Harvard University Cites IHR Leaflet in High-Level Report on ‘Combatting Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias’

Institute for Historical Review
May 2025

In a recently issued report, Harvard University cites a leaflet published by the Institute for Historical Review as an example of harmful writing that officials there apparently think students should not read. The “Final Report” of the University’s “Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias,” cites (pages 75-76) the distribution of an IHR leaflet as one of many noteworthy “antisemitic incidents” on campus there:

“The Harvard community experienced and engaged with antisemitic incidents throughout the decade. For example: … Leaflets appeared outside some Harvard dorms in 2006, reproducing an essay by Mark Weber arguing that ‘the crucial factor in President Bush’s decision to attack [Iraq] was to help Israel.’ Weber, a Holocaust denier, confirmed he wrote the essay but said he had no role in distributing the leaflets. However, he was ‘glad to see them distributed’ alongside another leaflet promoting a White nationalist group.”

Weber’s essay, “Iraq: A War for Israel,” has been widely distributed as an IHR leaflet. By any reasonable standard, his view about the origins of the 2003 Iraq war is not socially harmful or dangerous – or even unusual. As his essay notes, a range of prominent and informed public figures have likewise expressed the view that Israeli interests and Zionist pressure were important and probably decisive factors behind President Bush’s decision to order US military forces to bomb, invade and occupy Iraq.

This Harvard “Final Report” is a good example of just how out of touch with common-sense reality America’s oldest and most prestigious university has become. To suggest that Harvard students should not have access to Weber’s essay insults their intelligence and violates the principle of open inquiry and free expression that the university claims to uphold. Moreover, the Harvard report’s characterization of Weber as a “Holocaust denier” is untrue, as he and the IHR have made clear for many years. (See “Lying About Me.”)