Omer Bartov’s Israel: What Went Wrong? argues that Israel’s crisis grew out of a long historical turn from Zionism as Jewish emancipation to an increasingly exclusionary, militarized ethno-nationalism. He treats the collapse as rooted in 1948, deepened by the 1967 occupation, and catastrophically intensified after October 7 and the war in Gaza.forward+2
Bartov’s central claim is that Israel was not doomed from the start, but it steadily moved away from the liberal, democratic possibilities that might have existed at its founding. He frames the history as shaped by two foundational traumas: the Holocaust and the Nakba, which produced enduring fear, denial, and mutual dispossession.arabcenterdc+1
In Bartov’s telling, several forces pushed Israel off course: the unresolved Palestinian question, the 1967 occupation, the erosion of equal citizenship, and the rise of religious and nationalist extremism. He also argues that Holocaust memory, instead of encouraging universal vigilance against mass violence, was increasingly used to justify domination and impunity.britainpalestineproject+2
Bartov sees the post-October 7 assault on Gaza as the culmination of these trends, and he warns that it has damaged not only Palestinians but also the moral and legal order built after World War II. He emphasizes the gap between Israel’s self-image as a refuge for Jews and its conduct as a state accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.nytimes+1
The book is less a conventional history than a moral and political diagnosis: Israel, Bartov says, has become trapped by ethnonationalism, permanent insecurity, and unequal rule. His remedy is blunt — equal rights for everyone in the land, plus a real political and international effort to end domination and pursue reconciliation.arabcenterdc+1
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