The U.S. Treasury Department’s June 10 designation of Addameer as a terrorist organization with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) should prompt soul-searching—and a reckoning—at Harvard University. The U.S. government has now confirmed what CAMERA and others warned about years ago: Addameer is not a human rights NGO but a front for a U.S.-sanctioned terrorist organization responsible for heinous violence against civilians. Yet this is the same group Harvard’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) partnered with just three years ago.
Harvard’s Partnership with Extremism
In 2022, Harvard’s IHRC collaborated with Addameer to publish a report accusing Israel of apartheid. This document, intended for submission to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry, echoed the same libelous talking points that have long been promoted by anti-Israel activists.
Shortly afterward, CAMERA and UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) issued a detailed rebuttal to the Harvard-Addameer report, identifying and refuting numerous factual and legal errors. The volume and nature of these errors reflected poorly not only on Harvard’s academic rigor but also on its commitment to intellectual honesty.
Worse still was what the partnership revealed about Harvard’s moral judgment. Although Addameer was only formally designated by the U.S. government in 2025, Harvard cannot claim ignorance at the time of its collaboration. The Israeli government had already designated Addameer in October 2021 as an “inseparable arm” of the PFLP. Publicly available evidence of the group’s terror affiliations—its leadership by senior PFLP members and its open endorsement of “armed struggle”—was well-documented and widely known.
The Treasury Department’s recent designation merely formalizes what was already clear: Addameer operates in alignment with a terrorist organization. It provides material and ideological support to the PFLP under the guise of human rights work.
CAMERA and UKLFI’s rebuttal did not ignore this context. In fact, it closed with a pointed “Note on Harvard’s Partnership with Addameer,” highlighting the organization’s extensive terrorist ties. As we wrote to Harvard at the time:
As a law clinic, it is understandable that it would take positions of advocacy on controversial issues. However, of the many legitimate Palestinian organizations which the Harvard International Human Rights Clinic could have collaborated with, it is deeply unfortunate that it chose Addameer.
Despite these warnings, Harvard showed no signs of concern over its decision to partner with—and by extension, lend credibility to—Addameer.
Institutional Decline
This episode is emblematic of a deeper moral and academic decline at Harvard. That a university of Harvard’s stature would lend its name and institutional credibility to a group like Addameer is not only morally indefensible—it is also indicative of an erosion of the university’s core academic values.
Addameer is not, and has never been, an intellectual organization. It is a radical advocacy group with an extremist agenda. Harvard’s partnership with such a group, via its law clinic, was never about uncovering legal truths or promoting scholarly inquiry. The conclusion—that Israel is guilty of apartheid—was predetermined. Addameer was simply the convenient vehicle to advance a political narrative under the veneer of academic credibility.
More recently, amid increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and donors, Harvard’s leadership has insisted that it is committed to combating antisemitism and restoring academic excellence. But, as CAMERA noted last month, “the university has also demonstrated little interest in actually fulfilling said responsibilities without governmental intervention.” The IHRC’s collaboration with Addameer is a prime example of how that lack of accountability has long been part of the institutional culture.
Even now, following a U.S. government designation that labels Addameer a supporter of terrorism, Harvard has offered no retraction, no reassessment, and no indication that lessons have been learned.
