Cairo Papers Talk Series | Palestine: Confronting Genocide — Genocide, Evil and Politics

Raef Zreik of Ono Academic College will analyze the relevance of the category of "evil" while discussing the topic of genocide and will ask whether the deployment of the concept could be helpful and constructive. The talk will reflect on the intersection between law, morality and politics, and will explore the nature of the concept of genocide and its hidden relation to the concept of evil.
 

About the Series:

Palestine: Confronting Genocide
Cairo Papers in Social Science, The American University in Cairo

More than two years since the onset of the most recent genocide in Palestine, suffering, destruction, starvation and massive displacement have remained an everyday reality in Palestine. The vast numbers of the dead, the wounded and the missing continue to rise, along with the ruination of all aspects of living, including buildings, infrastructure, food, water, health, educational and religious institutions. What does it mean to live and to witness a genocide? What does it mean to describe an everyday of genocide? How can the current genocide be situated in the global political cartography of power? Have previously recognized categories and paradigms, such as international law, humanitarian law, democratic rule, morality and ethical responsibility among others, been emptied out of meaning? How do we read the current moment in the long durée of settler colonialism in Palestine, imperial desires and resistance? Is this genocidal moment unprecedented or an intensification of a long process of extermination and subjugation that has been unfolding for decades? How to understand what is happening in Palestine next to what is happening in Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon and Iraq, and so on? What have been new registers of resistance, as they have been unfolding throughout the years? How do the social sciences and humanities confront the possibilities and limits of knowledge in the face of the horrible and the unfathomable of genocide?

Make sure to catch our upcoming talk on the following date:

Saturday, December 6, 2025 7–9 pm Speaker: Sherene Seikaly