Harvard University has reinvested $150m in Booking Holdings, a travel company that has come under criticism and legal action for listing sites in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to the university endowment’s recent filings.
According to the endowment’s third quarter filings in 2024, reported by the student-run newspaper The Harvard Crimson on Tuesday, the Harvard Management Company had reinvested the money in Booking Holdings for the first time in five years.
The last time the university invested in the travel company was in 2019, according to The Harvard Crimson, and it sold the entirety of those shares a few months later.
The reinvestment comes after a year of pro-Palestinian protests at Harvard University over Israel’s war on Gaza. The main demand of these protests, similar to other demonstrations at universities across the US, was for the university to divest any financial interests in companies profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza and its occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The student leadership of three schools, Harvard’s law school, divinity school, and graduate school of design passed resolutions urging the university’s endowment to divest from any companies that “aid the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine”.
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Booking.com, one of the companies under the umbrella of Booking Holdings, has gotten into legal troubles over the past several years, including last year when a human rights group filed a criminal complaint against the hotel broker site for possible “war crimes”, alleging it benefitted from listings in Israeli settlements within occupied Palestinian territories.
Israeli settlements built on land inside the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law.
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Booking.com has denied the claims, saying there are no laws prohibiting listings in Israeli settlements. The company added that US laws in several states would threaten the company’s business if it divested from the region.Â
Following the end of the 2024 spring semester at Harvard, The Harvard Crimson reported that the university offered organisers a meeting to talk about the issue of divestment. However, university president Alan Garber rejected the possibility that students could take a look at the endowment’s investments.
Earlier this month, Harvard agreed to accept the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism after settling a lawsuit from Jewish students who accused other students of harassment during the pro-Palestine protests last year.
Harvard also said it would provide training on “combating antisemitism” and that its Office for Community Conduct would incorporate the IHRA definition when reviewing complaints of discrimination.
The move by Harvard follows other similar measures implemented by leading US universities to prevent any criticism of Zionism. In August 2024, New York University declared Zionists a “protected class”.
Over the past academic year, schools have adopted more forceful measures aimed at curbing any protests against Israel, including issuing new speech guidelines and incorporating surveillance tactics against student organisers.
The Trump administration has meanwhile threatened to deport international students who have been involved in pro-Palestine actions on campuses.
