During this year’s American Historical Association (AHA) annual conference, members voted decisively (428 to 88) to approve a resolution opposing scholasticide in Gaza and condemning U.S. funding of Israel’s war. The resolution highlighted the systematic targeting of Gaza’s education system by Israeli violence, supported by U.S. military aid, and called for an immediate ceasefire alongside efforts to rebuild Gaza’s devastated educational infrastructure.
This event will delve into the significance of this resolution, its implications for academia, and the broader fight against suppression and censorship of Palestinian voices and their allies. Speakers will explore the growing academic resistance to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the challenges facing educators and students advocating for justice.
This discussion, featuring a panel of distinguished speakers, will also address how advocates for justice navigate increasing suppression and censorship in academic spaces and beyond.
Event photo: Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images.
Sherene Seikaly is a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2024-25) and Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her book Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores economy, territory, the home, and the body. Her forthcoming book, From Baltimore to Beirut: On the Question of Palestine tells a global history of capital, slavery, and dispossession. She is the Editor of Journal of Palestine Studies, Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UCSB, co-editor of the Stanford Studies Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures Series, and co-editor of Jadaliyya.
Esmat Elhalaby is a historian of colonialism and anti-colonialism. He is an Assistant Professor of Transnational History at the University of Toronto. His first book, Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonization is forthcoming from the University of California Press.
Mezna Qato teaches history at the University of Cambridge where she also directs the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies. She co-convenes the 'Archives of the Disappeared' Research Network, and is completing a history of education for Palestinians.
Jehad Abusalim (moderator) is a Ph.D. candidate in History at New York University and Executive Director of the Institute for Palestine Studies in the United States.