Members of the American Historical Association, the country’s largest group of professional historians, approved a resolution on Sunday evening condemning Israel’s military action in Gaza, which argued that the destruction of most of the enclave’s education infrastructure, along with many archives and libraries, amounted to “scholasticide.”
The vote came during the group’s annual meeting, which drew nearly 4,000 of its more than 10,000 members to Manhattan for four days of scholarly panels and discussions. Several members described raucous debate over the measure, which was approved by a vote of 428 to 88, despite signals that it was opposed by some of the group’s senior leadership.
On Monday, the measure moved to the group’s elected council, which under its bylaws can endorse the measure, veto it or decline to concur, which would send it within 90 days to the entire membership for ratification.
The resolution’s passage suggested a new phase in the cultural battles over the Israel-Hamas war, which began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the intense Israeli military response that has left much of the enclave in ruins. Fallout has rocked campuses and cultural organizations across the United States, and contributed to the resignations of a number of university presidents.
At the historical association meeting, the vote followed months of organizing by supporters of the resolution, some of whom had been involved in previous failed efforts over the past decade to pass measures critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
The measure, which was introduced by the group Historians for Peace and Democracy, does not demand a boycott of Israeli institutions or scholars. Instead, it calls for a permanent cease-fire, and for the historical association to form a committee “to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure.”
The Israeli military campaign, the resolution states, has “effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system,” destroying 80 percent of its schools, all 12 of its universities and numerous archives, museums, cultural sites, which it says “will extinguish the future study of Palestinian history.” As a basis for the charge, the resolution cites an April 2024 statement by United Nations experts, which said Israel’s “pattern of attacks” amounted to “scholasticide.”
The Israeli government has disputed that report, saying it had no “doctrine that aims at causing maximal damage to civilian infrastructure,” and blaming destruction of Gaza’s schools on the “exploitation of civilian structures for terror purposes” by Hamas.
The Sunday vote, which was open to all members, reflected political and generational divides within the historical association, several members said. The overflow crowd, which spilled into the hallway outside the hotel ballroom where the vote occurred, was notably young and diverse. Some in attendance said that was particularly striking at a time of deep concern over the imploding academic job market and diminished prospects for newly minted scholars.
“It was a different and younger generation of historians that the A.H.A. has nurtured and needs to continue to nurture and support,” said Atina Grossmann, a scholar of Weimar, Nazi and postwar German history at Cooper Union.
The five members who were allowed to speak on each side of the resolution included current and former leaders of the organization, who debated both the substance of the resolution, and the appropriateness of the group’s weighing in on the conflict at all.
In recent years, the association has stepped up its advocacy in Washington, and has taken a leading role in opposing state laws aimed at restricting teaching about race, gender and sexuality. But in what some saw as tacit criticism of the resolution, James Grossman, the group’s executive director, read a prepared report noting that the group’s lobbying was “limited to history itself.”
“We are not a political organization, which is essential if we are to have any standing to provide Congress with briefings on such issues as the histories of deportation, taxation, civil service and other pressing issues,” he said, according to a written version of the remarks.
Barbara Weinstein, a former president of the group and a professor of Latin American history at New York University, who spoke in favor of the resolution, noted that the group had previously taken positions condemning other military actions, including the Iraq war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Opposing the destruction of archives and educational institutions, she said after the vote, is a legitimate concern for scholars.
“Not only is this a protest against an attack on Gaza that has killed many people and destroyed many buildings,” she said. “It’s a protest against the erasure of their memory. And for historians, the erasure of people’s memories is the erasure of the people.”
Among those speaking against the measure was the group’s president-elect, Suzanne Marchand, a historian of modern Europe at Louisiana State University, who will take office next year. Marchand, reached by email, declined to comment.
The historical association is not the only scholarly group currently wrestling with Israel and Gaza. Last month, the executive council of the Modern Language Association, which represents nearly 25,000 literary scholars, said it could not hold a vote on a resolution endorsing a call to boycott Israel, since the measure would run afoul of its contracts with public universities in states that forbade doing business with contractors that boycott Israel. But the council also said it was “appalled by the continued attack on Gaza,” and encouraged “other methods of responding to Israel’s destruction” of the enclave.
Eight former presidents of the group then signed a letter urging it to reconsider and allow a debate on the measure at its annual meeting, to be held Jan. 9 to Jan. 12.
David Waldstreicher, a professor of early American history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, said the resounding vote at the historical association, after years of failed measures condemning Israel, reflected shifts in the profession.
“Opinion is changing,” he said after the Sunday vote. “This war is not like other wars. That is obvious to students of history.”
But some members said the vote would only fuel continuing political attacks on higher education, which many fear will escalate in the second Trump administration.
“This feeds directly into the idea that academics are unapologetically political and are all on board with a pretty far left-wing view of the Israel-Hamas war,” said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of 20th-century American history at the New School who spoke against the resolution.
“There are plenty of us who have a diversity of viewpoints,” she said. “But if a resolution like this goes through at the biggest organization of historians in America, that’s really bad for us.”
The post Historians’ Group Votes to Condemn ‘Scholasticide’ in Gaza appeared first on New York Times.
