Wikileaks: State Department Briefed Washington on Halutz Campaign

Thanks to the latest trove of Wikileaks cables made publicly available, we now know that the campaign to expose Harvard's sordid links to alleged war criminals such as General Dan Halutz came to the attention of the highest levels of the U.S. government.

A cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Israel to the White House and other agencies on 15 May, 2007 noted a prominent local media report about the "Wanted for Crimes of War" poster for Halutz that we distributed:

Among the many items from the Israeli media on that day, the report about our protest likely drew the State Department's attention due to its longstanding desire to shield Israel from accountability for alleged war crimes, as cables detailing its arm-twisting of world governments over the Goldstone report make clear.

It is not clear what action, if any, was taken on the basis of this information, but we do know it was stored on a database accessible to hundreds of thousands of Department of Defense employees—including, presumably, those responsible for spying on activist groups inside the U.S. Meanwhile, other cables released by Wikileaks have revealed the extent of overseas U.S. efforts to suppress the growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to end Israel's discriminatory and repressive practices.