Keeping our enemies close: Boston Consulting Group, a leading international consulting firm, has spent years—and raked in millions of dollars—training government workers in Hamas-friendly Qatar and communist China. In 2023, it agreed to endorse CCP principles in order to land a contract advising Beijing city officials on artificial intelligence. Now, our Alana Goodman reports, it's apologizing—over two of its now-former partners' work for an Israeli-backed aid project in Gaza.
The firm fired the two partners for their work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the new aid distribution program aimed at preventing Hamas from intercepting food and supplies. CEO Christoph Schweizer addressed the ordeal in two internal messages, one to current employees and one to alumni. In the first message, Schweizer said he was "sorry for how disappointing this has been to many BCGers around the world." In the second, he said the firm's work with the GHF violated "BCG's direction, policies, and values—including our apolitical and humanitarian-focused stance in this conflict," indicating BCG was institutionally opposed to aiding the joint U.S.-Israeli initiative.
The messages "came as news of BCG's involvement in the project infuriated a group of the firm's employees, who wrote a letter to leadership saying BCG could be complicit in 'population transfer and ethnic cleansing,'" writes Goodman. "They demanded the firm 'hold to account all those who dragged BCG into this unenviable situation' and 'immediately issue an explanatory note to staff to address their concerns.'"
"BCG has offered no such condemnations—and does not appear to have faced internal pushback—over its lucrative work in Qatar and China."
"Fertile human capital recruiting ground": That's how Strategy Risks, an analytical firm that focuses on China, described the Chinese Communist Party's relationship with Harvard.
China has funneled millions of dollars into the Ivy League school—money it's used to enlist professors and students in "projects that involve sensitive and advanced technologies" and "contribute to the PRC's military-industrial complex," according to a new report from the firm. "The extent of collaboration suggests that Harvard is a hub for creating ties between PRC security agencies and Harvard scholars and students."
"Harvard accepted more than $18 million in gifts from China in 2023 alone but did not disclose the identities of these donors," the Free Beacon's Adam Kredo writes. "From 2013 to June 2020, Harvard received $93.7 million in donations from China—the highest amount of any university in the United States. The influx of cash has sparked numerous partnerships between Chinese state entities and the Ivy League school."
Leave those kids alone: Last week, some students in Half Hollow Hills Central School District received a study guide as they prepared for a state-issued exam. It described Zionism as "extreme nationalism" and accused Israel of "terrorism."
"Watchdog group StopAntisemitism posted a photo of the study guide, which was meant to prepare 10th graders for New York's Regents Exam, and called it 'straight out of a Hamas playbook,’" our Jessica Costescu reports. The state said it had no involvement in creating or dispersing the document. The district also denied responsibility—its spokesman said that a "few teachers" shared the guide with their social studies students but denied the district created or approved it.
"The state and local officials’ responses to the study guide leave a number of questions. For one, it’s still a mystery who did, in fact, create the document—or if the teachers who distributed it will face any consequences," writes Costescu. "It’s also unclear whether the study guide’s descriptions of Israel and Zionism reflects how the state exam handles those topics."
In other news: