OPINION: I’m an actual genocide scholar and Gaza clearly isn’t one

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recently passed a resolution declaring Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza. As someone who has dedicated decades to genocide prevention, education, and scholarship—co-founding the Aegis Trust, directing the USC Shoah Foundation, and serving as UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education—I find this resolution not merely flawed, but a dangerous abandonment of scholarly rigor that undermines the very field it claims to represent, legitimizing and emboldening a known genocidal entity—Hamas.

Organizations that carry the weight of “genocide scholars” in their name bear an extraordinary responsibility. The public rightfully expects such groups to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity, legal precision, and analytical rigor. The IAGS resolution fails catastrophically on all counts, revealing an organization that has transformed from a scholarly body into a political advocacy group masquerading as an academic institution.

The most fundamental problem is jurisdictional: IAGS has no authority to

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adjudicate genocide charges. This would be akin to a criminology association declaring someone guilty of first-degree murder, pre-trial. Understanding the nature of crime does not grant jurisdiction to render legal opinions. Yet IAGS has appointed itself judge and jury, when there are existing courts of law—the International Criminal Court which prosecutes individuals, and the International Court of Justice, which arbitrates disputes between countries. Whether you think them fair arbiters or not, they are the bodies that provide jurisdiction and due process in such matters, not the IAGS.

Even if its vote did have weight, only a minority of the IAGS total membership voted. More troubling still is that IAGS membership requires only a credit card to join, rather than recognized academic credentials. This predisposes it to being swayed by member interests rather than academic rigor. Many members lack advanced degrees in relevant fields, calling into question the association’s claim to scholarly authority.

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The resolution’s substantive failures are equally damning. It relies uncritically on Hamas-provided casualty figures that make no distinction between combatants and civilians. The resolution assigns all Gaza deaths to Israeli actions while completely ignoring Hamas’s role in prolonging the conflict through its refusal to surrender or release hostages.

Most egregiously, the resolution fails to properly contextualize this war. Hamas committed what by any reasonable standard was a genocidal massacre on October 7th, 2023, which indiscriminately targeted civilians in Israel. Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages in flagrant violation of international law, maintains its genocidal ideology, and refuses to surrender. Under such conditions, Israel is acting in self-defense under international law provisions until its enemy is defeated or surrenders.

Civilian casualties are a terrible result of this war, which Israel claims it has sought to minimize—warnings, evacuation corridors, and tactical restraint that often sacrifices military advantage. I am not suggesting Israel is blameless, but if its goal was to commit genocide, the casualty figure would be considerably higher and the target list vastly different. Genocide is fundamentally a crime of stated intent, and despite inexcusable hot-headed Israeli politicians and the rising death toll, Israel has no demonstrable motive or intent to destroy the Palestinian people.

Had the IAGS approached this professionally, they could have provided valuable analysis: explaining genocide law’s complexities, urging both parties to respect international law, calling for Hamas to immediately surrender and return the hostages, and demanding Israel maximize civilian protection. They chose headlines over scholarship. Over 175 scholars and practitioners, most affiliated with academic, legal, and educational institutions, have signed a counter-statement exposing these flaws.

As someone who has spent decades studying genocide and mass atrocities, I am deeply troubled by civilian casualties in Gaza. The Palestinian people have long suffered from their own leadership’s intransigence, Arab nations’ abdication of responsibility, and successive Israeli governments’ inflexibility. But honest scholarship demands acknowledging complexity, not simplistic blame assignment.

As a scholar of genocide, I am most interested in its prevention, not the tit-for-tat among educated elites. I stand by international law where it applies based on evidence, jurisdiction, and due process. If Israeli politicians or members of its armed forces have broken international humanitarian law, there should be due process to convict these individuals. The same applies to Hamas and those who subscribe to its well-documented genocidal intent.

By legitimizing Hamas’s narrative and providing academic cover for their actions, the IAGS resolution emboldens Hamas to continue its fight. It tells Hamas that their strategy of using civilian casualties as propaganda tools has succeeded in swaying international opinion, incentivizing them to prolong the conflict knowing they have gained sympathetic voices in the academic community.

Genocide is humanity’s gravest crime. When it occurs, it must be stopped by all means necessary. As well meaning as advocates may feel, politicizing genocide does not protect civilians; it dilutes the term’s legal power, and does nothing to alleviate the suffering of those still caught in its terrible web. The IAGS resolution represents everything wrong with contemporary academic activism: political posturing masquerading as scholarship, moral preening substituting for rigorous analysis, and advocacy replacing the dispassionate pursuit of truth.

It is time for serious scholars to reclaim genocide prevention and scholarship from those who would weaponize academic credentials for political ends.

• Dr. Stephen D. Smith is co-founder of the Aegis Trust for the Prevention of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, former director of USC Shoah Foundation, former UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education, and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook on Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide.