Students who support the
human and civil rights of Palestinians are submitting proposals on college
campuses that call for their universities to divest from companies that profit
from Israel’s occupation and administration of Palestinian territories.
As a faculty member I
believe it is inappropriate for me to take a position publicly on a student
issue. (Others might reasonably disagree.) But I would like to answer some of
the questions that opponents of the proposal often raise. Although there
may be good reasons to oppose divestment proposals, you won’t find them in the
questions below.
1. “Why should student
government associations single out Israel for divestment when there are worst
human rights offenders?”
The answer is simple:
there are students at the university whose lives are directly impacted by
Israel’s actions in the Palestinian controlled territories. Some of them are of
Palestinian descent; others may have relatives on the West Bank and Gaza. Some
of them are Israelis who support this symbolic gesture. Then there are
roommates, friends, and ordinary people who sympathize with the plight of the
Palestinians under occupation.
To suggest that these
students should be more concerned with the plight of Syrian refugees or with
human rights violations in China than with their own people is dehumanizing and
inconsistent; dehumanizing, because it is human to care most about those who
are closest to you; inconsistent, because the partisans making this charge
clearly are themselves concerned more with defending Israel than with much
worse human rights violations.
2. “Aren’t there two
sides to every question? This proposal only presents one!”
It is indeed important
for the student legislators to educate themselves about the proposal and to listen
carefully to both sides. What they will learn is that although both both
Israelis and Palestinians have suffered from violence, only one side has
controlled the lands, lives, and resources of the other side for over fifty
years. Israelis do not live under Palestinian military occupation; their lands
are not expropriated for Palestinian settlement; their freedom of movement is
not restricted. Israelis collect their own taxes; are governed by their own
elected representatives; are subject to their own civilian justice system.
3. “Isn’t the situation
more complicated than the proposal suggests?”
The situation in the
Middle East and in Israel/Palestine is indeed complicated. But there is nothing
complicated about denying human rights to an entire people on the grounds of
security and the desire to construct settlements on their land. No partisan of
Israel can seriously argue that its security requires denying fundamental human
rights to Palestinian civilians on a permanent basis. No country’s
security can be defended in that manner.
4. “Aren’t divestment
proposals bad for the peace process?”
Even if the answer to
the above is yes – and it has recently been argued by the Crisis Group analyst
Nathan Thrall that only external pressure has moved the Israel/Palestinian
peace process forward – these proposals are not about states and the political
aspirations of people. They are about respecting the human and civil rights of
a people under a never-ending occupation. Were Israel to annex the West Bank
and Gaza and offer full and equal citizenship to the Palestinians living there,
there would be less need for these proposals.
5. “Instead of calling
for divestment, why not call for investment in peace?”
Once again, divestment
proposals are not about peace, or the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to
states of their own. They are about human rights that must be ensured before there
are peace negotiations. Neither side is ready for peace negotiations, which can
only be conducted by sides of equal or near equal power. Calling for
the university to invest in peace is admirable; but calling upon it to divest
from companies that profit from the occupation is one way that students can
express solidarity not only with those students whose families and friends suffer
daily, but with all the Israeli and Palestinian people of good will who support
the rights of both sides to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Whether university
student government associations ultimately decide against or for divestment proposals,
this is an educational moment. Universities have academic courses on
Israel/Palestine that I recommend students check out. Students and faculty can
learn a great deal by listening to each other, and by educating themselves on
this critical issue. We are all part of one community.
