Episode 56: Harvard and and the Zionists

Harvard University in the United States has been embroiled in controversy after the administration cancelled the appointment of former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Human Rights Watch has rendered significant services to US imperialism, regularly providing damning reports on the official enemies of empire, often based on questionable sources. However, the one red line that Human Rights Watch and Ken Roth crossed was the Palestine line. It was said that Roth was refused his appointment due to his "anti-Israel bias."

In 2021, Human Rights Watch joined other liberal organisations to condemn the Zionist entity as practising apartheid in the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza. Oh, how late these bastions of human rights were to recognise the suffering of our people.

The decision to cancel Ken Roth's appointment apparently fell to Doug Elmendorf, the dean of faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School. Elmendorf is also a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The Brookings Institution is funded by the Israel Institute, the US military, and arms companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

The Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution was established by major Israeli military funder Haim Saban.

The fellows there included the former head of Shin Bet, Avi Dicter, and the head of research for Israeli Military Intelligence, Yosef Kupperwasser.

Eventually, following public outcry over Ken Roth, Harvard was seen to reverse its decision to cancel him. Doug Elmendorf writes: "In the case of Mr. Roth, I now believe that I made an error in my decision not to appoint him as a fellow at our Carr Center for Human Rights. I am sorry that the decision inadvertently cast doubt on the mission of the school and our commitment to open debate in ways I had not intended and do not believe to be true.

So all is well that ends well... Or is it?

Ken Roth is far from the first person to be excluded from Harvard on this basis; in fact, US academic Cornel West claims that he was refused tenure at Harvard in 2021 due to the heavily pro-Israel donors at the prestigious university.

It is also reported that the biologist Robert Trivers was disinvited from giving a lecture at Harvard in 2007 following an intervention from a major donor to the university. This donor was none other than convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who is reported by close confidants to have gathered kompromat for Israeli intelligence. Epstein, along with Israel lobbyist Alan Dershowitz, opposed Trivers' visit due to his previous criticism of Israel.

Freedom of speech and even freedom of thought seem to be under threat at Harvard University