US Historical Association condemns Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s educational system

The American Historical Association, the oldest professional association of historians in the United States, has voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution condemning Israel’s war on Gaza, saying the destruction of the strip’s educational system amounted to “scholasticide.”

The “Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza”, introduced by the group Historians for Peace and Democracy, was approved by a vote of 428 to 88 during the group’s annual meeting in Manhattan on Sunday evening.

According to the resolution, the Israeli war has “effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system,” destroying 80 percent of its schools, all 12 of its universities and numerous archives, museums, and cultural sites, which it said “will extinguish the future study of Palestinian history.”

The resolution cited an April 2024 statement by United Nations experts which said Israel’s “pattern of attacks” amounted to “scholasticide”, calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and urging the historical association to form a committee “to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure.”

After the vote, Barbara Weinstein, a former president of the group and a professor of Latin American history at New York University, said opposing the destruction of archives and educational institutions 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," but "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.”

The vote followed months of organizing by supporters of the resolution.

David Waldstreicher, a professor of early American history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, said the Sunday vote, after years of failed measures condemning Israel over its treatment of Palestinians, reflected shifts in the profession.

“Opinion is changing,” he said, adding, “This war is not like other wars. That is obvious to students of history.”

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The measure has now headed to the group’s elected council. The council can accept it, veto it or decline to concur, which would send it within 90 days to the entire membership for ratification.

On Monday, the group’s executive director, James Grossman, said that the group “had a vigorous decision of the resolution, and has postponed a decision on how to act until its next meeting, which will be within a few weeks.”

The vote suggested a new phase in the cultural battles over the Gaza war. The pro-Palestine demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York City on April 17, 2024 and spread across other campuses in the US in a student movement unlike any other this century.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 45,854 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 109,139 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

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