Harvard’s Undergraduate Council voted at a March 31 meeting to provide a $2,050 grant toward the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) Israeli Apartheid Week.
The Harvard Crimson reports that the margin of the vote was 21 in favor, 13 against and four abstentions to provide the PSC with the grant. Council Financial Committee Chair Noah Harris said that while the council doesn’t normally provide more than $2,000 in funding, there was a “compelling interest” to fund Israeli Apartheid Week since it addresses “race relations.” The money will go toward the event’s “venue, food and decorations,” per the Crimson.
PSC co-president Christian LaBash told the Crimson after the meeting that the group was happy with the council’s decision because “we have no outside funding, and our main purpose is to uplift the voice of the voiceless.”
One Jewish student, Gabriel Dardik, said at the meeting, “One of the speakers that is slated to come, Omar Barghouti, has said that he supports the euthanasia of Zionism. Really, it makes me feel unsafe that this kind of person could come here.”
PSC will be hosting Israeli Apartheid Week from March 30 to April 4. During Israeli Apartheid Week at Harvard in 2017, the PSC spearheaded an effort to put up faux notices in Harvard dormitories that a resident in the dorm had been indefinitely detained; the PSC later apologized for “any trauma and pain” the notices caused.
