Anti-Israel resolutions presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association did not come up for a vote after members rejected a vote to suspend the group’s by-laws.

The resolutions were submitted to the AHA on Dec. 22 by the independent group Historians Against the War, too late to be considered according to AHA bylaws. On Dec. 4, AHA members by a vote of 144 to 54 declined to suspend the bylaw to allow the resolutions to be presented.

The three-day annual meeting was held Jan. 2 to 5 in New York.

One resolution accused Israel of violating academic freedom, saying it “arbitrarily limits the entry of foreign nationals who seek to lecture, teach and attend conferences at Palestinian universities.” It called on the State Department to “honor the academic freedom of U.S. citizens by contesting Israel’s denials of U.S. academics who have been invited to teach, confer or do research at Palestinian universities.”

Another resolution called on the AHA to condemn the “acts of violence and intimidation by the State of Israel against Palestinian researchers and their archival collections,” as well as other alleged violations of academic freedom, and accused Israel of bombing the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip in August during its military operation.

A resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel was rejected in November. — jta