A separate organisation Scholars for Truth about Genocide call on the IAGS to rescind their statement. www.timesofisrael.com/genocide-experts-demand-scholars-group-rescind-accusation-against-israel/
Text of the letter now signed by 347.
Quout from someone shared by journalist Nicole: Brockman:
Hundreds of scholars from a variety of disciplines—many with world-renowned names—have signed the letter below calling on IAGS to withdraw its resolution accusing Israel of genocide, adopted “amid misapplication of law and history.”
Signatories include such prominent figures as Jan Grabowski, Benny Morris, Alvin Rosenfeld, Jeffrey Herf, and many others.
In a category of their own are two former U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors: Eli M. Rosenbaum, Esq., who over four decades prosecuted Nazi criminals, Rwandan genocidaires, Guatemalan special forces mass-murderers, and, most recently, Russian perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine; and Jeffrey Mausner, Esq., Former Nazi War Crimes Prosecutor (Retired), Office of Special Investigations.
The letter shows that the IAGS resolution is not only a perversion of truth, history, law, and public trust but an abdication of responsibility. My signature is there as well. If you would like to add yours, the link is in the comments.
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LEGAL, ANTISEMITISM, HISTORY, HOLOCAUST, AND GENOCIDE SCHOLARS, FORMER PROSECUTORS, AND OTHER AUTHORITIES INCLUDING DESCENDANTS OF SURVIVORS CALL ON INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS (IAGS) TO RETRACT RESOLUTION ACCUSING ISRAEL OF GENOCIDE AMID CLEAR MISAPPLICATION OF LAW AND HISTORY
On behalf of the undersigned individuals and organizations who exist to educate about antisemitism, international law, the Holocaust and genocide, and who cumulatively and actively work to enhance the prevention of genocide, we find that the International Association of Genocide Scholars (“IAGS”) resolution fails to accurately apply the law and facts of the war in Gaza.
Moreover, we are alarmed by the process that was taken to pass the resolution with reported promises of town-halls and dissenting opinions to be published, and those promises being broken. The resolution was passed with a total of 129 voting members, and about 107 voting in favor, out of over 500 members. The quieting of dissent is an alarming tactic used on such a controversial matter.
Genocide is the gravest offense known to humankind; to dilute its legal standards for ideological ends is a form of moral violence. It dishonors the memory of past victims, misleads the public about present atrocities, and obstructs efforts to avert future ones.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel and acted with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Jews and Israelis, as a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such. Further, Hamas and their allied organizations took innocent people hostage and continue to hold hostages.
Thus, Hamas committed the crime of genocide and remains the only party to legally meet the requirements of the elements of the crime of genocide.
It is undoubtedly true that the war in Gaza has harmed a large number of people who would not have been harmed or killed but for this war. It is understood from available information that the death toll includes those who have been killed by both Israel and Hamas. It is further understood that Hamas has utilized the practice of human shielding as a systematic strategy to attempt to immunize itself from harm and to increase the harm of Palestinian civilians. This is a war crime committed by Hamas against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The IAGS resolution imparts that all of the deaths that have occurred in Gaza are a result of Israel’s conduct, and acts as a means to excuse Hamas from having agency for its own actions.
Further, the IAGS resolution stipulates without any justification that Israel has committed “indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure (hospitals, homes, commercial buildings, etc.).” However, to make such a conclusion requires the negation of Hamas’ well-documented use of civilian and humanitarian infrastructure for the purpose of waging war. It is well-established that Hamas has weaponized hospitals, mosques, schools, civilian homes, even humanitarian zones. Under various provisions of international law, including but not limited to the Fourth Geneva Convention’s articles 19 & 28, and the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention’s article 51(7), this conduct would cause such places to lose the protections that they would normally benefit from.
Hamas members have openly admitted to this strategy. It has been repeatedly shown that Hamas has warned civilians to not leave Gaza City. Ignoring Hamas’ conduct only causes more harm to Palestinian civilians who are meant to be protected.
The IAGS resolution further states: “Recognising that Israel has killed or injured more than 50,000 children and that this destruction of a substantial part of a group constitutes genocide.” What it misses is that Hamas allegedly utilizes children as combatants, and that children make up about 50% of Gaza’s population, a significantly higher proportion than nearly any other place in the world. This would cause problems in the analysis of “significant portion” when the total number of deaths and injuries in Gaza, as of the writing of this statement, constitute 224,217 total casualties (total deaths reported 63,557 and total injuries reported 160,660 per Palestinian media sources). Resulting in 22% of total casualties being children, well under the proportion of children in the population in Gaza. What’s important to further note about the casualty numbers is that it includes a significant portion of combatant casualties without differentiation between civilians and combatants.
The IAGS resolution further cites the issuance of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, while ignoring that the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I (“PTC I”) expressly rejected the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for the crime against humanity of extermination, a lower threshold crime, saying: “On the basis of material presented by the Prosecution covering the period until 20 May 2024, the Chamber could not determine that all elements of the crime against humanity of extermination were met.”
The authors of the IAGS resolution further state that the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) determined in the first provisional measures in the South Africa v. Israel case that Israel’s actions were “plausibly genocide.” However, this grossly misrepresents what the ICJ determined and is a misstatement of the plausibility determination. The ICJ correctly found that Palestinians, as a distinct national group, have plausible rights under the Genocide Convention that can plausibly be infringed, not that genocide had been committed. The author of that decision, ex-ICJ president, Joan Donoghue, clarified the matter on the BBC.
Even further, the IAGS resolution cites various organizations that have accused Israel of genocide by, as put by B’Tselem, “adopt[ing] a broader analytical framework.” This “broadening” of the analytical framework exists to stretch the required intent from dolus specialis to a more inclusive intent such as dolus eventualis, where a party knew that their conduct could cause some harm but not necessarily act with the intent to cause that harm.
All of these accusations willfully ignore the established jurisprudence around the Genocide Convention and the commission of the crime of genocide. In Bosnia v. Serbia (2007) para. 373, the ICJ stated: “The dolus specialis, the specific intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, has to be convincingly shown by reference to particular circumstances, unless a general plan to that end can be convincingly demonstrated to exist; and for a pattern of conduct to be accepted as evidence of its existence, it would have to be such that it could only (emphasis added) point to the existence of such intent.”
In Gaza, there are numerous other plausible explanations for the intent of military operations in Gaza. From Hamas’ weaponization of civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, their documented booby-trapping of buildings, the tunnels that are longer than the London Underground, to the continued holding of hostages.
Another critical failure of the IAGS resolution is that it not only fails to establish the elements of genocide, it does not set the legal standard for which genocide must be proven. Genocide at the ICJ must be proven fully conclusively, meaning there can be no other possible explanation. Because other reasonable explanations exist to Israeli conduct in relation to understanding Hamas’ conduct and its legal obligations, it cannot be that the legal standard has been met. Since the legal standard cannot be met, it cannot thus be considered to be genocide under any application of the law until such time that standard is met.
Another fatal error of the IAGS resolution is that it fails to consider the steps that Israel itself has taken to prevent civilian harm. It assumes without justification that Israel’s conduct must be genocidal while ignoring the conduct of Hamas. Numerous non-Israelis have entered Gaza and observed first-hand IDF targeting protocols to determine adherence to the legal standards and have yet to conclude that Israel is engaging in wilful violations of international law. Further, information has been collected that has demonstrated that early in the war Israel tightened its proportionality assessments to reduce civilian harm.
It is critical that we not water down the legal elements of genocide for the purpose of advancing ideological positions and bias. Holocaust and genocide scholars can have legitimate concerns about Israeli conduct in Gaza without working to disparage the very legal standards that exist to protect people from these crimes. The IAGS resolution neglects to impart any culpability for the consequences of Hamas’ own actions, attempting to force such responsibility onto Israel. Without demanding agency for Hamas’ actions, it is difficult to ascertain genocidal conduct.
The genocide allegation has been soundly and persuasively rejected by leading scholars, retired western military authorities, war crimes prosecutors, and other observers.
Finally, the IAGS never mentions that this war could end if Hamas were to release all of the hostages they continue to illegally hold in Gaza and lay down their weapons.
For these reasons, we demand that the IAGS immediately rescind its resolution. To persist in such distortion is to forsake the most elementary standards of law and scholarship. It reduces the Association to farce, erodes the integrity of genocide studies, and undermines the very meaning of the crime itself.
As the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in Resolution 96 of 11 December 1946, genocide “shocks the conscience of mankind, results in great losses to humanity in the form of cultural and other contributions…and is contrary to moral law and to the spirit and aims of the United Nations.”
An institution dedicated to Holocaust remembrance and the prevention of atrocity cannot indulge political bias or bad faith misrepresentation of the law, legal negligence without betraying history, dishonoring the victims, and endangering the very future it professes to safeguard.