Alleged war criminal, Israeli Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, who was recently appointed by Tel Aviv University as a lecturer in the faculty of law, is invited to a Harvard University seminar as an expert on international law.

For those who do not recall, Sharvit-Baruch headed the international law division of the Israeli army during its criminal offensive on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, that started in December 2008, and therefore was responsible for legalizing acts that were widely seen by UN experts and human rights organizations alike as grave crimes of war. Accordingly, TAU’s decision to appoint her right after Israel’s announcement of an end to hostilities raised wide protests that the University was in effect rewarding an alleged war criminal.

Among other Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the Colonel “legally” approved the war’s opening “act,” the fatal targeting of the graduating ceremony of Palestinian policemen in Gaza, which led to the slaughter of dozens of young non-combatants.

As reported in Haaretz in January 2009, Dr. Anat Matar, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s philosophy department and a leading critic of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, commented on the University’s decision to appoint Colonel Sharvit-Baruch despite her record saying, “I was shocked to learn that half of the second-year law students will learn the foundations of law from someone who helped justify the killing of civilians, including hundreds of children.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058847.html

Harvard University is thus helping not only whitewash war crimes; it is effectively colluding in rehabilitating a military officer charged with the most serious war crimes as an expert on international law.

We urge you to protest this in the most effective, legal means possible.