JTA — For years, the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper at Harvard University, has refused to support the movement to boycott Israel, despite expressing concern about Israeli policies and supporting Harvard student groups’ right to free speech and pleadings for a boycott.
That changed on Friday, when the newspaper ran an unsigned editorial in which it gave full-bodied support to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a powerful symbol of a changing campus climate across Israel.
The editorial also expressed support for Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group that hosted the school chapter of the annual international event, Israel Apartheid Week, last week.
“We are proud to finally support both Palestinian liberation and BDS — and we call on everyone to do the same,” the Crimson editors wrote.
It was a notable departure from the newspaper’s history of opposing BDS, which the board quoted in its editorial. In 2020, the Crimson was still ambivalent.
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“In the past, our board has been skeptical of the movement (if not its goals in general), arguing that BDS as a whole ‘failed to grasp the nuances and specifics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,'” the editorial said. “We regret and reject this view.”
What has changed, the Crimson editors said, is “the weight of this moment – of Israel’s human rights and international law violations and of Palestine’s cry for freedom.”
While previous Crimson editors had called comparisons between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa “offensive” and “repugnant,” the editorial published Friday positively compares BDS tactics to the anti-apartheid movement, adding that ” Israel remains America’s favorite First Amendment blind spot. because individuals and companies who criticize Israel regularly face criticism and consequences, sometimes dictated by state laws.
Students walk near the Widener Library at Harvard University’s Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Aug. 13, 2019. (AP/Charles Krupa, file)
Crimson’s endorsement, which comes from the oldest continuously published campus newspaper in the United States, at the country’s most selective college, is sure to fuel concerns among pro-Israel advocates that college campuses are inhospitable to pro-Israel students . Pro-Palestinian advocacy is common on campus, and last year 11 student governments passed BDS resolutions, out of 17 that were considered.
Like both Republican and Democratic leaders, Jewish groups across the political spectrum oppose the BDS movement initiated by Palestinian activists because they say its opposition to the very existence of Israel is dangerous to Jews. The supporter of a BDS resolution in Burlington, Vermont, withdrew the proposal last year after becoming convinced the movement was contributing to anti-Semitism; it would have been the first American city to pass such a resolution.
The newspaper also recognized the campus activism of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which this week included a “Wall of Resistance” installation at Harvard Yard; campus visits by controversial Jewish pro-Palestinian academic activists Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein (the latter opposed to BDS); and social justice panel discussions on Black Palestinian Solidarity and Queer Palestinians[s].”
As with most newspapers, the Crimson’s editorial board is separate from the news department. Its nearly 90 members meet three times a week to debate and decide positions to be taken, and editorials reflect a majority opinion but not full consensus, the site says.
On the news side, the current Crimson team has at least one Jewish editor: news editor Natalie Kahn, who is also Harvard Hillel’s student president. In her capacity at Hillel, Kahn was quoted in the Crimson criticizing the wall installation, calling it “disgusting” and helping organize a “Stand with Israel Rally” on campus to oppose it.
A view of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons)
The editorial said the board did not believe the “Wall of Resistance” represented anti-Semitism. “We unequivocally reject and condemn anti-Semitism in any form,” the editorial said.
Neither the Crimson’s nor Kahn’s editors had responded to inquiries from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as of press time.
Former Jewish Crimson contributors and editors have included current US Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Attorney General Merrick Garland; journalists Yair Rosenberg and Irin Carmon; and former CNN President Jeff Zucker.
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