Open Letter to Berkeley Students on their Historic Israeli Divestment Bill

On March 18, continuing a long tradition of pioneering human rights
campaigns, the Senate of the Associated Students of the University of
California, Berkeley (ASUC) passed "A Bill In Support of UC DIVESTMENT
FROM WAR CRIMES." The historic
bill resolves to divest ASUC's assets from two American companies,
General Electric and United Technologies, that are "materially and
militarily supporting the Israeli government's occupation of the
Palestinian territories"-and to advocate that the UC, with about $135
million invested in companies that profit from Israel's illegal actions
in the Occupied Territories, follow suit.

Although the bill passed by a vote of 16-4 after a packed and intense
debate, the President of the Senate vetoed
the bill six days later. The Senate is expected to reconsider the bill
soon; groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace are asking supporters of
the bill to send
letters to the Senators, who can overturn the veto with only 14
votes.

Here is the letter I just sent:

Dear members of the ASUC Senate,

I am writing to urge you to reaffirm Senate Bill 118A, despite the
recent presidential veto.

It comes as no surprise that you are under intense pressure to reverse
your historic and democratic decision to divest from two companies that
profit from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. When a school
with a deserved reputation for academic excellence and moral leadership
takes such a bold position, it threatens to inspire others to take their
own stands.

Indeed, Berkeley--the campus and the wider community--has provided this
kind of leadership on many key issues in the past: not only Apartheid in
South Africa but also sweatshops in Indonesia, dictatorship in Burma,
political killings in Nigeria, and the list goes on. Time and again,
when the call for international solidarity has come from people denied a
political voice, Berkeley has been among the first to answer. And in
virtually every case, what began as a small action in a progressive
community quickly spread across the country and around the world.

Your recent divestment bill opposing Israeli war crimes stands to have
this same kind of global impact, helping to build a grassroots,
non-violent movement to end Israel's violations of international law.
And this is precisely what your opponents--by spreading deliberate lies
about your actions--are desperately trying to prevent. They are even
going so far as to claim that, in the future, there should be no
divestment campaigns that target a specific country, a move that would
rob activists of one of the most effective tools in the non-violent
arsenal. Please don't give into this pressure; too much is on the line.

As the world has just witnessed with the Netanyahu government's refusal
to stop its illegal settlement expansion, political pressure is simply
not enough to wrench Israel off its current disastrous path. And when
our governments fail to apply sanctions for defiant illegality, other
forms of pressure must come into play, including targeting those
corporations that are profiting directly from human rights abuses.

Whenever we take a political action, we open ourselves up to accusations
of hypocrisy and double standards, since the truth is that we can never
do enough in the face of pervasive global injustice. Yet to argue that
taking a clear stand against Israeli war crimes is somehow to
"discriminate unfairly" against Israelis and Jews (as the veto seems to
claim) is to grossly pervert the language of human rights. Far from
"singling out Israel," with Senate Bill 118A, you are acting within
Berkeley's commendable and inspiring tradition.

I understand that there is some debate about whether or not your
divestment bill was adopted "in haste." Not having been there, I cannot
comment on your process, though I am deeply impressed by the careful
research that went into the decision. I also know that in 2005 an
extraordinarily broad range of Palestinian civil society groups called
on activists around the world to adopt precisely these kinds of peaceful
pressure tactics. In the years since that call, we have all watched as
Israeli abuses have escalated dramatically: the attack on Lebanon in the
summer of 2006, a massive expansion of illegal settlements and walls,
an ongoing siege on Gaza that violates all prohibitions on collective
punishment, and, worst of all, the 2008/9 attack on Gaza that left
approximately 1,400 dead.

I would humbly suggest that when it comes to acting to end Israeli war
crimes, the international response has not suffered from too much haste
but from far too little. This is a moment of great urgency, and the
world is watching.

Be brave.

Yours sincerely,

Naomi Klein