We, the Palestinian Historians Group, reject the American Historical Association (AHA) Council’s antidemocratic decision on November 26, 2025 to unilaterally deny AHA members the right to vote on the “Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza” and the “Resolution Opposing Attacks on Core Principles of Education.”
Both resolutions met the conditions specified in the association’s bylaws. By blocking two resolutions that name and condemn the genocide and scholasticide in the Occupied Gaza Strip, the AHA Council is complicit in genocide denial.
The AHA leadership has suppressed the democratic will of its members by invoking its fiduciary duty to act in the long-term interests of the association. This is a spurious argument that only contributes to anti-Palestinianism and genocide denial. Several major learned societies in the United States have taken strong steps in support of the Palestinian right to education. In doing so, they have demonstrated that principled support for internal democracy, rather than preemptively yielding to oppressive state agendas, is the best guarantor of any learned society’s long-term success. The AHA Council’s paternalistic logic will not serve the American historical profession. Instead, it will alienate the majority of our sector, undermining our values and sense of community.
As it stands, the Council has established an Ad Hoc Committee to Aid Palestinian Historians in a top-down manner, without consulting organized Palestinian voices in the AHA, and without a clear mission of supporting the Palestinian educational sector in the face of a systematic and comprehensive scholasticide. We regard this as an anti-Palestinian decision that attempts to speak for the Palestinian struggle for education, even as it undermines and negates that struggle. Preventing a vote on the “Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza” means this Committee will have no democratic mandate from the association’s membership, nor will it be viable. The formation of this Committee does not absolve the AHA leadership from taking a stand on scholasticide as overwhelmingly demanded by 82 percent of attendees at the AHA business meeting of January 2025.
We cannot accept this assault on the AHA membership’s democratic rights, the organized voices of Palestinians inside the association, and the Palestinian educational sector as a whole. Given the U.S. complicity in the genocide in Gaza in general, and scholasticide in particular, we must stand united in support of our colleagues and students in Palestine. The attack on Palestinian education is an attack on democracy and higher education everywhere. In their public appeal, Palestinian scholars in Gaza have stated: “we call upon our friends and colleagues around the world to resist the ongoing campaign of scholasticide in occupied Palestine, to work alongside us in rebuilding our demolished universities, and to refuse all plans seeking to bypass, erase, or weaken the integrity of our academic institutions.” The least we can do is heed their inspiring call by working with their representative structures to keep the flame of knowledge alive.
Diana Abouali, Director of the Arab American National Museum
Ziad Abu-Rish, Associate Professor of Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies, Bard College
Nadim Bawalsa, Associate Editor of Journal of Palestine Studies
Beshara Doumani, Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies, Brown University
Esmat Elhalaby, Assistant Professor of Transnational History, University of Toronto
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University
Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History, May Ziadah Chair in Palestinian and Arab Studies, UC Berkeley
Aseel Najib, Assistant Professor of History, Dartmouth College
Maha Nassar, Associate Professor, School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of Arizona
Mezna Qato, Director of the Margaret Anstee Centre, Newnham College, University of Cambridge
Sherene Seikaly, Associate Professor of History, UCSB
Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Associate Professor of History and Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies, Rice University
Dana Sajdi, Associate Professor of History, Boston College