University of California Faculty Support Divestment from Israel

by
Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan

Berkeley, Alta California - 6/5/2002 - (ACN) Faculty members from the University of California system have come forward in support of a campaign to divest from Israel. The divestment campaign is spearheaded by the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The campaign gained momentum recently because of the Israeli massacres in Jenin and Bethlehem and the group's April 9th National Day of Action and Divestment in which the SJP occupied a UC Berkeley building. During this action 79 activists were arrested including 41students.

Thus far 143 UC professors have signed the University of California Faculty Petition for Divestment from Israel, which can be found at http://www.ucdivest.org. The petition calls for the UC system "to use its influence - political and financial - to encourage the United States government and the government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people" and for divestment until Israel ceases its ongoing violations of international laws, such as the Fourth Geneva Convention and several UN Security Council Resolutions.

"For half a century, Israel has had military dominance in the Middle East but has not had peace. Military occupation, colonization, seizures of lands, destruction of houses and orchards, assassinations, expulsions have not brought security, but terror from both sides that will escalate to disaster," says UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Emeritus Susan Ervin-Tripp. "The US, whose founding ideology should favor side by side independence and self-government, instead increases the tension by providing arms and money without restriction. It is time for us to unequivocally side with peace and Palestinian independence in every possible way."

The divestment campaign was officially launched nationwide at over 40 university campuses on April 9, 2002, with student demonstrations commemorating the 1948 Deir Yassin Massacre. The UC professors were alerted to the campaign by SJP's symbolic occupation of UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall. The UC-Berkeley administration called in police forces and arrested 71 of the activists including 41 students. The administration then suspended SJP as a student group. The UC administration has since lifted the suspension of SJP but it continues to threaten the 41 UC Berkeley students with harsh student conduct charges and severe academic sanctions, including a year of academic suspension. Several dozen UC Berkeley faculty members have rallied in support of theses students' rights to free speech and peaceful protest.

The UC faculty divestment petition follows a precedent set by the anti-apartheid campaign of the 1980's, when students, professors, and university employees called for an end to university investments in apartheid South Africa. Recognizing that the divestment campaigns of the 1980s played a significant role in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, SJP-Berkeley began a divestment petition a year and a half ago, that has over 6,000 signatures. The new UC Faculty-led divestment initiative signals a new level of support for the growing divestment campaign. Faculty petitions for divestment from Israel have also been started at other major universities, such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Tufts, where they have received widespread support. The president of Harvard, however, who is a Jew, has made public statements that he will not support the divestment.

There are minor differences between the student and the faculty petitions. The Berkeley student divestment campaign asks UC to divest from companies in Israel and companies doing business with Israel. The faculty petition is slightly different in that it is seeking divestment from companies in Israel and companies involved in arms sales to Israel. However, according Hoang Gia Phan of the UC Berkeley SJP, the actual list of companies is very similar for both groups. The SJP estimate that the UC system has more than $7 billion invested in companies with ties to Israel.

"President Bush continues to issue toothless and ambiguous statements, while the Congress remains largely an 'occupied territory,' " says Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Emeritus Joe Neilands, of UC Berkeley. "This petition is a new initiative for peace in the Middle East and since it goes directly to the people it affords a by-pass around compromised and corrupted individuals and institutions."

"Such support from faculty and community is monumental," says SJP organizer Hoang Gia Phan. "UC divestment from the apartheid state of Israel was the primary demand of our peaceful protest on April 9. The struggle against the university's complicity in Israel's present-day apartheid, its illegal occupation, and its ongoing violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, is nothing without the faculty's support. Such support demonstrates that people of conscience throughout the academic community, and throughout the U.S, are saying together: 'Not in my name!' "

[PETITION AND CURRENT LIST OF FACULTY SIGNATURES ARE AVAILABLE AT HTTP://WWW.UCDIVEST.ORG]