HIPJ was founded by a small group of students on the evening of September 11, 2001, with the hope of showing support for peaceful resolution of conflict even in the face of horrific violence.

The Harvard community responded with counseling and relief services, community gatherings, and more direct action - such as providing medical teams for the relief effort, experts to explain the crisis, and blood drives to help victims of the tragedy.

Efforts are continuing, with a rally planned for today, Sept. 20, sponsored by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, to mourn the victims and call for a nonviolent response.

About 500 students gathered outside Widener Library yesterday at noon to call for a peaceful response to last week's terrorist attacks.

The demonstration was organized by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ), a student group founded this week as part of actions being taken across the country to promote peace.

On Thursday, September 20th - 9 days after the attacks on America that, to a large extent, have already defined our generation's work in the world - the newly founded Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) sponsored a rally on the steps of Widener Library. HIPJ, according to one of its leading members, David Jenkins '03, was founded by a group of Harvard students concerned about America's response to the crisis...

...Perhaps it is inevitable, that liberal democracy should produce human beings with out fire in the belly, unwilling to die for anything. Men without chests, Nietzsche called them. And perhaps, over and above any specific incidents of American injustice in the Middle East or Afghanistan, it is this aspect of liberal democracy to which the terrorists object - our commercialism, our comforts, our softness. If so, then the task of our generation is a great and noble one, for we are called to show that these ignoble aspects are not the whole of liberal democracy, and that modern freedom offers more to the soul than a sterile series of self-actualizations.

Some might say that considering a revision of U.S. policy such as signing on to an International Human Rights tribunal, reviewing our support of Israel's violation of the Oslo accords, or rethinking the sanctions against Iraq would amount to giving in to the terrorists. Believing this amounts to being unclear as to what bin Laden and his associates want: namely, a war between Islam and the West. Their concern is not simply to end the damage done by the U.S. to Middle Eastern civilians, but rather to convince all Islamic countries to reject all western ideals, democratic or otherwise. If the United States decides to adopt the approach of stopping terrorists by removing civil liberties, limiting immigration and retaliating militarily as is currently proposed, we may very well be playing right into their hands.

More than two weeks have elapsed since HIPJ responded to the terrorist attack armed with flowers and olive branches. These weapons, representing a reckless dismissal of any military action and a knee-jerk preference for peace and amity, are just as dangerous as the ones our nation will use to defend itself. In the real world, peace is secured by righteous armies.

I hope that in the aftermath of the attack, and in the wake of their imprudent rally for peace, HIPJ and its supporters learn the destructive power of their insolence, and the perilous consequence of mistaking our privileged lives at school as relevant to problems on the outside.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, many of us have found a great deal to deliberate and question about the policies formed in response to the appalling attacks of that day. The past year has seen, among other things, an ongoing, devastating war in Afghanistan and various curtailments of the civil liberties of both American nationals and foreigners in America. Now, there is increasing talk of a preemptive strike in Iraq influenced by the simplistic political climate in which President Bush's war on terrorism is equated with good versus evil. The Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, a student group formed on the day of the attacks, has been calling for a deeper level of reflection and debate about foreign policy and civil liberties, a commitment to the sanctity and equality of human life everywhere and a fuller investigation of the nonviolent alternatives to war that have been all but ignored by our leaders and the mainstream media.

In flyers distributed outside the Science Center last week and e-mails circulating over House and dorm lists, HIPJ has asked students, faculty and staff who disagree with the decision to begin the war to walk out of their classes at 12:30 the first weekday following any declaration of war or the commencement of bombing.

Although many Harvard students oppose the Bush administration's plans for war against Iraq, they have been slow to organize themselves in protest. The Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) has been a notable exception. HIPJ has tried to coordinate campus opposition to the war by holding rallies, inviting speakers, and encouraging students to walk out of classes after the first official day of the war. HIPJ has also engaged in publicity, and arranged transportation, for a number of mass rallies, such as the October 26th rally in Washington D.C. and, more recently, the February 15th rally in New York. In joining these larger demonstrations, however, HIPJ has found itself increasingly in alliance with groups that have radical agendas very different from its own.

The October 26th protest was planned, and the February 15th one in part co-opted, by International ANSWER, a group whose leaders are all officers of the International Action Center (IAC). The IAC is a front organization for the Workers World Party (WWP), an extremist group espousing some outrageous beliefs-beliefs inconsistent with values held by the majority of the vast anti-war coalition ANSWER helped assemble. And yet these radicals tend to be prominent members of the anti-war movement, playing a large part in the planning and publicizing of peace rallies and other events. The involvement of extremists in the anti-war movement raises the question of how HIPJ and groups like it can reconcile their cooperation with organizations whose values they do not share. The peace movement must engage in a balanced and open discussion of the deep ideological and methodological fractures that divide it.

About 350 students, faculty and local residents attended the 12:30 p.m. "Emergency Anti-War Rally", which was organized by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) and co-sponsored by six other student organizations.

"We refuse to be silent as the tides of war face our country," said HIPJ member Jesse Stellato '05, the event's opening speaker. "We're here today because we are aware that as a result of this war many of our friends, family, colleagues...will not come back alive."

In a mass exodus from class at 12:30 p.m., Harvard students and professors kicked off a rally, decrying the Bush administration's attack on Iraq with speeches and live music.

The crowd joined Cambridge residents and students from local colleges in a two-block-long parade of several thousands that wended its way from Harvard Yard to the Government Center plaza.

The protest was the second largest in Harvard's history--exceeded in size only by demonstrations that met Chinese President Jiang Zemin in 1997--and represented the first major response of Harvard students to the war.

The protest began at 12:30 p.m., when hundreds of students poured out of classrooms and into the Yard, joining a crowd in the shadow of University Hall. 

Mc Carthy's Studenten klatschen dazu begeistert, und die rund 1200 anderen Harvard-Studenten auch, die sich auf dem Yard eingefunden haben, bewaffnet mit Schildern wie "Werft Bush raus, nicht Bomben". (mehr...) Die "Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice" hat aufgerufen, am Tag des Kriegsbeginns aus den Klassen zur Demo zu marschieren - und wie um den verpassten Unterricht gutzumachen, hört sich der Protest der Studenten und einiger Dozenten manchmal wie ein schlaues Seminar an.

In repeated e-mails to the HIPJ open list, Joachim C.S. Martillo '78, who is not a member of HIPJ, called the Zionist movement racist.

He referred to Jews affiliated with Israel's cause as "Ashkenazis" and in one e-mail compared Harvard Hillel and Harvard Students for Israel to pro-Nazi youth organizations.

Eric R. Trager '05, who is also not a member of HIPJ, said he joined the HIPJ-open list in order to monitor the anti-war dialogue at Harvard and felt that Martillo's posts were a confirmation of widespread anti-Semitism throughout the peace movement--which he said he feels exists in the peace movement around the world.

First, there were the most egregious lies - those about the human cost of war. HIPJ asserted in its fact sheet that the war would create 900,000 refugees, that 5,400,000 Iraqis would require "food and necessities" and that 500,000 civilians would require medical treatment. Where are these people? Where are the million Iraqis (out of a population of 24 million) that fled the country? Are we to expect that nearly one-fifth of the country didn't require "food and necessities" under the Saddam regime? The facts of the war, of course, directly contradict these expected outcomes which, on HIPJ's bright orange sheet, were made to scare the already apprehensive student community into fearing war. Naturally, like even the most lackluster researchers, HIPJ's spin men decided to cite sources  mostly (unsurpris-ingly) from various UN agencies. But, for those not so blind as simply to accept the bold-faced warnings, the actual UN document cited by HIPJ reveals many different scenarios. HIPJ chose only to quote those paragraphs that contained the most alarmist guesses at casualty numbers and requirements for medical attention.

Next, there were lies about the economics of war. These are curious arguments for HIPJ members to make: who are they trying to convince, Pat Buchanan? In making arguments that implicitly suggest that - war, even if it is just, costs too much, - HIPJ does a top-notch job in appealing to the kind of mindless isolationism that drove America so happily into the dark forest of acquiescence in the face of evil during the twentieth century. In many ways, these lies were even more insidious than the first set. To be sure, there was a set of naive peaceniks that could honestly believe (and fear) catastrophic humanitarian predictions. But the HIPJ liberals' sudden interest in matters concerning the federal budget was particularly amusing. The predictions that a war would cost between $121 billion (for "a short and favorable war") to a ludicrous $1.595 trillion (for a "protracted" war) were made with a thick layer of obvious bad faith.

"We were never a team," says Professor of English and Folklore and member of the Faculty Initiative for Peace and Justice (FIPJ) Joseph C. Harris. "There was really very little communication between us."...

...Many critics of the strength of the anti-war movement say the peculiar circumstances around the war itself are to blame.

With no draft to poach their classmates, and few body bags crossing the ocean, anti-war protestors had little to rally behind, forcing them to mediate many competing views.

Thus, for both students and faculty protesters, success often depended on pursuing an elusive consensus.

In a speech and discussion organized by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ), Tom Cornell addressed an intimate gathering of students on a wide variety of issues, including the ongoing conflict in Iraq and personal anecdotes from his life-long career of political action.

Though a low turnout sparked an impromptu debate over a lack of political interest on campus, those who attended the talk said it turned out to be informative and thought-provoking...

...Responding to students' voiced concerns over a potentially depoliticized Harvard community, the 70-year-old preacher offered his own life experience as inspiration.

"I started the first demonstration against the war in Iraq," he said. "It had two people in it."

Students took Cornell's remarks as a challenge--that a political movement could be started by a few, motivated people--and offered their own perspectives on addressing local and global issues.

Sixty students gathered outside the Science Center yesterday to partake in a dual-purpose rally in protest of the Patriot Act and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Amid the intermittent rain, the crowd chanted "Promise, promise liberation, all we see is occupation!"

The "End the Occupation" rally was hosted by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ), the Socialist Alternative and the Campaign for Campus Liberty.

 In the lead-up to the Iraq war, there were many intelligent and defensible arguments to be made against war - but HIPJ and its cadres have advanced none of them. Rather, ANSWER style protests pride themselves on closed minds and a kibbutz-like solidarity, not Stanley Hoffman or Michael Ignatieff critiques of foreign policy. This campy feel even gives the protests a carnival-like atmosphere and makes them a prime attraction for scruffy misfits from all around. The New York Times quotes one such scamp, Elden Montagne of (naturally) Vermont, who explained, "It's just cool when people come together like this." Banging drums, singing protest songs, and remembering the 60s are all on order for such protests, not akin to the well-composed candlelight vigils of the Midwest. Instead of making an intelligent and bold statement that even the Paul Wolfowitzes or the world can respect, HIPJ has consistently chosen a more brazen course, one that is bent not on making sense, but on making a scene.

Jubran, apparently not satisfied merely with softening the image of extremists, also seems to identify with the bombers. The New York Sun reported on Jubran's remarks made at an Oct. 25 rally in San Francisco: "'We are angry. Some of us want to throw stones. Some of us want to blow ourselves,' he said, gesturing to his chest."

Sadly, the fact that men like Jubran exist is not shocking. What is surprising is that there are groups of Harvard students who feel the need to bring this type of murderous hate to our campus. That Amer Jubran, a man who has defended those who murder innocent civilians and violate of human rights, should be brought to speak by the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice as well as the Civil Liberties Union of Harvard is hypocritical and intolerable.

Some on campus have challenged our decision to highlight Jubran's case of denied civil liberties among the many cases that exist. But his case is a particularly strong example because Jubran's legal representatives were able to obtain 12 surveillance tapes and numerous documents that suggest he was being targeted because of his political views rather than because of any clear and present danger. The footage obtained showed that Jubran and other activists participating in local pro-Palestinian and anti-war rallies were being systematically followed as far back as 2001. We highlighted Jubran's case because his circumstances are emblematic of this concerted intimidation of immigrants, especially of Arab descent, and of Palestinian activists...

...One may agree or disagree with his views--and members of SAS and HIPJ have a range of views about the conflict. This should not detract from the main issue: an Arab immigrant and pro-Palestinian peace activist is being targeted because he dared to raise his voice in this country.

The members of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice have decided to maintain a weblog. One purpose of this site is to offer news summaries from the both the mainstream and alternative media from around the world to keep the Harvard community (and anyone else who wants to look) informed about matters pertaining to peace and justice about the world. Another purpose is to foster constructive discussion about issues that are happening around the world, and what the Harvard community, being in a rather privileged position, can do about them.

The HSI-HIPJ rift widened on Nov. 22 when first-year physics doctoral candidate Phil Larochelle, a 2003 MIT grad, launched a "HIPJ Weblog" tracking human rights abuses and progressive movements worldwide. The Weblog's first news summary featured a link to a Zmag.org article comparing the Israeli Defense Forces to the Nazi military. Bur Larochelle stresses that his controversial weblog isn't specifically aimed against Israel, and that it levels even harsher criticism against other U.S.-backed regimes with checkered human rights records.

As Trager pushed for a publicity campaign aimed at exposing HIPJ's anti-Semitic leanings, HSI President Joshua Suskewicz '05 intervened in the row. "I sincerely hope that our clubs do not reach a point of confrontation," Suskewicz wrote in an e-mail to HIPJ leaders.

Suskewicz's overtures to HIPJ, which included a meeting between the two groups before Thanksgiving, appear to have cooled the tempers of combatants. "I would like to commend Joshua for initiating a very constructive dialogue with us," Larochelle says.

Comparing "Israeli Defense Forces to the Nazi military" clearly isn't the focus of the article (the Crimson doesn't claim that it is but a casual reader might take that as the implication) and furthermore the only comparison of the IDF to the Nazi army is done by way of an IDF officer quoted in Ha'aretz.

Members of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) discovered last week that mysterious anti-Semitic posts on the group's web log were written by Eric R. Trager '05, who posted them under an assumed name.

Trager said yesterday that he was responsible for the posts in question, but said they were part of his larger effort to monitor anti-Semitism on campus.

Trager, who is secretary of Harvard Students for Israel (HSI), had previously accused HIPJ of being too tolerant of anti-Semitic sentiments expressed over its e-mail lists.

Leaders of campus organizations converged on 45 Mt. Auburn Street Friday night to introduce a new combination of resources which they hope will improve their collective ability to bring about change at Harvard.

The first annual meeting of the Harvard Social Forum (HSF) also served as a mixer for members of the 25 mostly political and cultural campus organizations who sponsored the event...

...Like many students at the HSF, Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) member and graduate student Suvrat Raju said that there "really is a need" for a network like the union.

Recently, at Harvard University where I am based, a Jewish student, using an assumed (gentile) name, began posting anti-semitic statements on the weblog of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, an anti-war, pro-Palestinian group on campus. The student, it turned out, is the secretary of Harvard Students for Israel - which dissociated itself from the incident - and had previously accused the HIPJ of being too tolerant of anti-semitism. He now went undercover as part of a self-appointed effort to monitor anti-semitism on campus. In one posting, for example, he referred to Israel as the 'AshkeNAZI state'. Incidents of this kind, which are becoming commonplace on American campuses, reflect a wider determination to monitor, report, defame and punish those individuals and institutions within academia whose views the right finds objectionable. The campaign is directed at area studies generally but the most virulent attacks are reserved for those of us in Middle Eastern studies whose ideas are considered anti-Israel, anti-semitic or anti-American.

Although the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) has no official position on Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., many of us are troubled by his platform. As students concerned with U.S. foreign policy we cannot help noticing that Kerry has promised to continue many of the policies of the Bush administration. In particular, he proudly supported the war in Afghanistan, plans to send more troops to Iraq, supports continued sanctions against Cuba, and has aggressively attacked the Chavez government in Venezuela while defending Israel's atrocious actions in Palestine. He has been silent on America's continuing support for dictators from Uzbekistan to Nepal and it is safe to assume that he will perpetuate these inhuman policies that take their toll on millions worldwide.

The Harvard College Democrats are still larger than the campus Republicans. (According to Democrats' president Andy Frank, the club has an e-mail list of 1,650 and counts 245 dues-paid members.) And left-wing groups, such as the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, still make more noise--and thus garner more attention--than conservative ones.

Members of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) met in front of University Hall North at 11:00 a.m. on Friday to challenge the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which bars openly gay citizens from joining the military.

"The military is violating Harvard's discrimination policy by not allowing gay people in the military. So technically they shouldn't be allowed on campus," said Samantha M. Tejada '09, who watched the HIPJ protest in front of University Hall.

Still, HIPJ activist Johnhenry R. "Hank" Gonzalez '06 said that the group would meet in front of University Hall today at 11 a.m. and march across the river to the track center.

That means HIPJ protesters will march off Harvard property and beyond the campus police's jurisdiction. Riley said that Cambridge, Boston, and state police officers could arrest student protesters if the march blocks traffic.

According to Gonzalez, HIPJ has not registered as an official student organization and therefore is not eligible to apply for a protest permit. HIPJ is a non-hierarchical organization and does not have designated student officers.

Student protestors chanted slogans, waved signs, and conducted a "die-in"--lying on the pavement and pretending to be dead--outside of Soldiers Field Friday as part of a protest against the military's presence at the Career Forum.

Organized by the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) and the Harvard Institute for Peace and Justice (HIPJ), about 30 protestors marched from Harvard Yard to Allston, shouting slogans along the way that criticized the military for its conduct in Iraq and its "don't ask, don't tell" policy which prohibits gay individuals from serving openly.

The demonstrators were met by a dozen counter-protestors from the Harvard Republican Club who called the peace activists "hippies" and told them to "stop lying about the military."

Protestors will greet General John Abizaid when the top U.S. commander in the Middle East speaks at the Institute of Politics (IOP) tomorrow.

The Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ), Socialist Alternative, and the Stop Torture Coalition are all planning rallies to offer a counterpoint to the speech by the officer credited with coining the term "The Long War" to describe the war on terror.

This Tuesday, on the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, come to a peaceful candlelight vigil to commemorate the lives lost in the war.

Starting Tuesday at 3:00 pm and in the 6 hours leading up to the vigil, members of the Dems and the co-sponsoring organizations (listed here) will read the names of Americans and Iraqis who have died in the war. Names will be read from the steps of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.

Students from the Harvard Republican Club (HRC) competed to out-chant students from the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ). The 10-minute contest ended when HRC stopped yelling slogans.

HRC President Jeffrey Kwong '09 said he wanted to show support for the troops.

"We wanted to make sure that students and Harvard community know that the Republican Club is right behind the troops. [Anti-war protestors] are not supporting the idea of fighting terrorism," he said. "We support our troops, and we support the fight against terrorism. We want victory."

Meanwhile, HIPJ members handed out anti-war patches and posters.

"We want people to wear and post their anti-war voice to show decision-makers our dissent," said Kaveri Rajaraman, a third-year graduate student of molecular and cellular biology and an HIPJ member.

At the Harvard University rally, a shouting match erupted between members of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice (HIPJ) and students from the Harvard Republican Club (HRC). According to an article in The Harvard Crimson, the president of the HRC, Jeffrey Kwong, said, "We wanted to make sure that students and Harvard community know that the Republican Club is right behind the troops." Kwong went on to say that the antiwar protestors are not supportive of fighting terrorism. "We support our troops, and we support the fight against terrorism. We want victory," he said. Someone needs to remind Kwong that our invasion of Iraq has inspired terrorism, that Iraq had no connection to the terrorist attack on 9/11, and that if the HRC is really "right behind the troops," he and all those members of his club need to get their ivied asses to the nearest recruitment station and enlist in one of the branches of the armed forces.  I'm sure they, like Dick Cheney during the Viet Nam War, have "other priorities" though.   

We are a coalition initiated by the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), a group on campus that focuses on worker's rights both on-campus and around the world.

The coalition was formed in order to establish a more broad support network for security officers. Although this campaign is one based on worker's rights, it is also a campaign simply to support fellow members of the Harvard community as they strive for social justice.

As students, the security officers we see everyday are just as much a part of our lives as our professors or deans. We support our security officers, and all Harvard workers, in their efforts to improve their workplaces and will not sit idley as Harvard refuses to comply with these very basic demands.