Since the IAGS Gaza Resolution passed, there has been very broad interest by other scholars, from media outlets worldwide (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here), as well as at the United Nations. Many Executive Board members also spoke directly to international media regarding the resolution, including its process and outcome. For instance, in English (here, here, here, here), Arabic (here), French (here), German, and Spanish. This shows the important voice that IAGS has on the issue and reinforces the value of our association passing resolutions. While feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, there have also been attacks on social media as well as negative media coverage. As such broad attention is unusual, the IAGS EB would like to address some responses to the passing of the IAGS Gaza Resolution.

• The IAGS Gaza Resolution was passed through the standard process that has been applied to other resolutions, conforming with the IAGS By-Laws (which were themselves voted on by the membership). The resolution was subject to rigorous peer review through the Resolutions Committee, the Executive Board and the Advisory Board, going through multiple rounds of revision. Members were given 30 days to vote, with everyone receiving a personal vote, and multiple reminders sent out about the vote. Voting was anonymous, as is standard with any voting in IAGS. Members are encouraged, but not forced, to vote. The figure of membership who voted (28%) is within the usual range of votes received for a resolution, which falls between 25-34%. To pass, a resolution must receive at least two-thirds majority of those voting in favour, and this was well exceeded, with 86% voting in favour of the resolution. Town halls are not required by the by-laws, and have typically been hosted by resolution authors as educational sessions for historical events about which members might have little knowledge.
• IAGS has been the subject of a campaign to spam our membership, including with offensive fake names and email addresses (including of genocide perpetrators such as ‘Adolf Hitler’ or email addresses such as ‘fuckiags@retards’). As a result, the membership join option has been temporarily suspended.
• The Executive Board has also made the decision to temporarily disable the member directory, public and private, for the protection of IAGS members, out of concern for members potentially being targeted.The Executive Board is working closely with our IT team to assist with this issue, and will re-enable functions as soon as practicable and safe. Our primary priority is the safety of our members.
• The IAGS general email and members of the Executive Board have received a great deal of abusive hate mail and social media posts this week. Such responses are clearly unacceptable, and create an environment of harassment, bullying, and abuse. This has caused great stress and anxiety to members of the Executive Board. The work of the Resolutions Committee has also been the target of unfounded disparaging accusations. All members of IAGS are subject to the IAGS Code of Practice, which requires members to be treated with respect and courtesy. The Code of Practice also states: “Members must behave responsibly and ensure they conduct themselves in a manner which will not injure the reputation of the Association, its events, organisers, participants, or sponsors. All members must show integrity and professionalism in their conduct with IAGS and all other IAGS members.” This includes respect for members of any IAGS Boards and Committees, who give a great deal of their time on a voluntary basis to making IAGS a functional, active, and inclusive community. Breaches of the Code of Practice are subject to disciplinary action. If any members have been subject to abuse by another IAGS member and would like to make a complaint, please contact the Executive Board.

• IAGS’ membership is designed to be open to all who are committed to working on issues pertaining to genocide from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. We aim to be inclusive and democratic by keeping the door open to artists, advocates, independent scholars, Indigenous scholars, global majority scholars, marginalized communities, and survivors. The goal is to include voices of those who may not have PhDs, official institutional affiliation, or the financial means to access “conventional” education that often privileges Global North forms of expertise. It is intended to circumvent any ivory tower privilege or gate keeping. IAGS’ membership is predominantly made up of scholars/academics from a wide range of disciplines, and with experts in the fields of genocide prevention, education and punishment, such as policymakers, NGO representatives and legal professionals. This is one of the significant advantages of IAGS, providing a networking opportunity between scholars and those in the practice of genocide prevention and punishment. Another dimension of IAGS inclusivity of expertise is the desire to make sure artists, community scholars, NGOs, survivors, and others, have a role in the overall work on education and prevention. We want to build a community of different populations with complimentary areas of focus and experience. If we err, it’s on the side of inclusivity. No system is perfect, but ours reflects our value of inclusion. The fact that this very democratic, inclusive policy is being exploited and criticised by trolls demonstrates their ignorance at the structures of scholarly organizations, and flies in the face of IAGS’ values (which attempts to include and champion minority voices/global majority voices that may not “look like” what we expect “expertise” to be). Some of these criticisms have amounted to racist attacks, by criticising IAGS for having a large percentage of members from the Middle East and Africa. IAGS values its diverse membership from around the world, and rejects this racist framing of our diverse membership as a negative aspect of our association.
• The goal of diversity and inclusivity in IAGS’ membership is also reflected in the affordable membership price options, which enable scholars to join who may otherwise be prohibited from joining due to financial constraints. IAGS is proud of offering affordable membership options to ensure diversity of membership.

 

Finally, we would like to reiterate that the overwhelming feedback on the resolution has been positive, engaged and supportive. We thank all those who participated in the resolutions process, to those who have reached out in support over the last few days and expressed that – however they voted in the resolution – they value IAGS as a community.

 

The IAGS Executive Board, 4 September 2025