The International Association of Genocide Scholars is a “leading group of academic experts” on the topic. At least, they are as of September.
Prior to this month, though, the “leading group” was all but ignored by leading news outlets. Consider the New York Times, whose endorsement of IAGS is quoted above. Before its recent resolution criticizing Israel, the organization was mentioned in only one Times news story, a 2016 piece on Islamic State atrocities.
When it charged Azerbaijan with genocide in 2024, reporters showed no interest in the topic. When it declared in 2023 that Saddam Hussein was guilty of genocide, the newsroom collectively shrugged. When it resolved in 2022 that China’s treatment of Uyghurs was genocidal, that was deemed unimportant. Its 2020 statement on Myanmar genocide, its 2012 warning about Syria, its 2006 warning about Iran, its 2005 warning about Zimbabwe, and its 2005 call for intervention to stop genocide in Darfur — none were worth a drop of ink.
But when IAGS turned its attention to Israel, its stature suddenly became apparent, with three separate Times stories relaying its genocide charge. Nothing inspires as much as Israel, one might conclude.
But that’s only half true. Not long after IAGS’s anti-Israel resolution, another group of intellectuals weighed in on the country. In an open letter, they explained that IAGS failed to accurately apply the law and facts of the war and emphatically concluded that the Jewish state is not guilty of genocide.
Signers include former war crimes prosecutors Eli M. Rosenbaum, Susan Masling, Jeffrey Mausner, and Clarice Feldman; Holocaust and genocide studies professors Norman J.W. Goda, Philip Spencer, and Joël Kotek; international law professors John Strawson, Bruce Einhorn, Michael J. Kelly, and Brian L. Cox; historians Jan Grabowski, Stephanie Share, Jeffrey Herf, James Wald, and Joshua Karlip; genocide expert Sara E. Brown; legal expert and war crimes investigator Isaac Amon; legal scholar Lesley Klaff; Holocaust studies chair David Patterson; lawyer and Holocaust expert Cheryl Ochayon; civil rights attorney Joel Taubman; and 500 other professors, directors of Holocaust centers, Holocaust educators, scholars and stakeholders.
The New York Times ignored the letter.
What animates the paper, then, isn’t Israel but its delegitimization. In practice, that means editors have repeatedly platformed the gravest accusation against Israel while all but ignoring countervailing evidence. In the first two weeks of September, 25 news articles promoted the “genocide” charge by different actors. Incredibly, most included no counterpoint. The handful that did almost invariably suggested only the accused disagreed with the accusation — as in, “Israel has repeatedly rejected allegations of genocide from scholars and human rights groups.” The signers of the letter, along with other experts who contest the accusation, are erased.
One could point out that not all 500 signers are legal or genocide scholars. But that’s equally true of IAGS, which boasts of an open membership model. It’s reasonable to assume that many of the 108 members who voted for the anti-Israel resolution have related academic credentials. But we can safely conclude that many don’t. IAGS member Nidal Jboor, for example, is a medical doctor whose qualification include cheering Hamas and insisting on the need to “take out” and “neutralize” “Jewish supremacists.” Another member joined IAGS to fight “satanists” and the “secret society.” There are also optometrists, architects, artists, and others with little claim to academic expertise.
“We aim to be inclusive and democratic,” the organization explains, “by keeping the door open to artists, advocates, independent scholars, Indigenous scholars, global majority scholars, marginalized communities, and survivors.” Elsewhere they add students, museum and memorial professionals, policymakers, psychologists, and literature and film scholars to its list of members. The goal, they say, is to include those who can’t “access ‘conventional’ education” and to circumvent “ivory tower privilege or gate keeping.”
That’s their prerogative. But by calling IAGS voters “academic experts,” the Times sells readers on precisely the scholarly gatekeeping the group disavows. Worse yet: while IAGS abandons academic gatekeeping, the Times practices editorial gatekeeping to silence experts who challenge the paper’s narrative.
You can find from CAMERA more on the dishonestly of the “genocide” slur here, here, and here.