Harvard University has placed $150 million in an organization that has certain connections to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, contributing to a trend of universities rebuffing activist demands that they divest from the Jewish state.
Harvard reinvested the funds in Booking Holdings Inc., doing so for the first time in more than half a decade, The Harvard Crimson reported Tuesday.
[RELATED: Anti-Israel divestment referendums fall short at Rice]
The Crimson reported that Booking Holdings is criticized by some because of its connections to Israeli West Bank settlements.
Booking Holdings calls itself “the world’s leading provider of online travel and related services,” and has been condemned by anti-Israel activists.
The anti-Israel group Amnesty International, for example, previously bashed the company for “listing settlement properties and attractions” on its website.
Harvard’s investment in Booking Holdings is part of a trend in which colleges and universities are ignoring the calls of activists who call for “divestment” from Israel, a central demand of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) protesters who took over many campuses between 2023-2024.
The University of Virginia, for example, revealed in September that it was “not divesting from any investments in response to the student referendum that was passed earlier this year.” The statement was in reference to a referendum supported by more than thousands of anti-Israel activists.
The University of Maine System’s leadership also determined that it will not break off ties to the Jewish state on Dec. 17, despite the pressing of leftist students.
Brown University similarly said “no” to divestment in October, pointing to its policy of institutional neutrality, clarifying that “the University does not make institutional statements on social, political or policy matters unrelated to the University’s operations in advancing education, scholarship and discovery.”
The Rhode Island School of Design also voted against divestment in January, after being pressured to cut off ties with the Jewish state by Students for Justice in Palestine.
Columbia University, the epicenter of the anti-Israel protests that rocked American higher education in 2024, has also refused to divest.
Campus Reform has reached out to Harvard for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
