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Harvard extends fellowship offer to leading Israel critic Ken Roth after weeks of controversy
(JTA) – Harvard University will extend a fellowship offer to former Human Rights Watch Director Ken Roth after previously rejecting him over his past comments on Israel, capping weeks of controversy that ensnared the Ivy League school in a global debate about academic freedom and criticism of Israel.
In an open letter Thursday, Harvard Kennedy School dean Douglas Elmendorf said his previous decision not to offer the fellowship to Roth had been an “error,” and that “the broader faculty input I have now sought and received has persuaded me that my decision was not the best one for the School.”
The school’s Carr Center for Human Rights had been in talks with Roth to take a fellowship shortly after he resigned from his position as Human Rights Watch’s director last year. Roth had held the role since 1993. Elmendorf initially vetoed the Carr Center’s decision to offer Roth the fellowship, and an affiliated professor told The Nation, the progressive magazine, that she had been told Roth’s “anti-Israel bias” was the reason.
Human Rights Watch tracks human rights abuses around the world. Roth’s critics — including Human Rights Watch’s Jewish co-founder, Robert Bernstein — alleged that the group was spending a disproportionate amount of its time and resources on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians under his leadership. A year before Roth left, the organization released a landmark report condemning Israel as an “apartheid” state for the first time.
Roth, whose father was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, also frequently tweets criticism of Israel that his critics say sometimes veers into antisemitism.
The report in The Nation, and Roth’s own account of the incident in The Guardian, set off a firestorm as the Harvard community, alongside pro-Palestinian groups and academic free-speech organizations, strongly opposed the school’s decision and called on it to reverse course.
“Withholding Roth’s participation in a human rights program due to his own staunch critiques of human rights abuses by governments worldwide raises serious questions about the credibility of the Harvard program itself,” PEN America said in a statement. The group’s CEO was an executive at HRW under Roth.
More than 1,000 Harvard students, faculty and alumni signed an open letter calling for Elmendorf’s resignation.
Meanwhile, some pro-Israel figures, including an executive at Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and a student activist at Harvard, had defended the dean’s decision to turn down Roth.
In one notable comment, Lawrence Summers, the Jewish former Harvard president and former U.S. treasury secretary with strongly pro-Israel views, also criticized the school’s decision.
“I loathe Ken Roth’s views on Israel and think some of his statements border on antisemitic,” Summers wrote in a series of tweets. But, he added, “preventing a human rights center from having the fmr head of a leading human rights center as a visiting fellow on grounds of the person’s views/modes of expression is not consistent w/profound commitment to intellectual diversity that should be a bedrock value in universities.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, objected to another element of The Nation’s report. The story, Greenblatt said, “concocts a conspiracy theory” that the dean’s decision had been swayed by a number of Israeli donors to the Kennedy School.
“It’s a textbook case of classic antisemitism: It’s not the leadership of the Kennedy School that made this decision, oh no,” Greenblatt wrote in an op-ed. “It’s the powerful and monied Jewish elite that really influences things behind the scenes.”
Through a spokesperson, Elmendorf declined an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week. In his letter to the school Thursday, he said his decision on Roth “was based on my evaluation of his potential contributions to the School.”
In a statement Thursday responding to the decision, Roth seemed to indicate he would accept the fellowship offer. “I have long felt that the Carr Center, and the Kennedy School, would be a congenial place for me to work on the book that I am writing. I look forward to spending time there with colleagues and students,” he wrote.
But Roth continued to criticize Elmendorf and said “I remain worried about academic freedom… The problem of people penalized for criticizing Israel is not limited to me, and most scholars and students have no comparable capacity to mobilize public attention.”
NGO Monitor, an Israeli nonprofit that acts as a watchdog of Israel criticism among NGOs, condemned Harvard’s reversal.
“In 30 years as head of Human Rights Watch, Roth has consistently singled-out Israel uniquely for demonization and delegitimization, using numerous false and distorted claims. These campaigns contributed significantly to antisemitism, and added to the targeting of Jewish students on university campuses,” the group wrote in a statement on Thursday.
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Michigan’s El-Sayed doubles down: Israel ‘not an ally’
(JTA) — Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, is doubling down on his view that Israel is not a U.S. ally as the Nov. 3 midterm elections draw closer.
El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel who faces former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in one of the country’s most competitive Senate races, told ABC News on Monday that Israel is “not actually our friend.”
“An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally,” said El-Sayed, referencing Israel’s reported lobbying of the United States to enter into a war with Iran.
He compared Israel with a friend who “keeps bumming off [your kid’s] money” and “talks about them behind their back and then gets them into fights with other friends.”
“What would you tell your kid to do with that friend? You’d probably tell them, maybe it’s not actually your friend,” he said.
El-Sayed made similar remarks in an interview with MS NOW on Thursday, saying that “the government of Israel has done nothing but use us” and “has done terrible things with our money.”
He added that he would continue to question whether Israel was an ally regardless of the outcome of Israel’s election on Oct. 27, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served as Israel’s leader for most of the past 18 years, seeks another term.
“Netanyahu is one part of it, but the Israeli military has done heinous things, like heinous things, full war crimes, genocide,” said El-Sayed. “So I think we got to just get serious about whether or not we as a country should be subsidizing that government.”
El-Sayed previously affirmed that he does not consider Israel an ally to the United States in his first bitter debate with Rogers on Oct. 8. The candidates will meet for a final debate on Wednesday.
He told MS NOW that he was “committed to the safety and security” of Jewish voters, some of whom have pressured him to moderate his views on Israel. “Now, we may have differences when it comes to Israel, but the things that unite us are a lot bigger,” he said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Michigan’s El-Sayed doubles down: Israel ‘not an ally’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump endorsement of Netanyahu blasted by liberal policy advocates, Democrats
(JTA) — A day after President Donald Trump endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli election eight days from now, U.S. policy analysts, Democratic lawmakers and liberal advocacy groups slammed the decision.
Trump announced his support for Netanyahu, who is running for reelection, in a Sunday Truth Social post that described the Israeli leader as “a Great Warrior Prime Minister” and a critical partner in eliminating the Iranian threat. Netanyahu has been trailing former IDF chief-of-staff Gadi Eisenkot in recent surveys.
Tali deGroot, vice president of political and digital strategy for the liberal Zionist group J Street, described Trump’s declaration as “an endorsement of endless war for Israelis,” in a statement sent to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. She warned of “endless occupation and control of Palestinian life and land, and Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage.”
“The president is once again acting against the wishes of American taxpayers and choosing to uphold a failed, unpopular foreign policy that has brought devastation to Israelis, Palestinians and countless civilians,” deGroot added.
A spokesperson for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, meanwhile, said that the lobby had no comment about the endorsement.
David Makovsky, director of the Program on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, criticized Trump’s decision, writing on X that “in one fell swoop, Trump has broken with the longstanding U.S. practice of avoiding explicit endorsements in Israeli elections.” The president, Makovsky added, went a step further by threatening to sever a partnership against Iran if Israelis choose a different leader.
“It is up to the Israeli people to choose their own leader and threatening that the U.S. will walk away from the conflict with Iran is beyond stunning,” Makovksy said.
Makovsky also pointed out that “a Trump endorsement is no electoral guarantee,” noting that Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s support for Viktor Orbán in Hungary did not end in a victory.
“The ultimate test is assembling a 61-seat Knesset majority,” Makovsky added. “Yet Netanyahu appears more focused on preventing an Eisenkot-led coalition from reaching that threshold than on demonstrating a viable path to 61 seats himself.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, offered another scathing perspective, observing that “authoritarians of a feather flock together.”
“They started a war together,” Van Hollen stated. “They crack down on press freedom together. They lie about everything together.”
Rep. Analilia Mejia, a New Jersey Democrat running for reelection, said that the endorsement “tells us everything we need to know about both of these men.” She then went on to list Netanyahu, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that “this guy has a ‘type.’”
On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican from Florida, reposted a video in which Netanyahu thanked Trump for his support. The congressman then added that “America will always stand with the Jewish State of Israel and our dear friend Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has championed our alliance for decades.”
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said he believes that “President Trump is incredibly popular with the people of Israel,” in a written statement to JTA.
“His support will carry considerable weight as Israelis make their choice for Prime Minister in a pivotal election this month,” Brooks added.
American Orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach likewise celebrated the endorsement “by our great President Trump,” writing on X that he has “known and loved BIBI Netanyahu for some 35 years.”
Conservative radio personality Mark Levin described Trump’s Truth Social post as “an extraordinarily strong statement,” while accusing the opposition of “barking about election interference.”
“Trump makes clear it’s also in our national security interest for Netanyahu to remain PM,” Levin stated, calling complaints “unserious and a partisan political whine.”
Conservative influencer Evan Kilgore, on the other hand, fumed at Trump’s decision. Kilgore, whose X profile says “Christ is King,” announced that he is “so done with the GOP,” following Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu. Kilgore described Trump as “TOTALLY fu*king subverted by Jewish and Zionist interests.”
Political analysts are divided as to whether Trump’s official support would have any sway on the results of an election 6,000 miles away.
Joyce Karam, editor-in-chief of the Washington-based site Al-Monitor, described the endorsement as a signal to both Israel and Iran that renewed escalation and a push for regime collapse could occur after the U.S. midterm elections. She also predicted that Trump’s backing could tip the balance in a tight race where neither side holds a majority.
However, Dov Waxman, director of the Israel Studies program at the University of California, Los Angeles, expressed doubt that support from Trump, who has become less popular in Israel, could significantly influence Netanyahu’s election chances.
“For a long time, most polls have shown his bloc falling well short of a parliamentary majority,” Waxman added.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Trump endorsement of Netanyahu blasted by liberal policy advocates, Democrats appeared first on The Forward.
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Macklemore’s ‘Free Palestine’ tour will benefit group that called Oct. 7 a ‘prison break’
(JTA) — Macklemore, the rapper of hits such as “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us,” is facing backlash from Jewish organizations over plans to donate proceeds from his forthcoming concert tour to the Palestinian Youth Movement, which described the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel as a “prison break.”
The rapper was dropped on Sept. 14 from an opening slot on Ed Sheeran’s U.S. stadium tour after making pro-Palestinian remarks onstage. He announced his “Free Palestine” tour on Sept. 24, pledging that all proceeds would benefit organizations supporting Palestinians. PYM is among 12 organizations named as beneficiaries.
The tour includes concerts in Dublin on Oct. 26, Paris on Oct. 29 and London on Oct. 30.
Macklemore received a surge of support after being dropped from Sheeran’s tour, with all of Sheeran’s remaining opening acts quitting in solidarity. He said on Instagram that the “Free Palestine” tour “sold out immediately.”
PYM is a grassroots movement of Palestinian and Arab youth in the United States, Canada and Britain. On Oct. 7, 2024, the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks, the group described the assault as a “prison break” and called the fighters “the men who broke through” in an essay published in The New Inquiry.
“Those fighters had trained for months, and now found themselves stepping foot onto the same hills and plains that their grandfathers and grandmothers had lived upon,” said PYM, without mentioning the killing and abduction of Israeli civilians.
PYM also said a week after the attacks, “Understand Palestinian resistance as fundamentally just and as a means of survival for our people; it will not stop in the weeks and months to come, and you must be prepared not to waver again.”
Jewish and pro-Israel groups have slammed Macklemore for supporting PYM. The Jewish Leadership Council, which represents British Jewish and pro-Israel groups, told The Jewish Chronicle, “When the PYM describes the 7 October massacre as a ‘prison break’, it risks legitimizing violence against Jews.”
The Israeli-American Council, which petitioned Sheeran to drop Macklemore, told Fox News Digital that “Live Nation and the concert organizers must now publicly explain their vetting process and ensure that concert proceeds do not benefit organizations that justify violence against innocent civilians.”
Macklemore, Live Nation and the Palestinian Youth Movement did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Macklemore’s ‘Free Palestine’ tour will benefit group that called Oct. 7 a ‘prison break’ appeared first on The Forward.
