Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj from Barnard College and Columbia University sat down with Professor Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, in Robertson Hall this week to discuss the politics surrounding the classification of genocide and the role of historical memory in shaping perceptions of the war. The talk was held on Tuesday, Oct. 8 — just over one year since Hamas’s attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
The event, titled “Reflections on a Devastating Year,” was the third-ever event in the Palestinian Studies Colloquium and drew over 120 students, faculty, and public attendees. The dialogue, moderated by Associate Professor of History Max Weiss, was organized by the Department of Near Eastern Studies and sponsored by several other departments, including the Department of Comparative Literature and Department of African American Studies.
Abu El-Haj first addressed the ethical and moral implications of Israeli military actions, particularly in Gaza and Lebanon, while also drawing parallels to the Holocaust and other genocides. While discussing the classification of the conflict in Gaza as a genocide, she emphasized that “the role of intention occupies a lot of space in evaluating the legitimacy, legality, and ethics of warfare.”
“The charge of genocide depends less on what a military does than what the state’s political and military leaders intend to do,” she continued.
In January of this year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling calling for “prevention of genocidal acts in Gaza.” The governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and several other bodies have also condemned Israel for genocide, while the United States dismissed the accusation as “meritless.”
Abu El-Haj also discussed the “sanctification of Auschwitz” and noted that for victims to be acknowledged as victims of genocide, they are often expected to be perceived as “blameless, innocent victims.” Abu El-Haj argued that this idea contributes to why the term “genocide” has become a matter of interpretation.
“And yet, what we’ve witnessed over the past year is a counter-insurgency war with clear genocidal intent,” Abu El-Haj said. “The deliberateness with which it is being carried out is on full display — it is evident in both words and deeds.”
Abu El-Haj also highlighted the unprecedented ways in which technology has shaped perceptions of the conflict.
“As many have pointed out, this is the first live-streamed genocide,” she said. “Perhaps even more striking, though, is the fact that it is being live-streamed by those carrying it out.” Abu El-Haj then addressed what she saw as the “sadistic” aspect of the conflict, noting how numerous videos were taped with pride and pleasure, with many of the individuals filming clearly identifiable.
“These performances, these spectacles of pleasure and destruction, are made and shared through the world to see,” she said.
Segal next introduced the concept of a “global Holocaust memory,” arguing that the notion of the Holocaust as “unique” has contributed to positioning Israel as “more moral than any other state in the world.” This perception, Segal argued, coupled with denial of the Nakba — the mass displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 — created a cognitive dissonance in which it “became unimaginable, unspeakable, that [the Israeli army] would perpetrate any crime under international law, let alone genocide.”
Segal continued, “All this makes the fight for global Nakba memory particularly important and urgent, for it will mark the truly post-Holocaust and post-Nakba world, where the knowledge, the histories, the perspectives of people who face state violence — not those of the state leaders and state authorities who attacked them — will guide us now to truth, to justice, to peace.”
Segal concluded his remarks with a recitation of Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada’s piece, “I Grant You Refuge.” Abu Nada was killed in her home by an Israeli airstrike last year.
An audience Q&A session followed the main talk. One audience member raised a question about their ethical dilemma in casting a ballot for the 2024 election, noting Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance of donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and also pointing to Trump’s strong support for Israel.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that people can go out and protest against the genocide in Gaza, and then on election day, cast a vote for Democratic Party,” they said.
To this question, Segal responded that “there are many, many things to do beyond voting,” citing the significant influence of mass protests, particularly in South Africa, where such movements helped bring accusations of genocide before the ICJ earlier this year.
Representatives of Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest were also present at the event, distributing flyers urging attendees to support a proposal calling for the University to divest and dissociate from companies “involved in funding or participating in the production of weapons used in this violence.” The Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) is currently soliciting community feedback on the proposal.
The proposal aims to “focus on divestment as a way to tackle our own local context of complicity in the genocide in Gaza and the attacks on the West Bank and in Lebanon,” Jessica Ng, a postdoctoral research scholar, told The Daily Princetonian. “We know that Princeton has had recent investment in weapons manufacturers and other companies and entities, both directly and indirectly, that are funding or participating in building weapons for this violence,” she continued.
Although Abu El-Haj and Segal did not directly address calls for Princeton to divest during the call, they emphasized the importance of engaging with institutions to advocate for change.
“Institutions change, but also, the people in institutions change,” Segal said. “At the same time, we also have to struggle for this change.” He continued, “In the conflation of a state and a people, the one thing that we can do still is constantly speak the truth together.”
Weiss reflected on the unprecedented nature of the war and its wide historical significance, noting that the “region and our relationships to it can never be the same.”
He continued, “The smashing of norms and the trashing of international law is going to have — and is already having — physical material, moral, and political consequences that we don’t yet totally understand.”
Sena Chang is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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