Last night’s ZeroHedge Debate, hosted by journalist Mario Nawfal, posed the question bluntly: Does Israel’s war in Gaza constitute genocide? The exchange between Brown University historian Omer Bartov and Ben Gurion University historian Benny Morris cut straight to the marrow. Here were the key highlights though we recommend the full discussion at the bottom:

“Ceiling to floor”

Bartov described the Israeli campaign not as combat but as destruction. “The IDF is engaged in demolition… ceiling to floor,” he said, referring to operations that flatten entire neighborhoods. He noted that Israel has even contracted private bulldozer crews, some imported from the U.S., to carry out the razing — with soldiers dying not in firefights but in defense of heavy machinery.

“We have a lot of stupid ministers”

Morris, a chronic critic of Israel’s ruling class, agreed that the rhetoric from Jerusalem has been dangerous. “We have a lot of stupid ministers… the worst Israeli cabinet ever put together,” he admitted, citing one official who mused about “atom bombing the Gaza Strip.” But he pushed back against the idea that these outbursts equate to state policy. Even the defense minister, whom he called “pretty stupid,” does not set military doctrine, Morris insisted.

War crimes upon war crimes

The debate turned on the contested terrain of international law. Morris argued that Hamas’s tactics — embedding fighters in schools, hiding among refugees, and operating beneath civilian infrastructure — complicate the charge. “When refugees end up in a school… they’re accompanied by Hamas terrorists who embed themselves among them,” he said.

Bartov countered that such realities do not excuse violations. “Forcible displacement… is a war crime,” he said, pointing to Israel’s practice of issuing 24–48 hour evacuation orders, only to bomb areas where the sick and elderly cannot move. “Use of starvation, of deprivation of means to live, is a war crime. It can also be a genocidal crime.”

“Capital of mutilated children”

For Bartov, the most damning evidence is not rhetoric but human wreckage. “Gaza now is the capital of the world in terms of mutilated children,” he said, citing thousands who have lost limbs under bombardment. With half the enclave’s population under 18, he argued, the war has left “the largest concentration in the world of children lacking limbs” — many of them also traumatized, malnourished, and stunted for life.

Watch out the full debate below or listen on Spotify and decide for yourself whether Israel (and by extension the US) is carrying out a genocide: