It is heartbreaking to read of the dean of the Kennedy School reversing course to admit the head of Human Rights Watch as a fellow. In praising Dean Douglas Elmendorf’s earlier refusal, we called the dean a hero. So it was sad to read that he caved, labeling his earlier stance “an error” that “inadvertently cast doubt on the mission of the School and our commitment to open debate.” It reads like a forced confession that would have made Stalin proud.    

Let us look at the context of this retreat. Harvard has been ranked the most antisemitic campus in the country, and its percentage of Jewish students has tumbled  in recent decades to a fifth of what it used to be. It makes President Lawrence Lowell’s era of anti-Jewish quotas look like the good old days. Its student newspaper has endorsed Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions and thrown in its lot with the Palestinian cause. Israeli speakers are harassed on campus. 

Enter Mr. Roth. We must have had a dozen meals with the founder of HRW, Robert Bernstein, listening to him warn of Mr. Roth’s efforts to, as he put it in a Times op-ed, “turn Israel into a pariah state” and how, under Mr. Roth’s leadership, “Israel, the repeated victim of aggression,” faced the “brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.” We labeled his invocation of an “eye for an eye” in relation to Israel’s self defense  “a slur on the Jewish religion itself.” 

That is not all. Mr. Roth has accused Israel of precipitating a “bloodbath” for defending itself. He has called Judea and Samaria “stolen land” and been an evangelist for the “apartheid” calumny. After his acceptance by  Harvard was initially rejected, he Tweeted about “donor concerns about my criticism of Israel.” In the aftermath of the Charlottesville march, he tweeted a piece entitled “Birds of a feather: White supremacy and Zionism.”

In 2020, the Intercept reported that under Mr. Roth’s leadership HRW “accepted a sizable donation” — $470,000 —  “from a Saudi billionaire shortly after its researchers documented labor abuses at one of the man’s companies.” He then “signed a memorandum of understanding” with Mohammed Bin Issa al-Jaber “containing language that said the gift could not be used for LGBT rights work in the region.” We wonder what else was promised.

In capitulating to the faculty, the dean may think he is saving his skin, but he is merely feeding the wolves, who have now tasted blood. After Mr. Elmendorf folded — he said “sorry” — Mr. Roth bemoaned the fact that “the problem of people penalized for criticizing Israel is not limited to me.” He again alluded to shadowy donors and conveyed his worry over “academic freedom.” Mr. Roth, in our view, is more persecuting than persecuted.   

Accusations of nefarious Jewish influence have surrounded this case. The Nation, which first broke the story, decried the “dominant presence of the U.S. national security community and its close ally Israel” at the Kennedy School. Mr. Roth seconded that line, noting that “several major donors to the Kennedy School are big supporters of Israel.” Given the outcome one can wonder whether the problem is Jewish weakness. 

We see this tragedy as a wakeup call. Jews are being outmanned and outmaneuvered. Harvard’s president, Lawrence Bacow, appears to be a hollow man, not even possessed of a lame duck’s courage. If this can happen at Harvard, where can’t it happen? Students march for jihad at the University of Michigan and Zionists are not welcome at Berkeley. Mr. Elmendorf chose not to take a stand.  Israel has no such luxury. 

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Correction: Lawrence is the first name of President Bacow. It was mis-spelled in the bulldog.