Former Harvard University President Larry Summers has apologized to a Palestinian-American academic for suggesting he was anti-Semitic.
Summers criticized his alma mater for twice inviting Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, to speak at the Ivy League school since Hamas’ October 7 massacre. .
“I made the mistake of associating Professor Rashid Khalidi with anti-Semitism in a tweet on Monday,” Summers, a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, wrote on Thursday.
“While I disagree with Professor Halliday and am deeply dissatisfied with Harvard’s actions since October 7, my comments were inappropriate.”
“I have contacted Professor Halliday directly to apologize,” Summers wrote.
“This violates my general policy of avoiding commenting on advertising personas, and I regret it,” Summers said in a statement.
Halliday declined to comment when contacted by The Post via email.
“Everyone should be able to speak freely and invite speakers,” Summers wrote, but Harvard “doesn’t have speakers who take pro-Israel positions.”
“My confidence in the ability and will of Harvard’s leadership to confront anti-Semitism and the demonization of Israel continues to decline,” he added in the first X post.
The Post has reached out to Harvard University for comment.
Khalidi is a scholar of the Middle East. He accused Israel of being a “created apartheid system” and a “racist state.”
During Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Khalidi, who was teaching in Beirut at the time, was quoted in the press as an expert on Palestinian issues, but denied being a spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization. There is.
Famous Harvard alumni like Summers and hedge fund billionaires Ken Griffin and Bill Ackman have responded to anti-Semitic incidents on campus in the wake of the October 7 attack. He criticized the school’s response.
Griffin told a conference in Miami on Tuesday that he would end financial support for Harvard unless the university makes significant changes to its anti-Semitism policies. The hedge fund billionaire lamented the “whiny snowflakes” produced by Ivy League schools.
Mr. Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, is the president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, who resigned earlier this month after being found to have plagiarized several academic papers. He was one of the leading voices calling for his ouster.
