Genocide scholars’ resolution accusing Israel ‘deeply problematic,’ member says

A longtime former board member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars criticized the group’s passage of a resolution on Monday accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, calling the move deeply flawed and the result of a politicized process.

Sara Brown, the American Jewish Committee’s regional director in San Diego who has a Ph.D. in genocide studies, argued that “the whole premise and tenor of the resolution is deeply problematic.”

In an interview with Jewish Insider on Tuesday, Brown, who maintains her membership in IAGS, also pushed back against the narrative that most genocide scholars are accusing Israel of genocide.

The resolution passed with only 129 out of over 500 IAGS members voting, 108 in favor, 18 opposed and three abstaining. All paid members have the right to vote, and membership is not restricted to academics; its ranks include artists, activists and others interested in the field of genocide studies. As a result, some pro-Israel figures paid to join the IAGS following the resolution’s approval.

Under normal circumstances, Brown said, any member can propose a resolution, which goes before a committee for comments and feedback. Controversial or high-stakes resolutions are brought before a virtual town hall to discuss the text.

This time, when the resolution was proposed on an IAGS listserv, Brown said that she and others attempted to publish a dissent that was deleted by the moderators.

“One of the executive board members who moderates the listserv refused to publish it and said they are going to have a town hall,” Brown recalled. “Weeks passed as we waited for the town hall … I reached out to ask the president of the executive board when it would happen, and was told ‘we don’t have to hold one and we’re not going to.’”

In addition, Brown said, the resolution was posted anonymously, and the executive board refused to reveal its authorship, an unusual move that “raised red flags.” 

“It’s very telling about the biases and agenda of the leadership that they refused to host a town hall … There is no interest in having a transparent dialog and debate about such an important and damning [resolution] in terms of the reputation of the IAGS,” Brown said.

“We’re supposed to be a scholarly organization. We should value above all else transparency, cited sources, debate and diversity of opinion that strengthens us. Instead, we saw deliberate silencing of debate,” she added.

The three-page resolution claims that “the government of Israel has engaged in systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure … in Gaza.” It also claims that Israel has engaged in “torture, arbitrary detention and sexual and reproductive violence” as well as “the deliberate deprivation of food, water, medicine and electricity essential to the survival of the population.” In addition, it claims that Israel targeted children, which constitutes genocide.

Brown said that “for that determination to be made, we would need to see documented proof of intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people living in Gaza. To date, we do not have that documentation. A couple of overly cited posts on social media — which are often from right-wing fringe members of the government who are not actually behind a lot of the decisions being made in Gaza — or one quote from Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu about not forgetting Amalek, are not indicative of intent to destroy.”

“What we do see,” Brown added, “is the IDF rewriting the rules of war and engagement, having, a number of times, foregone strategic advantage in order to reduce civilian casualties,” giving as an example Israel’s warnings to civilians in advance of imminent strikes and efforts to move them out of the battle zones.

The IAGS also claimed that “the International Court of Justice found in three provisional measures in the case of South Africa v. Israel … that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide in its attack in Gaza.” 

Brown said that this is “a deeply problematic, skewed interpretation of the ICJ rulings.” The court’s decisions did not determine whether Israel committed genocide or the plausibility of such a claim, but whether South Africa had standing to petition the court to protect the Palestinians in Gaza. The court said that “the facts and circumstances … are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.” 

Brown also took issue with the sources the IAGS cited in its decision, relying heavily on activist groups with an anti-Israel history.

“There was no original research cited in this work,” she said. “They cited Amnesty International, that had to rewrite their definition of genocide to accuse Israel. They cite [United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories] Francesca Albanese who is renowned as an antisemite called out by numerous governments. They cite Human Rights Watch, which has been known to be anti-Israel for a long time.” 

Brown noted that she wrote one of the only peer-reviewed works about the current war, in which she determined that Hamas was guilty of genocidal intent and attempted genocide on Oct. 7, 2023. 

The IAGS resolution did not come as a surprise to Brown, she said. 

After the Oct. 7 attacks, Brown said that while the IAGS made a statement, it had a “noted lack of outrage, passion or empathy. I wish [the IAGS leadership] applied a fraction of the concern [for Gazans] to the civilians mass-raped, mass-murdered and brutally tortured, and hundreds kidnapped on and after Oct. 7. I think the initial silence was deafening. That was my first indication that perhaps all would not be well.”

Brown recounted that “in conversations with members of the executive board, dehumanizing rhetoric was used to describe IDF soldiers and their strong social media presence indicated bias against Israel.”

Asked about the argument that genocide studies, as a field, minimizes the uniqueness of the Holocaust, Brown, whose doctoral thesis was about the genocide in Rwanda, said that “there is definitely a schism among some in the Holocaust field and genocide studies more broadly.”

The IAGS has long included “pressure groups that want to advance the idea that they have experienced a genocide, and it’s become a broad field. … You can see how it has been manipulated for nefarious results,” she said.