Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 199

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative announced last week the launch of a new Israel Program, expanding the center’s research, teaching, and engagement on Israel within its regional and global context. In a letter announcing the program, Middle East Initiative Faculty Chair Tarek E. Masoud wrote that interest in Israel has intensified “after Hamas’ terrorist attacks of October 7th, 2023 and Israel’s subsequent military campaigns, and particularly the devastating war in Gaza.” The program will be led by Barak Sella, a senior research fellow at the initiative and a Kennedy School graduate who previously served as executive director of the Reut Institute, an Israeli policy nonprofit. Masoud wrote that Sella has “long been a leading voice on U.S.-Israel relations and global Jewish affairs.” The program will also draw on existing initiative scholars, including senior fellow Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Syria, and Kennedy School professor Lotem Bassan-Nygate.

A central piece of the program is the Shared Society Lab, which will be led by senior research fellow Dana Schleifer, another HKS graduate who previously served as chief innovation officer for the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipal government. According to Masoud’s announcement, the lab will focus on strengthening municipal institutions and building partnerships between Israel’s Jewish and Palestinian citizens. The Israel Program will also introduce a new course, DPI-635: “Arguing Israel-Palestine,” and will launch an Israeli Research Fellowship beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year that will bring Israeli scholars and practitioners to the initiative for short-term residencies with other scholars from the region, as well as Harvard students and faculty. Masoud wrote that these initiatives will foster the “rigorous, open inquiry and civil, constructive debate that are the hallmarks of the Middle East Initiative.”

...The new program also arrives just over a year after Harvard announced a pair of new academic partnerships with Israeli institutions — a study abroad program with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a postdoctoral fellowship for Israeli researchers at Harvard Medical School. Harvard had agreed to partner with an Israeli university as part of a January 2025 settlement with two groups alleging it had slow-walked its response to campus antisemitism. A separate antisemitism lawsuit brought against Harvard by the Department of Justice was dismissed in August, and the department appealed the ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals later that month...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/9/17/harvard-middle-east-initiative-israel/.