Harvard Breaks Hiring Freeze for yet Another Boycott-Israel Professor

New “Modern Middle East” teacher posted photos of protest “against the occupation Massacres in #Gaza.”

A screenshot from the social media feed of Harvard’s new Ford Foundation Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Adam Mestyan.

Harvard University, whose response to the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 spawned lawsuits and federal investigations over antisemitism, is launching a new course this spring titled “Empire and Sovereignty in the Modern Middle East.”

The teacher?

In 2014 he signed a petition backing a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. “We call on our colleagues in Middle East Studies to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and we pledge not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel,” the petition says. It demanded that Israel “End its siege of Gaza, its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967, and dismantle the settlements and the walls” and “promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.”

In May 2024, on social media, he approvingly posted a link to a CNN segment denouncing Israel for “genocide.” The segment also denounced “the use of the term antisemitism to attack those who criticize Israeli policies.”

In August 2024, on social media, he approvingly posted a link from Palestine TV with photos of what was described as “A demonstration in Hungary against the occupation Massacres in #Gaza.”

In September 2025, he posted on social media that he donated to a fundraiser for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The Israeli government says Hamas has “systematically infiltrated” UNRWA “for terrorist purposes,” that at least 1,462 UNRWA employees in Gaza are members of Hamas or other designated terrorist organizations and that “UNRWA employees actively participated in the October 7th attacks on Israel.” The UNRWA USA committee paused funding after the Biden administration did and said it resumed it after UNRWA “implemented further operational risk mitigation measures” and on the basis of the “moral case” for “saving refugee lives.”

The professor, Adam Mestyan, is the newly arrived Ford Foundation Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard and was recruited from Duke University notwithstanding what Harvard claims is a universitywide hiring freeze. His most recent book, Modern Arab Kingship, came out in 2023 from Princeton University Press. It includes sentences such as “Using and interrogating the term ‘local’ enables us to historicize the uses of identity-based claims such as religion and ethnicity in postwar state-making.” And, “Historians have problematized the smooth republican transition.” This is how many academic historians write nowadays, using in-language words like “interrogating” and “problematized” without interrogating or problematizing them.

Mestyan as seen in a YouTube video during a fellowship in Paris,

It’s actually an interesting book in that it’s not hostile to monarchy (a lack of hostility that has the convenient advantage of also being potentially conducive to fundraising) and focuses on local developments rather than treating the Middle East events as driven entirely by European or American colonialism. Unfortunately, it’s not so innovative as to look at Israel through that same approach. In an interview about the book for Duke, he says, “instead of nationalism, Muslim monarchical federations fueled the integration of Arabs in the new global order, exactly a hundred years ago — of course, except colonized Palestine.” So much is contained in that brief aside of “of course, except colonized Palestine.” The “of course” assumes that everyone agrees that Israel is the one piece of the Middle East that does not fit with the rest. No need for an explanation or argument, just “of course.” And “except colonized Palestine” shows the limits to Mestyan’s willingness or ability in his field to question the dominant interpretive framework.

I wrote to Mestyan earlier this week asking, in part, “Do you still favor a boycott of Israel? Have you ever been to Israel? Do you read or speak Hebrew?” (His CV lists his research languages as “Arabic, French, Turkish, Ottoman Turkish (now learning siyāqat), English, German, Hungarian, Italian, learning Russian.” It also lists his membership in the Middle East Studies Association ending in 2022, the year that organization endorsed a boycott-Israel resolution.)

I asked, “I see from your social media that you posted links and pictures of anti-Israel protests and accusations of genocide against Israel. Why are you doing that?”

I asked, “I also see that you donated to UNRWA. The Israeli government says Hamas has systematically infiltrated and abused UNRWA. Does that concern you and were you aware of it when donating?”

Mestyan, who also is a Hungarian poet and bass guitar player, did not respond to my questions. He did subsequently change the privacy settings to some of the social media posts so that they were no longer publicly visible. Mestyan was at Duke from 2016 to 2025 with some interruptions for fellowships in Cairo and Paris.

The new course is listed on the website of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies as a course “relevant to Jewish studies,” alongside those of other boycott-Israel or “counter-Zionist” teachers such as Hasia Diner and Shaul Magid.

Anyway, I’m all for Harvard having courses on the “modern Middle East.” Unless Mestyan has abandoned his boycott of Israeli academic institutions, it appears likely that this course will offer something less than a comprehensive view.

Thank you: The Editors is a reader-supported publication that relies on paying customers to sustain its editorial independence. If you know someone who would enjoy or benefit from reading The Editors, please help us grow, and help your friends, family members, and associates understand the world around them, by forwarding this email along with a suggestion that they subscribe today. Or send a gift subscription. If it doesn’t work on mobile, try desktop. Or vice versa. Or ask a tech-savvy youngster to help. Thank you to those of who who have done this recently and thanks in advance to the rest of you.