The recent high-profile cases of Kenneth Roth and Jim Cavallaro were just the latest anti-Palestinian actions taken against students and scholars who challenge Israeli settler-colonialism.

The use of the word apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians just keeps growing. David Rothkopf, the former editor of Foreign Policy, baldly states that Israel is an apartheid state in a piece published by Haaretz last weekend.

The “demise” of the two state solution has made it untenable not to talk about Israeli apartheid, even inside the Washington establishment.

The broad effort to silence Palestinians and to protect Israel from criticism has been underway for some time. American values are on the line, and American institutions are the battlefield. Yet, the fight over Ken Roth at Harvard shows that these efforts to suppress free speech will only enhance the cause of Palestinian human rights.

Ken Roth was attacked by Israel supporters because he said that Israel’s conduct fosters antisemitism in the west. But he joins a long list of distinguished writers who have said the same, including Hannah Arendt, Nathan Glazer, and Eric Alterman. Glazer warned long ago that Israel’s political dependence on American Jews for immunity over violations of international law could make other Americans “hostile” to American Jews.

Amid widespread criticism, Harvard Kennedy School has reversed its decision to deny Ken Roth a fellowship, but questions remain.

In an interview with the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Ken Roth shares the details of how Harvard denied him a fellowship following donor pressure because he had supervised Human Rights Watch’s report accusing Israel of apartheid.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s brazen move to rescind a fellowship to Kenneth Roth over criticism of Israel is becoming a massive own goal for the institution. Organizations are calling for Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf’s resignation, Roth hitting the interview circuit, and a fresh round of people checking out Human Right Watch’s apartheid report.

Harvard Kennedy School’s Palestinian Alumni Collective is calling for the resignation of Dean Douglas Elmendorf after he rescinded a fellowship to Ken Roth over his Israel criticisms. The group is also calling for Roth, who spent almost thirty years as the executive director of Human Rights Watch, to be reinstated at the school.

An excellent piece in the Nation this week by Michael Massing documents that Ken Roth–the man who affixed the apartheid label on Israel as head of Human Rights Watch in 2021 — lost out on a fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School last year because of his criticism of Israel. Massing quotes Roth and a Kennedy School official saying the offer from a human rights center at the school was withdrawn because of the Israel issue. Then Massing identifies several pro-Israel donors he suggests had influence over the dean, Douglas Elmendorf.

Liberal Zionists Aaron David Miller, Daniel Kurtzer, and Eric Alterman are surely afraid that Israel will be ostracized in the manner that South Africa was due to the Human Rights Watch report finding the crime of apartheid. And their response is, Israel is nothing like South Africa, and cannot be ostracized.