Harvard suspends partnership with Palestinian university in West Bank amid GOP pressure

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has suspended its research partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank, the school’s Crimson newspaper reports.

The partnership between HSPH’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB) and Birzeit expired in recent months. HSPH decided not to renew the partnership after conducting a review of FXB, an HSPH spokesperson tells The Crimson.

The spokesperson says HSPH will decide in the spring whether to permanently halt the partnership.

The HSPH spokesperson claims that the review into FXB was part of its standard review of its various centers.

But the review only came after a letter from 28 Republican lawmakers demanding that Harvard sever ties with Birzeit University, citing ties between members of the latter school’s student government and several West Bank terror groups.