Letter to the Editor

Re: HUDS Suspends Purchases from Israeli Soda Company

We read with dismay in the December 17 issue of the Crimson that Harvard University Dining Services had decided to suspend the purchase of water machines from a company linked to the Israeli company SodaStream. This decision, made as a result of pressure by a number of campus groups like the Harvard College Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement, is short-sighted and extremely disappointing.

SodaStream is a company that employs some five hundred Palestinians alongside Israeli Jews; it goes without saying that company employees are treated as equals in everything from salary and benefits to religious freedom (the factory includes a mosque). Attacking companies like SodaStream, where Palestinians and Israelis interact on an everyday basis, and in which Palestinian workers can earn a sustainable livelihood, is directly detrimental to the coexistence that exists in areas where Muslims and Jews are neighbors, like Jerusalem and its outskirts.

It is furthermore dismaying to us that HUDS or any other Harvard body would cave in to the demands of the anti-Israel BDS movement. Regardless of one’s views on the politics of the Middle East (which would hopefully be informed by a watchful view of current events in Syria, Iraq and Yemen), BDS’s tactic of delegitimizing Israel as a state is to be censured rather than given official voice via Harvard policies.

As proud alumni, we applaud the initiative of University President Drew G. Faust to reevaluate this hasty and unfortunate decision.  We urge Harvard’s administration to promote the positive connections with Israel that have for so long characterized Harvard as an institution.

Prof. Miriam Goldstein ’99

Dov J. Glickman ’99, former Crimson editor

Dr. Beth Goldstein '99

Dr. Robert J Goldstein HMS '73

Jonathan Gruenhut AB, SM '00

Tammy Hepps '00

Prof. Shalom E. Holtz '99

Ilana Kurshan '00

Dr. Steven Laufer '99

Harold Luber '99

Michael M. Rosen ’99, former Crimson editor

Dr. Jeremy Schnittman '99

Joey Shabot '01

Zachary L. Shrier '99