A member of the International Association for Genocide Scholars said that the organization pushed through a resolution accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza in what she calls an “embarrassing absence of professionalism.”

Sara Brown, Ph.D. in comparative genocide studies and member of the association for more than 10 years, lashed out at the group for its resolution, calling it “incorrect in its assessment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.” 

“It includes many unsubstantiated claims, is poorly cited (using deeply biased, questionable sources), and perpetuates an intentionally distorted analysis of the Israel Hamas War,” she added. 

Ms. Brown said that only 129 out of some 500 association members voted on the resolution, and that the process was a “disaster from start to finish. Those of us against the resolution tried to submit our concerns for discussion but were blocked by the leadership.”

Times of Israel disclosed that internal emails showed how the group’s leadership promised to hold a town hall discussion “as with previous resolutions,” only to backtrack a few days later and cancel the discussion. 

The leaders also refused to allow dissenting opinions to be published and wouldn’t disclose who drafted the resolution. 

The resolution lists a number of arguments for why it concludes that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), such as the killing of children in Gaza, inflammatory statements by Israeli ministers, and Israel’s forcible displacement of more than two million Palestinians in Gaza. 

Ms. Brown criticized the resolution for recognizing Amnesty International’s report on Gaza, which she said reinterpreted the definition of genocide to fit Israel’s conduct. 

The resolution also recognizes a report on Gaza by the UN’s special investigator for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese. 

Mrs. Albanese has been widely accused of antisemitism by America, Israel, a former U.S. special envoy for antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, and international Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress. Mrs. Albanese has also compared Israel to Nazi Germany and shamed Israeli women on International Women’s Day. 

“The content of the resolution and the way it was forced through speak to an embarrassing absence of professionalism,” Times of Israel quoted Ms. Brown as saying. 

While the association has mostly been made up of scholars, as certain qualifications are required to become a member, activists and artists have joined the group in recent years, which Dr. Brown said “opens the door for something like this to happen.”

“That favors those activists who are seeking to advance a false narrative about Israel. It wasn’t rushed, it was just forced through without the usual transparency,” she said. 

“The appearance is that this was a unanimous vote on behalf of the entirety of the association. It was not, and they refused to have a transparent, critical discussion. The leadership, in my opinion, had an agenda,” she added. 

The world will take the resolution as proof that genocide experts agree on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Ms. Brown said, adding: “No, we don’t, and we were deliberately silenced.”

“Acting in self-defense by engaging in a war against an existential threat is not the same as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people. Anyone who considers themself a genocide scholar should feel embarrassed by this vote,” she said. 

The association’s communications officer, Emily Sample, dismissed Ms. Brown’s criticism, telling Times of Israel that the authors of the resolution felt that there was “sufficient contextual information for all of the scholars in the community to make their own informed decision before the vote. The space for discussion is through articles and other publications.”

Mrs. Sample also said that the low voting percentage was “pretty standard.”

While Hamas welcomed the resolution, Israel’s foreign ministry issued a statement calling it an “embarrassment to the legal profession and to any academic standard.”

“It is entirely based on Hamas’s campaign of lies and the laundering of those lies by others. The IAGS did not do the most basic task in research, which is to verify the information. It even manages to misrepresent what the ICJ has said,” the foreign ministry added.