New research is helping anti-genocide activists identify and target the corporations enabling and profiting from the war in Gaza.

By Scott Plous

( Commondreams ) – On Sunday, May 26—as graduating students at my school, Wesleyan University, tossed their caps into the air—bombs rained down on a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, killing 45 people, including a number of women and children. The weapons that killed them, GBU-39 bombs, were made by Boeing and supplied by the U.S.

“Many of the dead bodies were severely burned, had amputated limbs, and were torn to pieces,” according to a local physician. In addition, the bomb blasts and ensuing fires wounded another 249 people.

The next day, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the bombing a “tragic accident,” but by Tuesday, Israeli shelling and airstrikes killed another 37 Palestinians in the area, most of them sheltering in tents. “We will enter Rafah because we have no other choice,” Mr. Netanyahu had warned earlier, in his campaign to defeat Hamas after last year’s heinous October 7 attack on Israel.

In American terms, this concentration of explosive force would be like dropping five Hiroshima-size bombs over a land mass one quarter the area of Oklahoma City, with triple its population.

It is this mounting civilian death toll—carried out with U.S. weapons—that spurred students to protest and set up encampments in the spring on nearly 140 college campuses, including Wesleyan. Although each encampment was different, student protesters were largely united in calling on their school to divest any holdings in companies supporting the war. The divestment they were calling for was strictly institutional, but as I will explain later, it’s also possible for individuals to carry out acts of divestment on their own.

In the first three months of the war alone, Israel dropped 45,000 bombs on Gaza, the majority of which were designed or manufactured by the United States. Perhaps the most controversial of these weapons is the 2,000-pound “bunker busting” Mark-84 bomb, which has a lethality area equivalent to 58 soccer fields. In the first month of the war, Israel dropped more than 500 Mark-84 bombs, often in densely populated areas, according to a CNN analysis (and these 500 bombs, made by General Dynamics, are only a small fraction of at least 5,000 that the U.S. sent to Israel after the Hamas attack).

As described in a United Nations Human Rights Council report, the explosive blast from a Mark-84 bomb “can rupture lungs, burst sinus cavities, and tear off limbs hundreds of feet from the blast site, according to trauma physicians. When it hits, the [bomb] generates an 8,500-degree fireball, gouges a 20-foot crater as it displaces 10,000 pounds of dirt and rock and generates enough wind to knock down walls blocks away and hurl metal fragments a mile or more.”

All told, the explosive force of munitions Israel has used on Gaza since October 7 is estimated to be 75 kilotons—five times larger than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In the case of Gaza, though, its 141 square-mile territory is less than half the size of Hiroshima. In American terms, this concentration of explosive force would be like dropping five Hiroshima-size bombs over a land mass one quarter the area of Oklahoma City, with triple its population.

One of the most catastrophic results of this bombing is that roughly 1 out of every 133 Palestinian children in Gaza has now been killed—a number which, when scaled to match the U.S. population, would translate into the deaths of more than half a million American children.

It is hard to imagine the bitterness and hatred that such a death toll would generate in the United States, yet only three days into the war, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari publicly acknowledged that Israel’s bombing campaign was “focused on what causes maximum damage“—not on the accuracy of where bombs land or the need to minimize collateral damage.

In keeping with that focus, nearly half of all bombs Israel used in Gaza during the first two months of war were unguided, and even U.S. President Joe Biden warned that Israel risked losing international support due to its “indiscriminate bombing.”

Fox 61 Video: “Wesleyan students call for the disclosure and divestment of military weapons funding”

Wesleyan student protesters began sleeping in tents on April 28, and their encampment ultimately grew to more than 100 tents by the time it disbanded on May 20. The tent community was peaceful and advanced a set of demands, the foremost of which was that the university administration disclose its financial investments and then divest from companies and institutions which are supporting or profiting from the war and occupation of Palestinian territory.

As someone with Israeli family members, it pains me to say that I agree with the call for divestment. My agreement is not only because of the profound loss of life on both sides of the war, but for three additional reasons.

(1) Israeli leaders are violating international humanitarian law. Put simply, it’s illegal to starve civilians or willfully impede relief supplies as a method of war. Nonetheless, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced on October 18 that “we will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip.” As a result of that policy, “full-blown famine” hit Northern Gaza by May, according to the executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. Even worse, the program predicts that if the war continues, more than 1 million people (half the population of Gaza) will face life-threatening levels of starvation by mid-July.

Here is what Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court says about starving civilians and impeding relief efforts:

For the purpose of this Statute, “war crimes”… [includes] Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies.

To be sure, one could argue that Mr. Netanyahu’s statement doesn’t accurately represent the Israeli government’s official position, but several other top leaders have also publicly called for withholding food and humanitarian relief. For instance, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Likewise, on October 12 Energy Minister Israel Katz posted this statement on social media: “No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home.”

And National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has gone on record as saying that it would be a “grave mistake” for the Israeli government to allow “the transfer of humanitarian aid” into Gaza unless Hamas frees Israeli hostages.

There’s a relatively quick and simple step that individual citizens can take, not as a substitute for institutional divestment, but as a complement to it. They can make sure their own financial holdings are divested.

In other words, the starvation of civilians and suspension of humanitarian aid is explicit, sustained, and willful. Even Israel’s closest military ally and defender, the United States, issued a report on May 10 concluding that Israel has “contributed significantly to a lack of sustained and predictable delivery of needed assistance” and likely violated international humanitarian law (for more on that report, and claims by a former U.S. State Department official that it understated violations of international law, see coverage in The Guardian and PBS NewsHour).

Along similar lines, many Americans believe that laws have been broken. A national poll of Americans by The Economist/YouGov in May asked the following question: “Do you think Israel has violated any international laws in Gaza?” Only 28% of respondents answered, “No.”

Indeed, on May 20, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, charging them with war crimes and crimes against humanity, and citing violations of Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute. (The prosecutor also sought to arrest three Hamas leaders for a list of crimes that included rape, torture, and kidnapping.)

In addition, the ICC appointed an independent Panel of Experts in International Law to render an opinion on whether there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that crimes had been committed. In its report, the panel unanimously concluded:

[T]here are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant formed a common plan, together with others, to jointly perpetrate the crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. The Panel has concluded that the acts through which this war crime was committed include… cutting off supplies of electricity and water, and severely restricting food, medicine, and fuel supplies.

Although President Biden called the ICC prosecutor’s charges “outrageous,” the next day a report documented that Israeli soldiers and police officers were tipping off far-right activists about the location of aid trucks delivering vital supplies to Gaza, colluding with vigilantes to block the trucks from reaching their destination. Then, on June 12, a commission established by the U.N. Human Rights Council released a finding that “Israel has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.”

(2) U.S. taxpayers are funding Israel’s activities in Gaza. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has been the world’s largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, totaling more than $300 billion in American taxpayer money, adjusted for inflation. Moreover, military aid to Israel shows no sign of slowing down. Between 2019 and 2023, nearly 70% of Israeli arms imports came from the U.S., and since the Israel-Hamas war began last year, the U.S. has supplied Israel with weapons via more than 100 arms transfers.

Even after the U.S. State Department released its May 10 report concluding that Israel was likely committing crimes, the U.S. has continued to underwrite Israel’s actions in Gaza with $12.5 billion in military aid during fiscal year 2024—the second-highest level of U.S. military aid ever provided to Israel.

In a very real sense, then, Israel’s war in the Middle East has become America’s war—a joint project, as reflected in the results of a national poll conducted in April. When Americans were asked whether they thought the U.S. was at war in the Middle East, 56% said either yes or they weren’t sure.

By supplying most of the bombs dropped in Gaza while knowing that humanitarian assistance is being withheld, the U.S. is not only morally culpable—it is breaking federal law. Providing military aid to Israel under such circumstances violates Section 620I of the 1961 U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which bans foreign aid to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”

On March 11, eight U.S. senators sent a letter to President Biden raising precisely this concern, and on March 27, six additional members of Congress sent a similar letter reiterating the point:

It is apparent that the Netanyahu government is repeatedly interfering in U.S. humanitarian operations in direct violation of the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act—Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961… We [are] imploring you to enforce U.S. law with the Netanyahu government.

Providing Israel with weapons used in the commission of war crimes also violates Article Seven of the Arms Trade Treaty, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, ratified by 113 states, signed by 28 others (including the U.S. and Israel), and supported by several Nobel Peace Prize recipients, notable among them Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

Nor is the problem limited to the 2,000-pound bombs made by the United States. On June 6, Israel killed at least 40 people—including women and children—with American-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs in an attack on a school where Palestinians were sheltering. One day later, the U.N. publicly announced that it was adding the Israel Defense Forces (as well as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) to a global list of offenders that violate the rights of children. Because the United States is still supplying Israel with lethal weapons while being aware of how the weapons are being used, many people around the world regard the U.S. as complicit.

(3) Divestment can promote political change and moral alignment. Divestment movements have been around since at least 1783, when Quakers urged members of their community to divest their holdings from the slave trade. As explained by sociology professor David S. Meyer:

[T]he idea wasn’t to financially cripple the slave trade. The idea was to get their [own] conduct in line with their beliefs so they could advocate more effectively, sort of a strike against hypocrisy.

Consistent with this explanation, modern-day divestment campaigns rarely have a major financial effect on the targeted countries or businesses, but they can raise public awareness about an issue, signal its urgency, and generate political action. One such political campaign was the global movement to divest from South Africa, which is widely credited as having hastened the end of apartheid in that country and provided a model for the movement to divest from Israel.

When I asked Wesleyan student protesters why they were calling for divestment, some said that they hoped it would help publicize the plight of Palestinians and contribute to political change. Others spoke of moral alignment, saying that they didn’t want Wesleyan to fund or support war crimes. And still others felt that schools should not profit from war, arms sales, or the death of civilians. As climate activist Bill McKibben famously said when explaining the logic behind divesting from fossil fuel companies, “If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from the wreckage.”

Joining the call for divestment also offers a way for student voices to be heard, for protesters to network within and across campuses, and for students to exert more collective leverage than if they act alone. In the case of Wesleyan, for example, students were able to secure a promise from the administration to have the Board of Trustees consider a proposal later this year to divest Wesleyan’s $1.5 billion endowment, $25-30 million of which is currently invested in aerospace and defense businesses.

The Missing Element: Personal Divestment

One of the most powerful aspects of university divestment is that it makes a statement from a respected institution known for its erudition and scholarly expertise. At the same time, a promise to consider divestment is not the same as a promise to divest, and even if a school were to opt for divestment—as Wesleyan has with respect to fossil fuels, and as it may in the future with respect to defense contractors—the process could take months or years to complete, by which time the war in Gaza would presumably have ended.

In the meanwhile, there’s a relatively quick and simple step that individual citizens can take, not as a substitute for institutional divestment, but as a complement to it. They can make sure their own financial holdings are divested.

This is no small thing. American college and university endowments total an estimated $839 billion—an astronomical amount that would have far-reaching political effects if it were divested—but the divestment campaigns on college campuses miss a source of funds 45 times larger: $38.4 trillion in U.S. retirement accounts held by individual employees.

Even after the current war is over, we will be better off in a world that divests from companies selling weapons of mass destruction, fossil fuels, and tobacco products than in a world that financially invests in their growth.

In a matter of minutes, many employees with retirement accounts can divest by moving their assets into environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds that exclude defense contractors. ESG funds also typically exclude fossil fuel companies, the tobacco industry, and corporations known for worker abuses.

In days gone by, these “socially responsible” or “sustainable” investment funds tended to perform more poorly than broad mutual funds set up to mirror market indexes such as the S&P 500. Not anymore. In fact, according to a New York University meta-analysis of more than 1,000 research papers, today’s ESG funds often outperform other funds.

To take just one example, the Statista Research Department compared the classic S&P 500 index and an ESG S&P 500 index between 2021 and 2024, and it found that by the fourth quarter of 2021, “the S&P 500 ESG index began to steadily outperform the S&P 500 by four points on average.”

A Morgan Stanley study of more than 10,000 mutual funds from 2004 to 2018 also found that ESG funds tend to be less risky than other mutual funds, especially when markets are turbulent. The conclusion, according to the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, is that “incorporating ESG criteria into investment decisions makes good sense financially.”

Of course, not everyone has a retirement fund, but for those who do, these results are reassuring. What they suggest is that individual employees can divest from defense contractors like Boeing and General Dynamics—makers of the GBU-39 and Mark-84 bombs discussed earlier—without compromising retirement savings.

This divestment option applies to a broad range of retirement accounts, including traditional and Roth IRAs, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, and 457(b) plans. For further details on how to divest, see these tips on how to divest retirement accounts.

All well and good, you might say, but what about after a cease-fire or the war ends—would it still be worth the effort to divest? Without question, my answer is yes. First, cease-fires are often fragile. In the 2014, for example, Israel and Hamas had nine truces, during which more than 2,000 people were killed, before there was a relatively lasting agreement to stop the fighting. And even after the current war is over, we will be better off in a world that divests from companies selling weapons of mass destruction, fossil fuels, and tobacco products than in a world that financially invests in their growth.

Admittedly, personal and institutional divestment are both blunt instruments, and ESG investing has its critics. Nevertheless, ESG investments are growing worldwide and estimated to reach $53 trillion by next year (one third of all global assets under management). The reason for this meteoric growth is not just that ESG investment strategies exclude certain industries. They also embrace prosocial values and goals that are aligned with emergent global regulations, priorities, and needs.

In short, ESG investing is here to stay, and personal divestment can serve as a refusal to support or profit from the use of American-made weapons in Gaza—a small but significant statement. As Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said with respect to the impact of individual actions, “Almost anything you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

Scott Plous is professor of psychology at Wesleyan University and founding executive director of Social Psychology Network

Via Commondreams

If university boards were controlled by the communities they impact, we could redirect billions of dollars away from war and corporations that harm people and the planet.

By Akin Olla | –

( Waging Nonviolence ) – The pro-Palestinian divestment movement has erupted across the country, after over a decade of bubbling and stirring under the guidance of organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine. Students have built encampments, led walkouts and passed student government resolutions demanding that their universities cease investing their endowments in companies that uphold Israel’s genocidal apartheid system.

Some student governments have even passed resolutions preventing their own budgets from being used to benefit Israel’s regime in any way. University of California Davis was the first to do so, blocking off its $20 million budget from genocide-supporting companies. This of course pales in comparison to the full demands of the students in the University of California, or UC, system, the divestment of its entire $27 billion endowment. 

These divestment fights are important and open up a path towards a struggle that can make divestment permanent, and change the country’s political landscape forever. The power to divest lies in the hands of unelected college governing boards and any movement that can seize even a small portion of that power will have the potential to redirect billions of dollars away from Israel, oil companies and any corporation or entity that seeks to harm the oppressed and the planet. 

While boards are currently dominated by Zionists, Democratic and Republican party political lackeys, and corporate CEOs, they should be put to a vote and under the control of those most impacted by colleges — students, faculty, staff, alumni and the communities that surround them. This idea isn’t new. The first university in Western history, the University of Bologna, was founded as a student-governed mutual aid society, and students across the U.S. gained small amounts of governing power during the 1960s and 1970s. It is not guaranteed that democratically-elected boards will deliver justice, but they are significantly more likely to than the undemocratic boards we currently have. 

A fight for more democratic boards could place the question of divestment into the hands of students and faculty and move large amounts of funding from genocide and toward social movement projects. And even if it fails, the threat to the power of boards could lead to them buckling on the reasonable demand of divestment from genocide.

The board game

Most colleges have some form of a board of trustees (sometimes called a board of regents or governors when they oversee an entire system like the University of Texas or the UC system) that serves as their main governing body. These boards are the ones that use endowments to invest in corporations that bulldoze the homes of Palestinians and support Israel’s army in murdering children. 

While student governments and faculty senates exist, and sometimes have independent budgets like within the UC system, they have little to no power over the larger decisions of a university. And while administrators have a lot of say in day-to-day campus affairs, most of their decisions and direction come from the board of trustees or the college president or chancellor, who are chosen by the board.

Private boards of trustees are usually appointed by the current trustees, while public college trustees are almost exclusively appointed by state governors. This gives state governors disproportionate control of higher education. The consequences of this are clear in places like Florida, where Ron DeSantis was able to replace the progressive trustees of New College with his conservative minions overnight.

While most governors aren’t as terrible as DeSantis, they all universally prioritize the needs of the rich over ordinary people. Most governors also prioritize Israel over any form of justice for Palestine. In 2017, every single governor in the country signed a letter stating opposition to the pro-Palestine movement. And a majority of states have passed anti-Palestine protest laws.

The preferences of governors show up in the trustees they appoint. Most boards of trustees are packed with CEOs instead of professors and students. A few colleges are considering divestment, but only two boards in the country have come out in support of divestment. The boards also don’t look like the rest of the country. In 2020, 80 percent of private trustees were white, and two out of three were male. Eighty-two percent were over the age of 50, and nearly a quarter were over the age of 70. UC’s board — and public boards in general — is more diverse, but it’s packed with millionaire CEOs, charter school executives and former politicians. This diverse board has refused to budge on divesting from Israel and instead has orchestrated the raiding of multiple encampments and the arrests of hundreds of people.

While replacing Zionist governors (and thus Zionist board members) may seem like the answer, redrawing the entire concept of trustees could be more strategic in the long term.

People’s boards

Rebooting the entire system of trustees would take a lot of work, but it’s feasible. A 2000 bill in the Wisconsin State Legislature proposed that the governor-appointed board be replaced with an elected one. Of the proposed 15-member board, one would be an elected superintendent of public instruction, nine would be individually elected from each congressional district, while the remainder would be elected by the student body of the statewide University of Wisconsin system.

This bill failed to pass but reforming university governing boards isn’t impossible nor a thing of the past. In 2019, the University of Maryland’s board added a second student seat to its board. In February of this year, state senators in New Mexico moved to weaken their governor’s power in appointing regents. Nevada already has an elected board of regents embedded in its state constitution, but state legislators moved to strip it of its supreme control over higher education in 2020. Their efforts were fortunately blocked by voters through ballot measure, but the vote came down to a less than 1 percent difference. This kind of power struggle over the board isn’t uncommon but has often been limited to fights between politicians, not the demands of social movements on the scale of the movement for Palestine.

Student trustees, which already exist at many universities, were fought for and won by student movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Student activists took over student governments and pushed for various forms of student power. Leaders like David Harris, the student government president of Stanford University in 1966, went as far as to advocate for the full abolition of the university Board of Trustees and full student control over student regulations — as well as the end of university cooperation with the Vietnam War.

ABC News: “Student protesters demand schools cease US funding of Israeli military”

Massachusetts was the first state to grant students not only seats on their university governing boards, but the ability for students to elect their own trustees. This 1969 bill was passed, according to some state legislatures, to appease campus militants.

In states like Indiana, students leveraged the atmosphere of unrest, access to media outlets and their new voting power from the 26th amendment — which gave 18-year-olds the right to vote — to push for student inclusion on governing boards. They built institutions like the Indiana Student Association, a statewide student government, to create a unified student voice capable of passing legislation. In 1975 new student trustee roles were created for each public college in the state, though they were unfortunately appointed by the governor due to a political compromise that would prevent each flagship campuses from dominating their regional satellites in trustee elections. To this day many student trustees are sadly either appointed or lack voting power.

Those student trustees with voting power are still important, though it seems like the left has forgotten. Right-wing activists are still aware of such potential, in 2014 a millionaire Zionist funneled money toward pro-Israel student government leaders and helped secure the appointment of one of their members to the only student seat on the UC system’s board of regents.

Of course, winning these reforms would not necessarily make the universities more pro-Palestine, but there is evidence that a student, labor and community composition could shift the views of their governing boards in a more progressive direction.

While almost no university board has come out in support of free Palestine, student governments and faculty unions across the country have. Many of these student governments, like those at Rutgers and Barnard went through the referendum route to approve their decisions, meaning they had to win majority support on campus before declaring their support. On the community front, there have been over a hundred towns and cities that have at least endorsed a ceasefire. It is not a guarantee, but a more democratic board would more likely reflect the opinions of the 55 percent of Americans who disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the 39 percent of voters who believe Israel is actively committing genocide.

The trustees of the late 60s are a great example of this potential. A survey of trustees under the age of 30, presumably students and recent alumni, in 1969 found that 93 percent of them described their political views as similar to that of Martin Luther King Jr., and 61 percent described their views as akin to Black Panther Party member H. Rap Brown. Not a single young trustee identified as conservative and not a single one identified their politics as similar to Richard Nixon, compared to 62 percent of all other trustees.

The means

This demand should not replace the work that is already being done by students or organizing directly focused on Israel. It should complement and build on the natural coalition that is already forming and generate new coalitions and political projects adjacent to those fighting for divestment and shutting down weapons producers.

Student governments can play the same role they played in the 1960s and 1970s, using their funding and legitimacy to push for legislation, while student radicals run in campus elections to gain more access to power and affirm the popularity of the movement.

Outside of campus, pushing for more representative versions of the bill from Wisconsin could give the community wing of the movement a way to contribute directly to the fight that students are waging, and increase the self-interest of community members like those in Philadelphia who are struggling against universities that are backing the gentrification of working-class neighborhoods. Such a coalition was already established in October 2023, as the University of Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel divestment movement joined forces with the struggle to “Save the People’s Townhomes” in Philadelphia’s historic Black Bottom neighborhood.

Democratizing college governing boards could also bring in pro-democracy organizations concerned with corporate influence, and provide roles for alumni groups like Alumni for Justice in Palestine once the school year is up. The boards could be split by constituents, allowing students and faculty to vote through their already existing structures, and municipal or state voters to elect representatives like those presented in the Wisconsin legislation. The fight could be framed as an anti-corruption campaign aimed at removing unaccountable, unelected boards and replacing them with democratically elected people’s boards that build on the limited democratic infrastructure that we have in this country.

This summer, students, faculty, workers and alumni could knock on doors across their states, asking neighbors to play a role in reshaping higher education and taking a piece of the country’s institutions back. It would be a great compliment to the mass protests that we’re already in the midst of.

This pressure could seize support from state politicians looking for a win on higher education that won’t cost the state money. The only losers in this case would be individual governors and current board members, perfect targets for campaigns that can easily cast them as overpowered and inefficient.

Private universities could not go this route, but by focusing on organizing alumni as well as the general public they can back their universities into isolation. A national wing of the campaign could be created, mandating that all universities that receive federal funding in any fashion — which is basically all of them — must engage in some form of democratic governance structure. Even if these campaigns don’t succeed, they will threaten and likely politically weaken the people preventing college divestments from Israel.

In my experience as a former student organizer and board member of the U.S. Student Association — which contained many of the statewide student associations formed in the wake of the 26th amendment — campus administrators are more likely to give in to policy demands when you’re also threatening their very existence. I was part of a broader “student union” movement that sought not only to reshape our stifling student governments but also to democratize campus. I found that once we built larger coalitions that pushed for more aggressive demands like shared governance, administrators were more likely to budge on less threatening proposals like replacing food vendors and supporting campus diversity efforts. 

This is not dissimilar to non-democratic governments like Czarist Russia or those targeted by the Arab Spring, who — when outright murder wasn’t an option — opted for long-requested reforms when faced with demands that would strip them of their power. 

In social psychology, this is referred to as the door-in-the-face technique. The idea is that you want to make a demand that is so big that it could lead to you having the door slammed in your face first. This is the idea you’re more likely to convince someone to a smaller ask after first making a larger more demanding one.

The term comes from a 1975 study in which participants were first asked to mentor an incarcerated person for two years and then asked to take kids to the zoo for an afternoon. Participants who were first asked to become mentors were more likely to choose the zoo option than participants who were only asked to take the kids to the zoo. The phenomenon has since been replicated many times, as recently as 2021.

By threatening to seize the power of these governing boards, we make divestment more possible and open up a chance to level out the playing field for the left.

The revolution could be funded

If a movement can successfully transform the board of trustees, or at least expand the number of student trustee seats won by previous generations, the benefits could change the terrain of student organizing and the left. Expanding student, worker and community representation, and making these seats democratically elected, could transform the class composition and priorities of boards across the country. Seventy percent of American voters at least support a ceasefire, and more representative boards would likely reflect that fact and make policies like divestment more likely to pass. Not just divestment from Israel but from fossil fuels, private prisons, corporations that exploit immigrants and all harmful industries.

This should always be done in conjunction with ongoing movements and not done arbitrarily or seeking to invest only in the purest of the pure — this is likely impossible under capitalism as we know it. Coalitions could be created to maintain majority control of boards, creating a permanent bridge between student movements and electoral organizing that could serve as a basis for a third party. The opportunity does not stop at divestment.

Aside from students, faculty, and the community having more control over all university operations — adding teeth to student government and faculty organizations — a redesign of governing boards could lead to opportunities for transformative investment. Endowments currently operate off an infinite growth model, but large endowments that could afford it could put money into movement organizations and research aimed at transforming the rest of society.

While it is doubtful that all of these new boards would be progressive or radical, the University of Michigan, and the systems of the University of California, the University of Texas, and Texas A&M have a combined endowment of over $100 billion alone. Compare this to the $16 billion endowment of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest liberal foundations in the U.S. These large endowments could be the strategic target of a national movement, or it could focus on states like California and Wisconsin that already have some form of student representation on their boards.

The endowments from these universities could serve as a powerful counter to large, slow-moving and often conservative foundations and place large amounts of money back into public hands. Endowments are, after all, built on money from wealthy people and foundations that should have otherwise been taxed, and investments made from profits that workers fundamentally generate. Some money could be kept in investments to maintain minimal growth of the endowment, but billions could be spent on supporting the growth of the pro-Palestinian cause and the broader movement for the liberation of the global working class.

This change would take a lot of work to achieve and maintain it. But trust in universities is at a record low, and unlike other proposals to fix higher education, this would neither cost state or federal governments a dime nor require pressuring college administrators themselves. Similar to the Rutgers South African Divestment movement — which forced Rutgers to divest by passing a bill through the state legislature — state governments could be used to supersede the power of universities.

At the same time, such a measure would unite student forces with campus workers and municipal and state voters, who would have a self-interest in having more say in the colleges they pour their labor and tax money into. And private universities could be forced into the new paradigm through federal legislation that mandates democratic boards for all universities that benefit from federal funding.

The divestment movement has a lot of momentum, and I have faith in organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, Dissenters and the Palestinian Youth Movement to achieve victory. But movements must always seek opportunities to permanently change the ground and conditions on which they wage struggle. And there is a clear opportunity to seize back the bounty of the masses and put them to use for Palestine and beyond.

Akin Olla

Akin Olla is a Nigerian-American political strategist and the host of This Is The Revolution podcast. He is also a lead trainer with Momentum, a mass movement training community and a member of Philly Socialists.

Via Waging Nonviolence

In this article I’m going to outline why it is wrong for the British government to pursue such dangerous policy and why supporting the BDS is important for peace and democracy for Palestinians and westerns alike.

The BDS movement is a Palestinian-led global campaign for freedom, justice and equality. It upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. It was established in 2005 in response to the failure of the international community to hold Israel to account especially after the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice which declared the wall being built around the West Bank by Israel as violation of the International Law. The BDS movement includes unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world. It uses non-violent pressure on Israel to end its occupation of all Arabs land and dismantle the wall, to recognize the rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and to respect the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes according to UN resolution 194.

Novara Media: ” MPs Vote To Protect Israel; We Speak To The Founder Of BDS | #NovaraLIVE ”

Some of the notable supporters of the BDS movement include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pink floyd musician Roger Watters and the renowned physicist the late professor Stephen Hawking who joined the academic boycott of Israel when in 2013 he famously puled out of a conference hosted by former president of Israel the late Shimon Peres in protest against Israel treatment of the Palestinian.

I find the British government move to prevent public bodies from engaging with the BDS disgraceful for several reasons. To start with, by its peaceful nature, the BDS movement allows larger public participation in politics and humanitarian issues where ordinary people and institutions can express their objection to Israeli policies, especially the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Putting increasing pressure on Israel peacefully including through cultural, economic and academic boycotts, is more likely to make Israeli politicians reconsider their inhumane treatment of the Palestinians. This has the potentials to prevent or at the least reduce bloodshed and save lives.

For any government to outlaw such harmless methods of protest and resistance means to push them in the opposite direction and to encourage more violence and bloodshed. This stance is astonishing, especially for the British government, considering Britain’s moral and historic responsibility in creating the suffering of the Palestinians. London accomplished this through the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration in which it gave Palestine to the Zionist movement and allowed it to ethnically cleanse most of the Palestinians and turn them into refugees in order create Israel in 1948 based on ideas of supremacy, racism and bloodshed.

Inasmuch as it outlaws civil protest, the British government’s bill gives a green light to extremist Israeli politicians such as the Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Elyahu, who said that “one of Israel’s options in the war in Gaza is to drop the nuclear bomb.”

The legislation is also a threat to British democracy as it seems to be the case that supporting Israel oppression of the Palestinians by western governments is increasingly becoming a threat to free speech and therefore to democracy. Denying public sector organizations the right to decide their own policies in relation to ethical procurement of services and goods is an attack on their basic right to make their own decisions to reject dealings with governments and businesses involved in human rights violations.

For us as Palestinians, boycotting Israeli goods has been a method of non-violent resistance for many decades, wielded against illegal occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, land theft, killing, persecution and apartheid. Now, defending the right to boycott Israel and to stand for justice for the Palestinians is becoming a new battle ground in defending democracy and free speech in the west.

( Al-Shabakah) – The Israeli regime’s defenders across the US are ramping up efforts to criminalize the constitutionally protected right to boycott. Beyond violating the rights of Palestine solidarity activists, this threatens to undermine the tenets of a healthy democracy. Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow, Tariq Kenney-Shawa, examines this development and suggests what lawmakers, civil society organizations, and concerned citizens should do to challenge it. 

Across the US, lawmakers and interest groups are stepping up efforts to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes, occupation, and apartheid. They are doing so by restricting Palestine solidarity advocates’ First Amendment rights to free speech and political boycotts. In June 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to uphold an Arkansas law punishing state contractors who boycott Israel. Since 2014, dozens of states have adopted similar laws designed to punish individuals and companies that refuse to do business with those who profit from the Israeli regime’s occupation. They are also actively silencing calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions that pressure Israel to comply with international law.  

The message to US citizens is clear: Take action to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and you will pay. The implications are far-reaching: Not only are anti-boycott laws limiting spaces for Palestine solidarity, they represent the first step in a wider assault on the constitutional protections designed to safeguard US citizens’ rights to advocate for justice. Following the Eighth Circuit decision in Arkansas, the issue is now expected to move to the Supreme Court, setting the stage for a ruling that will have significant long-term implications for the rights of all US citizens to engage in any kind of politically motivated boycott and advocate for change.

It also explains how, by targeting the right to boycott, reactionary forces are eroding US citizens’ ability to leverage their long-standing, constitutionally protected rights to demand justice and political change both at home and abroad. With their right to boycott being threatened by an increasingly conservative and partisan judicial system, US citizens must take matters into their own hands to defend their constitutional rights. This policy brief recommends several steps that should be taken in order to do so. 

Anti-Boycott Legislation: The US National Context 

As of October 2022, bills and executive orders designed to penalize those participating in boycotts of Israel have been introduced in 34 states and apply to over 250 million US citizens. The laws are as absurd as they are troubling. In 2017, officials in Texas blocked access to hurricane disaster relief funds from those who refused to renounce their right to engage in BDS, only conceding the rule as a misapplication of the law after facing public pressure. In 2018, Bahia Amawi, a child speech pathologist in Texas, sued the state after losing her job for refusing to pledge that she “will not boycott Israel” or illegal Israeli settlements. 

That same year, The Arkansas Times, a local newspaper based in Little Rock, sued the state of Arkansas after an advertising contract with a public university was withdrawn as punishment for refusing to relinquish their right to boycott Israel. In July 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court became the highest-level court to consider the issue when it ruled against the newspaper, stripping it of its right to boycott. This ruling, which is binding to Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, is a sign of what may be to come.

Whether by prohibiting state contracts who support BDS or threatening to cut ties with investment agencies, the Israeli regime’s defenders are forcing US citizens to choose between their First Amendment rights and their livelihoods Click To Tweet

Federal district courts in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas have blocked the enforcement of their states’ anti-boycott laws, considering them unconstitutional compelled speech and violations of the First Amendment. However, instead of discarding them on the grounds that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain political expressions, these laws are being amended and reintroduced. Several states have amended their anti-boycott laws to exclude individuals and sole proprietors; however, larger companies that conduct more than $100,000 worth of business with the state continue to face anti-boycott certification requirements. 

State legislators have also placed financial burdens on companies accused of boycotting Israel through blacklists and pension fund divestments. Efforts to shield Israel from the human rights standards applied across the globe are likewise extending into sustainable investing and corporate governance. In September 2022, South Carolina’s treasurer joined a growing list of officials threatening to cut ties with the multibillion-dollar investment firm Morningstar over claims that their Sustainalytics program’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating is biased against Israel. ESG ratings, which assess ethical corporate practices ranging from environmental standards to labor practices, have proven integral in holding companies accountable regardless of where they operate. Indeed, Sustainalytics drew attention to Israel’s documented human rights violations in the assessments it provided to investors. 

In the face of mounting pressure, Morningstar hired an independent review commission to carry out an exhaustive investigation into any potential bias. The investigation found “neither pervasive nor systemic bias against Israel in Sustainalytics products and services;” however, this has failed to bring an end to the smears against the rating system. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt decried Morningstar practices as “woke ESG investing,” and Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee suggested that the very idea of reviewing Israeli companies for the same standards to which all other companies are held was anti-Semitic. This, despite the fact that Morningstar’s chief executive officer, Kunal Kapoor, repeatedly insisted that his company does not support the BDS movement and that the Sustainalytics assessment merely provided a warning for investors, rather than a call to boycott. 

Since then, Morningstar has caved to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, adopting a host of anti-Palestinian measures that include refraining from both references to the West Bank as “occupied” as well as reliance on reports issued by the UN Human Rights Council. Clearly, to the pro-Israel lobby, Israeli companies should not be held to the same human rights, labor, and environmental standards as other companies. As a result, whether by prohibiting state contracts who support BDS or threatening to cut ties with investment agencies, the Israeli regime’s defenders are forcing US citizens to choose between their First Amendment rights and their livelihoods.

Who is Behind These Bills? 

The ongoing proliferation of anti-boycott bills, recently described by Human Rights Watch as “part of an increasingly global campaign” against Palestine rights advocates, has been spearheaded by the Israeli regime itself. Over recent years, Israel has successfully bypassed US foreign interference laws by establishing non-governmental organizations through which it funnels millions of dollars to US groups who then advocate for anti-BDS legislation. But the Israeli regime is not alone. The war on boycotts of Israel is being led by the same reactionary lawmakers and interest groups actively engaged in undermining the tenets of a healthy democracy. 

Some of the most vociferous proponents of anti-BDS efforts in the US are conservative interest groups and evangelical Christian organizations that are engaged in a nationwide campaign to roll back hard-fought liberties. For example, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an ultra-conservative venture backed by the Koch brothers, drafts legislation for state and federal governments on behalf of corporate interests. In addition to unconditionally shielding Israel from accountability and drafting anti-BDS bills for conservative lawmakers, groups like ALEC have also targeted public education, climate activism, and LGBTQ+ rights, while defending the “Stand Your Ground” laws, bans on Critical Race Theory and the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, groups like Christians United for Israel (CUFI) smear BDS activists through advocacy campaigns on university campuses, as well as in churches and across social media. These alliances prove that being pro-Israel in America also means being complicit in conservative efforts to sustain white supremacy, roll back reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and weaken democracy. 

Being pro-Israel in America also means being complicit in conservative efforts to sustain white supremacy, roll back reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and weaken democracy Click To Tweet

What is more, efforts to roll back the right to boycott have also represented a bipartisan affair. In 2016, New York’s former governor, Andrew Cuomo, signed an executive order blacklisting businesses that refused to do business with Israel. He put it bluntly: “if you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.” Three years later, Senator Joe Manchin (D – WV) co-authored the Combating BDS Act alongside Senator Marco Rubio (R – FL), which aimed to give legal cover to various state anti-BDS laws before it was blocked on the Senate floor. In August 2022, New York State Assemblyman Dan Rosenthal joined 18 Republicans in their campaign against Morningstar for warning investors of Israel’s human rights record. While the bipartisan tradition of providing unconditional support to Israel is waning, democratic establishment holdouts continue to side with conservatives against progressive voices, both in the electorate and in the halls of Congress.  

Constitutionally Protected Rights Under Threat  

US citizens have long leveraged their right to boycott as a means of making their voices heard. From the pre-Civil War boycott of goods produced with slave labor, to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that called for an end to racial segregation, boycotts have proven a vital tactic in challenging human rights abuses and fighting for political change in the US. The tactic has also been wielded against injustice abroad; indeed, economic, cultural, and even academic boycotts proved instrumental in bringing an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa. However, many exhibit a disturbing selective intolerance for the right to boycott when it comes to holding Israel accountable. 

Political boycotts are widely viewed as a cornerstone of the First Amendment, both by the US public and as a matter of legal precedent. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the most regularly cited precedent on the issue, the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s right to regulate economic activity “could not justify a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott.” That case began in 1966, when the local NAACP chapter in Claiborne County, Mississippi, coordinated a boycott of white-owned businesses, calling for local government and business leaders to meet their demands for racial justice. White business owners affected by the boycott sued the NAACP and the action organizers for economic damages. 

After the case made its way through the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP’s boycott was protected by the constitution because it was composed of elements protected by the First Amendment — namely, speech, assembly, and petition. Justice John Stevens emphasized the boycott’s end goal in the ruling, noting: “the purpose of petitioners’ campaign was not to destroy legitimate competition,” but rather, to “vindicate rights of equality and of freedom.” In part, the court found it persuasive that the boycott was wielded for an expressive purpose: a list of racial justice demands. 

In the NAACP v. Claiborne case, the Supreme Court found that through constitutionally protected acts of speech, assembly, and petition, “petitioners sought to change a social order that had consistently treated them as second-class citizens.” By this logic, the right to boycott Israeli goods produced in the West Bank — an act that inherently involves the aforementioned constitutionally protected activity — falls squarely within US citizens’ constitutionally protected rights. While courts in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas confirmed this logic, the Eighth Circuit Court ruling in Arkansas serves as a reminder of how easily precedent can be overturned. 

Understanding the Eighth Circuit Court Ruling 

In 2018, The Arkansas Times sued the state after being asked to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel in order to maintain an advertising contract with the University of Arkansas. After the suit was initially dismissed, the newspaper appealed, and a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit overturned the ruling, finding that the statute “imposes a condition on government contractors that implicates their First Amendment rights.” The state then requested that the full Eight Circuit – known to be one of the most conservative circuit courts in the country – rehear the case, resulting in the June 2022 ruling against The Arkansas Times. 

While affirming that requiring someone to “give up a constitutional right” in order to receive a government contract does “impose an unconstitutional condition,” the Eighth Circuit Court went on to reinterpret precedent – namely, the protections set in NAACP v. Claiborne. The ruling argued that constitutional First Amendment protections apply only to the expressive actions that accompany a boycott. In other words, the speeches, petitions, and marches that promote a boycott are protected by the First Amendment, while the actual act of economically boycotting an entity is not. Along this line of reasoning, the Eighth Circuit decided that the act of economic boycott itself was considered an example of “non-expressive” conduct.

The Eighth Circuit’s decision has attracted widespread criticism from those who claim that the judges misrepresented the precedent entirely. NAACP v. Claiborne clearly establishes that the right to boycott is protected by the First Amendment, and when Supreme Court judges analyzed each of the associated elements of the boycott in that case, they did not differentiate between accompanying speech and the act of boycott itself. Justice Jane Kelly, who authored the Eighth Circuit’s dissenting opinion, took this logic further. According to Kelly, by instructing the State to consider a company or individual’s prior speech and actions to determine whether they are participating in a boycott of Israel, the Arkansas statute might deter entities from engaging in constitutionally protected acts of speech and protest unrelated to boycotts. In other words, companies and individuals might feel pressured to avoid protests and petitions that criticize Israeli policy out of concern that they may fall under the state’s definition of a boycott of Israel, “thereby limiting what a company may say or do.”  

Wider Implications 

While the judiciary can prove instrumental in countering attempts to curb constitutionally protected rights, such as the right to participate in the BDS movement, US citizens should not depend upon it alone to safeguard civil liberties. That is, while only 59 of the 261 anti-boycott bills introduced have so far been passed at the state and local levels, the pro-Israel lobby continues to adapt. As long as BDS remains under assault, so too is the right to use boycotts as a tool for advocacy on a range of issues. In other words, the ongoing crackdown on freedom to boycott has wider implications, even for US citizens who do not support the BDS movement.

The willingness to trample upon the rights of Palestinians and their allies is opening the door to a larger assault on civil society and the core tenets of a healthy democracy Click To Tweet

In fact, several states have already used anti-BDS legislation as a template for “copycat laws” that would criminalize other boycotts and forms of protest, such as preventing businesses from boycotting fossil fuels and firearms industries. For example, Kentucky’s SB 205 prohibits the state from entering into contracts with companies unless they submit written certification that they will not engage in a boycott of energy companies. Similarly, Indiana’s HB 1409, if passed, will prevent the state from entering into a contract with companies without written certification that they will not discriminate against a firearm entity or firearm trade association in their business dealings.

Efforts to curtail the right to boycott represent one tactic amid an overall strategy by reactionary elements on both sides of the partisan divide to undermine democratic values in the US. If they are successful, these forces will undoubtedly direct their efforts at other forms of protest and free speech that are being leveraged in calls for justice. Since 2017, 38 states have enacted anti-protest bills, mostly in reaction to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and environmental protesters. Heightened voting restrictions in key swing states are making it increasingly difficult for US citizens to carry out their civic duty. As a result, black activists and other disadvantaged communities are disproportionately targeted. The willingness to trample upon the rights of Palestinians and their allies is opening the door to a larger assault on civil society and the core tenets of a healthy democracy. 

Taking Action 

The Eighth Circuit decision in Arkansas, which came two days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of the right to abortion on June 24, 2022, serves as another reminder that US citizens should not count on the judiciary alone to defend their civil liberties. With this in mind, it is critical to raise awareness, mobilize grassroots activism aimed at pressuring lawmakers, and develop stronger checks to a flawed system. More specifically: 

• Members of Congress should fulfill their constitutional duty to defend the rights of US citizens, including the First Amendment right to participate in political boycotts. This  means voting against pending federal anti-boycott legislation like the ones introduced by Congressman Lee Zeldin (R) in March 2022 and Senator Tom Cotton (R) in July 2022, both of which are aimed at elevating state anti-boycott legislation to the national level. 
• Activists, civil rights defenders, and concerned citizens should contact their representatives to express opposition to laws that restrict their right to boycott. They should highlight the intersectional nature of this assault on social and political expression, and organize alongside other groups being affected by copycat legislation. More information about how to get involved can be found at Palestine Legal, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 
• As workers across the country unionize at the highest rates in decades, civil society organizations should prepare union leaders and members to collectively mobilize against attempts by employers to revoke constitutionally protected rights. Trainings and briefings should prepare union leaders to explicitly incorporate the right to boycott into their labor demands and provide support to Palestinian or pro-Palestine workers who are targeted for their engagement in boycotts or other forms of political protest. 
• Activists, academics, and NGOs should coordinate efforts to produce informational material for public campaigns aimed at raising general awareness and providing US citizens with tools to advocate for their constitutionally-protected rights. The recent documentary film Boycott (2021) serves as an example of how to mobilize free speech activists, as well as the general public, who may still be unaware of the wider consequences of these coordinated anti-BDS campaigns when it comes to the assault on constitutionally protected rights. 



Tariq Kenney-Shawa

 

Tariq Kenney-Shawa is Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow. He holds a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Middle East Studies from Rutgers University. Tariq’s research has focused on a range of topics, from the role of narrative in both perpetuating and resisting occupation to analysis of Palestinian liberation strategies. His work has appeared in +972 Magazine, Newlines Magazine, the Carnegie Council, and the New Politics Journal, among others. Follow Tariq on Twitter @tksshawa and visit his website at https://www.tkshawa.com/ for more of his writing and photography. 

Palestinian organizations also denounced the The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration signed on Thursday between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, which they said constituted an act of enmity against the Palestinian people and its rights. They called for Biden’s visit to Bethlehem to be canceled, given the American marginalization of the Palestinian cause.

The Strategic Partnership Declaration showers billions of dollars on Israel for security cooperation with the US and attacks the nonviolent movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) Israel for its Apartheid measures in the Palestinian territories.

The declaration pledges the US to castigate Hamas, which runs the government of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, as nothing but a terrorist organization. It continues, “The countries condemn the deplorable series of terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens in recent months and affirm the need to confront radical forces, such as Hamas, seeking to inflame tension and instigate violence and terrorism. President Biden reaffirms his longstanding and consistent support of a two-state solution and for advancing toward a reality in which Israelis and Palestinians alike can enjoy equal measures of security, freedom and prosperity. The United States stands ready to work with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and regional stakeholders toward that goal. The leaders also affirm their shared commitment to initiatives that strengthen the Palestinian economy and improve the quality of life of Palestinians.”

In other words, Biden is a hapless bystander to Israeli policies toward Occupied Palestinians and offers only lip service “support” for a two-state solution. In the meantime, Washington is willing to kick in a little money to bribe the Palestinians into accepting their status as a people without rights, living under an alien military government, who are seeing their best land systematically stolen from them by the Israelis.

Arab 48 continues that one rally in Ramallah turned into a march through the city, as the demonstrators rejected Biden’s visit to the Palestinian territories, raising placards rebuking the notion of accepting “economic peace” in exchange for their political rights. They carried slogans like, “No to economic “peace,” yes to the right of return and independence.” A similar protest was staged in Nablus, demanding a boycott of Biden and calling on the Palestinian leadership to refuse to meet with him.

In contrast to the joint US-Israeli Jerusalem declaration, the Biden administration and the Palestine Authority were not able to agree on joint language. President Mahmoud Abbas and President Biden will each issue their own statements. The Palestine Authority is said to be annoyed with Biden’s focus solely on economic issues when it comes to Palestinians, and his administration’s attempts to integrate Israel into the Middle East without any political benefit for the Palestinians.

Letter to the provost of McGill University

Provost Christopher Manfredi
Office of the Provost and Vice Principal (Academic)
McGill University
845 Sherbrooke Street West, Suite 504
Montreal, Quebec H3A OG4
via fax: 514-398-4768

Dear Provost Manfredi:

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about a recent statement by McGill University’s Deputy Vice Provost indicating that the university is considering terminating its Memorandum of Agreement with the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) as a result of the latter’s adoption of a “Palestine Solidarity Policy.” Such a step by the university would constitute a serious violation of the right of McGill University’s students and student organizations to freedom of speech and association.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

On 21 March 2022, the SSMU conducted a referendum of its members on the Palestine Solidarity Policy, which among other provisions called for the boycott of, and divestment from, corporations and institutions with investments in Israel; 71 percent of those voting favored adopting the policy. On 24 March 2022, McGill University’s Deputy Vice Provost, Fabrice Lebeau, disseminated an email message demanding that the SSMU reverse its adoption of the Palestine Solidarity Policy on the ground that it “echoes key tenets of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement” and thereby violates the SSMU’s constitution, despite the fact that the Judicial Board of SSMU had issued three separate rulings (here, here and here) in 2021, all of which affirmed the constitutionality of political campaigns directed at corporate or state entities, including BDS-related campaigns. Mr. Lebeau further threatened to terminate the University’s Memorandum of Agreement with SSMU.

The right of McGill University students and faculty, as well as student organizations, to voice their opinions on policies toward any state, or to advocate political activities including boycott, sanctions, and divestment, is protected by the right of free speech and the principles of academic freedom. Mr. Lebeau’s threat to revoke the university’s Memorandum of Agreement with the SSMU because of a vote fairly and freely conducted in keeping with the student organization’s established procedures therefore constitutes an attempt to silence protected political speech. The fact that the university has yet to implement this sanction against the SSMU does not alleviate our concern since the administration has served the student union with a notice of default, requesting that the union repeal the motion or have its agreement with the university terminated.

We believe that institutions of higher learning must resolutely uphold and defend the principles of academic freedom, and they must also be sanctuaries for the free expression of ideas and opinions. We therefore ask you that you immediately withdraw the notice of default served to the SSMU and issue a clear and forceful public statement assuring students and faculty that McGill University will not countenance threats or attempts to limit their right to free speech and academic freedom, including the advocacy of ideas and policies that some may deem controversial.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Eve Troutt Powell
MESA President
Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard smearing used by Israel and its supporters against anyone who dares criticise Israel and exhibits solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people.

Rooney’s laudable action was not in the least ‘racist’ or ‘anti-Semitic’. On the contrary, it was taken as a show of support for the Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose advocacy is situated within anti-colonial and anti-racist political discourses.

Rooney, herself, has made it clear that her decision not to publish with Modan Publishing House, which works closely with the Israeli government, is motivated by ethical values.

“I simply do not feel it would be right for me, under the present circumstances, to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the U.N-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people,” she said in a statement on 12 October.

In fact, Rooney’s contention is not with the language itself, as she stated that “the Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so.”

READ: Empty gestures or substantive change? On the Nobel Prize in Literature and its discontents

Rooney is not the first intellectual to take an ethical position against any form of cultural normalisation with Israeli institutions, especially those that directly support and benefit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. Her position is consistent with similar stances taken by other intellectuals, musicians, artists, authors and scientists. The ever-expanding list includes Roger Waters, Alice Walker and the late Stephen Hawking.

The BDS movement has made it abundantly clear that, in the words of the movement’s co-founder, Omar Barghouti, “the Palestinian boycott targets institutions only, due to their entrenched complicity in planning, justifying, whitewashing or otherwise perpetuating Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights.”

Of course, some are still not convinced. Those critics of the BDS movement intentionally conflate between anti-Semitism and a legitimate form of political expression, which aims at weakening and isolating the very economic, political and cultural infrastructures of racism and apartheid. The fact that numerous anti-Zionist Jews are supporters and advocates of the movement is not enough to make them reconsider their fallacious logic.

One of the ‘politest’ denunciations of Rooney, appearing in the Jewish Forward magazine, was penned by Gitit Levy-Paz. The author’s logic is puzzling, to say the least. Levy-Paz accused Rooney that, by refusing to allow her novel to be translated into Hebrew, she has excluded “a group of readers because of their national identity.”

Palestinians in Gaza protest against German Parliament decision on BDS, in Gaza on 23 May 2019 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

” data-medium-file=”https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/651A9980.jpg?fit=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/651A9980.jpg?fit=933%2C622&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1″ src=”https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/651A9980.jpg?resize=933.5%2C622&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1″ alt=”Palestinians in Gaza protest against German Parliament decision on BDS, in Gaza on 23 May 2019 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]” data-recalc-dims=”1″ data-lazy-loaded=”1″ >

Palestinians in Gaza protest against German Parliament decision on BDS, in Gaza on 23 May 2019 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

While the Forward writer is guilty of confusing political ethics and nationality, she is not the only one. Israeli Zionists do this as a matter of course, where the Zionist ideology and the Jewish religion – and, in this case, language – are quite often interchangeable. As a result, the definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ has been stretched to include anti-Zionism – though Zionism is a modern ideological construct. Since Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Zionist state, it follows that any form of criticism of Israeli policies are often depicted as if a form of anti-Semitism.

One of the most interesting aspects of this conversation on language is that the Hebrew language has been used by the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948 as the language of oppression. In the minds of Palestinians, anywhere in Palestine, Hebrew is rarely the language used to communicate culture, literature, social coexistence and such. Instead, every military ordinance issued by the Israeli army, including closures and home demolitions, let alone the proceedings of military court hearings, and even the racist anti-Palestinian chants in football stadiums, are communicated in Hebrew. Palestinians are then excused if they do not view the modern Hebrew language as a language of inclusion, or even innocuous, everyday communication.

These realisations are not the outcome of daily experiences only. Successive Israeli governments have passed numerous legislations over the years to elevate Hebrew at the expense of Arabic. For over seven decades, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has been coupled with the erasure of their culture and their language, from the Hebraicisation of historic Arabic names of towns, villages and streets, to the demolition of ancient Palestinian graveyards, olive groves, mosques and churches, the Israeli ethnocide is a top item on the Israeli political agenda.

The Israeli Nation State Law of 2018, which elevated Hebrew as Israel’s official language and downgraded Arabic to a “special status”, was the culmination of many years of a relentless, centralised Israeli campaign, whose sole purpose is to dominate the Palestinians, not only politically but culturally as well.

All that in mind, the hypocrisy of Israel’s mouthpieces is unmistakable. They welcome, or at least remain silent, when Israel tries to demolish and bury Palestinian culture and language, but cry foul when a respected author or a well-regarded artist tries, though symbolically, to show solidarity with the oppressed and occupied Palestinian people.

The Palestinian boycott movement is conscious of its morally-driven mission, thus can never duplicate the tactics of the Israeli government and official institutions. BDS aims at pressuring Israel by reminding peoples all over the world of their moral responsibility towards the Palestinians.

BDS does not target Israelis as individuals and, under no circumstances, does it target Jewish individuals because they are Jews, or the Hebrew language, as such. Israel, on the other hand, continues to target Palestinians as a people, downgrades their language, dismantles their institutions and systematically destroys their culture. This is rightly referred to as cultural genocide, and it is our moral responsibility to stop it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

——

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

TRT World: “Irish author Sally Rooney boycotts Israeli publisher in support of BDS”

In 2019 documentary film-maker Abby Martin was invited to speak at a planned 2020 conference at Georgia Southern University and offered a $1000 honorarium plus travel expenses. Judge Cohen’s judgement says, “One week later, a professor at GSU and conference co-chair emailed several professors at other academic institutions to inform them that Martin had been selected as the keynote speaker for the Conference.In that email, the professor referred to Martin as a “fantastic Key Note,” and planning for the Conference continued.”

But before GSU could pay her, they needed her to sign a pledge that she would not boycott Israel. Martin, who later did a documentary on Gaza and views Israel as a settler-colonial apartheid state, refused to sign the pledge. Cohen writes,

“Martin responded the same day, stating:

‘I’m sure you know, a lot of my work advocates the boycott of Israel, and my new film features that call to action.I cannot sign any form promising not to boycott Israel.’

As a result,Defendants prevented Martin from speaking at the Conference and receiving the$1,000 honorarium, and subsequently cancelled the Conference.

.As a result, Martin was deprived of her ability to speak on the GSU campus, to receive the honorarium, and to showcase her work.”

The GSU invitation was then withdrawn and the conference she was to have addressed, on critical media theory, was canceled.

Then governor Nathan Deal had signed SB 327 into law in 2016. It obligated any person or company that contracted with the state of Georgia for services of $1000 or more to vow not to boycott the Israeli government as a result of its treatment of Palestinians.

Judge Cohen’s ruling concluded,

“The requirement contained in O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 that parties seeking to contract with the state of Georgia sign a certification that they are not engaged in a boycott of Israel also is unconstitutional compelled speech. “[W]hen a State attempts to make inquiries about a person’s beliefs or associations, its power is limited by the First Amendment. Broad and sweeping state inquiries into these protected areas . . . discourage citizens from exercising rights protected by the Constitution.” Baird v. State Bar of Ariz. 401 U.S. 1, 6 (1971). “Similarly, the State may not condition employment ‘on an oath denying past, or abjuring future/protected speech and associational activities.” Amawi, 373 F. Supp. 3d at 754(quoting Cole, 405 U.S. at 680).Because O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 discriminates based on the motive for engaging in a boycott against Israel, the certification requirement forces parties contracting21Case 1:20-cv-00596-MHC Document 53 Filed 05/21/21 Page 21 of 29 with the state of Georgia to publicly assign a motive and speech element to what Defendants deem merely economic conduct. The certification that one is not engaged in a boycott of Israel is no different that requiring a person to espouse certain political beliefs or to engage in certain political associations. The Supreme Court has found similar requirements to be unconstitutional on their face.”

It is fascinating the degree to which Cohen’s ruling depended for its reasoning on the previous federal district court decisions striking down anti-boycott laws relating to Israel in Kansas, Texas and Arizona.

These rulings underlined the importance of Claiborne (1982), and Cohen concurred.

I pointed out that without political boycotts the Civil Rights movement might well not have succeeded. Charles Evers and the NAACP boycotted Claiborne Hardware store in Mississippi, and the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so, writing, “While States have broad power to regulate economic activities, there is no comparable right to prohibit peaceful political activity such as that found in the boycott in this case.”

Martin gained the backing of the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations {CAIR) and the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in launching a lawsuit against the state, alleging that requiring her to sign that pledge violated her first amendment rights.

What is not widely understood is that professors, journalists and others who speak at state universities are considered contractors with the state, so that this law directly interfered with freedom of speech and academic freedom. Most such speakers cannot afford to fly around giving public talks on their own dime, so if the university cannot pick up the tab, those ideas don’t get shared. And, further note that the speaker would not be necessarily speaking on Israel-Palestine. Some people who have been economically harmed by these bills who don’t in fact boycott Israel, but simply won’t sign a loyalty pledge of any sort since it injures their constitutional rights.

The University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College “cancelled their ads with Little Rock’s Arkansas Times because owner Alan Leveritt won’t sign a pledge that his business does not boycott Israel. Leveritt doesn’t boycott Israel, but he considers a state law passed by Arkansas and 27 other states to be unconstitutional and he would rather risk his business than surrender his First Amendment rights.” The federal 8th circuit court eventually struck down the Arkansas law, though it is still in litigation.

The Georgia law is one of 38 passed by state legislatures around the United States. Whenever they have been challenged in court they have been struck down. The laws have been pushed by the US Israel lobbies, likely in conjunction with the Israeli government itself, in a frontal assault on the US constitution and American freedoms of expression and the press. The groups include Agudath Israel of America, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, American Jewish Committee, Israel Action Network, Israel Allies Foundation, Israel Project, Israeli-American Coalition for Action, (IAC for Action) an offshoot to the Israeli-American Council (IAC, Jewish Federations of North America, StandWithUs, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Zionist Organization of America. Jewish Americans in earlier decades had been absolutely crucial to the expansion of American liberties under the First Amendment, and Judge Cohen stands in that proud tradition. It is sad to see this hard line pro-Likud section of them now attempt to impose a Communist-style censorship on other Americans.

This country began with the Boston Tea Party, which was a boycott of the British East India Company.

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Bonus Video:

The Humanist Report: “Abby Martin WINS Lawsuit Against Georgia—Court Strikes Down Their Anti-BDS Law”