Pro-Israel activists join genocide scholars group, highlighting open entry for non-experts

By Luke Tress

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3 September 2025, 5:33 pm

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Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.

Protest signs accuse Israel of genocide, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, August 28, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

Pro-Israel activists join the International Association of Genocide Scholars after the group accused Israel of genocide, highlighting the fact that non-scholars can join the group.

The association charged Israel with genocide on Monday, garnering widespread media coverage that portrayed the group as a leading body of experts.

“Israel committing genocide in Gaza, world’s leading experts say,” the BBC reported in its headline, for example.

Pro-Israel activists have discovered that anyone can join the group by paying as little as $30, though. The group’s website says it is open to individuals including activists and artists, and scholars in unrelated fields.

Get in, loser. https://t.co/NVHOFUTtTL pic.twitter.com/ui67erlpbl

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) September 3, 2025

The group appears to have deactivated its public members directory on its website and taken down its profile on X since yesterday, following the influx of new members.

https://t.co/vLiFjpmXCi pic.twitter.com/lKsi46Dj3M

— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ'ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) September 3, 2025

A number of pro-Israel activists say they joined the group, while others appear to prank the association. “Adolf Hitler” is listed as an inactive member of the group. Other accounts sign up as Star Wars characters.

One of the pro-Israel commentators who joined the association, Elliot Malin, is actually a legal expert, but says the association revoked his membership without explanation.

Malin is an attorney and the chairperson of the Nevada Governor’s Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust.

Pro-Palestinian activists were already members of the group. Nidal Jboor, the founder of the activist group Doctors Against Genocide, is one example.

Jboor is a member of the association who, over the weekend, said the anti-Israel movement needed to “take out” and “neutralize” its “child murderer” opponents at an anti-Israel activist conference.

Before the Israel genocide vote, the association had around 500 members, but only 129 voted on the resolution.

After the vote passed, a member of the association, Sara Brown, said the association had initially been made up of scholars, but had opened its membership to non-experts, including activists.