This AAR Resolution on Solidarity with Gaza was submitted by a group of more than 25 AAR members and will be considered during the 2026 Annual Business Meeting on June 23, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET. According to AAR Bylaws Article IV: Section 3, members may propose resolutions for consideration at the annual business meeting
Proposed Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza
Whereas the U.N. Special Committee on Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People; leading international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Al-Haq, and B’Tselem; and the International Association of Genocide Scholars and prominent genocide scholars and historians have concluded that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza;
Whereas U.S. military and diplomatic support enables Israeli actions, including providing Israel with over $30 billion in funding since October 7, 2023;
Whereas U.N. experts have raised alarm over the “intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide.’” This includes bombing Gaza’s 12 universities; destroying over 90 percent of its schools and most archives, libraries, and museums; and killing, starving, and displacing thousands of students, faculty, and staff;
Whereas academics in Gaza have declared their refusal to allow this “continuous Nakba” to “extinguish the flame of knowledge and resilience,” and Gaza university presidents have called for “immediate international mobilization to support and protect Gaza’s higher education institutions,” stating: “We are more than buildings—we are academic communities, comprised of students, faculty, and staff, still alive and determined to carry forward our mission”;
Whereas Gaza’s nonprofit universities have established a unified Emergency Committee that has articulated concrete priorities for international support;
Whereas widespread destruction of sites of worship has occurred and UNESCO has identified damage to 157 religious, cultural, and archaeological heritage sites;
Be it resolved that the AAR, which supports the right of all peoples to freely teach and learn, condemns Israeli scholasticide against Palestine;
Be it resolved that the AAR, with representatives of universities in Gaza, will work to ensure the survival and rebuilding of Palestinian higher education by forming a committee to pursue the objectives specified in this resolution.