Thread by @rcbregman

Incredibly powerful investigation in Dutch newspaper NRC: Seven of the world’s leading genocide scholars — including renowned Holocaust experts — describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal.

And according to them, nearly all of their peers agree.

These are not activists. They include Holocaust scholars and the heads of major genocide research centers. Scholars from Israel, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and the Netherlands.

And they are not divided. Without exception, they describe Israel’s actions as “genocidal.”

Raz Segal (Israeli scholar): “Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn’t consider it genocide? No."

Uğur Ümit Üngör (University of Amsterdam & NIOD): "I don’t know them.”

The evidence is overwhelming: over 53,000 Palestinians killed, at least 15,000 children dead, blocked food, water, medicine, relentless bombing of hospitals and tent camps, and repeated calls by Israeli ministers for starvation and destruction of Gaza.

These scholars emphasize: genocide is a process, it's not a binary switch. And it’s not about matching the Holocaust.

It’s about deliberate policies — like forced starvation, displacement, and mass killing — that aim to destroy a group, in whole or in part.

For Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the deciding factor was the deliberate withholding of food, water, shelter, and sanitation.

For Raz Segal it was the “overtly genocidal statements” by Israeli leaders.

The pattern is simply too familiar. Mass killings. Dehumanizing rhetoric. A clear disregard for civilian life.

And a refusal to comply with orders from the International Court of Justice to allow aid and stop incitement.

Even cautious voices have changed. Israeli scholar Shmuel Lederman opposed the genocide label—until he saw the ICJ ruling ignored, the Rafah crossing sealed, and credible estimates of over 100,000 deaths.

Now he says: this is genocide.

Holocaust experts have initially been more reluctant to call this a genocide, but the gap with other genocide scholars is narrowing.

“It’s not easy,” says Uğur Ümit Üngör, “especially when you're thinking about the continuity of your funding.”

The accusation of antisemitism has had a chilling effect on free speech about Israel’s conduct.

Harvard dismissed two directors of its Middle East center. Raz Segal’s appointment as head of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota was revoked

A leading German scholar in the field, speaking on condition of anonymity, describes the topic as “toxic” in German.

Simply raising the possibility of genocide, he says, gets you instantly labeled an antisemite.

He adds that if another country were responsible for these actions, Germans would raise the alarm without hesitation and call it genocidal violence. Just as they did after the Russian massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

Under the Genocide Convention, countries are obligated to act — not when genocide is proven, but when there's a risk of genocide.

That threshold has long been crossed.

Genocide is not just another war crime. It’s the “crime of crimes” — the deliberate attempt to destroy a people.

That’s what’s happening in Gaza, say the world’s top genocide experts.

I'm grateful that newspapers like @nrc are following their journalistic and moral compass. I wish more serious publications had the courage to do the same.

@nrc Here's the full article: nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/05…

And here are all the experts they spoke to: