Harvard Students Should Ignore Calls to Boycott Israel Trek

This spring break, the Harvard College Israel Trek returns after a one-year hiatus — and once again, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee has called for students to boycott the trip.

Apparently, the PSC does not want Harvard students to see for themselves what is actually happening in Israel and the region. We urge students curious about Israel and the Palestinian territories to resist this attempt at de facto thought control. One can understand Israel better by seeing it — and, as educators, we have observed the power of such experiences.

The Israel Trek, a student-organized immersion trip, does not provide a monolithic view of Israel; rather, the program explicitly aims to expose participants of all backgrounds to a broad mix of perspectives on the country, its peoples, its politics, and its history.

Funds for the Trek are raised by the student organizers themselves. And the speaker program — likewise arranged by students — runs the political, cultural, and religious gamut: For example, in previous iterations of the program, participants have heard from investigative journalist Ilana Dayan and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The trip ensures that students engage with Palestinian viewpoints: Attendees have toured the West Bank city of Ramallah and the nearby Al-Am’ari Refugee Camp, met Ali Abu Awad, a leading Palestinian peace activist, and heard from Professor of Political Science Khalil Shikaki, who runs the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and has been a critical source for data on the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Israel Trek attendees have also met with members of the Israeli Arab and Druze communities, to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing their respective ethnic groups.

By nature and design, this program promotes understanding and enables students to form their own opinions. This is an intellectual opportunity – precisely the type of activity Harvard should be encouraging students to pursue, especially at this challenging time. And conversely, calls to boycott the Israel Trek are counterproductive to scholarly engagement.

The PSC’s attempts to disrupt the Trek have been going on for years. And it hasn’t just been about discouraging students from attending in the first place: as The Harvard Independent reported last year — and as we’ve heard repeatedly through our own interactions with students — those who do choose to attend are often rebuked once they return to campus.

The apparent intention, and certainly the effect, of this pressure campaign is to deprive students of the opportunity to gain firsthand information and form their own views — as well as to ostracize those who independently decide to do so.

But the situation on the ground is much more nuanced than the PSC would have students believe. In our own teaching experience, giving students the chance to visit Israel often leads them to better understand this complexity.

One of us (Gompers) has led similar trips to Israel since 2015 through Harvard Business School’s Israel Immersive Field Course. Many of the participating students, a large majority of whom were not Jewish, have indicated that going to Israel led them to update their priors about the country — and that interacting with the people there was valuable in advancing mutual understanding. Israel Trek is an opportunity to do the same.

In one instance that particularly stands out, an Iranian IFC participant said her understanding of Israel totally changed by being there. Jewish students were likewise affected, in particular by hearing directly from Palestinian guides discussing Muslim history and holy sites in the Old City.

The other three of us (Fried, Kominers, and Poznansky) have had both students and colleagues report similar learnings from visiting Israel. Indeed, people are often surprised by what they see there, because news and media can present a limited and sometimes distorted view of Israel and the region.

For a number of years, “PalTrek” has taken Harvard graduate students to the Palestinian territories. As far as we know, there has never been a peer-pressure campaign to avoid PalTrek — nor should there be. We encourage students to gather as much information as possible.

Harvard students should ignore the PSC’s attempt to stop students from seeing Israel for themselves and to stop those who do see it from sharing their experiences. Shutting down intellectual exploration as applied to Israel and the Palestinian territories is inconsistent with the values of our University, and Harvard students shouldn’t fall for it.

Jesse M. Fried ’85 is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Paul A. Gompers ’86 is the Eugene Holman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Scott Duke Kominers ’09 is the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Mark C. Poznansky is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.