War Crimes and Historical Context: Understanding the 2023 Hamas-Israel War

The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies presents: Professor Joel Beinin on "War Crimes and Historical Context: Understanding the 2023 Hamas-Israel War."

Confronting unexpected events of great magnitude, people often resort to historical comparison to understand what they are witnessing or experiencing. Are Hamas Nazis, ISIS (Da’esh), or “human animals” as Israeli political and military leaders have asserted in explaining Hamas’s mass slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023? Has Israel illegally inflicted collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip by imposing a siege after Hamas won a democratic election for the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006? Historical context allows us to understand terrorism and war crimes without justifying them. But what is the appropriate context?

The speaker Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1982 before coming to Stanford in 1983. From 2006 to 2008 he served as Director of Middle East Studies and Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. In 2002 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.

Date: Wednesday, November 15 2023, 5:30pm
Event Sponsor: Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Location: Encina Commons 123, 615 Crothers Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Event Link: https://islamicstudies.stanford.edu/e...