Harvard lecturer Diana Buttu (Al Jazeera English/YouTube)
A Harvard University faculty member who teaches courses on human rights law and international "negotiation skills" recently praised the slain leader of Hamas as a "hero" and called the terrorist organization a "movement for freedom, for liberation."
Harvard refers to Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lecturer in its Division of Continuing Education, as an "international human rights" lawyer who has worked as "the only female negotiator" in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. She has also worked as a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and has sympathized with Hamas.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the day Hamas murdered 1,200 Israeli civilians, Buttu told MSNBC that the attack was the "natural consequence, unfortunately, of 56 years of military occupation and the denial of freedom."
"I don’t think we should underestimate the desire of people to be free," she said.
In an Oct. 22, 2024, interview, Buttu praised Hamas as a "movement for freedom, for liberation," and hailed its leader, Yahya Sinwar, after his assassination in an Israeli drone strike. "The Israelis will never understand what it means to die a hero," she said of Sinwar.
Beginning in June, Buttu will teach "Women Leaders: Advancing Together," and "Negotiation Skills: Strategies for Increasing Effectiveness," at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, according to the school’s website. She taught the negotiation skills course in summer sessions in 2021 and 2022, and a course on "International Human Rights Law" during the 2023-2024 school year.
Buttu will teach on Harvard’s storied campus as it tries to assuage concerns over enabling anti-Semitic and anti-Israel fervor. Harvard released a report Monday that acknowledged it has "mainstreamed and normalized" anti-Semitic and anti-Israel bias in course work, through faculty hiring decisions, and other aspects of campus life.
Earlier this month, Harvard rescinded a fellowship offer to a former Columbia University professor who was fired from that school for indoctrinating students with anti-Israel views, such as references to it being a "colonial settler state."
Buttu has embraced similar rhetoric, and made other inflammatory statements over the years.
In April 2013, she smeared Judea Pearl, the father of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, as a "racist" for remarks he made at an anniversary event for his son, who was beheaded by al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Pearl read aloud his son’s statement before his murder, and remarked that "Jews could celebrate Muslim Mentality Week every year, and we have a good reason to expose their violations of human rights and their apartheid practices."
Buttu remarked that "Judea Pearl of Daniel Pearl Foundation is racist."
There is no record of Buttu condemning Pearl’s murder.
Buttu has incorporated Israeli-Palestinian issues in some of her previous courses. The syllabus for her international human rights law course required readings of the International Court of Justice’s opinion on Israel’s wall along the West Bank, which Israel began building after the Second Intifada in 2000.
According to the Harvard course catalog, Buttu’s course on negotiation skills will help students "build positive, productive relationships with all parties at the table" and on how to "transform competition into cooperation—and opponents into partners."
Buttu appears not to have deployed those skills as a PLO negotiator.
"I had mixed feelings about negotiating," Buttu has said. "There is a structural problem when Palestinians negotiate with Israelis. It's like negotiating with a gun to your head; where the people under occupation have to negotiate their own release."
It is unclear how much Harvard pays Buttu, who previously served as a fellow at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Belfer Center. The four-day class on negotiation tactics runs $3,100, while the five-day "Women Leaders" session costs $6,450.
Harvard and Buttu did not respond to requests for comment.
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