Jerusalem Post Magazine
Letters to the Editor
June 24, 2016

With regard to readers’ comments from June 17 and June 10 (“Holocaust ‘minimized,’” Letters) in reaction to Israel W. Charny’s “Genocide scholars who minimize the Holocaust – and some who are coming to town” (Opinion, May 27), Genocide Watch published links to Prof. Charny’s piece.  We did so because we consider selected articles from the Journal of Genocide Research to be notable for an expressed antipathy toward Israel and Zionism.

Publishing such polemical attacks in a journal that is purportedly a scholarly journal of genocide research demonstrates how far JGR has fallen from the scholarly standard it had before it was taken over by the International Network of Genocide Scholars.  If the articles had been critically reviewed, they would have been rejected as unworthy of publication.

Prof. Charny never claimed to have conducted an exhaustive study of every article published in JGR, but the survey he conducted demonstrates that a majority of the genocide scholars he surveyed viewed the chosen excerpts as anti-Israel and anti-Zionist.

There was nothing wrong with Prof. Charny’s methodology.  The survey went out to every scholar who subscribes to the list serve of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.  He never claimed that he used a random sample or some other research method.  He used a neutral third party to tally the results.  He got a respectable rate of return, enough to permit statistically significant conclusions.

Prof. Charny has done a service to the profession by highlighting the creeping anti-Israel bias that has overtaken the global academia, and even invaded the field of genocide scholarship.

Gregory H. Stanton
Arlington, Virginia

The writer is Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution of George Mason University, and found president of Genocide Watch.