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A Charade in Academic Garb

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Robert Satloff - The resolution approved Aug. 31 by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) declared that "Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide." It reflects one of the most egregious examples of the dereliction of scholarly responsibility in recent history. The opening paragraph cites UN statistics for the total number of adults and children killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, without making any differentiation between combatants and non-combatants. Any discussion of the Gaza war that fails to separate the number of justly-killed Hamas terrorists from overall fatality statistics is irredeemably flawed. Indeed, except for two brief subordinate clauses, Hamas does not appear at all in the resolution - not for its own genocidal acts; not for its policy of maximizing its own civilian casualties; not for its systemic embedding within civilian population and infrastructure; not for its failure to provide civilians with access to the underground shelters that protected its fighters; and not for its confiscation and hoarding of food designated for civilians. The resolution reflects not one iota of original or independent research; its findings are totally derivative of the work of others. Those "others" include Francesca Albanese, the notorious "UN special rapporteur on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories" accused by the U.S. government of "virulent anti-semitism and unrelenting anti-Israel bias." Those "others" also include Navi Pillay, the disgraced former chair of the UN Human Rights Council whose Commission of Inquiry on Israel was roundly rejected by the Biden administration for its extreme bias. The IAGS resolution made things up out of thin air. For example, the resolution accused Israel of endorsing "the current U.S. President's plan to forcibly expel all Palestinians from Gaza," linking to a BBC report that makes no mention of the forcible expulsion of Palestinians. A scholarly organization has lent its reputation to an indictment of Israel that more closely resembles a lynching than a judicious academic inquiry. On closer inspection, only 28% of IAGS' 500 members participated in the vote on the resolution. How shameful, given that the image that graces the homepage of the IAGS website is the Hall of Names in Israel's Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, Yad Vashem. The writer is executive director of The Washington Institute.
2025-09-07 00:00:00
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