.

“Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza

Whereas the US government has underwritten the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign in Gaza with over $12.5 billion in military aid between October 2023 and June 2024;

Whereas that campaign, beyond causing massive death and injury to Palestinian civilians and the collapse of basic life structures, has effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system;

Whereas in April 2024, UN experts expressed “grave concern over the pattern of attacks on schools, universities, teachers, and students in the Gaza Strip” including “the killing of 261 teachers and 95 university professors . . . which may constitute an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as scholasticide.”

.

The bases for this charge include:

The IDF’s destruction of 80 percent of schools in Gaza, leaving 625,000 children with no educational access;

The IDF’s destruction of all 12 Gaza university campuses;

The IDF’s destruction of Gaza’s archives, libraries, cultural centers, museums, and bookstores, including 195 heritage sites, 227 mosques, three churches, and the al-Aqsa University library, which preserved crucial documents and other materials related to the history and culture of Gaza;

The IDF’s repeated violent displacements of Gaza’s people, leading to the irreplaceable loss of students’ and teachers’ educational and research materials, which will extinguish the future study of Palestinian history;

Whereas the United States government has supplied Israel with the weapons being used to commit this scholasticide;

.

Therefore, be it resolved 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;

Be it further resolved that the AHA calls for a permanent ceasefire to halt the scholasticide documented above;

.

Finally, be it resolved that the AHA form a committee to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure.”

Amy Goodman heeft twee betrokkenen geïnterviewd voor Democracy Now: als mede-initiatiefneemster Sherene Seikaly, universitair docent of adjunct-hoogleraar aan de University of California, hoofdredacteur van het eminente Journal of Palestine Studies (https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/journals/jps/about) en adjunct redacteur van Jadaliyya, een gerenommeerd “ezine” geassocieerd met het Arab Studies Institute (https://www.jadaliyya.com/AboutUs); en ter duiding van het belang van de resolutie voor de discipline geschiedenis in de samenleving Barbara Weinstein, hoogleraar geschiedenis aan de New York University en voormalig voorzitster van de American Historical Association in 2007 (van haar werk ken ik Weinstein 2005 – Barbara Weinstein, “History Without a Cause? Grand Narratives, World History, and the Postcolonial Dilemma”, IRSH 50 (2005), 71-91 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis).

.

“SHERENE SEIKALY: We just won a very basic resolution to oppose scholasticide and 15 months of genocide at the American Historical Association. We won it in a landslide. And this moment makes me feel like, despite the fact that every single day for the last 15 months I have watched the obliteration of my people, the future is still ours.”

.

Een verslag van het debat voorafgaand aan de stemming:

Ryan Quinn, “Historians Condemn ‘Scholasticide’ in Gaza at Conference”, Inside Higher Ed (IHE), 5 januari 2025 (https://www.insidehighered.com/…/aha-convention…)

Voor- een tegenstanders van de resolutie geciteerd in een artikel van The Times of Israel (met verwijzing naar bovengenoemd artikel van Ryan Quinn): TOI Staff, “American Historical Association resolution condemns Israeli ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza”, The Times of Israel, 6 januari 2025 (https://www.timesofisrael.com/american-historical…/)