Children sit on rubble near a tent being used as a makeshift educational center in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Sept. 8, 2024. (Credit: Omar al-Qattaa/AFP)
The largest professional organization for historians in the United States adopted a resolution on Monday condemning Israel's "scholasticide" in Gaza and criticizing U.S. military aid to Israel.
The American Historical Association (AHA), which is also the oldest of its kind in the U.S., adopted the “Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza,” with an overwhelming majority of 428 votes to 88, condemning Israel’s “intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.”
The historical association invokes the charge of "scholasticide" — defined as the intended mass destruction of education in a specific place — as a response to the Israeli army having "effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system." The Israeli army has destroyed 80 percent of Gaza's schools — leaving over 625,000 children without access to education — and all 12 university campuses in the besieged enclave.
"The U.S. government has underwritten the [Israeli army's] campaign in Gaza with over $12.5 billion in military aid between October 2023 and June 2024."
The resolution, having cited statistics around the extent of destruction in Gaza, concludes that the AHA, "which supports the right of all peoples to freely teach and learn about their past, condemns the Israeli violence in Gaza that undermines that right."
AHA's resolution calls for "a permanent cease-fire to halt the scholasticide" and the formation of "a committee to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure."
Professor Barbara Weinstein, who teaches history at New York University and previously served as the president of AHA, told Democracy Now in an interview on Monday, “Over the years it has become increasingly clear that we can’t have a narrow definition of what our roles are as historians.”
Weinstein described the organization has having historically been relatively moderate, even conservative, making this resolution a significant marker of its membership showing an increasing "willingness to take a position on issues that relate directly to our roles as historians, as educators, as researchers, as archivists."