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Today's Top News
Divestment: From the Campus to the Streets
Following a sharp increase in
divestment efforts across North American college campuses last spring,
this academic year promises an even greater number of initiatives. The
success and near-success of efforts at several campuses last year,
coupled with Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla this summer,
has inspired new efforts among peace and justice activists to target
companies that profit from and abet Israel's apartheid regime.
Perhaps the largest divestment initiative is taking shape in California.
The California Israel Divestment initiative is seeking to put a ballot
measure to California voters that requires the state pension funds, the
California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the
California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), to divest from
companies enabling or profiting from Israeli occupation and systematic
violations of Palestinians' human rights. Although not a
university-based effort, it is being led in large part by faculty
members and students. Their goal is clear: faced by stonewalling from
university administrations, the case is being taken directly to
California voters.
Students from the University of California (UC) and California State
(CSU) campuses are coordinating a major drive to collect the 440,000
signatures required for the ballot initiative, and the list of
volunteers keeps growing. The initiative has already received the
support of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Professor Noam
Chomsky, a number of other public and religious figures, and CalPERS and
CalSTRS members.
Meanwhile, campus divestment efforts continue to grow in number and
scope. University administrators, typically beholden to conventional
donors and afraid of the "anti-Semitism label," have moved to limit the
"damage" of the mushrooming boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)
movement. Hampshire College, for instance, sold its State Street fund
but publicly denied that it was motivated by divestment from Israel.
Some other administrations have tried to ignore the issue, wishing it
away. However, these attempts have only backfired.
The response of the University of California (UC) administration to
campus divestment initiatives is a prominent example of how desperate
the status quo forces are, and the shrinking moral and intellectual ground under their feet.
Last spring, student governments at two UC campuses introduced measures
calling for divestment from companies profiting from Israel's occupation
and war crimes committed during its winter 2008-09 invasion of Gaza. In
response, UC President Mark Yudof, together with the chair and
vice-chair of the UC Board of Regents, issued a formal "UC Statement on
Divestment" which rejected the singling out of Israel, even though the
bills exclusively focused on US companies providing material support to
Israel's illegal occupation and documented war crimes. The statement
also referred to the pain the divestment initiatives brought upon the
Jewish community, despite the strong support that the bills received
from local and international Jewish individuals and organizations. The
statement ignored the 41 student organizations, 86 UC faculty members,
not to mention five Nobel peace laureates, who publicly supported the
resolutions. In addition to attempting to minimize the scope of the
divestment initiative's support on campus by its dismissive language,
the statement declared UC opposition to considering any divestment
measures to the regents unless the US government declares that the state
in question is committing genocide.
However, the notion that an academic institution can follow a socially responsible investment policy only after
the US government has made a finding that acts of genocide -- no less -
are taking place goes against UC's legacy and the values of citizen-led
democracy and activism. It ensures inaction in the name of unspeakable
horror and surrenders human conscience and responsibility to the
calendar and temperament of American politicians. After all, Washington
has yet to make a determination on the Armenian genocide of the First
World War!
According to this policy of deference to the US government, UC would
have found it unacceptable to divest from companies supporting the Nazi
occupation of Europe and the extermination of civilians in death camps
prior to the US declaration of war -- or even the official recognition
of genocide after the war ended. Moreover, had Yudof been UC President
in 1986, he would not have voted to divest from companies supporting
South Africa's apartheid regime when the UC Regents memorably did, to
ground-breaking success. As an academic and presumed defender of free
speech, the UC president should be protesting this policy, not
advocating it.
These proclamations by university administrators aim to empty academic
conscience and activism of any substance, and to reduce them to empty
slogans and colorful parades. The policies they advance are a
thinly-veiled effort to incapacitate university campuses from leading
any effort to challenge racism and social injustice. As autonomous
actors, universities and independent citizens should retain the right to
influence the policy of their government. If what is going on in
California is any indication, authoritative attempts by campus
administrations to muzzle or stonewall the exercise of this right on
campus will likely result in their constituency taking their activism to
the street! It is this right that faculty and students alike will be
exercising this academic year and every year on campus and off campus,
until Israeli apartheid is dismantled.
- Posted in
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16 Comments so far
Show AllThe initiative is too shallow, and needs to target all Israeli companies and government bonds. The narrow intitiative is being crafted to not offend US Jews, but 2% of our population should not be an obstacle to what over 70% of US citizens want.
The initiative is too shallow, and needs to target all Israeli companies and government bonds. The narrow intitiative is being crafted to not offend US Jews, but 2% of our population should not be an obstacle to what over 70% of US citizens want.
As a strong supporter of Israel, I urge everyone to support this initiative and to publicize it as much as possible. It is probably the most useful and effective way of dramatizing and publicizing the growth of anti-semitism. Even better, it gets the anti-semites to pay for the publicity, which is great. Although the BDS campaign has been a total failure, to say the least, with not a single country or corporation signing on, by publicizing the growth of anti-semitism it has generated a great deal of support for Israel, and encouraged people all over the world to increase their support of and investments in Israel. Since the BDS campaign began around 5 years ago Israel's GDP has increased from around $175 billion to well over $200 billion (and during a global recession at that), and global investment is also increasing. There is no question that Israel is stronger now than it was a few years ago, and that the Palestinians are worse off. Good work!!!
Please, please, please push this initiative and other anti-semitic measures as much as you can. There is hardly anything you could do that would better combat this resurgence of nazism. All Jews will thank you from the bottom of their hearts, as will everyone around the world who supports human rights and civil liberties, and who is opposed to the violent, warmongering right-wing extremism that the anti-semites represent. Every anti-semitic post or comment helps create income and jobs for Jews, and we are extremely grateful. It also provides a great deal of entertainment for us all, since, whether you realize or not, the anti-semites are widely seen as laughing-stocks. Thank you so very, very much. Here's a YouTube link to encourage you in your efforts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K08akOt2kuo
Hi Mike P.,
below is an excerpt from an essay by Starhawk that I think applies to your comments:
--------------
I am a Jew, by birth and upbringing, born six years after the Holocaust ended, raised on the myth and hope of Israel. The myth goes like this:
"For two thousand years we wandered in exile, homeless and
persecuted, nearly destroyed utterly by the Nazis. But out of that
suffering was born one good thing-the homeland that we have come back
to, our own land at last, where we can be safe, and proud, and
strong."
That's a powerful story, a moving story. There's only one problem with it-it leaves the Palestinians out. It has to leave them out, for if we were to admit that the homeland belonged to another people, well, that spoils the story.
The result is a kind of psychic blind spot where the Palestinians are concerned. If you are truly invested in Israel as the Jewish homeland, the Jewish state, then you can't let the Palestinians be real to you. It's like you can't really focus on them. Golda Meir said, "The Palestinians, who are they? They don't exist." We hear, "There is no partner for peace," "There is no one to talk to."
And so Israel, a modern state with high standards of hygiene, a state rooted in a religion that requires washing your hands before you eat and regular, ritual baths, builds settlements that don't bother to construct sewage treatment plants. They just dump raw sewage onto the Palestinian fields across the fence, somewhat like a spaceship ejecting its wastes into the void. I am truly not making this up-I've seen it, smelled it, and it's a known though shameful fact. But if the Palestinians aren't really real-who are they? They don't exist!-then the land they inhabit becomes a kind of void in the psyche, and it isn't really real, either. At times, in those border villages, walking the fencelines of settlements, you feel like you have slipped into a science fiction movie, where parallel universes exist in the same space, but in different strands of reality, that never touch. ...
"All we want is a return to calm," the Israeli ambassador says. "All we want is peace."
One way to get peace is to exterminate what threatens you. In fact, that may be the prime directive of the last few thousand years.
But attempts to exterminate pests breed resistance, whether you're dealing with insects or bacteria or people. The more insecticides you pour on a field, the more pests you have to deal with-because insecticides are always more potent at killing the beneficial bugs than the pesky ones.
The harshness, the crackdowns, the border closings, the checkpoints, the assassinations, the incursions, the building of settlements deep into Palestinian territory, all the daily frustrations and humiliations of occupation, have been breeding the conditions for Hamas, or something like it, to thrive. If Israel truly wants peace, there's a more subtle, a more intelligent and more effective strategy to pursue than simply trying to kill the enemy and anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity.
It's this-instead of killing what threatens you, feed what you want to grow. Consider in what conditions peace can thrive, and create them, just as you would prepare the bed for the crops you want to plant. Find those among your opponents who also want peace, and support them. Make alliances. Offer your enemies incentives to change, and reward your friends.
Of course, to follow such a strategy, you must actually see and know your enemy. If they are nothing to you but cartoon characters of terrorists, you will not be able to tell one from another, to discern the religious fanatic from the guy muttering under his breath, "F-ing Hammas, they closed the cinema again!"
And you must be willing to give something up. No one gets peace if your basic bargaining position is, "I get everything I want, and you eat my shit." You might get a temporary victory, but it will never be a peaceful one.
To know and see the enemy, you must let them into the story. They must become real to you, nuanced, distinctive as individuals. But when we let the Palestinians into the story, it changes. Oh, how painfully it changes! For there is no way to tell a new story, one that includes both peoples of the land, without starting like this:
"In our yearning for a homeland, in our attempts as a threatened and
traumatized people to find safety and power, we have done a great
wrong to another people, and now we must atone."
Just try saying it. If you, like me, were raised on that other story, just try this one out. Say it three times. It hurts, yes, but it might also bring a great, liberating sense of relief with it.
And if you're not Jewish, if you're American, if you're white, if you're German, if you're a thousand other things, really, if you're a human being, there's probably some version of that story that is true for you.
Dear esabi: I agree with your points. The "rest" of the story is what Israel was SUPPOSED to be. Please read, ALTNEULAND, by Herzl. it's on-line and free to read. This novel is the dream of what Israel COULD be.
Sadly, it's just a novel, but it doesn't have to be. I agree that the students and faculty of the university system are doing the right thing. I live in California and I will vote for this.
I also think that no one should buy savings bonds or T-bills, because America, after all is just as guilty as Israel is of war crimes.
I wish too, that some people would stop saying that if a person disagrees with Israel's policies, then that person is Anti-Semetic. The Palestinians are Semites too, and Israel is certainly being Anti-Semetic against them, so that 'word" argument makes no sense to me.
I very, very definitely do not believe that all those who criticize Israel are anti-semitic. Not at all. I can't stand Israel's current right-wing government, and they deserve lots of criticism.
I'm saying that YOU guys are anti-semitic. You're a bunch of bigots and nazis. I'm saying that you don't give a crap about human rights, or the Palestinians, or anything except hating Jews, and distracting attention from the massive war crimes and human rights abuses that our own country is committing. And, yes, I realize that the Arabs are technically "semitic" as well. I know a hell of a lot more about middle east history than any of you folks. However, the term "anti-semitic" has generally come to be known as a term for those who hate Jews. If it makes you feel any better then feel free to substitute "Jew haters" for "anti-semites." It doesn't change who or what you are, words don't matter that much. I stand by the term "nazis."
In any case, thank you very much for your comments. As I say, every comment helps publicize Jew-hating (feel better?) and helps empower Israel. They also do a great deal to strengthen the right-wing in Israel and weaken those in Israel who want peace. But I guess you folks don't care about peace, you just want endless wars, so that your country can sell more weapons.
esabi,
thank you very much for sharing that. this is a human rights issue, israelis, per capita, receive more direct aid per than any other country on earth. israel also is the largest recipient of US aid. this is a human rights issue - obfuscating the reality on the ground, by resorting to personal cultural attachments to the oppressor, is not successfully masking the atrocities being committed by israelis in palestine. the world is waking up, and the entire world is not anti-semitic.
where is the israeli state's recognition of human dignity when it creates these abysmal conditions in palestine ?
do you know where i can read starhawk's essay in its entirety ?
...peace...
There is no such thing as a "strong supporter of Israel" that is also in favor of oppressing the Palestinian: only weak, cowardly, craven supporters of genocide, apartheid, occupation and oppression.
So go ahead and keep throwing that "anti-Semitism" canard around, much good may it do you. The world is totally ignoring your tired, transparent and desperate propaganda now while methodically shutting down your ability to conduct international business. Israel will continue to be treated as an unspeakable pariah state all across the globe so long as it continues to behave like a contemporary Nazi Germany.
Yawn. Mikep is just spouting off standard zionist boilerplate.
"We're awesome. Our economy is growing. We make software. I screwed a russian whore on my bar-mitzvah. My mom burns TV dinners, so I just eat at Burger King."
They are paranoid, and it's showing. The Mavi Marmara was a major turning point. Watch any bully in a schoolyard. The more kids they beat up, the worse they sleep.
Good article!
This is a great new initiative. The campaign website has video of the kickoff press announcement with a diverse array of speakers at
http://www.israeldivestmentcampaign.org/
This initiative has the potential to take the Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign into the mainstream.
Excellent!
rwsterling1,
great link !! thank you..
...peace...
mikep claims that ". . . the BDS campaign has been a total failure, to say the least, with not a single country or corporation signing on, . . ."
If the BDS movement were a total failure then the Israeli government would not be taking action against it within Israel, banning protests and outlawing the boycott.
I don't think that you will find any "country or corporation signing on" first because that's not what countries do. What "country or corporation" signed on to the boycott against South Africa? Second, BDS is not a petition; it's an action and plenty of people and organizations are joining.
q
Mohammed Talaat, a UCB grad may remember that we went through all this in the 1980s at UCB when So Africa divestment was the issue. As I recall, the UC Admin never tried to hide behind an official US State Dept "genocide" declaration but that kind of posturing was common enough at the time and equally specious.
It's obvious to anybody with a working moral compass that waiting for a "genocide" declaration means waiting indefinitely. You can't get those anymore (look at Darfur). Even if you could, it would only happen after the genocide began, which wouldn't do the Palestinians much good. Anyway, it's a quibble. Nobody is arguing about genocide. The Israeli elite can't be accused of consciously wiping out a whole people - they have stated repeatedly that "the Palestinians do not exist". Divestment from So Africa finally happened on the basis of lack universal suffrage, not genocide.
The decision to divest comes down to lobbying millionaire and billionaire donors and alums and various other "multi-versity" business connections and MIC contractors. Do you knuckle under (current posture) or do something to signal your disfavor of human rights abuses (divestment)? It depends on how you cover yourself. UC is in desperate financial straits - they are unlikely to turn away money on moral grounds, especially with Abe Foxman, AIPAC and the whole apparatus of Israeli propaganda firing with both barrels.
Good Luck to the divestment movement. The So Africa divestment movement wandered in the wilderness for years and only took hold when major players gave the go ahead and So Africa Pres Botha signaled an intent to negotiate a settlement that kept elite, mostly white So Africans in power. Is that going to happen with Israel? For now, the "MikeP's" (who and whatever MikeP is) have the floor and they ain't giving it up.
Correction to previous comment: US State dept did declare Sudan guilty of "genocide" because of Darfur. This resulted from highly financed PR campaign (including full page color ads in Newsweek). The publicly funded Holocaust Museum played a major political role in the drive to 1)demonize Sudan with lies and gross exaggerations and 2) divert students and other potential human rights activists away from anti-US Occupation or anti-Zionist activites. See Mahmood Mamdani or Alex DeWaal for good information and antidote to propaganda on Sudan and Darfur.
In the context of the Sudan demonization campaign, UC Regents had no trouble passing a divestment resolution against Sudan. At the same time, they made sure that any future divestment campaign would have an impossible hurdle by including the requirement that the country in question be sanctioned for genocide by the State Dept as was done to Sudan.
It was an outrageous move, passed quietly with no fanfare.
That is another reason why this initiative to take the issue to the public may be a huge step forward.
There is a Jewish saying to the effect it only takes three generations to go from wealth to poverty. The current crop of Israeli's are squandering the wealth of social capital earned by the heroism of their grandparents, built upon by the hard work and sobriety of their parents and thrown to the wind in the arrogance and carelessness of the current group. Anti semetism and the haulocaust are not a get out of jail free card anymore. The sanctions are a way for civil society to speak with their dollars. They don't have to expose themselves to any Israeli rudeness, ask permission from their government or engage in any kind of aggressive behavior at all for their actions to have an effect. Form follows function, loose social capital, loose financial capital.
Wow, when Fidel Castro starts calling you lefties a bunch of Jew Hatin' Bigots you've really sunk to a new low in History. Even the Saudis are withdrawing funding of Palestinian terror.
The saddest thing is that the construct of Palestine belies what these people really are, which is forcibly converted Jews and people who worked with Hitler in WWII.
While I agree that the Holocaust is no "get out of Jail free card," NEITHER is the bullshit Palestine calls a Naqba where they attacked Jews and LOST!
I am sooo glad I am a moderate who doesn't buy any of this crap and can read between the lines. Next time you want something eco-friendly don't look to Starhawk who is mired in looking cool in San Fran and writing tremendously good FICTION....She is a fiction writer after all.
Look to Israel that has developed THE best eco-friendly technology in the world.
Enjoy your drip lines you stupid potheads.
And one last thing, the words I am a Jew inevitably are followed by one of two things...
Either you're about to feed someone or you're about to push another Jew into an oven.