Israel, Palestine, and the Poetics of Genocide Revisited

The Reading Conflict and Cooperation series offers a space for collective engagement with texts that interrogate the epistemic and ideological dimensions of conflict. Through selected readings, we examine how historical and contemporary narratives of cooperation and contestation are shaped by—and respond to—structures of power, silencing, and exclusion.

This series foregrounds the role of academic inquiry in navigating contested knowledge systems and in fostering constructive dialogue across difference. In line with the cluster’s broader focus on trauma, resistance, and resilience, we explore how scholars can critically engage with texts that reflect or provoke ideological conflict, and how such engagement can contribute to more inclusive and reflexive modes of knowledge production.

The reading for this first meeting is: LeVine, Mark, and Eric Cheyfitz. 2025. “Israel, Palestine, and the Poetics of Genocide Revisited.” Journal of Genocide Research, April, 1–23. doi:10.1080/14623528.2025.2482297.

The co-author (Mark LeVine) will present the article, and respondents will discuss it.

Abstract:

This talk builds on the arguments developed by Mark LeVine and his co-author Eric Cheyfitz in their article “Israel, Palestine, and the Poetics of Genocide Updated,” published earlier this year in the Journal of Genocide Research, taking into account the Post October 7th Israeli invasion of Gaza. Revisiting their 2017 essay “Israel, Palestine, and the Poetics of Genocide,” this article, and LeVine’s discussion here, focuses on the question of the limits of the definition of genocide in the1948 Convention and its applicability to very different circumstances today. While recognizing that Israel’s latest war on Gaza meets the definition of the 1948 Convention, dependent on scale and intent, the authors argue that an expanded, broader definition would better and more fully account for the incremental and structural genocides characteristic of settler colonialism, including Israel’s long-term rule over the territory of pre-1948 Palestine. Establishing a poetics that accounts for the longue durée structure and effects of Israeli policies in Gaza and across the Occupied Territories, their expanded definition builds on the eliminationist logic Patrick Wolfe's idea of “structural genocide.” While recognizing that “frontier homicide” is a component of structural genocide, they discuss additional, often non-lethal, components that work to eliminate Indigenous peoples as a group.

Mark LeVine is Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories and Cultures at UC Irvine and the founding Director of its Program in Global Middle East Studies. A 2020-21 Guggenheim Fellow and Distinguished Visiting Research and Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University from 2009-22, as well as a fellow at numerous advanced studies centers globally, he is the author and editor of a dozen books, including most recently We'll Play till We Die: Journeys Across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World (UC Press, 2022), Altered States: The Remaking of the Political in the Arab World (Routledge), Heavy Metal Islam (New Edition, UC Press, 2022, original edition, Random House, 2008), Struggle and Survival in Palestine/Israel (UC Press 2013), and the forthcoming Art Beyond the Edge: Creativity and Conflict in a World on Fire (UC Press, 2026) as well as Marginalia of a Revolution (UC Press). From 2008-2018 he was a senior columnist at al-Jazeera English, and was the longest-serving Contributing Editor at Tikkun magazine. As a world musician and producer he has collaborated with groups globally, From Latin rock artist Ozomatli (Grammy Award, 2005) to Femi and Seun Kuti, and produced several documentaries for National Public Radio's Afropop Worldwide.