Genocide in Gaza: Israel, Hamas, and the Long War on Palestine

by Avi Shlaim

In this book Avi Shlaim places Israel’s policy towards the Gaza Strip under an uncompromising lens. He argues that recurrent attacks – what Israeli generals chillingly call “mowing the lawn” – are the inevitable result of Zionist settler colonialism whose basic objective is the elimination of the native population. In this war, however, Israel has gone beyond land-grabbing and ethnic cleansing to commit the crime of all crimes – genocide.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East, Politics

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Avi Shlaim FBA (born October 31, 1945) is an Iraqi-born British/Israeli historian. He is emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the British Academy. Shlaim is considered one of Israel's New Historians, a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Israel.

Reviews

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume collects twelve articles by Avi Shlaim about the history of the conflict in Israel/Palestine, with particular emphasis on the Gaza Strip. It starts with a forward by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and ending with a reproduction of the the intervention of the Counsel for the Republic of South Africa to the ICJ in the application South Africa made, in the beginning of 2024, against Israel related with the prevention and punishment of genocide in Gaza. In between there are a dozen harrowing articles, mainly written in 2023 and 2024 about the indescribably oppression, violence, and lately the genocidal fury, suffered by the Palestinians of Gaza essentially since they were dumped there from other parts of what is today Israel in the ethnic cleansing of parts of the south Palestine in 1948 in the violent colonial process of creation of Israel. The book includes three inserts, totalling 40 additional pages on top of the more than 400+ of the main book: one insert with colour maps, another with drawings by Peter Rhoades as a personal response to the shock of Israel's attack on Gaza in 2008-2009, and a last one with photographs about the current genocidal war (after the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas) whose subject is reflected in the title of the insert: "a bloody war against children". This edition of this important book was first published on 31 October 2024 on the occasion of Avi Shlaim's 79th birthday.

[Bas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book written by one of the most distinguished historians dealing with the Israeli-Palestine conflict, contains different articles and essays about different aspects of the conflict. Shlaim wants to portray the path of Israel to genocide and deals both with aspects of the current crisis as the foundations of Israeli violence and the precedents of his actions. It's a very compelling book and it utterly destroys the Israeli position with facts and moral outrage. The biggest downside of this book is that there is quite a bit of overlap between the different articles and that you end up reading the same statements or facts time and time again. After a bit that gets a bit tiring and this is why I don't give it a higher ranking. The strongest pieces in the book are imo: Benjamin Netanyahu's war against Palestinian Statehood, Israel's road to Genocide and Green Ligt to Genocide: Joe Biden and Israel's War in Gaza. Besides informative I was also often moved and horrified by the content of the book and the horror it describes. This is a very good book about such an important topic

[Bafta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have learnt so much reading this book. The political process behind Israel’s politics against Palestine is comprehensively described. This is a collection of essays written between 2008 and 2024 so you can subtly see how Shlaims position develops over time. I would have given it 5 stars and it would have been justified but the essays contain some repetitions, which is fine because you can also see Shlaim describing the same events from different perspectives or at different times.