SHOTLIST:

LONDON, UK (SEPTEMBER 25, 2025) (ANADOLU - ACCESS ALL)

1. INTERVIEW WITH AWARD-WINNING BRITISH JOURNALIST AND HISTORIAN JAMES ROBINS
LONDON, UK - SEPTEMBER 25, 2025: Like a growing number of his contemporaries, James Robins, an award-winning British journalist and historian, says the destruction in Gaza is so overwhelming – and the rhetoric from Israel’s leaders so explicit – that the crime of genocide no longer requires cautious phrasing or legal caveats.

Nearly two years into Israel’s ongoing assault, he argues, the evidence is already conclusive.

“I think we can say with our full voice that it’s genocide. It’s an annihilation, it’s an extermination,” Robins told Anadolu in an interview. “We only need to assess the evidence that’s right in front of us and the words and actions of those responsible – the Israeli political and military leadership.”

Robins is the author of Blowing Up Everything Is Beautiful: Israel’s Extermination of Gaza, a recently published collection of essays that confronts the moral, political, and legal dimensions of Israel’s genocidal war.

The book’s title itself is drawn from remarks by Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who in November 2023 shared a video of a Palestinian home being demolished with the caption: “The north of Gaza is more beautiful than ever. Blowing everything up and flattening everything is a feast for the eyes.”

For Robins, Eliyahu’s words capture the “real fervor” within Israel’s leadership for Gaza’s destruction. “They find a real glee in it,” he said, describing such public statements as crucial evidence of intent – the cornerstone of any genocide case under international law.

“These statements made by Israeli ministers and Israeli military officers will form part of the case to convict Israel for the crime of genocide,” Robins said.

“That will form part of what’s called the intent clause.”

On South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), he believes that waiting for a legal ruling – which could still take several years to come – is unnecessary.

“We don’t need to wait for a legal judgment, as it will take a long time for the court to rule on whether or not what has happened in the past tense is genocide,” he explained. “I think we can say with our full voice that it’s genocide.”

UN investigators last week concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, where it has now killed more than 65,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and wounded almost 170,000 since October 2023. The onslaught has displaced hundreds of thousands alongside a blockade on humanitarian aid that has led to famine and claimed the lives of over 440 Palestinians, including nearly 150 children.

- The American factor

On efforts to halt Israel’s catastrophic assault, Robins emphasized the decisive role of its main backer, the US.

“Israel wouldn’t have been able to fight this war or encourage settler violence in the West Bank if the Americans had not given them bombs, missiles, artillery shells, tank shells, and the legal and diplomatic means to do these things,” he said.

He argued that US President Donald Trump, if he chose, could end the war with a single phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Trump could, like Ronald Reagan did to Menachem Begin in 1982 during the Lebanon war,” Robins said. “Maybe they don’t like how ugly it is, but they’re totally resolved to follow Israel through to the end and encourage it to do so.”

Robins also pointed to the failures of Israel’s stated aims as evidence that its war on Gaza was driven by other motivations.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said the goal is to end Hamas as a political and military force and to rescue the hostages, but after all this time, Israel has freed just eight hostages through military operations, while 140 were released through negotiations and ceasefire agreements, he said.

At the same time, he added, Israel has dismissed multiple Hamas proposals to cede power to a technocratic Arab committee or transfer authority to the Palestinian Authority.

“So, the war must be for something else,” Robins concluded. “And I think it is to occupy Gaza and to expel the entirety of the Palestinian population.”