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Kennedy School Rejects HRW Head over Apartheid Report. 

 When Kenneth Roth retired as head of Human Rights Watch he was invited to join the Kennedy School as a senior fellow for a year.  The appointment would be with the Carr Center for Human Rights one of the 12 centers affiliated with the Kennedy School.  He agreed to the nomination but when he had his interview with Douglas Elmendorf, Dean of the School (who has to approve all appointments),  he got odd questions.  One was “Do you have any enemies.”  Roth, who is Jewish, recognized that as code for Israel.  As he said later -- Make Enemies.  That is what I do for a living.  I issue reports and I make enemies. 

The supporters of Israel have consistently accused HRW of having a bias against Israel and singling it out.  They were particularly incensed about a report last year on apartheid and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.  In fact, HRW has issued reports on over 100 countries (including the US).  In the past two decades they have issued 1700 reports about the Middle East, few of which focused on Israel, and one of which was a very harsh criticism of the Palestinian Authority.  

Roth was informed that he would not receive the appointment.  (Note that the Kennedy School has 750 visiting fellows, many of whom are there to write a book. As a rule, they do not teach classes).  He accepted an appointment with the University of Pennsylvania human rights group (although after an explosion of criticisms Elmendorf reversed course and offered him an appointment in the Kennedy School.  I am not sure if he has reconsidered the Penn appointment in favor of Harvard). 

Last year I presented a podcast on the concept of apartheid, and whether it applied to Israel when compared with South Africa under apartheid.  Note that the HRW report was primarily concerned with the occupied territories rather than Israel itself.