The international media have eagerly reported that the “world’s leading association of genocide scholars” has declared Israel guilty of genocide. That claim turns out to be misleading. More on the vote by this “leading association of genocide scholars” can be found here: “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, scholars’ association says,” by Stephanie van den Berg, Reuters, September 1, 2025:
The world’s biggest academic association of genocide scholars has passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday.
Eighty-six percent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution declaring Israel’s “policies and actions in Gaza” had met the legal definition set out in Article II of the 1948 UN convention on genocide.
Let’s stop right here: the IAGS has 500 members. Yet 72% of them — 360 — refused to vote at all, which suggests that they did not think Israel was guilty of “genocide,” but in the current vindictive climate of hysteria and anti-Israel animus worldwide, chose to avoid trouble by remaining mute. Of the 28% — 140 of the 500 members — who did vote, 86%, or 120, voted in favor of calling Israel guilty of “genocide.”
The stories published worldwide should not have been about how the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) had voted to declare Israel guilty of genocide, but rather, should have reported that “only 120 members of IAGS, out of a total of 500, have voted to declare Israel guilty of genocide.”
Such a truthful rewording gives an entirely different impression.
The resolution claims that Israel targeting facilities Gazans need to survive, including healthcare facilities and “educational sectors.” This must be a reference to IDF attacks on Hamas terrorists holed up in certain parts of certain hospitals. As is well known, Israel does not attack hospitals that are actually being used as hospitals. It does attack hospitals, or parts of hospitals, that have been taken over by Hamas, where the terrorists have hidden their combatants, weapons, and rocket launchers. At just one hospital, Al-Shifa, the IDF killed two hundred Hamas fighters hidden inside; another 500 fighters who had been hiding in the hospital meekly surrendered.
As for the supposed attacks on “educational sectors,” the IDF attacks school buildings, but not when they are being used as schools. Hamas uses those UNRWA schools the same way it uses hospitals — to hide fighters and weapons. A school that is used in this manner can no longer be considered a school, and the IAGS report should have recognized that.
The IAGS also claims that “50,000 children” have been “killed or injured” by the IDF. It is relying on figures from Hamas, which has a well-deserved reputation for lying. Let’s look at the figures more closely. Hamas now claims that 63,000 people in Gaza have been killed. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Some reports in the media wrongly suggest that all 63,000 were civilians. That, of course, is what Hamas wants us to believe. Of that 63,000, the IDF thinks that by January of 2025, an estimated 20,000 Hamas combatants had been killed, and in the eight months since, another 6,000 have been killed, for a total of 26,000. In addition, historically, about 800 Gazans die each month from accidents and disease. In the 24 months of the war, then, 19,200 Gazans have died from those non-combat-related causes (accidents, diseases). Now let’s do the math. The total number of civilians killed because of the war can be calculated as follows: 63,000-26,000=37,000. 37,000-19,200=17,800. That figure does not even take into account the Gazans killed by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad missiles and drones that were launched at Israel but misfired and fell inside Gaza.. The IDF believes that 10% of the missiles and drones fired from Gaza misfire; some of those, of course, kill Gazan civilians. But we won’t bother to include that estimated number in our calculations.
Gaza has a population of 2.2 million; 17,800 civilians killed is less than 1% of the total population. Does that sound like “genocide” to you?
Buraq says
In addition to this statement from the article, “Gaza has a population of 2.2 million; 17,800 civilians killed is less than 1% of the total population. Does that sound like “genocide” to you?” we must take into account the birth rate of around 1.8 children per 1,000 of the population. Over 2 years, the population would add around 8,400 births.
We can safely subtract these births from the 17,800 figure. Now we’re down to fewer than 10,000 deaths out of 2.5 million!
࿗Infidel࿘ says
One more fraudulent academic “discipline” – something like underwater basket-weaving or underwater fire prevention
OLD GUY says
If they were so scholarly they would know that the true killing and rape machine is Islam around the globe.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
💯