A member of the International Association for Genocide Scholars says the group pushed through a resolution accusing Israel of genocide without holding a debate, as is its standard practice.
Sara Brown, a genocide scholar, says she has been a member of the association for more than 10 years and was on the association’s advisory board for two, four-year terms. Brown also serves as the American Jewish Committee’s regional director in San Diego.
She says the association typically discusses controversial resolutions in a virtual town hall that allows members to discuss the measures. For the Israel resolution, the association’s leadership declined to hold a discussion, she says.
“The content of the resolution and the way it was forced through speak to an embarrassing absence of professionalism,” she says. Among her qualms with the resolution are that it cites organizations that have reinterpreted the definition of genocide so that it applies to Israel, such as Amnesty International.
Emails shared with The Times of Israel show that the association’s leadership in late July said there would be a town hall discussion to discuss the Israel resolution, but backtracked days later, citing a vote by the association’s executive board.
The association also did not allow dissenting opinions to be published on its list serve, saying the list serve was not a forum for such discussions, and declined to release the names of the members who drafted the resolution, the emails show.
Brown says only 129 association members voted on the resolution out of an estimated membership of around 500. The association’s membership was informed ahead of time about the vote, but many chose not to weigh in, likely because they did not feel qualified to address the issue, Brown says.
“That favors those activists who are seeking to advance a false narrative about Israel,” Brown says. “It wasn’t rushed, it was just forced through without the usual transparency.”
The association has recently expanded its membership and there are little qualifications to become a member. The association had been mostly made up of scholars, but now includes figures like activists and artists, Brown says.
She adds that the expanded membership can be a strength by bringing in a diversity of viewpoints, but also “opens the door for something like this to happen.”
“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,” Brown says. “The leadership, in my opinion, had an agenda.”
The public, she says, is “going to see, ‘Genocide experts agree.’ No, we don’t, and we were deliberately silenced.”