Comment by slantedview

If you're referring to the "International Association of Genocide Scholars" (IAGS), all it takes to join that organization is $30 and self identifying as a genocide scholar. Furthermore the resolution was passed with a total of 129 voting members, and about 107 voting in favor, out of over 500 total members.

Here's a letter from 514 verified scholars and legal experts calling on IAGS to retract their resolution, along with their rebuttal of the substance of the resolution:

https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/

Legal definitions are often up for discussion and debate. That’s a large part of what lawyers do, in fact.

Anyway I have no comment on the specific claim being made here, I just really dislike it when discussion is stifled by saying “I’m right and no one can ever disagree”.

The definition of genocide is absolutely up for debate. And even legal definition (presumably you mean UN definition) is highly subjective, too. Less than 1% of Palestinians have been killed since Oct 7. Germany saw 10% of its population killed in WW2. France lost 4% in WW1. Why the former is a genocide but not the latter two is a pretty big hole in the logic behind the allegations of genocide.

This is a bit off topic but there isn't anything more debated in history than legal definitions. Maybe religious scripture?

I don't think you could have raised a weaker point.

It shouldn't be.

But here we have UN and other twisting it to fit a situation that clearly weren't meant to be covered by it.

Because if the war in Gaza can be called a genocide so can almost every single other major war!

Also it is absolutely ridiculous to call a war that is started by one side, and one that only that side can end, a genocide against the same side that started it!

I think the debate (/question) is whether it is Israel’s goal to eliminate the entirety of the Palestinian people. That does not seem to be the case, which is where the “not genocide” argument comes from.

Now I understand that the UN has specific criteria, etc. But the most famous genocide was the systematic execution of millions in gas chambers. This is not akin to that, is what people are arguing.

It is perhaps important, also, for genocide scholarship to survey the ways proponents rotate through various forms of apologetics. Not that I would wish it to be the case but the last few years are rich in case studies for how people debate and communicate about genocide, and it's attempts to muddy definitional waters that make it so important to have strong scholarship and scholarly consensus.

A long way of agreeing with your point, I suppose.

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