"Yes, I am afraid they will come for me". The statement by Raz Segal could evoke another era. Another century. In fact, the Israeli expert on the Holocaust and genocide recalls that his grandparents were survivors of the racial fury unleashed by the Nazi Germans against members of his community.
But now, faced with the abysmal ideological shift that his second country -the United States- is undergoing, the professor at Stockton University in New Jersey, who acquired citizenship of that country a decade ago, acknowledges that not even his personal circumstances exempt him from the risk generated by President Donald Trump.
"It is very possible that they will come for me, but if that happens, if the State targets people like me, we will be at another crucial moment. Although every day we see more grotesque things. We must call it by its name. We are sliding down a slope towards a fascist takeover," he asserts in reference to the actions of the new U.S. Administration.
Despite being aware of the danger posed by conclusive statements in this new era, Segal insists that he will not change his attitude as he did not when he had to comment on what was happening in Gaza, just days after the bloody attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Author of several books on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and a scholar of that tragedy for two decades, Segal was a pioneer in estimating that what was happening in the Palestinian territory was "a textbook genocide". He defined it as such in an article he published on October 13 in a Jewish publication, well ahead of the accusation now being considered by the International Court of Justice against Israel -which last year already deemed it "plausible" that genocide is being committed-, the investigation by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese -whose inquiry confirmed in May of the same year the commission of that crime- or similar judgments issued by many other experts in this type of brutality.
QUESTION. What signs led you to alert so early about the commission of genocide in Gaza?
ANSWER. After working for over 20 years in Holocaust and Genocide studies, it is assumed that we must identify these events and take seriously the "never again" motto. It is not enough to look back and say later: "Yes, that was genocide". It is about preventing it, otherwise "never again" and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide [adopted in 1951 by the United Nations] will be meaningless.
If you look at the Holocaust, one of the things I teach my students is that dehumanization is a major red flag [of alert]. On October 9, I heard the then Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, refer to Palestinians as "human animals". We could say he was only referring to Hamas militants, but the next day, General Ghassan Alian [responsible for the occupied Palestinian territories], referred to all as "human animals", all of them, without distinguishing between Hamas or civilians.
Those days, Israeli media and social networks experienced an explosion of dehumanizing language. There were very clear genocidal expressions. Gallant spoke of "total siege" [that would not allow the entry of food, water, fuel, or electricity] and that, by its own definition, does not differentiate between civilians and militants. And let's remember that Gaza has been under siege for 16 years. The Israelis clearly stated what they were going to do, and they did it. That is why the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court issued those arrest warrants [against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the aforementioned Gallant]. Because the amount of evidence is overwhelming.
Intent is very significant in the crime of genocide, and it is very rare for authorities to admit it. It happened with the genocide of the Herero tribe in present-day Namibia at the hands of the Germans [in 1904, General Lothar von Trotha issued an "extermination order" against "all" Hereros], but it does not usually happen. And yet, it continues to happen here, not only in the days after October 7. On March 19, the current Defense Minister, Israel Katz, told the Gaza population: "You will pay the full price". And he warned that they were facing "total and absolute devastation". They say it to our faces.
But in genocide studies, statements are not enough. It must be shown that this applies on the ground. We have thousands of videos of Israeli soldiers who, proudly, have provided us with evidence of their war crimes. The soldiers have understood the intention expressed by the leadership and are executing it.
On October 13, when I wrote my text, Israel issued its first evacuation order to what it called a safe zone in southern Gaza. Francesca Albanese demonstrated that these orders were intended to trap civilians. The New York Times published an investigation showing that Israel had used its most powerful bombs, the 2,000-kilo ones, in southern Gaza, and had bombed the alleged safe routes.
Q. But why is the use of the term genocide so significant when Netanyahu and Gallant have already become wanted figures by the International Court of Justice, accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity?
A. Because there is evidence. That is why the judges of the International Court of Justice ruled three times, in January, March, and May [last year], that "it is plausible" that genocide is being committed. In recent months, there has been a growing consensus among Holocaust and genocide scholars, including many Israelis like Omer Bartov or Amos Goldberg, on this issue. And also among experts in international law, and I want to mention William Schabas [a Canadian professor author of the most cited reference on this case: Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes], who has been saying for months that we are facing a clear case of ongoing genocide. The judges will have to rule that it is a case of genocide because the evidence is overwhelming, and that will mean a seismic shift in international law.
A. Australian academic Dirk Moses [author of the book The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression] argues that the definition of genocide established after World War II was done in that way to justify state violence. It was very convenient for the Nazi crimes to be unique, so as not to have to address the [previous] crimes of colonialism or those of the allies and the Soviets [in the world conflict]. At that moment, Israel emerges. [According to this reasoning,] if the Holocaust is unique, its survivors are also unique, and therefore Israel is unique. So, the Nakba [the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Israelis between 1947 and 1948] had to be denied. Hence, Israeli impunity arises as something structural in the international judicial system. That is why we must insist on the crime of genocide because it is foundational in the system of impunity.
Q. What is your opinion on what happened on October 7, 2023?
A. We cannot mitigate the impact of what happened that day. It was a case of mass murder, a war crime. Holocaust experts cannot support that kind of massive violence in any way. It cannot be justified or excused.
But in our discipline, we have a chapter called perpetrator studies. And we do not justify them; we only explain their behavior. How did we get to October 7? If you subject millions of people to a colonial system of oppression and siege, you will face a revolt from that same population. It has always happened throughout history worldwide. In that situation, terrible crimes are also usually committed. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others entered Israel on October 7. Many were people who had never left Gaza, who were entering the land from which their grandparents had been expelled. Of course, they were filled with hatred and did not see their victims, mostly Jews, as humans either.