The beleaguered Executive Board of the European Association of Archaeologists has offered members a timeline of events leading to the reversal of its decision to ask delegates from Israeli institutions not to use their affiliations at the virtual conference currently underway, organised in Belgrade. However, the tone of the new information, which again seems to try to paint the EAA as a wronged party being bullied into taking a political stance and the reported failure of leading EAA officials to properly address the issues raised by the controversy at a member’s meeting on Friday, seem unlikely to assuage the anger of many members of Europe’s leading organisation for archaeologists, Anger which has led also to statements from other leading international bodies denouncing the EAA’s action.
The new information comes in the form of a timeline published to coincide with the business meeting of the EAA held on Friday evening 5 September.
On 20 August, the EAA says, it received the “demands” of the campaign group Archaeologists Against Apartheid [AAA] in the form of an Open Letter. The letter currently has over fifteen hundred signatories, over five hundred of which are reported to be current or previous members of the EAA.
Faced with a deadline to publish the programme of the annual meeting, two days later on 22 August an ad hoc meeting of the ruling Executive Board of the EAA met and took the decision to require delegates from Israeli institutions to appear in a personal capacity, the same sanction as had been applied to archaeologists from Russia and Belarus after the illegal invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, the EAA says, the Executive Board asked for “advice” about AAA from one statutory and three advisory committees.
However, missing from the timeline is what questions asked of its committees by the Executive Board about Archaeologists Against Apartheid and what was the nature of the advice which was returned?
Between 27 August and 1 September the committees returned advice to the Executive Board, but there is no record the Board asked questions or sought clarifications from AAA as might be expected if it was trying to ground its decision making process in the facts of the case.
Instead on 1 September, what the EAA describes as a “hybrid Executive Board meeting” revised, that is reversed, the decision on the status of the Israeli delegates.
On 2 September, as the academic programme of EAA2025 began, the Executive Board states that it announced its plans for running sessions in the light of a “perceived risk to sessions” from Archaeologists Against Apartheid.
AAA had asked supporters to “take peaceful action” during the conference with the intention of protesting against what were described as the EAA’s “anti-democratic actions” and to continue to hold the EAA accountable.
On 3 September, with the meeting now in full swing, the EAA issued its apology for taking its initial decision in haste and based on inadequate information.
The EAA admits, somewhat euphemistically that this announcement was met with “mixed responses”.
The Executive Board now seemed to be most concerned about the Annual Membership Business Meeting [AMBM], which was due to be held on Friday evening 5 September and which it claimed AAA has sent a circular to supporters encouraging them to “disrupt” the event.
At the AMBM it is reported that, while there was at least one call from the floor for the Executive Board to resign which met with no response, there seemed little willingness by the Board to engage with the issues raised by the handling of the decision on Israeli delegates.
Overall it appears as if the EAA leadership is attempting to present itself as the wronged party, victimised by activists who want to force it into taking up “political” positions which the leadership of the organisations claim are not appropriate.
However, while the letter from Archaeologists Against Apartheid does contain what the authors called “demands”, the letter made it clear that those demands should be seen
in the context of the EAA’s own statement of 2024 regarding Archaeology and Contemporary Society which identified archaeologists and the EAA itself, as being responsible for delivering,
“…more equitable, peaceful, healthy and resilient societies better connected with their cultural heritage” and promoting “social justice and social cohesion”
It is also the case that while the open letter to supporters published by Archaeologists Against Apartheid on 3 September did call for supporters to attend the Friday business meeting to make their voices heard there was no call to disrupt that meeting specifically.
AAA did ask supporters to “use any means necessary to peacefully disrupt the EAA Congress” and also to e-mail Executive Board members, but the letter emphasised that any correspondence should be civil and non aggressive,
“When you are on the right side of history you do not need to use intimidation and aggression.” AAA told its supporters pointedly.
Also missing from the timeline is any detail about the, so called, “protest emails” received by the EAA Executive Board and, allegedly by individual Board members, including the content of the e-mails and particularly who sent them.
It has been alleged that at least some of the e-mails received were intimidatory, even including hints that the EAA could face legal action as a result of its decision.
Earlier the EAA’s own organising committee in Belgrade had also denounced the handling of the issue by the Executive Board stating,
“Members of the local Organising Committee of the Belgrade 2025 AM feel obliged to inform the AM delegates and all the EAA members that we were not consulted, nor officially informed of the decisions reached at the meetings of the EAA Executive Board held on August 22nd and September 1st 2025 prior to their official publication.
Consequently, we did not endorse the instructions sent to the session organizers and the volunteers on September 2nd.”
In a scathing conclusion the Organising Committee added,
“We are well aware that these instructions were revoked in the meantime, but since most of the volunteers are local students, bravely protesting for months and demanding the democratic rights to speak, we consider it particularly inappropriate to assign them the task to assess and/or deny that right to others.”.
Students have been at the centre of political unrest in Serbia, the reason that the Belgrade meeting had been taken on line in the first place and to even consider asking them to police what was said at EAA2025 sessions was another example of the tin eared approach taken by the Executive Board to the matter. Another was the apology describing the decision to ask Israeli delegates to take part as individuals as a “collective punishment” a Crime Against Humanity, while delegates were forbidden from raising the issue of the Crimes Against Humanity of which the Israeli Government is accused in Gaza.
As well as this criticism from within its own organisation, the EAA leadership has also faced criticism from individual members, many threatening boycotts, or resignations, as well as from major national archaeological bodies.
The Portuguese Sindicato dos Trabalhadores de Arqueologia issued a statement with said in part,
“We reject EAA’s censorship and backtracking its decision. Archaeology can and should be a place to think about the modern world, and in the face of the atrocities we are witnessing, it is imperative that we unite against genocide.
STARQ once again shows solidarity with the people of Palestine.”
The Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland [IAI], the all island body for Irish archaeologists, also denounced the decision to reverse the ruling about the terms under which delegates from Israel could take part in the #EAA2025 meeting, stating,
“The IAI Board acknowledges the gross nature of these events and condemns to the highest degree the intimidation and bullying used to reverse the EAA’s initial decision, as well as the president’s decision to allow a revote. We also wish to express solidarity with those Board Members who have suffered as a result of this intimidation.”
The IAA added that it was withdrawing from a session at the Belgrade meeting where its own Chair,.Ros Ó Maoldúin, was co-session organiser, and IAI Public Relations Officer Brigid Melloy was presenting,.
“We want to gratefully acknowledge the time and effort of this session’s organisers and participants. Ultimately, the IAI Board feel it is important to take a stand and speak up on behalf of those who cannot.”
The Institute said.
The EAA has been contacted by e-mail and asked a number of questions arising from its handling of this issue and the responses to the Executive Board’s actions from EAA members. To the time of publication the EAA has not responded.
If you have information about this story, or anything else in the world of archaeology and heritage you think archaeologists and the public should know about, contact thePipeLine in confidence at Proton Mail <PipeLineNews@protonmail.com>
Or via the end-to-end-encrypted App Signal on +44 7958 543518
Featured Image: The destruction caused by the Israeli airstrike of Hassan el-Banna Mosque and the surrounding area, Gaza Strip.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
Photographer: Ashraf Amra
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license.
thePipeLine is free to read and we promise it always will be, but researching the kind of story you have just read costs time and money.
If you think it is important that archaeology and heritage has an independent voice speaking truth to power please buy us a Ko-fi
