This was excellent -- and rather depressing. I will have more to say here once I publish my interview with the author.
For now, Rees reminds us that a This was excellent -- and rather depressing. I will have more to say here once I publish my interview with the author.
For now, Rees reminds us that a major motivation behind the radicalization of the Final Solution was to make the killing easier on the minds of the killers, not simply to speed up the process of mass murder. It was necessary to transition to "killing at a distance" rather than murdering someone as you look them in the eye....more
I don't read many novels. I am interviewing the author for my podcast, and will post more about the book and our conversation then. I don't read many novels. I am interviewing the author for my podcast, and will post more about the book and our conversation then. ...more
A succinct overview of the historical origins of the war and its consequences for global order and geopolitics in the 21st century. I look forward to A succinct overview of the historical origins of the war and its consequences for global order and geopolitics in the 21st century. I look forward to interviewing the author soon!...more
There is a tenuous cease-fire in Gaza but the quarreling among historians continues. At one end of the spectrum, some leftist and liberal historians aThere is a tenuous cease-fire in Gaza but the quarreling among historians continues. At one end of the spectrum, some leftist and liberal historians argue the state of Israel is committing genocide. They point to statements by Israeli leaders that indicate intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians as such.
Other liberal historians condemn Israel’s destruction of Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas onslaught of Oct. 7, 2023, but they argue it does not meet the narrow definition of genocide. Further to the right along this spectrum, you will find Israel’s defenders who deny all wrongdoing and instead place the responsibility for Palestinian deaths on Hamas because it operates from civilian areas. Outside the lunatic fringes of the left, you won’t find many people who deny Hamas� criminality on Oct. 7.
I spoke to the author:
In Tuesday’s episode of History As It Happens, historian Dirk Moses and I didn’t bicker over who among the scholars possesses the truth. Some listeners may bristle that we didn’t take sides (as far as the genocide charge goes), but I would point them to my consistent critique of Israel’s war and the Biden administration’s unconditional military assistance. Genocide or not, there is no doubt in my mind that all sides � namely Hamas, Hezbollah, and Israel � have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Dirk Moses is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the City College of New York. He is an expert in genocide studies and international relations, and his 2019 book The Problems of Genocide framed our conversation. His work is important because the concept of genocide is as contested today as it was in the immediate years after the Second World War. In his view, the entry of the genocide concept into law has been detrimental to the pursuit of justice.
Contested origins and legalisms
In the podcast, Moses delves into the conceptual origins of this “crime of crimes� that has rarely been successfully prosecuted in the 79 years since Nuremberg. You might be surprised to learn that none of the initial Nazi defendants before the international tribunal in 1945-46 were charged with genocide as an independent crime. How to define the concept was taken up by the United Nations, whose member states depoliticized it. Neither political groups nor political motives would be included. Rather, genocide would be narrowly defined as a crime against nations or races.
This was no accident. Nation-states large and small wanted freedom of action to violently suppress internal rebellions or wage war against external security threats. Therefore, if in the process a state annihilates a racial or ethnic group, it can be justified in terms of security, not as an act of racial or national extermination. This sinister notion was present at Nuremberg.
As Moses points out, the SS Einsatzgruppe commander Otto Ohlendorf told his Allied interrogators that he had done nothing wrong. Murdering Jews, including children, had not been racially motivated; it had been a matter of establishing permanent security in occupied Soviet territory. Ohlendorf’s defense for rounding up and killing civilians who posed no military threat whatsoever was not convincing. He was hanged in 1951 for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
“It’s been an ongoing debate for 100 years. The issues that are on the table with Ukraine and Gaza today were played out during the negotiations for the genocide convention in 1947-48, and then in subsequent armed conflicts, particularly in the wake of decolonization. This vexed relationship between war and genocide comes up,� Moses says.
“Why is it that genocide is so vehemently contested? Why, on the other side, is genocide so vehemently asserted? Let’s not forget that six days after the seventh of October, there were already two articles by Raz Segal and Martin Shaw alleging that genocide was taking place, or at least genocidal rhetoric was motivating it� These were accompanied by many other protestations by Palestinians in the immediate aftermath of the seventh of October. So, why this recourse to genocide?� Moses continues.
The CUNY historian contends that because genocide now occupies the sole position atop the list of evil human acts, other appalling international crimes somehow seem less severe.
“Here we are quibbling over whether it’s genocide or not, rather than talking about the facts that are staring us in the face. Gaza is being laid waste. It is being utterly destroyed. It is easy to infer the intention to make life uninhabitable there so that there can be a permanent security solution for Israel,� Moses says.
“So why is it that genocide is being alleged and then vehemently contested? It’s because genocide is related to the Holocaust in the sense that the Holocaust is genocide’s archetype or ideal type. When people think of what a genocide looks like, they think of the Holocaust. That may not be how the lawyers reason, but that’s how popular imagination works. These archetypes are sedimented into our consciousness. They are deep down in the DNA of how we imagine what the ultimate evil looks like. Once you make the Holocaust the absolute evil, with a capital A for absolute, then [the concept of] genocide incorporates or borrows its stigmatic aura. No state wants to be accused of that.�
Moses says this is only a partial explanation. We must also consider the emotional sting caused by accusing the world’s only Jewish state of the same category of crime committed by the Nazis, who sought to exterminate all Jews because they were Jews. There is also the modern problem of excessive analogizing: the politicized use of the genocide label can cheapen history. There’s also the suspicion that antisemitism influences the allegations against Israel. Historians are invested in these aspects of the debate because historians are human like everyone else.
And as Moses discusses in the podcast, Holocaust memory has been to some degree politicized. He mentioned the work of historian Shira Klein, who quoted major historians and cultural studies scholars saying that the point of Holocaust memory is to protect Israel’s diplomatic reputation.
Listen to my conversation with Dirk Moses here at Apple Podcasts....more
Who said the following about Ronald Wilson Reagan?
He is “totally lost, out of his depth, uncomfortable. All this � both the substance and human confliWho said the following about Ronald Wilson Reagan?
He is “totally lost, out of his depth, uncomfortable. All this � both the substance and human conflict � is above and beyond him. He has not enough of either knowledge or decisiveness to cut through the contradictory advice that is being offered to him.�
The person who wrote this in his diary was not a liberal critic who thought the fortieth president was an airhead. It was Richard Pipes, a Harvard historian who joined the National Security Council. The diary entry is cited on pp. 498-499 of Max Boot’s new biography Reagan: His Life and Legend.
Pipes had noticed “that the president rarely spoke and seldom listened attentively� during a discussion of how to respond to Polish leader Jaruzelski’s decision, under immense Kremlin pressure, to declare martial law on Dec. 13, 1981, Boot writes.
Who was Margaret Thatcher referring to when, after her first visit to the Reagan White House in Feb. 1981, she turned to her foreign secretary (Peter Carrington) and said, “Peter, there’s nothing there.�?
It was President Reagan, who had made inane comments about South Africa in Thatcher’s presence, leading another of her aides to remark that “Reagan ‘didn’t know anything� about the subject under discussion,� Boot writes (p. 536).
Yet, despite his flimsy grasp of policy and astonishing lack of knowledge, Pipes observed in his diary that “Reagan understood remarkably well � intuitively rather than intellectually � the big issues.� (p. 499).
Keith Mines served in the military (US Airborne) and the State Department and is now at USIP. He's a believer in nation-building, even in a place likeKeith Mines served in the military (US Airborne) and the State Department and is now at USIP. He's a believer in nation-building, even in a place like Afghanistan....more
Who remembers Pham-thi-Toi? She survived the My Lai massacre in 1968. Six of her relatives did not. She was compelled to move to a refugee camp despitWho remembers Pham-thi-Toi? She survived the My Lai massacre in 1968. Six of her relatives did not. She was compelled to move to a refugee camp despite the danger of landmines. One blew off her limbs. Nearly a year later, after being fitted with prostheses in an American Quaker-run rehab center for maimed Vietnamese civilians, Pham-thi-Toi returned and opened a small shop. In April 1972, South Vietnamese soldiers fired into the camp. Bullets tore into Pham-thi-Toi’s stomach. Having cheated death twice, this young woman was now among the millions of Southeast Asians killed in one of the most brutal wars of the twentieth century.
One may not expect to read such stories in a diplomatic history, but the human face of war stares at you throughout Fire and Rain, Carolyn Eisenberg’s 2024 Bancroft Prize-winning study of the lies, deceptions, and earth-shattering violence that propelled President Richard Nixon’s prosecution of the wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Richard Evans tells us not to think of the perpetrators of the most horrendous crimes ever committed as psychopaths. Neither were the leading Nazis gaRichard Evans tells us not to think of the perpetrators of the most horrendous crimes ever committed as psychopaths. Neither were the leading Nazis gangsters or hoodlums primarily seeking to enrich themselves. They were not insane, either, because the insane do not understand what they are doing. In contrast, nearly all Nazi war criminals were completely aware, remorseless, and proud that they had murdered millions of Jews and others whose mere existence “threatened� their imaginary Aryan race.
“Apart from flying in the face of the evidence, thinking of them as depraved, deviant or degenerate puts them outside the bounds of normal humanity and so serves as a form of exculpation for the rest of us, past, present and future,� concludes Mr. Evans in his superb biographical study, “Hitler’s People.� If we look to the past to understand the popular appeal of today’s strongmen and wannabe dictators, we must view even cruel tyrants as humans rather than monsters or raving imbeciles. In the right context and conditions, any of us may be capable of contravening societal norms of decency and restraint when sanctioned from above � “to commit acts that would have been unimaginable in other circumstances.�
I first read this 30+ years ago, during the summer either before my final year of high school or first semA diversion from serious, depressing books.
I first read this 30+ years ago, during the summer either before my final year of high school or first semester in college. Early 1990s. I would sit on the deck overlooking the backyard and read, while our new dog Rhett shaded himself by lying under the deck table and umbrella.
I loved the book when I was a teenager. It seemed so sophisticated and scientific. I found the movie disappointing because the book was so good. Reading it now, I remembered most of the details, such as how Hammond died. Strange how that works. Hadn’t read the book in decades but I remembered most of it, as if part of my brain had memorized it. ...more
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