Divestment, a branch of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, takes the spotlight once again as we begin a new year at UCLA.
Last year, the issue was voted down, but it still left our campus polarized. After the student government meeting on divestment, students felt uncomfortable voicing their opinions on the complex issue that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict given that the resolution failed to reflect any nuance. This year, Students for Justice in Palestine is proposing divestment from companies that conduct business in Israel yet again, and we believe that UCLA is running the risk of perpetuating an even tenser environment between students with different backgrounds and viewpoints.
We must be wary of the long-term effects that this resolution will have on our Bruin community. By revealing the resolution’s true context and addressing the reasons why it is detrimental, we urge the Undergraduate Students Association Council to vote “no” on this resolution in order to ensure that students feel safe and comfortable to voice their own opinions regarding the conflict. Only by engaging in honest dialogue can we avoid a repeat of the detrimental effects of last year’s divestment hearing.
The damaging rhetoric in this year’s conversation has already begun. This year’s divestment effort unveiled a Facebook profile picture campaign logo that reads, “UCLA Divest,” using a map of Israel as the letter “I.” The map makes no distinction between Israel proper, the West Bank and Gaza; it instead marks the entire historic territory, without any borders. Two years ago, on our own campus, SJP corrected a Bruins for Israel map that failed to exclude the West Bank or the Gaza Strip from Israel. Since then, BFI has been cognizant and thoughtful of the borders it uses. By representing all of Israel and the Palestinian territories, SJP is questioning the borders of not only the disputed Palestinian territories, but of the Jewish state of Israel as well.
To be clear, UCLA Divest is a blatant extension of the greater BDS movement. As a whole, the BDS movement demonizes and delegitimizes Israel through its misleading approach to a complex and lengthy conflict. The BDS movement boils down to anti-Semitism as it dismisses the right of the Jewish people to self-determination by conveniently failing to offer or discuss a solution for long-term peace after its initial goal of ending the occupation is achieved. In this context, the campaign calling for human rights masks anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
While we oppose this resolution, we do not stand for human rights violations. By framing the entire conflict as a zero-sum game, this resolution will isolate the pro-Israel community. Including diverse communities is essential to creating progressive dialogue on this campus.
Ultimately, passing this resolution would be an endorsement of the global BDS movement by members of council, whose votes are supposed to be representative of the student body that elected them. The decision to vote for this resolution – even by councilmembers who claim they do not support or agree with BDS – will extend farther than the council table when the BDS movement claims the resolution a victory. We have already seen this after UC Berkeley’s student government passed a similar divestment resolution in 2013. Multiple communities on our campus would feel marginalized, targeted, threatened and unwelcome.
Furthermore, we can’t help but question why USAC is voting on such a resolution in the first place rather than on local issues of importance to the entire UCLA community. Continuing a trend from last year’s USAC, 14 undergraduates on student council are on track to discuss and vote on an issue that has no relevance to student life or to the platforms they ran on. It is an utter disservice to themselves and to the entire student body, which pays a portion of student fees to USAC, to divert their energy and capacity for change away from important areas to an ongoing geopolitical issue that only tears apart communities and perpetuates party politics. More importantly, this is a global problem that even experts struggle to answer.
As Bruins and as human beings, we have a responsibility to support our fellow students to work toward positive progress in a safe, welcoming environment. We see this as a matter of finding a more effective, less vitriolic approach to dealing with this issue on our campus, and we hope our fellow Bruins will see it that way too.
Davidovits is a fourth-year economics student and the president of Bruins for Israel. Hit is a third-hyphen year neuroscience student and the vice president of Bruins for Israel.
“The map makes no distinction between Israel proper, the West Bank and Gaza; it instead marks the entire historic territory ”
Go to the BFI website. The map on the BFI Tshirts in the first image show exactly the same map Mr Davidovits is now accuses the Boycott folks of bad faith. I could not find a map of Israel on their site. I guess that speaks a lot about the honesty of this submission.
If you feel marginalized its because of the actions of Israel that organizations like yours have tried to paper over for decades with the steady stream of demonizations of Palestinians and their aspirations. Your fury should be directed at the state of Israel and its ethnic cleansing. Something that right wing Jewish organizations keep silent at and continue to do so. All the while coming up with scare scenarios of the Boycott movement.
Pointing fingers at Israel won’t make BDS any less bigoted and collective punishment.
He does have a point with the map, though. Both sides need to be careful of seeing too much in the other’s words and pictures.
But Omer is right that if any part of this resolution passes, then it will be written and bragged about that BDS, as envisioned by Barghouti, passed at UCLA.
He is also right that this is not an issue for USAC to decide. And certainly not one for USAC to continue to debate into eternity as more and more students become apathetic to student government.
Collective punishment is practiced by Israel against the Palestinians, according to both AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
(http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/ISR/INT_CCPR_NGO_ISR_105_9113_E.pdf)
and the UN Human RIghts Special Rapportuer
(http://www.ohchr.org/en/newsevents/pages/displaynews.aspx?newsid=13455&langid=e)
Bigotry in Israel and the occupied territories is well documented (see latest edition of New Yorker and Israeli press). Your concerns are false and misinformed.
Like I said, pointing fingers at Israel doesn’t make BDS any less collective punishment. Are you saying two wrongs make a right?
If Israel has such a policy, then why is there a waiting list of palestinian Arabs that want to become Israelis?
Your citations are worthless. Cite policy.
I just went to the BFI website at bruinsforisrael.com. There’s only one image of people wearing t-shirts on the homepage, and the shirts just have a Route 66 sign altered to say “Israel 66” — no maps anywhere. Care to provide a more direct link?
They changed the image today after i posted about it.
Elon refers to it in the same thread —> “He does have a point with the map, though. Both sides need to be careful of seeing too much in the other’s words and pictures.”
Well said, Omer. There is no doubt divestment is simply a weapon in the eternal Palestinian war against Israel. UCLA is a place to learn, not a battlefield to fight the Palestinians’ war for them.
Incorrect. First off, the term ‘antisemitic’ refers only to Jewhatred.
2nd, the movement is based on lies about Jews, about Jewish people and their values, and about the policy of the one refuge for Jewish people in the world. And these lies have the sole purpose of whitewashing the sick sadism of the Muslim na zi haj amin al husseini and his disciples in fatah and hamas.
It’s defacto Jewhatred, at least have the guts to come out of the closet like the KKK has.
You appear unable to distinguish between anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish, but that is your problem, because there is a difference. BDS is a non-violent notice, from people who are not part of the Israel-Palestine conflict, to the Israeli people telling them that what their state is doing to the Palestinians is a violation of human rights. Please listen to this message.
That is not to say that the Palestinians are not also doing bad things, or that there are not other nations doing bad things. Other nations are also being held accountable. Recall that Yugoslavia was mercilessly bombed by NATO for their actions in Kosovo, which has been a part of Serbia for hundreds of year, including bombing of civilian infrastructure. BDS is not advocating violence against Israel.
Israel is violating the Palestinians human rights systematically, using all the tools of the state, and with such ruthlessness that its actions stand out against all others in the world at this moment. BDS is a notice from citizens of the world to the citizens of Israel that the actions of their state are not acceptable. Do you hear?
I’m fully aware that the same lies were told about the Serbs (that they were tormenting the na zi pets of the Nato countries) but regardless–when you’re whitewashing and supporting the movement of Haj Amin al Hussini, that is de facto Jewhatred, ditto for repeatedly lying about Israeli policy, and fabricating policy that does not exist.
You’re taking the anti civil rights and oppressive policies of fatah and hamas, which deny palestinian Arabs their human rights, and attributing those policies to Israel. And how can you do this while claiming to be something other than a Jewhater?
UCLA Student Government just showed its just a clueless and embarrassing as Berkeley’s. And, of course, as expected, there was no mention of Palestinian violence against Israel because as everyone with a brain knows, the BDS movement is not about stopping “human rights violations” as its proponents claim, the BDS movement is nothing more than a charade calling for the destruction of Israel.
I wonder why no similar cause is issued against Turkey, you know where Turkey hasn’t said a word about genocide against the Armenians and the Kurds, and they want to become NATO members. I guess that’s okay.