Harvard University’s student newspaper, The Crimson, reported Thursday that the decision to boycott water dispensers manufactured by the Israeli company Sodastream by the Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) was “mistaken.”

In the face of criticism over a spring decision to suspend purchases from an Israeli soda water company with a presence in the West Bank, a Harvard University Dining Services spokesperson wrote in a statement Thursday that HUDS “mistakenly factored political concerns” into the controversial decision. “As the President and Provost have made clear, our procurement decisions should not be driven by community members’ views on matters of political controversy,” HUDS spokesperson Crista Martin wrote in an email. … University President Drew G. Faust requested an investigation into the decision in response to learning of the decision to suspend purchases of the machines from The Crimson this week, and Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote a statement reiterating the University’s stance against basing purchasing decisions on political considerations.

The decision was made in response to objections raised by the university’s Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Harvard Islamic Society.

Sodastream currently has a factory in Mishor Adumim, which employs both Israeli and Palestinian workers. Actress Scarlett Johansson, who was appointed the first international ambassador for SodaStream earlier this year, wrote that contrary to its critics, SodaStream was “building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine.”

The HUDS decision prompted an angry letter from noted Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker, who wrote in part:

While I am sympathetic with many of the students’ objections to the current policies of the Israeli government, I object even more strongly to the policies of the governments of countries such as Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. In a world filled with governments with deplorable policies, it is pernicious for a university to single out one of them for opprobrium.

Former Harvard president and current professor Lawrence Summers has been speaking out against boycotts of Israel since 2002. Earlier this year, he criticized a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions conference held at the university saying, “promoting BDS is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I warned years ago about actions that were anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent.”

[Photo: Daderot / WikiCommons ]