Divest from Israel: Free Palestine Challenges VCU To Take a State for Human Rights
by Jen Lawhorne

     When the Israeli army invades Palestinian villages and demolishes families’ homes and businesses and uproots ancient groves of life-sustaining olive trees, the army uses bulldozing equipment emblazoned with the logo CAT, short for Caterpillar, a U.S. corporation that manufactures construction equipment.
     It is well-known that the psychological and physical devastation Israel enacts upon the land and people of Palestine is done with help from many U.S.-based corporations like Caterpillar, and the government, which funnels $6 billion a year in taxpayer money to Israel along with guns, tanks, helicopters and warplanes.
     Heavy U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine has been subject to much domestic outrage and the creation of various groups that are demanding an end of U.S. assistance to Israel. As much as these companies and the U.S. government are implicated in the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, the investors of these companies are being held accountable as well.
     Virginia Commonwealth University’s Free Palestine Now! student organization has launched a campaign that demands VCU “divest funds from any and all companies that invest, sell weapons to or have substantial business dealings with Israel.” FPN’s effort joins with 16 other university student groups in the country that are demanding their universities not use tuition money to invest in Israel. The divestment drive mirrors the campaign where millions of dollars were pulled out of South Africa during the 1980s to boycott the apartheid government there.
     According to FPN research VCU has more than $8 million invested in about a dozen companies that FPN believes assist Israel with carrying out the occupation, including Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, Ford and Coca-Cola. FPN also plans to target the campus’s Starbucks café. FPN says the chairman of the Starbucks corporation, Howard Schultz, is pro-Israeli.
     “The plan is to force VCU to divest from and put a social restriction on companies that have sizeable investments in Israel,” said FPN member Ari Packer*.
     "VCU contradicts its own established ideals and bylaws as an institute of higher learning, which purports to ideas of equal opportunity,” Packer continued. “It is antithetical for VCU to support Israeli apartheid which in no way supports equality, justice and human rights.”
     So far, FPN has met with VCU President Eugene Trani and presented him with a letter notifying the university of the divestment campaign, urging the school to divest its funds from companies that support Israel. During the meeting, three FPN members argued the case of the Palestinian people by giving Trani reports documenting the conditions Palestinians live under and numerous violations of international law Israel is responsible for.
     Trani gave a lukewarm response and said that VCU does not take politcal positions but said he would make the information available to the boards that control VCU investments. The meeting ended with limp handshakes and testament as to what FPN is up against.
     FPN member Said Tomas* said Trani showed his real colors during the meeting.
     “Trani is more concerned with VCU’s image to the public and people who give (VCU) money than he is with the beliefs of his students,” Tomas said.
     The future of the divestment campaign involves “ratcheting up the pressure on Trani,” by alerting the local, national and international community of the divestment campaign. FPN plans to collect, through a petition drive, the signatures of thousands of people who believe VCU should divest.
     “Trani needs to understand that it’s not just a group of VCU students who believe this, it’s a wide cross section of people around the world and the Richmond community who believe the Israeli occupation is immoral,” Tomas said.
     FPN’s tenacious pursuit of this campaign has made it the campus’s most visible political group by bringing speakers like the International Solidarity Movement’s Adam Shapiro and Ramzy Baroud from the Palestine Chronicle. FPN has also articulated the plight of the Palestinian people through video showings, dropping banners and perfoming street theater on VCU’s campus. The group has drawn hundreds of people to its events and cultivated tight bonds with other activist groups, like Richmond’s Food Not Bombs and D.C.’s SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax Aid in Israel Now).
     “We’ve gotten exposure from all over and we were slandered by the Anti-Defamation League,” Tomas said. “Although, the (ADL) made untrue claims, it’s a big accomplishment for us to be lumped together with International ANSWER.”
     Not bad for a group that is only a year old and began with just two college students who met during history class and is now strong with 20 dedicated student members.
     “FPN has exploded into a real student organization that can affect change,” Tomas said. The burgeoning influence of FPN has created some introspection on the group as well. The group delegates responsibility to committees headed by first-year students and plans to turn over leadership this spring to up and comers.
     VCU freshwoman Diana Kamongi said she became involved with FPN after seeing Adam Shapiro talk about the ISM during an FPN event. A refugee of Rwanda, Kamongi believes the Palestinian experience is similar to the apartheid inflicted upon the people of South Africa. She also knows that part of the success of the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa was due to international attention through divestment campaigns.
     “The campaign will be successful. I think if people really know where VCU’s tuition money is going, then they’d definitely would be interested in the situation in Palestine,” she said.