New Harvard faculty and staff coalition demands university cut ties with Israel

Faculty and staff at Harvard University have created a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, and are demanding that the university condemn and reject the state of Israel.

According to the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine was created as a chapter of the national Faculty for Justice in Palestine organization.

The group is demanding that Cambridge, Massachusetts institution condemn what they consider an “unfolding genocide,” also calling on the university to cut ties with Israel.

”We call on the university to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all companies that sustain Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians. As educational workers, we are focused on boycotts of Israeli academic institutions that support apartheid and colonial occupation,” the group wrote in a Jan. 6 statement on its website.

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To date, 67 Harvard faculty and staff members have joined the organization.

”We wholeheartedly reject accusations that critique of the Israeli state is antisemitic,” the statement reads. “We call for the emancipation of all peoples, with liberated futures for both Palestinians and Israelis.”

”We call on the university to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all companies that sustain Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians. As educational workers, we are focused on boycotts of Israeli academic institutions that support apartheid and colonial occupation,” it added.

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Harvard Medical School instructor Lara Jirmanus, who signed the statement, told the Harvard Crimson that the group aims to send a message that “this is the Harvard we want to see.”