This roundtable reflects on the past and present of scholasticide in Palestine and the response to it by the American historical profession. Scholasticide connotes the systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of the educational life of national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. As of February 2024, all of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed or detonated by Israeli forces. Several thousand Palestinians faculty, staff, and students were killed or injured; some were victims of targeted killings while others died under indiscriminate pounding. Almost all of our Gazan Palestinian colleagues have been forcibly displaced. Should they ever be allowed to return, they will not have classrooms to go to or scholarly resources to draw on.

This is coupled with a loss of sites and artifacts of major significance for humanity’s heritage. Gaza has always been the connecting point between Asia and Africa, and it is immensely rich in history. All of its major libraries, archives, and archaeological sites have been destroyed. The histories contained within them are forever lost to researchers. Never in modern history has a national education system and a body of heritage been so thoroughly destroyed at such a rapid pace. Indeed, this was one of the issues presented to the International Court of Justice before it established that there was a prima facie genocide case against Israel.

The erasure of Palestinian knowledge and its producers is being carried out with American weapons and funding. However, not a single major US university has officially objected to it. Likewise, the American Historical Association has not issued a statement protesting the killing of Palestinian academic peers, the decimation of the historical heritage they have long preserved, and the manipulation of the historical record to justify these processes. The AHA has also failed to initiate official discussions on building solidarity with Palestinian colleagues or peer institutions. The field has not developed systematic plans for hosting Palestinian scholars at risk, offering scholarships, or supporting the rebuilding of education in Palestine. This is in contrast to previous positions taken by the AHA, most recently in relation to Ukraine.

As such, this roundtable seeks to make an urgent intervention, opening a conversation in the field. Contributors will reflect on a set of interlinked questions: how can scholasticide be contextualized in relation to longer histories of assaults on education across historic Palestine? What is the relationship between the destruction of education and culture and the concept of genocide? How is scholasticide justified by discourses of counterinsurgency and the war on terror? Why are serious scholarly attempts by explicitly anti-racist Palestinian, Jewish, and other historians to explain the current reality being mischaracterized as being antisemitic? How can young scholars navigate generational differences and pervasive anti-Palestinianism? Do the AHA and other learned societies have a meaningful role to play? These questions will be addressed in this roundtable by established and emerging critical Palestinian, Israeli, and Arab historians as well as scholars of genocide and emancipatory movements.