The struggle within the historical profession is heated.
The activity of scientific organizations usually does not arouse the general interest, even for many within the discipline. Annual meetings are a place to check new ideas, see colleagues and publishers. Until Zoom came, they were mostly labor fairs, where recently cut off the science candidates lined up for the fried committees.
However, sometimes these meetings explode about political discussions that cannot be ignored. This is how it took place at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA), the most venerable experienced Society of the country, captured by Congress in 1889, boasted by Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt as presidents. In the two previous cases, the organization and CARE, Historians for peace and democracy . In each case our resolutions were voted. Some claim that Israel stands out unfairly and others claim that Yeah should avoid “politicians”.
In 2025 it was different. HPAD created “The resolution will oppose scholasticism in gas“Quoting documents. InScholastic“Appoints intentionally obliteration of the cultural and historical apparatus: their archives and libraries, their universities, the bodies of their teachers. We estimated that this charge would have a deep resonance with historians, because our professional life focuses on bringing the past to the present, and it turned out to be correct. Hpad intensively mobilized Historians for Palestine.
On January 5 in New York, Aha Ahas had more than 500 members, in New York in New York, and more fired marshals. After the discussion, the voting was stunning: 428-88 in favor of the resolution. The next day, The New York Times report At the meeting in detail and wide lighting followed both In the US and in Israel.
And yet, 12 days later, the council’s elected council carried its powers on veto in permissionRefusing to allow membership to vote. His only statement is that the resolution “contradicts (d) the Constitution and by -laws, since it is under the borders of the mission and the purpose of the association”, diverged from the previous practice. A clear precedent was the 2007 business meeting, at which the members adopted the resolution of our organization, which was critical of the Iraq war, and called on historians “to do everything possible to bring the war in Iraq to a quick conclusion.” At the time, members of the Council did not suggest that this measure was located under the borders of the mission or the constitution of the organization. Instead passed on an overwhelming stock.
In recent years – and without consultation with membership – the Council has criticized numerous foreign governments. February 28, 2022 he released statement “Condemn (Ing) in the strongest conditions of Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine” and “distorting and tendential wrong history” of Russian President Vladimir Putin as justification for the attack.
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Indeed, a scholastic permit obviously fits aha “The governing principles take a public position“The action approaches:” If public or private authorities, in the US or elsewhere, censorship either seek to prevent writing, publication, exhibition, teaching, or other history practices or seek historians. “
HPAD does not believe that the resolution that opposes scholasticism in the gas or where else, “on the border of the mission and the purpose of the association.” We understand that the real problems of the council were more practical: the first thing in the recording criticized by the Israeli government will significantly damage the propaganda work in Washington, the Colombia District, who has dismissed the Executive Director James Grossman; Secondly, any such such action can lead to the loss of major grants on the basis that pay for many programs.
Historians on peace and democracy would have welcomed a sincere discussion about those institutional problems compared to the need to speak about the horrific violence, aimed at our colleagues, their students and 12 universities in gas now in ruins.
Indeed, we still hope to hold this discussion. What we’re afraid of, like many by the borders of the historical profession, is the beginning Waiting for obedienceEither as a statement by the University of the American Association, the University describes it: “Acting to carry out any pressure in advance.” Historians Ellen Schreker and Mary Nolan, both members of our governing committee, noted the parallels with how American universities acted during Makartism, fired by those who refused to “name” the Congress or FBI Committee, and German universities “cleared Jewish scientists in advance.
Many AHA members are deeply upset. They thought the aga belonged to their members, not up to 11 among the 16th Council members who supported the veto. But instead of advocating resignation or mass resignation (as it happens in Association of Modern LanguageAfter his leadership refused to allow members to vote for the BDS resolution), we decided to appeal the decision.
Co -cooperating with the leading Palestinian historians, such as Sharen Seikali (who first spoke for us on January 5, and then the Israeli historian Segal), HPAD and a groupA petition to the Aga Council“More than 1900 historians, including four former presidents, signed it, and we sent him to the Council today, March 6, for consideration at their meeting on March 20.
We ask the council to open the internet disk and then allow the members to vote as in the past: Should Ag Trump’s institutional imperative imperative imperative to declare solidarity with science colleagues into extremis? And we bring a similar resolution that proclaims scholastic in Gaza for an annual meeting of another major disciplinary body, Organization of American historians.
Ultimately, this struggle within the historical profession is more than resisting one of the most horrific war crimes in recent history, implemented with the mass support of our government, using our tax dollars. It also raises the question of whether historians should avoid solving the current problems and bring their historical knowledge that is transferred to them.
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Former President Barbara Weinstein, who gave the final argument for our resolution, provokes the prospects in this point of news network, “”What is the role of the historian?“In her opinion, the most” important service “we can fulfill is” complex assumptions and hierarchy of knowledge and strength. “For her, and for many of us,” the historian must be, first of all, a non -ferocter under which I mean the scientist who disputes the usual ways of watching the past and communication. “
It is likely that American historians clearly speak about the destruction of the Palestinian educational system and the need to restore. Even if the members of the Council think about another, they must allow their members of the discussion and vote.
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Katrina Vanden Hievel
Editorial director and publisher, A Nation
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