HOOP Organizes Silent Demonstration at Jake Sullivan IOP Forum

Eight Harvard affiliates unfurled banners above the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum to protest former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s role in Israel’s war in Gaza as he spoke at an Institute of Politics forum on Tuesday.

The event, a discussion on America’s foreign policy and national security, was Sullivan’s first public appearance since joining the Harvard Kennedy School faculty as the inaugural Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order on April 1. He was head of foreign policy under the Biden administration until January.

The protesters — members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, an unrecognized student group — did not verbally interrupt the event, but held posters denouncing Sullivan’s arrival at HKS, displaying messages such as “War criminals are not welcome here” and “First stop Harvard next stop The Hague.”

Though two Harvard University Police Department officers were present at the event, protestors were not removed and left of their own accord shortly before the end of the forum.

Neither Sullivan nor moderator Graham T. Allison ’62 — a former Harvard Kennedy School Dean — addressed the demonstration during the forum. But in an interview after the event, Allison said the protest was a legitimate expression of First Amendment rights.

“I thought the way they handled it — the way that the people who had their contrary view expressed their view — was acceptable,” Allison said. “I think it was actually the way things should be done.”

“That’s what the First Amendment at an open debating space is,” he said.

IOP Director Setti D. Warren and Director of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Aaron Goldman declined to comment on the demonstration.

While in office, Sullivan was the public face of the Biden Administration’s foreign policy — including its diplomatic and military support for Israel in the ongoing conflict.

Toward the end of the forum, a student directly confronted Sullivan about his refusal to refer to the attacks on Gaza as a “genocide” — even after a United Nations expert called on the international community to recognize it as such.

But Sullivan stood by his prior comments in a response that drew applause from the packed audience.

“I have not called it a genocide, because I do not believe it is a genocide,” Sullivan said.

“I think Israel was trying to defeat a terrorist group, and in doing so, acting excessively,” he added. “And I think that is quite different from calling it a genocide.”

Still, Sullivan admitted that far too many innocent lives were lost in the conflict.

“It’s not okay. None of this is okay. What happened on October 7 is not okay. What’s happened since — it’s not okay,” Sullivan said. “It’s a horrible, god awful tragedy.”

While Sullivan said he continued to wonder if he could have responded differently to the crisis, he claimed that the Biden administration “saved a lot of lives” by providing humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Sullivan drew a contrast between what he described as the Biden administration’s active efforts to get aid into Gaza and the current White House’s support for an Israeli blockade.

“Look at where we are today — weeks where there has been an absolute siege of Gaza, no food, no medicine, nothing getting in,” he said. “That’s the difference between an American policy that pushes and gets stuff through and one that doesn’t.”

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.

—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at tanya.vidhun@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.