Short answer: No. As of August 2026, Robert Pape, the University of Chicago political scientist who directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), is a sustained public critic of Israel's military conduct in Gaza. He has not made pro-Israel statements, has not been noted for visits to Israel or donations to Israel-linked causes, and no boycott participation or refusal was found in the public record either. His body of work since December 2023 argues Israel's bombing campaign is strategically counterproductive and, in his most recent writing, morally troubling.
What Robert Pape has actually said and done
- December 2023: Pape published "Israel's Failed Bombing Campaign in Gaza" in Foreign Affairs, arguing Israel's air campaign was "doomed to failure" as a strategy against Hamas.
- May 28, 2024: A Nature feature, publicized by the University of Chicago Division of Social Sciences, discussed Pape's CPOST survey research on U.S. campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
- June 21, 2024: Pape published "Hamas Is Winning: Why Israel's Failing Strategy Makes Its Enemy Stronger" in Foreign Affairs, arguing that nine months of Israeli air and ground operations had not defeated Hamas, and that Hamas was measurably stronger than it had been on October 7, 2023.
- August 7, 2025: Pape published "The Unparalleled Devastation of Gaza: Why Punishing Civilians Has Not Yielded Strategic Success" in Foreign Affairs, continuing his argument against Israel's Gaza campaign as a coercion strategy.
- Around August 7-9, 2025: On X, Pape wrote: "We living thru history. Israel's campaign in Gaza is the most lethal case of a Western democracy using the punishment of civilians as a tactic of war. Israel must reverse course or face the world's growing wrath."
Who Robert Pape is and where he's coming from
Robert Pape (born April 24, 1960) is a tenured professor of political science at the University of Chicago and founding director of CPOST, which studies terrorism, political violence, and coercive air power. His academic reputation predates the current war by decades: he is best known for his research on suicide terrorism ("Dying to Win," 2005) and on air power coercion ("Bombing to Win," 1996). No public record was found of him visiting Israel, donating to Israeli or Jewish causes, appearing at pro-Israel events, or declining to appear at anti-Israel events, and no record of him signing or refusing an academic boycott of Israel was found either. His public output since December 2023, Foreign Affairs essays, CPOST survey research, and social media, consistently argues that Israel's military strategy in Gaza has been counterproductive on strategic grounds, and in his 2025-2026 writing it increasingly frames Israeli conduct in explicitly moral and humanitarian terms, focused on civilian casualties and casualty scale. Nothing in the public record ties him to Jewish identity, ancestry, or a personal connection to Israel. He remains an active, credentialed academic voice rather than a political activist, and his critiques are framed as strategic and scholarly analysis rather than boycott, sanctions, or divestment activism.
The bottom line
Robert Pape does not support Israel's conduct of the war. His consistent public position since late 2023 is that Israel's military strategy in Gaza is both strategically failing and, increasingly in his later writing, morally troubling. There is no countervailing record of pro-Israel statements, visits, donations, or event support. He has also not been tied to formal boycott activism against Israel; his mode of engagement is scholarly and journalistic critique rather than activism.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
