Physicians for Human Rights–Israel

Bet Salem, an Israeli organization.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel, another Israeli organization.

Amnesty International.

Doctors Without Borders.

But that being said, the world of professional human rights advocacy is not foreign to you.

You were the first director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, I believe, during the first intifada.

So when you criticize the professionalization or the legalism of the human rights world, you're also talking about a political tradition that you participated in.

And I'm wondering what kind of changed in your own thinking about what this kind of advocacy could accomplish.

Do we really know if it's genocide? Of course, that's the consensus.

Do we really know anything then? If you can question, if this is the consensus of the global community, if multiple reports from experts across the board, you have B'Tselem, which is an Israeli human rights organization, you have Physicians for Human Rights Israel, another Israeli organization, all saying Israel is committing genocide.

If none of these people are to be believed, then you've now this is extremely dangerous you've now sanctioned genocide denial in every case and i don't engage in genocide denial for the same reason i don't engage in holocaust denial it's disgusting at what point then if we can just do that if all the expertise says one thing and we're like well i'm going to deny it then you can deny it in every other situation as well it sort of renders these institutions this expertise it renders the word meaningless you're saying it can't be applied here because everyone's not dead also and this can't be emphasized enough that's not the point of international law it's not let's wait till everyone is dead and then we'll say yes this was a genocide the purpose is to prevent genocide and so when you see it unfolding you name it and criminalize it so that there is accountability to prevent it from moving further you're not supposed to wait until a final solution before we actually step in and do something so that's the other aspect of it that i always find sort of baffling when people say things like well they haven't killed everyone are you waiting for that are we waiting for everyone to be dead or expelled from their land before we finally say okay you were right it was a genocide i mean this is not this is not semantics it's what if if we don't believe the institutions that were created in the wake of a genocide to prevent further genocides, then what is the point of having those institutions?

Yeah, and, you know, one is related to the other.