Berkeley joins divestment movements at University of Michigan, Wisconsin, Sussex, & Wayne State University.

Click on image to enlarge.

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"Cal-Berkeley students pass divestment, fight veto"

ARAB AMERICAN NEWS (Dearborn, Michigan)

March 27, 2010

Page 16.

On the Web at:

http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=USA&article=3023

[This article documents the spread of campus movements to dis-invest from the Israeli occupation of Palestine:]

"...One such campus is the University of California-Berkeley, one of the most prominent public research universities in the United States according to many analysts.

"UC-Berkeley's student senate approved a bill last Thursday, March 18, by a vote of 16-4 encouraging divestment from General Electric and United Technologies, both of which produce military items for the Israeli military, according to the divestment resolution...."

"...Similar measures recommending divestment from companies that provide military support for Israel have also been passed during the 2009-2010 school year by the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. Wayne State University's student council has also voted for total divestment from Israeli military suppliers in the past."

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Berkeley student government approves divestment against Israel.The vote was 16-4.

"ASUC Bill Opposes UC Investment in Israel"

Full article in the "Daily Californian" at:

http://www.dailycal.org/article/108743/asuc_bill_opposes_uc_investment_in_israel

March 18, 2010

By Allie Bidwell
Contributing Writer

The ASUC Senate considered a bill Wednesday night urging the University of California to divest from companies who have supplied the state of Israel with materials used in alleged war crimes.

A final vote, not available as of press time, was expected to be close, and numerous supporters both for and against the bill came to the meeting to voice their opinions. While proponents said the bill is the first step in an expected long-term process to convince the UC Board of Regents to pull total investments of about $135 million from five companies currently supplying Israel with electronics and weapons, opponents contended it unfairly targets Israel.

According to graduate student Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine who co-authored the bill, companies such as Hewlett-Packard and General Electric are supplying Israel with the technology necessary to allegedly attack civilian populations in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

"Investments in companies militarily and materially helping to support war crimes and helping support systemic long-standing violations of human rights should not be companies the university supports," he said...

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Comments:

Oh my god!

That's amazing! It was the UC's divestment from South Africa that got the ball rolling to end apartheid...this is just so wonderful!

Carl Randall

it passed 16-4

plenty of amendments, but still a bill that divides the campus and isn't good at representing the ideals of the student body

Russell Bates

having just returned home after being at the meeting for over 3 hours.i was impressed by the turnout and particularly impressed with the comments of pro-palestinian israeli jews and american jews who were there..they stuck and continue to stick their necks out in order to relate to the suffering of the people of palestine.all the folks there in favor of the bill struck me as reasonable and sane versus the indoctination of the pro-israeli wackos there who brought out all the worn-out lies of 'the only democracy in the middle-east',palestinians use human shields,they only want peace(piece of west bank,gaza,syria,lebanon,etc.).the folks of sjp make me think and with enough thinking,people can make peace WITHOUT government interference and political games.maybe this is the year.maybe

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Unanimous vote at University of Michigan:"Dearborn student government pushes 'U' to divest funds from Israel"

"Dearborn student government pushes 'U' to divest funds from Israel"

In the Michigan Daily,

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

March 12, 2010

http://michigandaily.com/content/dearborn-resolution-calls-investigation-university-endowment-investments?page=0,0

Vice President Joe Biden and special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell visited Israel earlier this week to hold an open discussion on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Though these peace talks are often brokered on an international stage, political action regarding the dispute in the Middle East has recently entered a local forum.

The student government at the University’s Dearborn campus unanimously passed a resolution last month, asking the University’s Board of Regents to form an advisory committee to investigate what they view as unethical investments of endowment funds into companies that support Israel.

But according to University officials and students involved in the issue here in Ann Arbor, it doesn’t seem likely that a similar resolution will be passed in the Michigan Student Assembly any time soon.

Currently, the University invests some of its $6 billion dollar endowment in companies like Boeing, Northrup-Grumman and BAE — corporations which reportedly provide Israel with support in the form of military weapons and machinery.

Hussein Berry, the author of the resolution in Dearborn, said these kinds of University financial investments are unethical and take advantage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“There are people dying with our dollar… it’s blood money,” Berry said.

But there are currently no plans for a similar resolution in MSA. When asked if the Michigan Student Assembly would support their Dearborn counterpart, Michael Rorro, vice president of MSA, said that he couldn’t comment on that possibility specifically because “it hasn’t been brought up to the assembly in any official way.”

Rorro added that the job of the student government is to “make student life better at the University of Michigan. If a resolution like this can do that…the government can consider it.”

Richard Kallus, chair of the American Movement for Israel here, wrote in an e-mail that divestment efforts will not go far in addressing the conflict in the Middle East.

“Divestment or any talk of divestment would do nothing to solve the conflict in the region,” he said.

The U-M Dearborn student government passed similar resolutions in 2005 and 2006, but according to David Skrbina, a lecturer of philosophy and faculty advisor to the Arab Student Union at U-M Dearborn, the University didn't follow through with the resolutions because they weren't in accordance with the regents' rules on student activism.

Skrbina said instead of asking the Board of Regents to form an investigative advisory committee on the issue, the previous resolutions “went directly to divestment.”

He added that students passed the current resolution in an attempt to pressure the University to withdraw its financial support from companies involved in the conflict.

Though she hasn’t commented on it recently, University President Mary Sue Coleman said in a statement in 2002 that the University wouldn’t be divesting.

“I do not support divestment,” Coleman said in the statement. “As a matter of University policy, we do not believe political interests should govern our investment decisions.”

According to Coleman, two past instances in which the University divested — in 1978 to protest South African apartheid and in 2000 from tobacco stocks — were consequences of sustained support for the issues from the campus community.

Both Berry and Skrbina are currently working to raise campus awareness and interest in the issue of divestment. Recently, the Arab Student Union held a week-long series of events focusing on issues of divestment and the realities for Palestinians involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Berry said though awareness of the conflict has come with the large number of Arab Americans on Dearborn's campus, he does not believe that this resolution is anti-semitic.

“The issue isn’t whether or not we should divest from Israel," he said.

"The issue is whether or not we should divest from the killing of innocent people."

Berry added that he is working to gain the support of Jewish students on Dearborn’s campus by working with groups like the Jewish Student Organization and the Jewish Voice for Peace.

In addition, Berry said he is currently circulating a petition supporting the resolution through both the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses, which already has the signatures of about 1,500 students and more than 200 faculty and staff members.

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