Resolution for Consideration at the January 2025 Business Meeting

Article VII of the AHA Constitution states that the Association’s Council shall call a business meeting, open to all members of the Association in good standing, to convene at the time of the annual meeting. The business meeting of the 138th annual meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 5, 2025, from 5:15 to 6:30 p.m. in the Mercury Ballroom of the New York Hilton.

Bylaw 11(4), which provides procedures to carry out the business meeting, states that any member of the Association may present resolutions or other motions that introduce new business to the agenda of the annual business meeting. Such resolutions must

• be received in the office of the executive director not later than October 1 prior to the annual meeting, to allow time for publication;
• be in proper parliamentary form;
• be signed by members of the Association in good standing and by at least two percent (2%) of the total Association membership as of the end of the previous fiscal year;
• be less than 300 words in length, including any introductory material; and
• deal with a matter of concern to the Association or the discipline of history. Such resolutions must be in accord with the Association’s Guiding Principles on Taking a Public Stance.

Resolutions submitted by the deadline and meeting the criteria for consideration are published in the November issue of Perspectives on History and will be added to the business meeting agenda. The following resolution, signed by 252 AHA members in good standing as of October 1, 2024, was submitted to the executive director for consideration at the January 5, 2025, business meeting. A full list of signatories can be viewed online at historians.org/business-mtg.

 

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.

AHA Communities Forum on the 2025 Business Meeting

As required by the AHA Bylaws, the Council will establish procedures to enable a democratic and fair discussion that includes a variety of perspectives and voices and that adheres to the time limitations of the meeting. Details about the speaker selection process and rules for conducting discussion during the business meeting will be made available online by early December at historians.org/business-mtg.

In advance of the 2025 business meeting, AHA members are invited to discuss the resolution on the AHA25 Business Meeting online forum. We encourage all members who wish to participate in the conversation to join the online forum via the AHA Communities site.

To join, visit historians.org/business-mtg-forum. Log in with your email address and your AHA password. Then click the blue Join Community button. If you have a problem, please email info@historians.org, and someone will reply within 24 hours on weekdays.

Participation in the business meeting is restricted to members only. Please confirm in advance that your AHA membership is up to date by visiting historians.org/renew.