
Former HRW Head Denied Harvard Fellowship Over His “Anti-Israel Bias”
Former Human Rights Watch (HRW) Executive Director Kenneth Roth was a denied a fellowship position at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government over his “anti-Israel bias.”
The Nation reported on January 5 that Roth was offered the position by Kennedy School Carr Center for Public Policy Executive Director Sushma Raman in May and Roth accepted it the following month. However, Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf overruled the in July, concluding that Roth’s tweets showed that he is biased against Israel. Roth, now a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Nation that Elmendorf has “no backbone whatsoever.” The school told The Nation that they “do not discuss our deliberations about individuals who may be under consideration” for such positions.
Education Dept. Delays Regulation Codifying IHRA for a Year
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced on January 4 that they are delaying a regulation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for civil rights investigations for at least another year.
The Algemeiner and Politico both reported on the delay of the regulation, but noted that OCR Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Catherine Lhamon wrote in a letter that “the rise in reports of anti-Semitic incidents, including at schools, underscores of addressing discrimination based on shared ancestry and characteristics.”
Kenneth L. Marcus, who founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and served as the Assistant Education Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights during the Trump administration, told Politico that while he was “disappointed” at the delay, he was “pleased” that Lhamon is utilizing the “bully pulpit” to fight antisemitism on campuses.
SFSU Prof Rabab Abdulhadi Wins Middle East Studies Award
San Francisco State University (SFSU) Professor Rabab Abdulhadi was a co-recipient of the Middle East Studies Association’s (MESA) 2022 Jere L. Bacharach Service Award on December 2.
MESA’s website lauded Abdulhadi’s for “her deep commitment to Palestinian Studies, in relation to not only gender, sexuality, feminist, and queer studies, but also others.” The Canary Mission watchdog noted in a January 8 press release that Abdulhadi had attempted to hold a webinar featuring former Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) member Leila Khaled in 2020 on Zoom that was ultimately deplatformed. Canary Mission also noted in a January 9 Twitter thread that Abdulhadi once said that SFSU welcoming Zionists to campus was a “declaration of war against Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians.” “The award says as much about @MESA_1966 as it does about @AbdulhadiRabab,” Canary Mission tweeted.
Canary Mission Report Says SFSU Palestinian Org Is “a Generator of Anti-Semitism”
Canary Mission released a report on January 9 stating that SFSU’s General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) “has been a generator of anti-Semitism” since its inception in 1973.
The report stated that GUPS SFSU was part of an international organization headed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and has since had a “long history of promoting and supporting terrorism.” Recent examples include tweeting “rest in peace to our martyrs” after Israel launched strikes against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in 2019 and praising Leila Khaled as being “a fierce woman resisting colonial powers and oppression.”
Additionally, the report noted that GUPS SFSU had a couple of social media posts in 2019 warning against the normalization of Zionism, stating: “Zionism is NOT allowed on our campus!” Abdulhadi is a faculty advisor to GUPS.
Rutgers SJP Hosts Panel Calling for Universities to Divest from “Israeli Apartheid”
Rutgers University New Brunswick’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter cohosted an event on November 18 titled “Divestment From Israeli Apartheid At The University Level.”
Walter Holzberg, Campus Advisor for CAMERA on Campus, wrote in a January 2 op-ed for The Algemeiner that one of the panelists falsely alleged “that Israel appropriates Palestinian water in the West Bank and destroys water infrastructure; that Israel has laws dictating where Arabs can and cannot live; and that Israel constructed segregated roads in the West Bank” and another called Israel “a white supremacist effort in its inception.” Panelists also argued that Israel was engaging “pinkwashing,” the allegation that Israel touts their record of gay rights to hide their violations of Palestinian rights.
“Panels like this only further contribute to Rutgers’ reputation for being a hostile campus for Jewish students,” Holzberg wrote. “Since this event, the SJP chapter at Rutgers has called for retracting the IHRA definition of antisemitism; yet another attempt to marginalize Jewish voices.”