LONDON, United Kingdom | Historian and broadcaster Sir Simon Schama has forcefully rejected accusations that Israel is committing genocide, telling a Holocaust Educational Trust audience in London that those making the charge should be ashamed.
Speaking at the organizationโs annual appeal dinner, Schama placed contemporary accusations against Israel within the broader history of the Holocaust and Jewish persecution.
โWe, the victims of the greatest genocide the world has ever seen, are being called perpetrators of genocide,โ Schama told the audience. โThis is a profound lie.โ
Schama, 81, is one of Britainโs best-known historians and broadcasters. He is a professor of history and art history at Columbia University and has written extensively on Jewish history, European history and Israel.
His remarks came during a period of intense international debate over the war in Gaza and the language used to characterize Israelโs military campaign.
โAnybody Uttering the Notionโ Should Be Ashamed
Schama was unequivocal about the genocide accusation.
โWe will not have our job done until anybody uttering the notion that Israel is committing genocide is made to be ashamed for doing so,โ he said.
He argued that schools and universities should confront the charge directly rather than treat it as an accepted or uncontroversial description of the war.
The Jewish Chronicle separately reported that Schama characterized the genocide allegation as a โblood libel,โ using language historically associated with false accusations against Jews.
Schamaโs argument was not that Palestinian suffering should be ignored.
He described the war in Gaza as a โcatastrophic tragedyโ for Palestinians and said the death of even one child constitutes a profound human loss.
โThe enormity of one childโs life lost is a catastrophe, is a tragedy,โ he said.
His position was that civilian suffering, however grave, should not automatically be equated with genocide and that applying the term to Israel distorts both the legal meaning of genocide and the historical experience of the Holocaust.
Schama Invokes Holocaust History
Schama reinforced his argument by invoking the scale and mechanics of the Holocaust.
He referred to the mass shootings at Babi Yar and other Nazi killing operations in Eastern Europe, emphasizing the systematic nature of the Nazi campaign to destroy European Jewry.
โYou all know this happened in a genocide,โ he told the audience before citing the enormous number of Jews murdered in concentrated periods during the Holocaust.
The comparison was central to his criticism of what he described as an inversion of historical reality.
Schama argued that Jews, whose collective memory remains shaped by an actual campaign of extermination, are now being accused of perpetrating the same crime through the State of Israel.
He described that inversion as particularly corrosive in schools, universities and cultural institutions.
Protest Followed Him to Columbia
Schama also drew on his own experience at Columbia University.
He recalled hearing protesters outside his office chanting: โHey, Professor, you canโt hide. Youโve committed genocide.โ
Schama said he went outside to challenge them.
โI did go outside and tell the facts,โ he said. โWe are in the facts business in this room.โ
The episode reflects a wider confrontation over Israel and antisemitism on university campuses in Britain and the United States.
Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 and the war that followed, universities have become major battlegrounds over Zionism, Israel, antisemitism and Palestinian advocacy.
Jewish students and academics have reported harassment and exclusion in some institutions, while pro-Palestinian activists have argued that accusations of antisemitism are sometimes used to suppress criticism of Israel.
Schamaโs remarks placed him firmly on the side of those arguing that some anti-Israel discourse has crossed into historical distortion and hostility toward Jews.
โA Very, Very Dark Placeโ
Schama also warned about the broader state of antisemitism.
He referred to Holocaust denial in the United States, the electoral rise of the Alternative for Germany and what he described as growing antisemitism in British schools and cultural life.
โSo we are in a very, very dark place,โ he told the audience.
The comment came only days after the AfD won nearly 44 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, a result that prompted alarm from Holocaust survivors and Jewish organizations in Germany.
For Schama, the political environment reinforces the need to preserve historical clarity.
He argued that Holocaust education cannot stop at remembering the past. It must also confront contemporary antisemitism and efforts to manipulate Holocaust language for political purposes.
Holocaust Educational Trust Echoes Concern
Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock also addressed the dinner.
She warned about language historically associated with the Holocaust being used inappropriately in contemporary political debate.
โTo the survivors here today, we have listened to you, we have learned from you, and we will never let you down,โ Pollock said.
She emphasized the organizationโs work educating young people about the human consequences of radical antisemitism.
โNo child should grow up not knowing the human impact of radical antisemitism,โ she said.
The Holocaust Educational Trust works extensively with schools, teachers and young people across Britain to educate them about the Holocaust and its consequences.
Genocide Accusation Remains Fiercely Contested
Schamaโs remarks come amid an ongoing international dispute over whether Israelโs conduct in Gaza should be characterized as genocide.
Some academics, activists, international organizations and legal experts have used the term.
Israel and many Jewish organizations strongly reject the accusation, arguing that Israel is fighting Hamas, not seeking to destroy the Palestinian people, and that genocide allegations ignore both the legal requirements of genocidal intent and Israelโs efforts to distinguish between civilians and combatants.
No final judgment by an international court has determined that Israel committed genocide.
The International Court of Justice has been considering a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention, but the proceedings have not produced a final ruling establishing that genocide occurred.
That legal distinction is important.
Schamaโs comments are a forceful historical and moral argument, not a judicial determination.
But they reflect a view shared by a growing group of prominent Jewish and pro-Israel figures.
More than 5,000 people, including former British prime minister Boris Johnson, former U.S. antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, actress Debra Messing and other public figures, recently signed a separate letter rejecting the genocide accusation against Israel.
โWe Are in the Facts Businessโ
Schamaโs central argument was ultimately about historical accuracy.
For a historian whose career has been built around explaining how societies remember and reinterpret their past, the use of the word genocide carries enormous weight.
He acknowledged Palestinian suffering.
He did not argue that Israel is beyond criticism.
But he rejected what he sees as an attempt to equate the Jewish stateโs war against Hamas with the systematic annihilation of European Jewry.
For Schama, allowing that comparison to become normalized would represent not merely a political disagreement, but a failure of historical memory.
โWe are in the facts business,โ he told the audience.
And in his view, accusing Israel of genocide crosses a line from criticism into profound historical distortion.
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