The decision comes after AHA members overwhelmingly voted in favor of the resolution condemning Israel’s ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza
NEW YORK – The American Historical Association Council, the governing body of the nation’s largest organization of historians, has vetoed a resolution condemning Israel’s “scholasticide” in Gaza.
Earlier this month, during its annual conference, AHA members voted 428 to 88 in favor of the resolution, which criticized Israeli actions against educational facilities in Gaza and U.S. military aid to Israel. The measure was then referred to the AHA Council, which was tasked with deciding whether to approve, veto, or refer the resolution to the organization’s more than 10,000 members for a broader vote.
Scholasticide is defined as the deliberate destruction of an education system.
“This is a shocking decision,” the Steering Committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy, the group that put forward the motion, said in a statement, “It overturns an unprecedented landslide vote at the January 5 Business Meeting, where 82 percent of the 520 members present voted for our resolution.”
AHA leadership explained its decision to veto the resolution, arguing that the organization does not issue public political statements. They added that the resolution falls “outside the scope of the Association’s mission and purpose.”
Critics, like Mary Nolan, Professor Emerita of History at New York University and a member of the steering committee that proposed the resolution, pointed to the organization’s 2007 condemnation of the Iraq War and its recent public criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as examples of prior political statements. “The Council’s actions are undemocratic and suggest a ‘Palestine exception’ to free speech,” Nolan told Haaretz.
Christy Thornton Associate Professor of History at New York University told Haaretz that given the overwhelming passage of the resolution at the annual meeting, the decision “is not just disappointing but incredibly short-sighted for the AHA Council to issue this veto.”
Others, such as Jeffrey Herf, Emeritus Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, expressed support for the decision.
“By vetoing a resolution, the Council courageously defended the core principle that the AHA is an association of scholars, not one of political activists seeking to hijack the prestige of the organization for their political purposes,” he told Haaretz.
Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, said that “many historians in our network, and longtime members of the AHA, can today breathe a sigh of relief that their professional home won’t be turned into a partisan organization with a baked-in anti-Israel bias. Given that the ‘scholasticide’ accusation against Israel (and only Israel) has never been subjected to any rigorous study or investigation, the AHA Council was right to veto this misguided and divisive resolution.”
Elman continued: “The AHA should be defending the academic freedom of its members to promote any empirical claim, no matter how ludicrous, shoddy the research design, or how much it fails to meet basic standards of historical scholarship. As an association, though, it must defend the historian’s craft, which requires a careful parsing of competing sources, and a thorough analysis of available evidence along with multiple perspectives. As activists try to hijack other professional associations and scholarly societies in the coming months for their virulently anti-Israel agendas, the principled position just taken by the AHA Council will hopefully set a much-needed precedent.”
The decision has already sparked backlash, with some warning of potential consequences. “The decision to not even let the entire membership vote will alienate generations of historians from the organization at a time when the defense of the profession needs more energy, not less,” said Thornton.
“I will not be surprised to see hundreds of historians refuse to renew their memberships because of this decision,” she added.