New York College Students Vote to Divest From 8 Companies That Do Business With Israel

Students at Barnard College in New York voted to request the administration stop doing business with eight companies tied to Israel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npSrUB3yuAQ

They wrote in a letter to the school’s top brass that these companies wrongfully “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”

The Student Government Association that demanded the divestment made the request, of all times, on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day celebrations.

The Algemeiner has more:

The referendum was endorsed by nearly 65 percent of the 1,153 students who voted in the school, whose undergraduate student population is about a third Jewish.

Zionist students have criticized the voting process for excluding voices opposed to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which seeks to isolate Israel until it complies with Palestinian demands.

The referendum was first introduced during an SGA meeting on March 19, during which Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine asked representatives to support divestment. The SGA voted instead to launch a student body-wide referendum on the matter, including it in a broader elections ballot.

Members of pro-Israel groups say they were only informed of the meeting the evening before, and did not have an opportunity to present their case before the SGA voted to allow a referendum.

“We had basically a day’s notice to think about what [the presentation] would mean, to make sure that people would feel safe going into that, and to make sure that people would have sufficient counter to [the presentation] even though there wasn’t an opportunity given to present,” Talia Rubin, president of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, told the Columbia Spectator at the time.

The students were allowed to raise their opposition at an SGA meeting the following week, after the referendum was launched.

A representative for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Marla Solow, argued however that BDS should not be part of a two-sided debate.

“We don’t want to present the issue as though there are two sides that need to come together because there is such an unequal balance of power,” Solow told the Spectator. “The idea that it can be an equal-sided debate misrepresents the situation and the power dynamics at play. You don’t want to normalize Israel’s violence.”

Aryeh, a non-partisan student group that supports the two-state solution, criticized “the unjust manner” in which the divestment campaign was structured, calling it “dishonest and opaque.”

“The decision to initiate a referendum was made behind closed doors without hearing formally from any pro-Israel students — and in contradiction to repeated assurances that no decision or vote would be made during that session,” the group wrote. “When Aryeh was finally able to speak at SGA, our one request — for a fair and unbiased referendum — was ignored, as SGA elected to put forward an unsourced text that included CUAD’s arguments and propaganda, in many cases word-for-word.”

Aryeh argued that presenting one-sided materials to students who had “no prior knowledge of the conflict” swayed the vote in favor of BDS.

Columbia’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel also expressed its disappointment, noting that “supporting BDS is much more than just requesting to divest from a few companies. It is an attempt to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish State and its People.”

“It has been proven that where BDS passes, an increase in anti-Semitic acts quickly follows,” the group added.

Studies have shown that activity related to BDS and the presence of an SJP branch are each strong predicators that a campus suffers from a hostile climate toward both Jews and Israel.

CUAD celebrate the referendum’s results on social media as an expression of solidarity with Palestinians. “Thank you for standing for justice,” it wrote, “thank you for standing with Palestine!”

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Alleged-Comment

5 years ago

Where are all these FATHERLESS MORONS coming from?? And why are they in school? They should be in BOOT camp getting their ass kicked from a drill Sargent.

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Liatris Spicata

5 years ago

For a good discussion of how best to respond to BDS, I would recommend this article, by Jack Saltzberg:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/04/20/definition-of-insanity-israel-loses-at-george-washington-university/

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iprazhm

5 years ago

It is but eight students. Unless college administrators listen to their racist demands, they mean nothing.

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Michele Coatta

5 years ago

Americans need to divest anti semetic colleges and universities our taxes should not pay these institutions to bash the Jewish state. In America u have freedom of speech but there should be consiquences for anti American anti Israel and anti semetic practices by these taxpayer funded institutions

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Oldfashioned2017

5 years ago

Since when do students invest in anything? I hope they’ll stop buying smart phones and computers with Intel chips and pray they’ll never need medical services that Israeli scientists have helped to invent.

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spudmans1

5 years ago

It is pretty evident what being armed with little knowledge can do to common sense and these pawns are a prime example. The old saying, “They do not know Sh_T from Shinola” fits them to a T. So then Graduate, get a job and start paying taxes so you can get a real perspective of what being grown up is all about.

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Dennis

5 years ago

With anti-Semitism already built into the belief system that is Islam, and where no anti-Islam exists in the Jewish peoples religious belief system and secular functions of Israel’s government, and where the Arab Islamic world that surrounds Israel, such as Hamas’ and Fatah actively call for the destruction of Israel and death to the Jewish people, and where the 1400 year history of Islam has established that radicals within Islam will commit senseless barbaric acts against innocents, justifying their conduct by claiming that their God supports such heinous conduct, I, for one, cannot understand why these people would even consider trying to harm Israel with these movements to BDS. The truth is that the Arab world would probably prosper if they rejected their call for destruction and death of the Jewish people and that harmony with Israel is in the best interests of their people. The idiocy of those calling on boycotts of Israel, something that simply cannot work because the Jewish state is so highly economically advanced, an advancement that has significant positive effects on this planet, to me, is mind boggling. While I respect the right of any people to protest, I find it very dubious when the people protesting have no understanding that the factual reality simply does not support the concepts that they allegedly believe supports their underlying reasons to promote foolish and worthless protests. Avoiding reality is no different that trying to hold your breath, as the truth is holdings ones breath is both stupid, except when there is no air to breath, and is not acceptable, as is these foolish thoughts that support BDS.

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spudmans1

5 years ago

Reply to  Dennis

Problem is Dennis is that after centuries of inbreeding muslims are simply unable to reason, to deduct, or summarize. They have been taught to hate since childhood and it is all they know. Islam commands that and they, like sheep, simply follow to be in the good graces of other muslims.

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R. Arandas

5 years ago

I fear for the future of the next generation. BDS is gaining movement and ground on more and more universities because so many young liberals proudly prefer Muslims to Jews:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180412-50-new-york-student-groups-back-bds/

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Michael Garfinkel

5 years ago

Reply to  R. Arandas

It’s quite obvious that the younger generation of “elites is lost” – that much is certain.

It remains to be seen if that holds true for the “silent majority” of young people across the country.

It is particularly galling that schools like Brandeis and Barnard, founded by Jews and with long standing ties to the Jewish community, have become such hot-beds of Jew hatred.

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marble granite

5 years ago

Promoters of anti-Israel appeals for divestment are racists.

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mackykam

5 years ago

start contacting Jewish donors to Barnard….

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Mahou Shoujo

5 years ago

These marginal students will be spending the next few years paying off student loans, they will never have enough money to invest in anything.

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