bartov, that has changed drastically. The movement’s presence in Palestine has become a form of settler colonialism and displaced the local Arab communities, he argued.
Eventually, Zionism became “an ideology that was used to justify genocide in Gaza,” Bartov asserted.
In his new book, Bartov takes a particular interest in the absence of a formal constitution in Israel.
In the United Nations’ 1947 partition resolution that offered a plan for the creation of Israel, the UN proposed a requirement for Israel to create a constitution with democratic ideals, including racial and religious equality, Bartov explained. But after Israel declared independence in 1948, the constitution never came.
This was a “tipping point” in the history of Zionism, Bartov said, and it became “an ideology of state.” Now, “It's an ethno-national ideology that says the Jews should dwell on their own,” Bartov asserted.
The Holocaust has played a significant role in the evolution of Zionism and Israeli national identity, according to Bartov, moving from being a historical event that should be remembered and commemorated to a reminder of “an imminent threat of extermination.”
“For Israelis — even left-leaning Israelis — to think that their sons and daughters are taking part in a genocidal campaign is impossible,” Bartov said because, in Israel, the term genocide “immediately means the Holocaust.”
“You can’t say to us that we are doing a holocaust. That’s what happened to us,” Bartov said. “So the Holocaust comes to play a role in giving license to Israeli violence against Palestinians who are not a threat to Israel’s existence.”
As a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, Bartov says it is difficult for him to accept that the “army has changed entirely” and become “a completely different animal from what it was” when he served.
Laura Jockusch, associate professor of Holocaust studies at Brandeis University and a panelist at Bartov’s April 22 book launch event, told The Herald that she historically has appreciated Bartov’s ability to highlight diverse perspectives and hold groups accountable to consistent moral and historical standards.
But she said that his new book lacked a multiplicity of voices, particularly those of Palestinians.
“I think if you really want to understand ‘what went wrong,’ you can’t exclude the Palestinian side,” Jockusch said in an interview with The Herald. “In historical work, we constantly write about other people’s voices by including their sources. So why not include Palestinian voices in this?”
Jockusch also said that Bartov seems to “deemphasize the victimhood of some Israelis.” For example, the book brushes away the systemic sexual violence against Israeli women, according to Jockush.
Visiting Associate Professor of Judaic Studies Erica Weiss wrote in an email to The Herald that Bartov’s book encourages readers “to grapple with painful and urgent questions” about Israel and Palestine.
She added that, given the nature of Israel-Palestine scholarship, she does not necessarily agree with everything in the book. But the work aligns with the Jewish practice of self-accountability and examination, she wrote in an email to The Herald.
“I see it as part of a broader process of heshbon nefesh — a Jewish religious practice of moral accounting and self-examination,” Weiss wrote, “a collective effort to reflect, to take stock and to understand both the moment we are in and our own roles within it.”
Elizabeth Rosenbaum is a senior staff writer covering science and research.
