During its annual meeting earlier this month, the American Historical Association, the oldest and most prestigious body of professional historians in the country, voted to approve at its business meeting a resolution to condemn Israel for committing “scholasticide” against Palestinian Gaza. The meeting, ordinarily a yawn-inducing discussion of the AHA’s budgets and expenditures on various programs, was attended by a surprisingly large number of members, more than 500, who nevertheless represented only 12 percent of the 4,000 historians who attended the annual meeting, and 5 percent of the organization’s total membership. The meeting voted 428 to 88 for acceptance of a resolution, sponsored by the pressure group Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD), “to oppose scholasticide in Israel.” The resolution then came before the AHA’s elected council which, as reported by The New York Times, “under its bylaws can endorse the measure, veto it or decline to concur.” If it endorses the resolution, it will be sent “within 90 days to the entire membership for ratification.” The Council, however, punted on the decision, agreeing to reconsider the question at its next meeting in a few weeks.
The Times’s reporting is accurate, though the story is already being misrepresented by less scrupulous media and H-PAD itself, as though the AHA membership as a whole had already endorsed the measure. It is hardly surprising that media outlets aligned with the pro-Palestinian left would be eager to present the resolution as a done deal. It has long been a strategy of the BDS movement, which is fully aligned with H-PAD’s resolution, to present Israel as a “terrorist state” or an “outlaw state.” The goal is to delegitimize the 76-year old country via “anti-normalization” campaigns. Anyone opposed to BDS’s agenda by definition may not be numbered among the great and the good.
A number of academic institutions, including many student associations, have not been able to endure the threat of moral marginalization, and a considerable number have already endorsed BDS’s various campaigns. Nevertheless, there is a notable absence of endorsements from the largest professional associations. Among the older and larger associations representing entire academic fields, only the American Studies Association, some 5,000 members strong, and the American Anthropological Association, which claims around 10,000 members, have formally endorsed BDS. Will they be joined by the 10,000 members of the AHA?