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The cost of telling the truth from inside a society that has become “completely genocidal” is very high, says Yuli Novak, executive director of the human rights watchdog B’Tselem.
Novak, one of the most uncompromising dissident voices within Israel, speaks frankly in this latest episode of Zeteo’s Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman in a “deeply honest and impactful conversation about political rupture and moral clarity”.
She reflects on her journey from an upbringing shaped by patriotism and belief in Israeli democracy to a painful reckoning with what she now calls an apartheid regime — and with the conditions that enabled mass complicity with genocide.
- WATCH: The full Beyond Israelism B’Tselem episode podcast at Zeteo
- The Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman playlist
“Genocide is never done by a small group of people. It is always done with the cooperation, and often the support, of an entire society,” she said.
Novak also revisits her years leading Breaking the Silence — a group of former Israeli soldiers that documented abuses under occupation — which became the target of an all-out smear campaign involving government officials, mainstream media, legal harassment, and infiltration by right-wing groups.
That experience, chronicled in her memoir Who Do You Think You Are?, marked a turning point — she realised she had become a dissident against the regime.
Today, as head of B’Tselem, Novak explains why the organisation chose to name Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide in its report “Our Genocide”.
Regime needs ‘taking down’
“This regime needs to be taken down and replaced with something just and democratic — because a regime that commits genocide is an illegitimate regime,” she says.
Novak insists that facing reality honestly is the only path toward justice, equality, and collective liberation.
Zimmerman and Yuli grapple with fear, trauma, and complicity, but refuse despair. In a moment when fascism feels ascendant and denial remains loud, this conversation offers something rare: an unequivocal insistence that another future is still possible.
Beyond Israelism with Simone Zimmerman is a provocative new video podcast series from Tikkun Olam Productions, the team behind the viral and award-winning 2023 film Israelism.
In this series, Simone hosts bold and inspiring conversations that face the growing global reckoning with Zionism, the debates over Jewish identity, and the urgent struggle for Palestinian freedom.
Republished from Zeteo under Creative Commons.
