My generation still can’t discuss Palestine, but thankfully we no longer control the debate

For weeks leading up to my 50^th reunion at Harvard in early June, I was filled with dread, despite my best efforts to drain it. I bought a new jacket. I sent notes of apology to classmates to whom I’d been an ass in years gone by. I sent a letter to the Harvard president, who would be addressing us, about comments he’d made on Palestinian solidarity.   

My chief anxiety was that I’d lose it over status issues. Of course, anyone who went to Harvard cares about status, myself included. But my work on Palestine has never counted in official culture, only been an embarrassment, and I worried that I’d get thrown by some way-more-successful classmate sermonizing about Israel, and I’d get angry and mean. 

I wrote mantras on a card and tucked it into the jacket. “You can say anything if you say it nicely.” “You won! Don’t punch anybody.” 

I relaxed once I got there. I saw a lot of people I really like. The status competition was greatly reduced at age 70+, when 10 percent of our class had died, including the editor who named this site. (More than a quarter of the general population has died at this age– another reward of privilege.) 

The highlight of the reunion was a classmate streaking a panel. The same guy had streaked the same hall 50 years ago! Stupendous. My old friend Nick Lemann turned to a student panelist and said, “We had a lot of fun in the ‘70s.” 

That was the power panel. It was about AI and education. Lemann was the most ethical voice on stage. The others were pretty much all-but full steam ahead. The moderator had worked at Google and was an enthusiast. He claimed that the panel showed diversity, though he’d assembled five men. After an hour, a woman professor in the audience stood up to ask about the environmental damage of data centers (finally), and the Harvard College dean, a panelist, brushed her off with an explanation of how many seconds it would take to power a light bulb at the wattage of one ChatGPT search. Later, I looked this up, and it’s an industry talking point. Harvard at its worst. 

The star of the AI panel was pollster Mark Penn, who is no doubt a genius. I liked him a lot in college. An immigrant’s son, he’s big and slouchy, with a sly, sincere smile and a good sense of humor. For instance, he said that the two competing visions of the future when we were young, the Jetsons and Star Wars, both failed to see the power of social media. Penn said that social media is corrupting the political discourse. He also said that AI was like calculators. People got upset about calculators. Now students bring them into exams.  

Penn is a big Zionist. He left Harvard to go work for Menachem Begin, the former terrorist who became Israel’s first non-Labor PM in 1977. He was accompanied at the reunion by his wife, Nancy Jacobson. She leads No Labels, a lobby group that is aimed at keeping both political parties aligned with Israel. In his report to our class, Penn bragged that his son had served in the IDF. Who brags about the IDF these days? The star of the Harvard reunion, that’s who. 

Zionism is a positive force in the establishment. For all the insurgent politics in the U.S. over the Gaza genocide, Palestine simply could not be addressed by my classmates. There were groups and panels on many other subjects, including Religion, Global Warming, and civic engagement. Nothing about the country that has lately helped push our country into a senseless and hateful war. So—one of the great moral crises of recent American history—utter silence in an institution that prides itself on intellectual supremacy and leadership. And there is plenty of evidence that Harvard is censoring pro-Palestinian voices. 

A few classmates thanked me for my work on the issue, but the only mention of Israel or Palestine at official events was when Harvard president Alan Garber addressed us. Garber is very appealing. He’s from Rock Island, Illinois, and is low-key and self-deprecating. Some classmates criticized his stretched-leg posture. I liked it. In his speech, Garber spoke of antisemitism, but also anti-Palestinian prejudice. I was thankful for the equity– though he also noted that he had gone to Israel as a high school student.

I’d written to Garber because of comments he made in April at the 92d Street Y in New York (a pro-Israel organization). Asked how he felt about the Middle East politics being a Jewish president, Garber deplored students’ ignorance, then singled out an anti-Zionist:

“Because I knew a lot of history of the Middle East, I was just very disappointed to see that students who had very, very strong views were really ignorant. I found it quite astounding when I heard recently from a rabbi that a Jewish student told the rabbi they were an anti-Zionist. And the rabbi asked him well, why do you think you’re an anti Zionist? And the student said, ‘Because I believe in a two-state solution, I can’t be a Zionist.’ Of course, that probably describes the median Israeli pre-October 7, believing in a two-state solution. And that’s students who you think would be better informed than usual. So if you are going to have strong views about an issue, I would hope that at a university, you would have the curiosity to learn the facts.” 

Donald Johnson sent me the comments and called them patronizing: 

“Here you have a guy claiming that Israel on October 6 was basically liberal Zionist, when in fact it was an apartheid state that had massacred protesters in 2018. This is what has always annoyed me about liberal Zionists, they try to occupy the moral and intellectual high ground, even after it is beyond obvious that Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide and addicted to war. Whatever one thinks of the two-state solution, most liberal Zionists use it as a fig leaf and have never favored putting any pressure on Israel. They just want to say ‘Support Israel, they want peace and mean well.’  It is purely and simply public relations.” 

I wrote to Garber and said that some Jews in his audience were anti-Zionist for very good reason. I’d been there many times and needed to bear witness to apartheid. 

The reunion could have had a lively debate over these politics. My class includes several Jews who have been highly critical of Israel, including Maud Lavin, Amy Wilentz, and Beth Stephens. Beth is a leading human rights lawyer. She put the words “Gaza genocide” into her report to the class.  

Beth should have been on a stage making that case. Harvard just can’t hear a word on the subject. It really is the Emperor’s new clothes, with a streaker.

I see this through a Jewish lens. When my Jewish friends and I came to Harvard, we felt like outsiders. After we left, it was clear that Jews were assuming influential positions. One thing we did with that power was build political organizations that made sure that Israel could get away with slaughtering families in Gaza and Lebanon, for as long as it wants. 

The next generation of Jews is revolting against these institutions. In a new poll, more than half of non-Orthodox Jews under 35 are against the existence of a Jewish state, a shocking and wonderful development. My Harvard class hasn’t gotten the news. 

OK, but how did it go with my mantras? 

Mostly, they worked. I had a great time. I saw people I loved and admired. Harvard Yard is an astonishing place for many reasons, not least the elms, but among them, it is a cradle to wonderful minds. I reunited with some of those people, and retouched the ideals of my youth. 

I only lost it once. At breakfast on the last day, a friend said that he was reading “Exodus, that’s a good thing,” and I snapped, “No, it isn’t, it’s Zionist propaganda.” He was shocked. Then it came out that he meant the Book of Exodus, not Leon Uris’s fantasy. Yeesh! I later apologized. 

Later, I realized that some of my classmates were scared of me. I felt bad about that for a while. Then I thought, well, I can’t stop saying what I know, that Jewish nationalism has turned out to be a disaster for Palestinians, Jews, and the human race. I’m just trying to say it nicely. 

Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is the founder and senior editor of Mondoweiss.