Omer Bartov is one of the world’s leading scholars of genocide and the Holocaust. A professor of history at Brown University, he has written extensively on nationalism, political violence, and historical memory.

In his new book, Israel: What Went Wrong?, Bartov examines the evolution of Zionism from a movement that spoke of universalist grounds for Jewish self-determination, into what he sees as an increasingly militarized, expansionist, and exclusionary state ideology. He argues that Israel’s current crisis is rooted not only in recent political developments but also in foundational choices made at the state’s creation.

In this interview with Elias Feroz for Jacobin, Bartov discusses the historical transformation of Zionism, the rise of far-right figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and the limits of Israel’s political opposition.