Below is the text of a Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza which we urge all current AHA members to sign, so as to place it on the agenda of the Business Meeting set for January 10, 2026, during the Association’s Annual Meeting in Chicago.
This resolution was developed in partnership with the Palestinian Historians Group and Historians for Palestine. As you will see, it extends the resolution we passed last January, and reflects the strong global consensus that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. It also incorporates the specific needs articulated by the Emergency Committee formed by the presidents of Gaza’s three leading universities.
We have an October 1 deadline to submit this resolution and we hope to send it with many more than the required 213 signatures of members (2% of the current membership). Please sign today and forward to anyone you know who is an AHA member and prepared to stand in solidarity with the scholars and students of Gaza.
We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!
The Steering Committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy
Click here for a sharable PDF version of the resolution.
Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza
Whereas the U.N. Special Committee on Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People; leading international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Al-Haq, and B’Tselem; and the International Association of Genocide Scholars and prominent genocide scholars and historians have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza;
Whereas Israeli actions have been enabled by U.S. military and diplomatic support, including over $30 billion in funding since October 7, 2023;
Whereas U.N. experts have raised alarm over the “intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide.’” This includes razing Gaza’s 12 universities; destroying over 90 percent of its schools and most archives, libraries, and museums; and killing, starving, and displacing thousands of students, faculty, and staff;
Whereas academics in Gaza have declared their refusal to allow this “continuous Nakba” to “extinguish the flame of knowledge and resilience,” and Gaza university presidents have called for “immediate international mobilization to support and protect Gaza’s higher education institutions,” stating: “We are more than buildings—we are academic communities, comprised of students, faculty, and staff, still alive and determined to carry forward our mission”;
Whereas Gaza’s nonprofit universities have established a unified Emergency Committee that has articulated concrete priorities for international support;
Be it resolved that the AHA, which supports the right of all peoples to freely teach and learn about their past, condemns Israeli scholasticide in Gaza and calls for a permanent ceasefire; echoing the call of AHA members at the Association’s business meeting on January 5, 2025;
Be it resolved that the AHA, in cooperation with universities in Gaza and their representative bodies, will support efforts to ensure the current survival, and future rebuilding, of Palestinian higher education by forming a committee to pursue these objectives.