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Divestment
Campaign Opinions
By Thomas
Free_Palestine_Now@hotmail.com
http://www.studentorg.vcu.edu/fpn
Started 2 years ago by Professor Boyle at the University of
Illinois, the University Divestment campaign against the state of Israel
has exploded in numbers and strength.
To date more than 40 Universities nationwide have launched
divestment campaigns with varying degrees of success.
Modeled on the South Africa divestment campaigns of the 1980’s,
the Israel Divestment campaign strives to highlight the similarities
between the Apartheid states of South Africa and Israel.
As a member of a University Divestment
campaign, I have witnessed every step and every roadblock in the ongoing
struggle to promote divestment. Firstly,
I would like to comment on why I, personally, support Divestment.
The Israeli occupation and brutalization of the Palestinian people
is maintained by two factors. First,
the support of self-serving nations like the United States and Great
Britain, but secondly, and more importantly, the economic ability for
Israel to repress the Palestinians and still maintain the advanced service
system that Israelis are accustomed to.
Granted, most of Israel’s economic viability is due to the 6
billion dollars a year of our tax money that the US gives it, but a good
percentage of the viability of Israel’s economy is due to corporate
investments in their economy. Much
of these corporate and company investments come from American companies
with American stockholders. Consequently,
some of the largest individual stockholders in these companies and
corporations that sustain Israel are American Universities.
This wholehearted economic support for Israel by Universities is
fundamentally opposite to the goals of the University system.
Universities are places of education open to all students
regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.
Universities are expected to abide by the non-discrimination laws
that run this country. Yet,
Israel’s occupation of Palestine is without a doubt Apartheid like and
racist in character. Israel
actively pursues the transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, to be replaced by Jewish settlers from
Israel. The Israeli
government illegally (under the Geneva Convention, the UN, and the
International Criminal Court) sets up Settlements all over the occupied
territories by given tax breaks and incentives to Israelis who will move
into settlements on Palestinian lands.
In addition to this, the settlements are exclusively Jewish, and
all Palestinians, regardless of their creed or lack thereof are banned
from buying homes in the settlements, or even coming close to the land
that used to be theirs. This
Apartheid segregation goes against everything that we hold dear in the
United States, and most blatantly violates the non-discriminatory housing
laws that are a mainstay of our modern society. Yet our Universities, which reject discrimination,
economically help enforce discriminatory, illegal, Apartheid settlements
on Palestinian lands. In
addition to this, we in the United States, and in Universities in the
United States, reject all forms of racism.
Again, Israel’s occupation of Palestine is inherently racist.
All people of Jewish decent and Israeli citizens are given one
color license plate when traveling in the occupied territories.
All people of Palestinian or Arab decent are given another color.
When traveling across the occupied territories Palestinian plated
cars are stopped for hours at a time at all of the hundreds of Israeli
military checkpoints that litter the occupied territories.
Israeli plated cars go strait through.
It is to the point where for a Palestinian, a 20-minute journey
without the occupation, takes in excess of 3 hours with the occupation.
Imagine every time you want to go down to the store or go and pray
it takes you 3 hours where you have to deal with searches of your person
and property and verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Israeli
soldiers. This is
institutionalized racial profiling and racism, actions that are
antithetical to American society. Yet
our Universities, who reject all forms of racism, economically help
support this racism. Our Universities support education unconditionally, yet our
Universities funds are going to Israel, who during the first Intifada,
closed all schools in the occupied territories for 3 years as a collective
punishment on school children. All
of these society factors aside, the simple fact of the matter is that the
Israeli occupation forces have murdered more than 1,700 Palestinian
civilians in the past 2 years. In
the same time period, 600 Israelis have been killed.
Regardless of who is in the right or the wrong, that is 1,100 more
Palestinian deaths than Israeli. Yet
it is our University funds that have helped kill those 1,700 Palestinians,
and in the first Intifada, another 2,000 or so Palestinian civilians, and
in 1982, 2,500+ Palestinian women and children, and that is just modern
history.
The argument that has been put
foreword by the Pro-Zionist Israelis is that Divestment is Anti-Semitic
because it singles out Israel from all the countries in the world that
oppress another peoples. The
standard response of Divestment advocates is that we are in no means
anti-Semitic, there are countless Jews who support divestment and oppose
the Israeli occupation of Palestine all together.
I will reiterate these views, and add a few new ones.
No, we are not anti-Semitic, and yes, there are thousands of Jews
in this country that support divestment and oppose the Apartheid policies
of Israel. The co-founder of
VCU’s Free Palestine Now! The organization that I work with is Jewish;
he also is the number one activist in favor of divestment at this campus.
Many of the activists who work with Free Palestine Now! And the
divestment campaign also work with campaigns against neo-Nazi groups and
Christian anti-Semites. Many
of us including myself have protested and fought anti-Semites and Nazis
side by side with our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Yet now we are anti-Semites? Yes,
we do single out Israel, why? Because contrary to the arguments put out by
the pro-Zionists, I do believe that Israel is one of the greatest
purveyors of racism, apartheid, and murder in the current world.
I contest the view that “Israel is the greatest human right
supporter” in the region. Not
even in the most brutal of countries in the world have 1,700 innocent
people been murdered on the streets by a foreign military in the past two
years. Yes, there are many
other counties who support occupation of a foreign nation.
Great Britain in Northern Ireland, China in Tibet, India in Kashmir
and so on and so forth. However, in none of these cases is the level of daily terror
and racism more prevalent than in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Palestinian civilians are under a 24 hour a day curfew.
They cannot even leave their houses to go buy food.
When they do, Israelis open fire on them, or shoot them down on
their doorsteps. These
curfews have lasted in upwards of 170 days in some areas of the occupied
territories. Israel claims to have the “best human rights record” in
the region. I know of no
other country where you can be shot on your doorstep, or a bullet put into
your window for simply looking outside.
In addition to the murder and physical persecution of Palestinians,
Israel also arrests anyone it pleases, holds them without trial and
without contact to a lawyer for as long as it sees fit.
Yes, Israel has a great legal system, for Israelis, unfortunately
that does not apply to a poor Palestinian abducted from his home in a
refugee camp by the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Most of these people were just picked up off the street and had no
connection to any resistance movement.
Yes, we should concentrate on all of the oppressed peoples of the
world, and believe me, there are many groups that are dedicated to aiding
the struggle of the Tibetans, the Northern Irish, the Kashmir’s, etc.
However, we have to single out the most oppressive foreign
government that is subjugating the people of another land, and that nation
is Israel. That is the reason
there is a massive popular campaign for divestment against Israel.
We singled out South Africa in the 1980’s because at the time it
was the greatest purveyor of racism, Apartheid and murder in the world.
We single out Israel now because in today’s world, Israel is the
biggest purveyor of Racism, Apartheid, and murder.
This is not anti-Semitic, we are not singling out Israel because of
the makeup of its citizens, and we are singling them out because of the
direct actions of their government. If
Israel would only move to correct the injustices that it has committed
against the Palestinian people, it would find its self no longer the
target of international human rights, divestment, and peace campaigns.
I implore all of those who lash out with false allegations of
anti-Semitism, to examine the root causes of the actions against Israel.
Jews and Non-Jews alike have embarked upon the Divestment campaign
against Israel because of the policies of ethnically cleansing and
genocide undertaken by the Israeli government, not the Israeli people.
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