Members of the European Association of Archaeologists [EAA] are due to come together today [9 January 2026] at 14.00 CET in an attempt to resolve the issues which overshadowed Annual Meeting of the academic body for European Archaeology hosted in Belgrade in September [2025]. The Special Meeting has been called in response to a petition by members dissatisfied with the way the organisation’s President Eszter Banffy, and Executive Board responded first to member concerns over the organisation’s
stance, or lack of one, over the Israel/Gaza conflict which was then at its height, and then anger at allegations [covered in thePipeLine] that elements of the leadership had set out to undermine democracy and accountability within the body. However, evidence of bitter divisions within the EAA suggests that finding a solution to the controversy will not be easy and actions and errors by the EAA leadership may not only have promoted distrust among some EAA members, but could have also exposed the organisation to legal risks.
The meeting, which is is scheduled to last three hours, is set to discuss four main areas defined in response to the controversy which arose at the Annual Meeting in September 2025 and subsequently.
1. A discussion of the removal of Israeli institutions (not individual members) from participating in the EAA. That is the action which was proposed ahead of the Annual Meeting in Belgrade and is the core issue, with groups critical of the EA leadership’s stance such as the Black Trowel Collective and Archaeologists against Apartheid, arguing that it is an ethical imperative for archaeologists to take a clear stand against the actions of the Government of Israel in Gaza and the Occupied territories, on both heritage and human rights grounds, while their opponents claim such a move is antisemitic and a politicisation of the EAA.
2. A discussion of the events which occurred before, during and after the Annual Meeting in Belgrade.
This opens up a discussion of the way the leadership of the EAA, in particularly its President and Executive Board, handled the motion, first approved then rescinded, to require members from Israeli institutions to appear at the EAA Annual Meeting as individuals. This included an apparent campaign encouraged by President Banffy and people close to her, to lobby the Executive Board to back track in a way which, it was argued, was not just undemocratic, but which, some Board members claimed, amounted to bullying.
3. Discussion, voting and adoption of a firm statement condemning the ongoing genocide and the destruction of heritage, schools and universities and the killing of scholars and students in Palestine.
Again critics of the motion claim this action could be seen as antisemitic and any publication of such a policy on the EAA website could lay the organisation open to accusations of publishing hate speech. Proponents of the move respond to this accusation by arguing that comments critical of a Government which do not mention ethnicity or religious affiliations are protected under freedom of speech and human rights law.
4. A discussion of the ‘concernedeaa’ motions of 7 October and Statutes amendments proposed on 18 November 2025.
The motion is designed to deal with the Israel/Gaza policy and also introduce changes to the rules of the EAA which proponents claim offer a “broad tent’ case for freedom of expression and accountable representation.
As a measure as to just how bitter the discussion is likely to be, on 6 January this website was was copied in to an email thread originated by a UK based archaeologist, which included a copy of an an e-mail dated 10 December 2025 sent to EAA President Eszter Banffy.
The e-mail stated this website was included in the distribution on account of our earlier reporting of the issue during and after the Belgrade meeting in September 2025.
Claiming that,
“The proposed Motion (apparently deriving from an anonymous email dated October 7th 2025, the anniversary of the Hamas invasion and massacre) is procedurally out of order.”
The email also contained this threat to attempt to widen the controversy by seeking to involve the UK, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists [CIfA] if the decision, in the senders view, went the wrong way.
“If the EAA Board does not take action to correct this now,” the author stated, “then we’ll be minded to go to the CIfA Board, and ask CIFA to publicly condemn the EAA Board for promoting hateful antisemitic provocation.
We may further suggest that all the current EAA Board who supported putting this out of order Motion to the Members for voting, should immediately resign.”
The calls for resignations did not stop there.
Anticipating that the critical motion could well pass on a low turn out, the author of the e-mail concluded,
“If the EAA ends up with an ignorant, hate-motivated discriminatory policy displayed on its website, the EAA Board will be fully accountable for letting this happen.
Eszter [EAA President Eszter Banffy], if I may, I’d like to suggest that if it does happen that the Motion passes, then you should resign straight after, and do so very publicly.”
Supporters of the EAA taking action over Gaza and the Occupied Territories, and in their view, democratising and ensuring the accountability to members of the EAA’s leadership, are tabling a threat of their own.
An e-mail sent to supporters in the name of the campaign groups trying to change the EAA’s Israel/Gaza policy, ConcernedEAA, Archaeologists Against Apartheid, the Black Trowel Collective and BDS Greece on 7 January, stated that they hoped to see a fair discussion in a safe space which upheld democratic values,
“However,” the e-mail stated, “if it becomes clear during the special meeting [on 9 January] that these values are not respected or honoured, we see no other option than to proceed with a call for boycotting Athens2026, withdrawing sessions, talks, and memberships.”
Athens 2026 is the next Annual Meeting of the EAA.
The same e-mail also carried an accusation which, if proven, could represent an even more substantial risk to the EAA leadership and to the organisation as a whole.
It is alleged that ahead of the 9 January meeting, during late December 2025, the leadership of the EAA deliberately published the names and membership identifications of signatories of the petition which led to the critical motion. That is an action which, critics of the leadership say, looks a lot like doxing, the deliberate leaking of personal information on-line with negative intent and the e-mail claims,
“The publication of this list represents reckless disregard for members’ security and retaliation risks from institutions and bad actors, and it constitutes a severe potential violation of GDPR.”
They wanted to identify publicly the “bad ones” the trouble makers, one member told us.
Worryingly, in an echo of the bitter exchanges in September 2025, the e-mail also claimed,
“It has come to our attention that individual signatories of the petition have already received harassing emails with accusations of potential hate crimes.”
As anyone who has ever been required to work on GDPR compliance knows, privacy and digital security laws within the European Union are famously strong and breaches of those laws can be very expensive.
At least one member the EAA who has been affected by the apparent privacy breach, who thePipeLine has contacted, told us that they were considering seeking legal advice on the matter.
However, while the discussion on 9 January will be inevitably fraught, with passionately held and expressed views and legal risk to both sides, the 9 January meeting itself cannot offer a resolution to the controversy.
The Leadership of the EAA has made clear that any vote on substantive matters will be Per Rollem, “by letter”, that is a mechanism under Czech Law, by which the EAA operates, allowing for a vote in writing or another technical means such as an electronic vote. That cannot happen on 9 January.
Meanwhile, while the EAA continues to look in on itself, any suggestion that it can promote an archaeology free of politics seems likely to be doomed by events in any case.
Critics point out that as recently as 31 December [2025] the Times of Israel reported that a new draft Antiquities Bill had been introduced to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, which would transfer authority for archaeological sites in two areas of the Occupied West Bank, defined in the Oslo Accords and governed by the increasingly internationally recognised State of Palestine, to a new civilian body controlled by the Israeli Government. An act which would likely be contrary to International Law.
Seen by its critics as an attempt at a de facto annexation of the archaeology of the Occupied West Bank, with the intention of placing a further obstacle in the way of a negotiated two state solution to the six decades long occupation, the Bill is so contentious that even the Israeli Antiquities Authority has opposed it, along with, the paper claimed, “nearly every ” professional archaeologist in Israel.
Adding fuel to the archaeological fire which has extended far outside of the borders of Israel and the Occupied Territories, the paper added that the main proponent of the Bill, Amit Halevi MK, who is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, had requested that the new law be applied also to Gaza.
Lead Image: Damage to a mosque in Gaza 20 February 2025: Jaber Jehad Badwan,
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