Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Ruby Jones, and you're listening to seven.
Speaker 2: AM as cease fire negotiations with Hamas stall Israeli Prime
Speaker 2: Minister Benjamin Netnia, who was expected to hold a security.
Speaker 1: Cabinet meeting to finalize a new plan for Gaza. Netnya,
Speaker 1: who has been calling for a full military takeover of Gaza,
Speaker 1: that that plan is highlighting a rift in Israel's government.
Speaker 1: The security meeting has been postponed. Military officials are warning
Speaker 1: it would be dangerous and costly and risk further isolating
Speaker 1: Israel on the international stage. This all comes as the
Speaker 1: International Court of Justice is still weighing South Africa's genocide
Speaker 1: case against Israel. According to the Health ministry in Gaza,
Speaker 1: the death toll has now surpassed sixty one thousand people today.
Speaker 1: Israeli American scholar and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies
Speaker 1: Omer Batov on what constitutes a genocide and why only
Speaker 1: a new paradigm can save Palestinians and Israelis alike. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: August seventh. Omer I thought we could start with the ICJ,
Speaker 1: the International Court of Justice. It's currently considering the question
Speaker 1: of whether or not Israel is committing genocide against the
Speaker 1: Palestinian people. So, as a scholar of genocide, can you
Speaker 1: tell me exactly what that means?
Speaker 3: So, the ICJ is considering genocide as it is defined
Speaker 3: in the Genocide Convention of nineteen forty eight, and that's
Speaker 3: the only definition of genocide that actually matters in this
Speaker 3: case and in any case of international law. And that
Speaker 3: definician says that genocide are acts committed with the intent
Speaker 3: to destroy a particular group, and that can be an
Speaker 3: ethic group, a racial group, a religious or a national
Speaker 3: group in whole or in part as such. So what
Speaker 3: that means is that in order to find that genocide
Speaker 3: is happening, you have to show two things. You have
Speaker 3: to show that there's a clear intent to destroy a group,
Speaker 3: and secondly, that this intent is being implemented to the
Speaker 3: extent that people who are subjected to genocide are not
Speaker 3: subjected to it as individuals, but as members of the group,
Speaker 3: because the goal is not to kill all the people,
Speaker 3: or name other people, or harm all the people, but
Speaker 3: rather for that group to be destroyed as such.
Speaker 1: And so do you think that Israel's actions now meet
Speaker 1: that definition?
Speaker 3: Well, I think Asrael's actions have met that definition, at
Speaker 3: least as far as I could tell by May of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, and the way I saw it because
Speaker 3: I about it's already in November twenty three and I
Speaker 3: wrote an op ed in the New York Times, and
Speaker 3: at the time I argued that it appeared that Israel
Speaker 3: was engaged in war crime and crimes against humanity, and
Speaker 3: that there had been general side of statements by leaders
Speaker 3: of Israel in the immediate aftermath of October seventh.
Speaker 4: We are putting a complete siege on Gaza, no electricity
Speaker 4: in Muzzlim, no food, no water, no gas. It's all
Speaker 4: closed with fighting animals, and are acting accordingly.
Speaker 3: But these could have been interpreted as simply people were
Speaker 3: very really outraged by what happened on October seventh, and
Speaker 3: so you could expect, especially in the political climate and Israel,
Speaker 3: for people to make very strong statements. They appear to
Speaker 3: have a general size of content, and they could also
Speaker 3: have been seen as insight went to soldiers. So in
Speaker 3: that piece at the time I said that this could
Speaker 3: develop into genocide, that my intent was to warn to
Speaker 3: stop things before it happens. By May of the following
Speaker 3: year of twenty twenty four, is very defense for US
Speaker 3: as the IDEA decided to move into Rufa, which is
Speaker 3: the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, in which about
Speaker 3: half of the population of Gaza was concentrated a million people.
Speaker 5: Israel says it plans to proceed with its planned military
Speaker 5: operations in the southern city of Rafa, that despite two
Speaker 5: separate International Court rulings this week condemning Israel's actions as
Speaker 5: well as the attacks by Hamas.
Speaker 3: And at that point, because the IDEA wanted to move
Speaker 3: into Rufa, it moves all those people, a million people
Speaker 3: to another area along the beach so west of there,
Speaker 3: to the Mawasi area, and then went to Rafa and
Speaker 3: destroyed it. And BIOLOGUSI was the standard. And at that
Speaker 3: point I started examining the following. What is the relationship
Speaker 3: between the statements that were made by these politicians and
Speaker 3: generals immediately after the massacre and the official war goals,
Speaker 3: and the official war goals were to destroy Hamas and
Speaker 3: to release the hostages.
Speaker 6: I've set three war goals. The first is to release
Speaker 6: the hostages, the second is to destroy Hamas, and the
Speaker 6: third is to ensure that Gaza does not pose a
Speaker 6: threat to Israel in the future.
Speaker 3: And it appeared to me by then that the ideas
Speaker 3: was not then and is not now actually engaged in
Speaker 3: an attempt to destroy Hamas and release the hostages, but
Speaker 3: rather to systematically destroy Gaza so as to make it
Speaker 3: entirely and inhabitable for its population, and to the extent
Speaker 3: that it's possible to remove it from the Gaza strip altogether.
Speaker 1: And as well as the country was founded in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of the Holocaust for which the of genocide was created,
Speaker 1: so many people in Israel think that it's impossible that
Speaker 1: the country could ever commit a genocide or be found
Speaker 1: guilty of doing that. So what would a finding like this,
Speaker 1: What would it do to the country, What would it
Speaker 1: mean for Israel and for its government?
Speaker 3: So you know, this is the sort of the paradox
Speaker 3: and the outrage of the whole thing. For many people,
Speaker 3: I think, and for me too, the fact that Israel
Speaker 3: is now engaged in what appears to be a generocide
Speaker 3: or action is an outrage. It's a scandal because it
Speaker 3: does fly in the face of everything that you would
Speaker 3: have wanted to believe in. We have a kind of
Speaker 3: belief that people learn from genocide and the lesson that
Speaker 3: you would draw from having been a victim of one
Speaker 3: is to do everything you can to avoid that from
Speaker 3: happening right or from participating in one. And in fact
Speaker 3: that Israel. For many years, the Holocaust became something else.
Speaker 3: It became a warning of imminent danger, not only something
Speaker 3: to remember and commemorate and research, but also a clear
Speaker 3: and imminent danger that behind every threat to Israel, whether
Speaker 3: real or perceived, whether major or minor, behind the corner
Speaker 3: Auschwitz was lurking. And that created a state of mind
Speaker 3: where the Holocaust is actually a license to violence against others,
Speaker 3: rather than something that would prevent you from ever contemplating
Speaker 3: carrying a genocide out like.
Speaker 1: This, after the break the two very different futures ahead
Speaker 1: for Israel and Palestine, let's talk a little about what
Speaker 1: might come next. For Israel. It's still experiencing significant support
Speaker 1: from powerful allies. So while that is the case, what
Speaker 1: does the future of the country look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to say. You know, I'm a story
Speaker 3: and I look back, but I think the future is bleak.
Speaker 3: I can think of two scenarios. Basically, one is likelier
Speaker 3: than the other. The first is that this at some
Speaker 3: point will end it's actually not a war at all
Speaker 3: what is happening in Gaza now because there's no organized
Speaker 3: resistance to what the idea of is doing. It's just
Speaker 3: a campaign of demolition and ethnic cleansing. But this may
Speaker 3: end at some point. But if Israel is unable to
Speaker 3: come to terms with this, if the international community just
Speaker 3: sits back, what this has done to Israeli society itself,
Speaker 3: quite apart from destroying Palestinian society, is that Israel is
Speaker 3: becoming increase seemly violent within its own borders. It will become,
Speaker 3: I think, a fore blown apartheid state. It's become increasingly authoritarian.
Speaker 3: There's a great deal of police violence, not only against
Speaker 3: Palestinians but also against protesters, against people who oppose the government,
Speaker 3: and I think it will become a pariah state. It
Speaker 3: won't be able to survive as such for very long.
Speaker 3: It will implode. What will happen then is hard to say.
Speaker 3: So that's the dire scenario. There is another scenario, which
Speaker 3: is that Israel will be forced because there's no internal
Speaker 3: dynamic in Israel now to force this change, but that
Speaker 3: Israel will be forced by pressures from outside, from its
Speaker 3: own allies. For its own good, to change the political paradigm,
Speaker 3: not out of anti Israeli, sentimental anti Semitism or any
Speaker 3: of that, but rather to save it from its own demons,
Speaker 3: to change the political paradigm, and to seek out a
Speaker 3: waigh for seven million Palestinians and seven million Jews who
Speaker 3: live in that area to share that space, rather than
Speaker 3: to try using bombs to resolve this dispute between them.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a bit more about what that
Speaker 1: pressure could look like? As you've said, you're historians, so
Speaker 1: what moments in history can we draw from in thinking
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 3: You cannot expect the country that's carried out genocide against
Speaker 3: another group too simply after some years to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're really sorry about it and we won't do it again.
Speaker 3: There has to be much more of a process. One
Speaker 3: of course, is the example of South Africa. And South
Speaker 3: Africa is important here because South Africa, no one, I
Speaker 3: mean most people anticipated that apartheid would collapse into a bloodbath,
Speaker 3: and that's not what happened. So I would not want
Speaker 3: to idealize South Africa now. It's not an ideal place.
Speaker 3: But the way that apart the Aparthe regime fell was
Speaker 3: a combination of several factors. Two of the most important
Speaker 3: were first, huge pressure on South Africa and second that
Speaker 3: there were people there who could take up this leadership
Speaker 3: and lead their own nation to a distant future. And
Speaker 3: that too is crucial. There's a moment in which you
Speaker 3: need those people and you need to support them, you
Speaker 3: need to stand behind them. And in the case of
Speaker 3: South Africa, the international community played a huge role. And again,
Speaker 3: I mean, if you think about what happened in nineteen
Speaker 3: forty five in Europe, the Allies could have come into Europe,
Speaker 3: into Germany and destroyed it because it thoughts out such
Speaker 3: a terrible war. There could have been a politics of
Speaker 3: retribution and destruction and mass arrest and even genocide, and
Speaker 3: they could have done that. And instead the institute the
Speaker 3: Marshall Plan and rebuilt Germany. And that's why you became
Speaker 3: what it is today. And so you can see that
Speaker 3: vision and generosity and understanding that you cannot go back
Speaker 3: to the past, that you must build something new actually
Speaker 3: can work. It's not just some kind of you know,
Speaker 3: liberal pipe dream. It has actually worked in the past,
Speaker 3: and it could work in the Middle East as well.
Speaker 3: Most people, most is rarely Jews and most Pedestinians don't
Speaker 3: want to live in this kind of reality that they're
Speaker 3: living in now. They don't love it. They would like
Speaker 3: to see a different future, but nobody is offering it
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for something like that to work, you need outside pressure,
Speaker 1: but you also need people within those countries to be
Speaker 1: willing to push for that kind of change. So how
Speaker 1: do you see that happening? Given the state of the
Speaker 1: relationship between Israel and Palestine.
Speaker 3: There is a group of Pedestinians and Jews, Israeli Jews
Speaker 3: who have been thinking now for several years, since started
Speaker 3: before October seventh, of a different way of rethinking this.
Speaker 3: Because so many politicians always say, well, we'll support the
Speaker 3: two state solution, it's a kind of fig leaf to saying, well,
Speaker 3: we'd like to see something, and the two state solution
Speaker 3: as it is now seen is not going to happen.
Speaker 3: This group is thinking about the creation of a consideration
Speaker 3: between Israel and Palestine, two sovereign states that would be
Speaker 3: in consideration with each other. They would have open borders,
Speaker 3: and they would make a distinction between citizenship and residents,
Speaker 3: so that people could be citizens of one state and
Speaker 3: live in the other, but they would vote and be
Speaker 3: politically active in the state of their nationality. There is
Speaker 3: a lot of creative thinking behind that, and I think
Speaker 3: that countries like Australia, like Norway, like Germany can actually
Speaker 3: help the people who are trying to put together these plans,
Speaker 3: who are trying to advertise them to the rest of
Speaker 3: the world, together with pressure on Israel itself. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to be hopeful. Of course, this is not something that
Speaker 3: would happen tomorrow, but if they were international assistants, combined
Speaker 3: with real pressure on its role, with economic pressure, so
Speaker 3: that people would know that if they continue on this path,
Speaker 3: they will become increasingly isolated, I think something at least
Speaker 3: we can see that not as the opportunity that Israeli
Speaker 3: policymakers saw October seventh as, which was the opportunity to
Speaker 3: destroy Pedestinian existence in Gaza, but rather as an opportunity
Speaker 3: to change entirely the relationship between Jews and Pedestinians in
Speaker 3: that region.
Speaker 1: Oma, thank you for your time, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, US President Donald Trump indicated
Speaker 1: he would not interfere with possible Israeli plans to occupy
Speaker 1: the entirety of the Gaza Strip. Asked about reports of
Speaker 1: a potential military takeover of Gaza, Donald Trump stated it
Speaker 1: was pretty much up to Israel, saying his administration's focus
Speaker 1: was on increasing food access to Palestinians. And An indigenous
Speaker 1: group has launched an appeal to prevent the construction of
Speaker 1: a stadium that would be used for the twenty thirty
Speaker 1: two Olympics in Brisbane. It follows the Queensland government fast
Speaker 1: tracking legislation to override fifteen environmental and Heritage Acts in
Speaker 1: order to build the stadium. The Yugara Mrganjin Aboriginal Corporation
Speaker 1: lodged a protection application with the federal government, saying the
Speaker 1: site contains stories, ancient trees and possible ancestral remains and
Speaker 1: Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: A blow of money