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AMMAN — The American Historical Association (AHA), the world’s largest body of professional historians, recently ignited a debate after passing a resolution condemning Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system – only to have its elected council veto the measure. 

The resolution accused Israel of committing “scholasticide,” a term coined by Palestinian academic Karma Nabulsi in 2009 to describe the systematic destruction of Palestinian educational institutions. While the resolution gained support at the AHA’s annual convention on January 15, the elected council ultimately vetoed it, fuelling an intense ethical and political debate over the role of historians in times of crisis. 

AHA’s Veto : A controversial silence ?

Founded in 1884, the AHA has long played a central role in shaping historical discourse. Yet, its leadership’s rejection of the resolution underscores the tension between academic neutrality and moral accountability. 

AHA convention-goers overwhelmingly approved the resolution on January 15, but the association’s 16-member elected council vetoed it without allowing a full membership vote. The council could have either accepted the resolution or referred it to AHA’s 10,450 members but chose to reject it. 

In its written explanation, the council condemned the destruction of Palestinian educational institutions in Gaza but argued the resolution fell outside of AHA’s mission, which focuses on promoting historical research, teaching, and preservation rather than political advocacy.

However, this stance was met with backlash from scholars who believe that remaining silent in the face of destruction is itself a political act. 

“Historians who opposed the scholasticide resolution insisted that taking a position would harm the AHA, which is supposedly a ‘non-political’ organisation. The truth is that our tax dollars have funded 15 months of Israeli annihilation: not taking a stance a position will leave a lasting stain on the association and the discipline. Silence is complicity,” said Sherene Seikaly, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, in an interview with The Jordan Times. “The task of the historian is to ask hard questions and to take difficult positions, not when the dust settles, but as the fire reigns,” she added. 

Notably, the AHA’s hesitation stands in contrast to its previous actions. In 2022, the association swiftly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, issuing a statement denouncing Vladimir Putin’s distortion of history to justify military aggression. 

“The opposition to the scholasticide resolution thus deems the question of Palestine as ‘political’ and Palestinian lives as less valuable,” Seikaly said. 

Barbara Weinstein, Professor of History at New York University and former AHA president, emphasised that scholasticide is a recognised phenomenon under international law. 

“The right to learn and preserve historical evidence should be included in the broader category of human rights,” Weistein told The Jordan Times. “And I believe that anyone who is a historian and claims that their work is ‘not political’ is either a fool or a scoundrel. It is utter nonsense to say that historians should stay out of politics. Every decision we make – what we research, what archives we explore, what histories we choose to amplify, is imbued with a vision of the world that I would describe as political.”

As to whether the AHA, as an organisation, should stay out of politics, Weistein said : “The very defence of history as a discipline is political, the association is engaged in advocacy by its very nature. During my time as a president, the AHA issued a statement severely criticising a move by the European Union to criminalise Holocaust denial, including in work by historians. Needless to say, no one on the AHA executive council was in favour of Holocaust denial, but we argued that his was the sort of issue that should be ‘adjudicated’ by other – better – historians, and not be a matter for the criminal justice system. How is that not political ?”

Erasing Palestinian intellectual heritage

While the AHA debates its stance, the reality on the ground in Gaza grows more dire by the day. Since the war broke out in October 2023, Israel’s military assault has led to the widespread destruction of Gaza’s educational infrastructure. 

The destruction extends far beyond physical buildings. “Armed and abetted by the United States, Israel has destroyed 80% of schools and every single university in the Gaza Strip. Israel has targeted and killed scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and STEM. Israel has destroyed almost every library, archive, and cultural centre in the Strip,” Seikaly said, adding that centuries of endowments, collections, and documents are now gone forever.

Beyond destruction, evidence has emerged of Israeli forces repurposing Palestinian schools as military outposts and detention centres. The European-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has documented such cases as the Salah Al-Din Preparatory School in Gaza City, turned into a detention and interrogation facility in February 2024, and other civilian buildings, including schools, being systematically demolished after being used as military headquarters. The Human Rights organisation stated that such actions violate international humanitarian law, which mandates the protection of civilian infrastructure. 

A generation without education

In April 2024, UN experts issued an urgent warning over the pattern of attacks on schools, universities, and the mass killing, arrest, and detention of students and educators. 

Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, also underscored the severity of the situation: “The education system in Gaza no longer exists. Children can no longer find a place to learn.” The UNICEF echoed this assessment, confirming the complete collapse of the educational system in Gaza. 

The consequences of this annihilation are dire. According to UN figures, more than 5,500 students, 261 teachers, and 95 university professors have been killed during Israeli assaults. More than 7,800 students and 756 teachers have been injured. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) confirmed that 60% of educational institutions, including 13 public libraries, have been damaged or destroyed, including 76 schools that were directly targeted, and at least 625,000 students are now left without access to education. 

The destruction of Israa University in January 2024 marked a grim milestone – the last remaining university in Gaza reduced to rubble. 

“Even UN-designated ‘safe zones’ have not been spared, with schools sheltering displaced civilians bombed repeatedly. The persistent attacks are depriving yet another generation of Palestinians of their future,” the UN statement read.  

The impact of this devastation extends beyond the present, threatening the very survival of Palestinian culture, history, and intellectual life. “When schools are destroyed, so too are hopes and dreams,” the experts stated. 

Scholasticide: a key feature of genocide 

The term “scholasticide” describes a deliberate genocidal strategy to dismantle an entire society’s ability to document its history and build its future, as well as its right to knowledge. The implications go beyond the immediate loss of human lives and infrastructures. 

“The concept of ‘scholasticide’ is significant both as a means to denounce forms of destruction that wreak permanent damage on the society, but also as a way of thinking about ‘repairing’ that damage (to the extent possible) when the war finally ends,” Weinstein said. 

Historically, the destruction of educational institutions has been a hallmark of genocide. From the systematic targeting of schools in Iraq to the mass killing of educators in Gaza, scholars have long documented how obliterating intellectual heritage aims to erase a people’s past.

AMMAN — According to radiocarbon calibrated dates, the Early Bronze I (EB 1) lasted almost six centuries, between c. 3,700 and c. 3,100 BC. Some societal changes took place during that period which shaped societies after six hundred years.

“Archaeologists, therefore, differentiate between an early phase [EB IA}, c. 3,700–3,400 C, a late phase [EB IB], c. 3,400– 3,200 BC, and a terminal phase [Final EB IB], c. 3,200–3,100/3,000 BC, which is transitional with the following EB II period,” the professor Pierre de Miroschedji from National Centre for Scientific Research said, adding that the modalities of the transition between the Late Chalcolithic and EB I are still poorly understood.

“In the coastal plain of southern Levant, there are indications of a smooth transition. Everywhere else, the beginning of a new period is felt rather abruptly in subsistence modes, pattern of settlement, material culture, foreign relations, funerary practices, and cult,” Miroschedji elaborated, adding that at the beginning of the new civilisation, a new subsistence economy emerged during the fourth millennium, which characterised the Mediterranean zone from this time onward .

“It is a mixed agro-pastoral economy based on agriculture [cereals and leguminous], horticulture [olive and vine], and animal husbandry [cattle, sheep and goats—pig whenever possible—and donkey domesticated in the EB I]. The significant rise of a sedentary population in the Early Bronze Age suggests that both the surface of arable lands and productivity increased, a consequence of the development of floodwater farming and the introduction of the plough, possibly in the EB I,” Miroschedji underlined.

The development of horticulture represents the most important agricultural innovation since the Neolithic, which had a considerable impact on economic and social organisation.

Miroschedji explained that the advent of a new subsistence economy was soon translated onto the settlement map.

The first striking feature is the settlement hiatus: Most of the Late Chalcolithic settlements were abandoned and a number of the EB I settlements are newly founded, a movement which implies a strong sedentarisation process.

“In addition the sharp increase in the number of sites is remarkable, suggesting a significant demographic rise, at least for the sedentary segment of the population. Another conspicuous change concerns the spatial distribution of sites: Previously almost empty, the hilly areas and the central highlands witnessed the foundation of numerous small settlements, some of which became major cities in the Bronze and Iron Ages,” Miroschedji underlined.

“At the same time, scores of small settlements inhabited by transhumant pastoralists appeared in the semi-arid southern margins of the Negev. The process of sedentarisation, however, was not uniform. In some areas, such as the central Shephelah region, two phases can be identified: the first marked by the founding of new settlements, the second by the abandonment of some and the grouping of their inhabitants into a few larger sites, one of which became a regional centre in the following period,” Miroschedji highlighted.

Elsewhere the focal point of future settlement seems to have been a cemetery established initially at the centre of the territory inhabited by people still broadly semi-nomadic.

These EB IA–B settlements were all villages.

They rarely exceeded an area of 5 ha, although some were very large, sometimes larger than the EB II–III cities that succeeded them but excavations suggest that they were sparsely built, with dwellings disorderly distributed and separated by open spaces.

“These dwellings were mostly of the courtyard type [a broad room preceded by a courtyard], attested in the southern Levant since the Late Neolithic. Another kind of dwelling, considered a hallmark of the EB IA, is represented by oval or elongated houses with apses at both ends. These are found on a dozen of settlements along the coast, as well as in Lebanon,” Miroschedji said, noting that some EB IB settlements also enclosed multi-roomed buildings used for storage, cultic activities, and various other purposes.

AMMAN — Many sectors across the Kingdom have begun ramping up their Ramadan preparations as early as February, with a noticeable surge in the stocking of festive foods, traditional clothing, and decorative items. 

The early surge in consumer demand has been shaped by economic uncertainties, prompting businesses to adjust their strategies.

“Our customers have demonstrated a strong demand for high-quality Ramadan products. By launching our seasonal offerings earlier, we have been able to capture early interest in a highly competitive market,” said Saddam Mansour, an employee at a retail chain in Amman.

He added that starting early allows businesses and stakeholders in various sectors to refine their products and adjust plans, ensuring they are prepared for a potential surge in demand.

Economic analysts view this trend as part of a broader strategy to boost consumer spending during Ramadan, which traditionally represents a significant portion of annual retail turnover in Jordan.

“Early preparation enables businesses to manage inventory more efficiently,” said Ola Khasawneh, an economist, in an interview with The Jordan Times, adding that the vibrancy of the Ramadan season has a positive impact on overall economic growth.

Despite the preparations, several supermarket chains have reported relatively modest demand. Waleed Ali, a supermarket owner, said, “Although we increased our Ramadan inventory and launched promotions and discounts in February, customer traffic has not increased as expected.”

Ali also noted that he is expecting people to start shopping by the third week of February.