Historical association rejects anti-Israel resolutions vote

Anti-Israel resolutions presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association were not voted on after members rejected a vote to suspend the group’s bylaws, report JTA and Rebecca Shimoni Stoil in The Times of Israel.

The resolutions were submitted to the American Historical Association, or AHA, by the independent group Historians Against the War. However, business meeting agenda items were supposed to be submitted by 1 November to allow members time to plan to attend the annual meeting. The anti-Israel resolutions were submitted on 22 December, and did not appear on the business meeting agenda. The three-day annual meeting opened on 2 January in New York City. In a vote, members of the AHA declined by a vote of 144 to 54 to suspend the bylaw on when the resolutions could be submitted, in order to allow the Historians Against the War to present the resolutions.

The resolutions prepared by the Historians Against the War reflected a new direction for anti-Israel activism: condemnations of Israel’s policies and behaviours that stop short of calls to boycott, divest from, or sanction the state or Israeli institutions. This new approach comes after 2014’s high-profile American Studies Association academic boycott vote and the subsequent fizzling of academic and professional organisations’ enforcement of new academic boycott rules – as Israeli academics participated in its conference.
Full report on The Times of Israel site