By rejecting a fellowship to former Human Rights Watch (HRW) director Kenneth Roth, the dean of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government has besmirched the reputations of both the school and its parent institution. Last year the Kennedy Schools’s Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy offered a post to Roth, who served as HWR chief from 1993-2022 and was preparing to write a book about his experiences in this post. While the Carr Centre believed Roth would be approved as a he was a “good fit,” Kennedy School dean Douglas Elmendorf turned down the appointment.

Roth told The Nation that during an interview for the fellowship, Elmendorf asked if he had any enemies. Roth replied, “That’s what I do, I make enemies.” All human rights defenders “make enemies.” This is a hazard of the job. Although Roth and HRW have alienated many leaders and multiple governments, Roth added, “But I knew what he was driving at. It’s always Israel.”

According to an article in The Nation, Elmendorf told Kathryn Sikkink of the Kennedy School he rejected the application because HRW and Roth have “an anti-Israel bias.” Roth told Reuters he thought the dean did not want to alienate wealthy pro-Israel donors.”

Whatever the reason for Elmendorf’s decision, Roth urged the Kennedy School to “reaffirm its commitment to academic freedom.” So far, the Kennedy School has not given a credible explanation for excluding Roth and has not recommitted to “academic freedom.”

The backlash has been fierce. Scores of alumni, academics, and student groups have sent letters to Harvard’s president demanding Elmendorf’s resignation and a fellowship for Roth. Pro-Israel groups have welcomed Roth’s exclusion and accused him of antisemitism. In response, Roth told London-based Middle East Eye that this was impossible: “My father was Jewish and fled the Nazis. My mother was Jewish. I’m 100 per cent Jewish.”

The Kennedy School is heir of the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration which was founded in 1936 by Lucius Littauer, a Harvard alumnus, wealthy businessman and former Congressman. In 1966, it was renamed for President John Kennedy, a Harvard graduate, who was assassinated in 1963. Elmendorf became dean in 2015.

Harvard Kennedy School, which has 14 study centres, has been ranked among the top global public policy graduate schools. However, finding funding for this array of diverse centres can be difficult and the School has an endowment of only $1.7 billion. This could make the School sensitive to the wishes of donors, particularly large donors.

After being rejected by the Kennedy School, Roth accepted a visiting fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s crazy,” he asked in his interview with The Nation, “You have this human rights centre. Who is better qualified than me?”

US pro-Israel lobby groups and individuals have accused HRW, Amnesty International, and other human rights bodies of anti-Israel reporting and, recently, falsely charging Israel with adopting a policy “apartheid” toward Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Apartheid, racial separation leading to white supremacy, was practiced for generations in South Africa, enacted into law in 1948 and outlawed as a crime against humanity by the UN General Assembly in 1966. The apartheid laws were revoked by South Africa in 1991 and banished between 1992-1993.

While HRW and Amnesty International — the most prominent of the international human rights organisations — and Un bodies concluded Israel practices apartheid, they did not make this charge until after Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem issued its landmark report on Jan.12, 2021.

In this document, “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid,”  B’Tselem described in detail the two very different Israeli legal regimes applied for half a century to Israeli settlers and Palestinian inhabitants of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. B’Tselem argued that this strategy aims at: “advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group, Jews over another, Palestinians.” B’Tselem also concluded that this strategy is being applied in Israel’s treatment of Palestinian citizen of Israel.

The term “apartheid” was first applied to Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian citizens by none other than South African Prime Hendrik Verwoerd in 1961 before Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Since then, Israel was charged with practicing apartheid by Western liberals, Israeli peaceniks, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the Popular Front.

In 2007, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard, a South African professor of international law, wrote: “elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid” and proposed that the case of Palestine should be submitted to the International Court of Justice. However, the application of apartheid to Israel did not become widespread because of Israeli and Western rejection of this accusation. Once B’Tselm defied the taboo others quickly joined in.

On April 27, 2021, HRW issued a 213-page report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” Amnesty issued a report on Feb.1, 2022, entitled, “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: A look into decades of oppression and domination.”

On March 25, 2022, UN rapporteur Michael Lynk addressed a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on the topic of apartheid. This was entitled, “Israel Has Imposed Upon Palestine an Apartheid Reality in a Post-apartheid World.” Lynk hit the nail on the head. Israel has been operating an obsolete system in a world which regards apartheid as “a crime against humanity.” By turning down a fellowship for Roth, Kennedy School dean Elmendorf has shown he is behind the times and has shamed the School and Harvard, which have been expected to uphold the highest standards of academic freedom.

Thanks to courageous B’Tselem, accusations of “apartheid” levelled at Israel have become mainstream despite pro-Israeli influencers’ rear-guard campaign to deny the charge.  Meanwhile, Israel is mired in a struggle for control of the state waged by hard-line right-wing supremacist and religious Zionists against secular Israelis.

Photo: AFP