Last week, the Undergraduate Students Association Council considered a resolution entitled “A Resolution In Support of Positive Steps Towards an Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” The resolution recognized that “both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have historical and cultural ties to the land” and “both the Jewish and Palestinian narratives regarding the land are substantial parts of each group’s self-identity.”
In light of the hostile campus environments created by divestment resolutions brought forth at other UC campuses, the resolution called for peaceful and respectful dialogue based on the UCLA principle that “healthy climate is grounded in respect for others, nurtured by dialogue between those of differing perspectives, and is evidenced by a pattern of civil interactions among community members.” Furthermore, the resolution called for positive investments in companies and ventures “that have spent time and resources on efforts to facilitate cooperative interaction between Israelis and Palestinians” in order to further promote and support cross-community collaboration.
The bill did not explicitly recognize Israel’s numerous and continuous attempts for peace, did not explicitly state solidarity with Israelis who have lived through terrorist attacks and did not condemn Palestinian rejection of previous attempts at peace. Nevertheless, I decided to support the bill as a member of the pro-Israel community. I felt that this bill represented a much-needed framework for the pro-Israel community, as activists and members of the larger campus community, to feel safe expressing our identities.
After long conversations and much compromise between council members on the language of the resolution, the final version of this bill stated that USAC respects and supports equally the expression of all voices on this campus regarding this issue. Furthermore, it stated that USAC would support a peacefully negotiated settlement to the conflict in a way that reflects its complex, multifaceted nature and that respects the rights to self-determination of both Palestinians and Israelis in their respective homelands. When the bill came for a vote at nearly 3 a.m., council struck it down: seven against, five in support, zero abstaining.
I am disappointed in the behavior of many of those who attended the meeting that made public comments. Not only did some of them use their time to demonize Israel in a historically inaccurate way, but many of those who stayed throughout the night did not even support the mildest nod toward acceptance of the Israeli narrative and Jewish nationhood and peoplehood.
I was ashamed to call myself a part of the UCLA community when members of the public, as well as a member of the council, called to recognize Hamas as a representative of the Palestinian people despite Hamas being recognized as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, Canada and Japan.Furthermore, Hamas is a group whose charter calls for the murder of Jews and the obliteration of Israel.
Rather than plant the seeds of peace and compromise on our campus as modeled by the growing peace talks between elected Israeli and Palestinian leadership, the council rejected the notion that the demonization of any one party involved in conflict is detrimental to the peace cause. The council gave a message to the UCLA community that rather than focus on coexistence and collaboration, both of which the resolution highlighted and sought to create, students should create an unsafe campus climate through the stigmatization of certain UCLA students and affiliates.
I am also extremely disappointed in the behavior of the council members in the room throughout the meeting. USAC claims to commit to the highest standards of respectability and accountability. But how can USAC claim to respect the rights and dignity of others when, as a council, it blatantly refused a resolution that acknowledged the rights of self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians? With the denial of this resolution, how can council claim to be in support of coexistence and a healthy campus climate?
The council needs to reevaluate the implications of its decisions for all communities. It had the opportunity to foster a diverse and open-minded campus culture where students would feel comfortable expressing and exchanging ideas, while knowing that their governing body acknowledges the legitimacy of their homeland.
To many within the pro-Israel community, the denial of this resolution affirmed that our student government does not support Israel’s right to self-determination. To me, the rejection of this bill sends the message that USAC is not in support of respectful dialogue and peace. Last week’s council meeting made me feel uncomfortable sharing part of my identity with my own representative government, with whom I expect to be able to identify and share my concerns.
Eshaghian is a fourth-year psychobiology student and the president of Bruins for Israel.
Israel must admit it is a colonial OCCUPIER and it USURPS LANDS
Palestine:
occupied LAND
American Jews who suck the $$ to give to Israel:
OCCUPIED MINDS
Other comments from this person (viewable on their profile): women are unable to work closely with men AND it is irresponsible for future mothers to engage in the working world. Classy, Sami.
We all know that women are clearly just objects for men. It is Allah’s will that they be treated as property.
As we have seen with essentially every islamic government.
This is absolute hasbara. It is shameful that you are doing this. Have you ever actually met a Muslim person, “Muhammad”? Do you realize your ridiculous caricature actually treats over a billion different people on the planet like some stereotype? Many societies struggle with patriarchy, including our own. Please devote more of your own time to cleaning your own house and taking care of the issues in your own community, instead of mocking the “other”.
Distraction from the point doesn’t solve this conflict… Zionists have infiltrated every aspect of our leadership – how can we expect this to change if you tear others down for unrelated opinions?
A movement is broad based. You respect my religious views and I respect yours. Then we can accomplish things together. Same as Zionists have built Israel.
End Zionism and MAYBE peace can come. JEWS OUT OF PALESTINE
Hahaha wow didn’t take long for the racists to come out of the woodwork.
Sad to see how misinformed this school and its students are… racist? Is that how deep zionism – a COLONIAL movement from Jews – has been put into universities in America?
anti colonialism, anti racism, anti jewish supremecy – anti Israel
One person, one vote. One state.
Or no states. to paraphrase back to the future, “where we’re going, we don’t need states.”
Andrew:
I assume you are well-intentioned in proposing your one-state solution. But I’d like to know, would you be willing to bet your life on such a “solution” working out? That’s basically what you’re asking Israeli Jews to do.
I don’t blame Israelis for not wanting to literally risk their lives on the notion that Palestinian leaders in such a state would drop their genocidal hatred of Jews.
I highly suggest you watch this made for tv movie “Mandela and de Klerk” (1997) with Sidney Poitier as Mandela and Michael Caine (doing a hilarious South African accent) as de Klerk. If after seeing that you still feel like people can’t learn to transcend their supposedly ingrained hatred of each other, then I don’t know how a conversation with me on the internet could help you. People aren’t angry because of some intractable and immaterial hatred that manifested without context or history, they are angry because they are living under occupation and/or don’t have equal rights. Pretty simple.
I’m glad that you forecast a day in which all the peoples of the Middle East live in a more harmonious arrangement.
The Jews have been hated and continue to be hated in many parts of the world. Strangely enough, much of this hatred–actually, most of it–happened in times before the state of Israel administered disputed territory captured from Jordan and Egypt in a defensive war, and much of this hatred happened in places where nobody really gives a damn about what goes on in the Levant.
I have family connections to an organization that helped Jews escape from Arab countries in North Africa. These people were so desperate to get out of these countries, they’d literally risk their lives, setting sail on rickety boats in the middle of the night. Many had been afraid to reveal their Jewish identities publicly. They almost didn’t even care where they ultimately went. Most wound up in Israel, France, England, and Canada.
Those people are not going to go back to living under Arab rule. The #1 lesson of Zionism is that Jews have to look out for their own collective safety because it can’t be entrusted to others (gee, where would Jews get that idea). I’ll preemptively add this: screw your loaded, deliberately twisted definitions of Zionism as some kind of spirit of racist supremacist land-grabbing. Oh, and I’m not going to change my views on this because of some Michael Caine made-for-TV movie.
First, I hope you don’t interpret my occasional snarkiness as a flagrant disregard for the suffering that has existed in your family’s past, and in the past of a people that have indeed been through many hardships in history. This suffering of Jewish people throughout history has been absolutely real (and indeed had even more horrific manifestations in Europe than in the Middle East), but none of that suffering justifies continuing the cycle of suffering.
For instance, I can tell you all about how my Irish family suffered religious persecution and that is what brought them to the settler-colony of Canada, this will not change the fact of it being a settler-colony and it will not change the need for indigenous Canadians to have basic rights. I don’t see how you don’t see this.
Also, I was waiting for someone to use the “we won this land in a defensive war!” argument, because anyone who reads that and thinks for 5 seconds realizes that doesn’t make any sense.
…and it’s not just Michael Caine but the inimitable Sidney Poitier. Or do you not see coloured folk?
Really? That’s your response to a guy saying “Jews out of Palestine”? Instead of ethnic cleansing, merely calling for an outcome where Palestinians become the majority and the anti-Semitic leaders in Fatah, Hamas, or both rule over a Jewish minority? I’m sure that will work out great. Lord knows, minorities are living the life all over the Middle East these days. Just ask the Copts.
If you’re bringing the copts into this because you want me to say we should stop sending military aid to Egypt (because I know how much Zionists get off when people talking about pulling money out of Arab states regardless of political context just for the sole purpose of it distracting people from Israeli violations of international law, etc), then get ready for it….
We should stop sending military aid to Egypt!!
(but as you no doubt know, a big reason we send all that stuff to Egypt is so they don’t mess with Israel, and so American weapons manufacturers can get $$$$).
And yes, I am calling for a situation wherein (at the very least) the majority of people on that land are represented proportionally in the governing bodies that control their every day lives, but we should even be extending our political imaginations beyond that and looking for new possibilities for how we can all become more autonomous human beings and develop more participatory political structures so wack people like Netanyahu and Abbas never take power again. (Abbas I no doubt think is wack for very different reasons than you).
When our “political imaginations” create a reality where the dominant forces in Palestinian politics do NOT promote blatant hatred, violence, ethnic cleansing, and (in quite a few cases) genocide of Israelis and Jews, we can start considering the pros and cons of 1 state or no states. Until then, all you’re doing is sitting behind a computer screen promoting social experiments that will almost certainly result in the murder and oppression of massive numbers of people.
regardless of my views on one state/two state/red state/blue state, the fact of the matter is that this university is invested in companies that are currently supporting the murder and oppression of massive numbers of people. that is why I am here and sitting behind this computer screen. but when I am not behind a computer screen I am out there organizing trying to help in some small way with ending the occupation (or whatever else I’m doing), and I should hope you have some sense of understanding of how ending the occupation would reduce the violence on all ends.
the bds movement does not take a stance on these various “solutions”, nor is it centered around any Palestinian political parties. It is a grassroots movement established by over 150 civil society organizations in Palestine. It is merely a set of tactics designed to push us closer to whatever solution comes. the goal of BDS is to urge Israel to comply with international law by:
Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall;
Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
I’m for ending the occupation through a negotiated peace agreement which ends all claims on both sides and respects both people’s rights to self-determination.
The BDS movement takes a clear, but radically different stand: it demands that millions of Palestinians be allowed to move to Israel and replace it with a majority-Palestinian state. There’s no ambiguity about what the result of that would be. The BDS movement privileges Palestinian rights to self-determination over Jewish rights to self-determination, pure and simple. Pretending that BDS doesn’t take a stand is just “leftist posturing” as Norman Finkelstein would say. And the fact that BDS isn’t centered on a Palestinian political party is completely irrelevant. It demands an outcome – replacing Israel w/ a majority Palestinian state – which in reality would result in Jews living as a minority under today’s dominant Palestinian political forces – Hamas and/or Fatah – both of which promote violence and anti-Semitism. Until that reality changes dramatically, you and your fellow BDS activists will continue to be either A) useless or B) part of the problem.
And by the way, resolution 194 is non-binding, has no force in international law, and was rejected by Arab states when it was adopted. It is completely irrelevant.
The reason the resolution was voted down was because Jew’s DONT have the right to self determination because they stole it from the Palestinians in the first place!! end of story.
Did you read this in Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or maybe Mahmud Ahmadinejad is your source?
People like you give Muslims bad reputation. You are doing a disservice to Palestinians. If you want to promote their cause, stop act like a jerk.
Sadly, this comment isn’t too far removed from much of the rhetoric of the anti-Israel crowd on my campus (a sister UC school). Which goes to show that the resolution’s backers are correct in claiming that the annual divestment shenanigans are highly correlated with rises in noticeable antisemitism on campus.
Nobody has a right to self-determination in the form of an exclusionary nation state that denies the right to the self-determination of others.
Israel is “exclusionary?” Which is why Arab-Israelis would almost all prefer to remain in Israel than join a future Palestinian state.
Tell me this: do you oppose all states that have some kind of religious identity, or only when it’s a Jewish identity? How do you feel about the various Arab states, where murder and persecution of Christians, Jews (what’s left of them, at least), and others is so rampant and commonplace that it doesn’t even make the news here?
Abbas has made it very clear that no Jews will be allowed in a future state of Palestine. And he’s the supposedly moderate one. To be fair, though, Hamas hasn’t repealed its charter which calls for genocide against Jews, so compared to them he is moderate. Anyway, those are the leaders of the people for whom you’re going to bat right now.
I am against any and all states that use their religious identities in an attempt to maintain demographic control and different systems of rights for different nationalities in an ostensibly democratic society.
Also, just a thought but maybe the reason many “Arab Israelis” prefer to stay in Israel is because they are actually Palestinians and that’s where they lived before Israel.
And you have a very limited understanding of Palestinian society if you think there is no popular movement outside of the framework of Fateh and Hamas leadership. “The people for whom [I’m] going to bat right now” are already doing a fine job organizing for themselves by means of the BDS national committee, which consists of 150 different civil society organizations, and they don’t need my advocacy for them to do what they’re trying to do. BDS is poppin’ off globally and Palestinians are getting more and more hopeful and gaining more and more ground in terms of building an international consensus about Israeli apartheid every year, and rightfully so because their problems become more and more prolonged and complicated as the occupation and other injustices go on.
Regarding the Arab countries, which successfully expelled and murdered their Jewish populations and are now doing it to their Christians, are you less opposed to them because their not “ostensibly democratic,” i.e. their openly totalitarian?
There are a lot of Arab villages along the Green Line. They’re pretty hopeful that when the permanent borders get drawn, they’re on the Israeli side rather than the Palestinian side. It’s because they’d rather continue enjoying the rights they currently have in Israel than live in a state run by the Palestinians, which–if the recent leadership is any indication–will be just another backward Middle Eastern basket case of a country, and they know it. They’re not dumb.
BDS is a joke. Well, it’s too offensive to me to be a joke, but it probably looks that way to a lot of outside observers. You know how many universities in the US have actually sold off stock because of all your clamoring? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the same number that did it before you started your ruckus: zero. Even the Arab countries, which bankroll a lot of anti-Israel activism in the West, are reaching unprecedented levels of trade and cooperation between themselves and Israel. The anti-Israel boycott movement hit its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, then it kind of waned in the 1980s, and then collapsed in the 1990s because the Soviets weren’t around to sling their propaganda at various third-world rednecks around the globe and teenagers on Western university campuses. The current incarnation, which calls itself BDS, has managed to achieve very little, save for drawing in a few aging rock stars and organizing a few votes at obscure food coops (which they lose anyway).
The writer Jonathan Cristol should have the last word on BDS: “BDS has had so few triumphs that every extremely minor victory is blown up as “proof” that the movement is gaining steam. I suspect that this phenomenon is the natural psychological coping mechanism of people who have devoted themselves to an ineffective, offensive, and hopeless cause.”
“… and in the end, it was Jonathan Cristol, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, NY, who had the last word on the global movement that was BDS”
I am too tired of zionist rhetoric to write a counter op-ed to this like I used to do in my days of youth, and I know for a fact there are more qualified, articulate, brilliant and deeply passionate people out there to respond to this kinda stuff, but I would just like to share my thoughts on this, which I read out loud in part during the meeting itself:
——–
Hi, my name is Andrew Newton, I am an undergraduate student in international development studies, and I have hurt feelings too.
I’m hurt because someone at my school thought that a meaningful step towards resolving the so-called israel-palestine conflict could take the form of a resolution predicated on the false notion that divesting from corporations that benefit from the illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands would create a hostile and/or unsafe environment for some students. Not only is there no perceivable correlation between the university’s choice to pull money out of companies that are complicit in human rights abuses and the material health and safety of these students who complain of marginalization, but the mere fact that these students would make a situation wherein Palestinians are being collectively punished by military airstrikes, shot at in nonviolent demonstrations, indefinitely detained and imprisoned en masse, psychologically traumatized by constant intrusions into their daily lives and restrictions of their freedom of movement, treated as second class citizens in their own native land, and displaced from their homes without the prospect of returning… that someone could take all that and turn it into a story about the perceived marginalization of a few relatively privileged students in Southern California is to me a demonstration of a profound lack of empathy and perspective. Since when are the profits of a handful of corporations more important to sustain than the lives of the human beings whose daily existence these corporations are helping make worse? This hurts my feelings.
What the students who introduced and support this bill may not be fully understanding is that living under military occupation is an exponentially more hostile and/or unsafe environment than any of us UCLA students will ever have to live in. As an institution that is actively investing in companies that make the occupation possible we are not neutral in the process of creating the conditions in which many Palestinians suffer, and no matter how much dialogue we have, no matter what kind of friendships we build, no matter how many hurt feelings we sit here and try to tend to, the fact of our complicity in these human rights violations will not change until we pull the money out.
The resolution’s proposal that we invest money in corporations that support Palestinian businesses as an alternative to divestment is completely missing the point, as it fails to acknowledge the condition of military occupation within which Palestinian businesses struggle to survive every day. Please, let us get back to the conversation that other UCs are having and stand on the right side of history by divesting from Israeli apartheid. And yes, it is apartheid. The concept that people in this room could actually argue in defense of corporations that act in collaboration with a settler-colonial nation-state that systemically discriminates against its indigenous population, relegating them to veritable bantustans amidst growing blocs of settlements and shooting hellfire missiles at their heads from un-ironically named Apache helicopters makes it clear to me that actually, it’s worse than apartheid, and that worse than hurts my feelings.
But my hurt feelings are just that, hurt feelings, and I certainly hope that the elected representatives of USAC are guided by higher principles based on observation of material conditions that exist in the world and ethical responses to these conditions as opposed to just hurt feelings.
Thank you.
——
I would also like to add:
Do not believe the emotional manipulation of a select few who value their connection to any form nation-state above their conviction that whatever nation-state they feel connected to should treat all people living within its borders equally and complies to international law. Especially when those people are like Miriam Eshaghian, who laughed derisively when one student quoted Martin Luther King during public comment and generally had a confrontational attitude the whole time. Her complaints about marginalization simply do not ring true to her behaviour, which attempts to publicly shame council members who have courageously decided to listen to the immensely diverse community that showed up that night, which included people from all kinds of backgrounds including some incredibly brave anti-zionist jewish students. What I saw that night was student government listening to its constituents, who don’t want to see our institution’s money go towards funding injustices abroad and don’t see so-called “positive investments” as a meaningful solution to the political problem of military occupation.
If you would like to learn more, please feel free to attend any of the events at Palestine Awareness Week, which happens next week. Here’s the event link. https://www.facebook.com/events/610139109032348/?fref=ts
Full disclosure, I am a former board member of SJP at UCLA, but now I am just a wandering drifter of sorts. I do not represent SJP but they have changed my life in immensely positive ways, and quite frankly they were the most real and amazing activists I’ve ever had the chance to work with in my 10 years of doing this kind of work. Feel free to contact me on facebook if you would like to have real dialogue and quit bothering our USAC representatives who have been doing a great job with this issue. Thank you.
I am too tired to write a counter op-ed to this like I used to do in my days of youth, and I know for a fact there are more qualified, articulate, brilliant and deeply passionate people out there to respond to this kinda stuff, but I would just like to share my thoughts on this, which I read out loud in part during the meeting itself:
——–
Hi, my name is Andrew Newton, I am an undergraduate student in international development studies, and I have hurt feelings too.
I’m hurt because someone at my school thought that a meaningful step towards resolving the so-called israel-palestine conflict could take the form of a resolution predicated on the false notion that divesting from corporations that benefit from the illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands would create a hostile and/or unsafe environment for some students. Not only is there no perceivable correlation between the university’s choice to pull money out of companies that are complicit in human rights abuses and the material health and safety of these students who complain of marginalization, but the mere fact that these students would make a situation wherein Palestinians are being collectively punished by military airstrikes, shot at in nonviolent demonstrations, indefinitely detained and imprisoned en masse, psychologically traumatized by constant intrusions into their daily lives and restrictions of their freedom of movement, treated as second class citizens in their own native land, and displaced from their homes without the prospect of returning… that someone could take all that and turn it into a story about the perceived marginalization of a few relatively privileged students in Southern California is to me a demonstration of a profound lack of empathy and perspective. Since when are the profits of a handful of corporations more important to sustain than the lives of the human beings whose daily existence these corporations are helping make worse? This hurts my feelings.
What the students who introduced and support this bill may not be fully understanding is that living under military occupation is an exponentially more hostile and/or unsafe environment than any of us UCLA students will ever have to live in. As an institution that is actively investing in companies that make the occupation possible we are not neutral in the process of creating the conditions in which many Palestinians suffer, and no matter how much dialogue we have, no matter what kind of friendships we build, no matter how many hurt feelings we sit here and try to tend to, the fact of our complicity in these human rights violations will not change until we pull the money out.
The resolution’s proposal that we invest money in corporations that support Palestinian businesses as an alternative to divestment is completely missing the point, as it fails to acknowledge the condition of military occupation within which Palestinian businesses struggle to survive every day. Please, let us get back to the conversation that other UCs are having and stand on the right side of history by divesting from Israeli apartheid. And yes, it is apartheid. The concept that people in this room could actually argue in defense of corporations that act in collaboration with a settler-colonial nation-state that systemically discriminates against its indigenous population, relegating them to veritable bantustans amidst growing blocs of settlements and shooting hellfire missiles at their heads from un-ironically named Apache helicopters makes it clear to me that actually, it’s worse than apartheid, and that worse than hurts my feelings.
But my hurt feelings are just that, hurt feelings, and I certainly hope that the elected representatives of USAC are guided by higher principles based on observation of material conditions that exist in the world and ethical responses to these conditions as opposed to just hurt feelings.
Thank you.
——
I would also like to add:
Eshagian’s complaints about marginalization simply do not ring true to her behaviour or that of her organization, which attempts to publicly shame council members who have courageously decided to listen to the immensely diverse community that showed up that night, which included people from all kinds of backgrounds including some incredibly brave Anti-Zionist Jewish students who were privately called “traitors” afterwards by members of BFI. There was even a point during comment when Eshagian herself laughed derisively at someone else’s earnest use of a Martin Luther King quote (“an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”). It is hypocritical to speak of marginalization like this when you are actively contributing to marginalization both here and abroad.
What I saw that night was student government listening to its constituents, and I congratulate them.
and for full disclosure, I am a former board member of SJP at UCLA, but now I am just a wandering drifter of sorts. I do not represent SJP but they have changed my life in immensely positive ways, and quite frankly they were the most real and amazing activists I’ve ever had the chance to work with in my 10 years of doing this kind of work. Feel free to come by the mock apartheid wall or attend any of the events during Palestine Awareness Week, which happens next week.
http://www.sjpbruins.com
When you say that you want UCLA to divest from companies that make military sales to countries that commit human rights violations, do you want to do it to all such companies, or just those whose counterparty happens to be Israel? Should we boycott/divest from companies that do business with the U.S. military, which by most accounts has caused more Muslim civilian deaths in the last 12 years than those killed in the entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict? Should we divest from human-rights-abusing militaries generally, or only when we’re talking about the world’s only Jewish state?
I would absolutely love to divest from the American-based military industrial complex. We should pull all our university money out of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc. and the UC should not be developing weapons technologies to support American empire. We should not be run by Janet Napolitano. All of this is an unacceptable situation, but if you’re going to criticize me for prioritizing ending Israeli apartheid at this particular moment, then maybe you should pay attention to the fact that we bankroll the longest running military occupation in modern history and yes it’s about damn time we do something about it.
Responding to the BDS call made by Palestinian civil society does not preclude me from having an interest and putting in work towards other forms of divestment in other issues. We should also divest from fossil fuels like my friends are working so hard towards at UCL in London (http://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/petitions/ucl-divest-from-fossil-fuels). We should be creative about what we divest from and we should use it more often as a tool, among other tools.
BDS is not anti-semitic and there are an increasing number of brilliant and inspiring dissidents within the Jewish community who argue that Jewish self-determination does not have to take the form of a state that systemically discriminates against Palestinians and illegally occupies their land.
Soooo yeah I dunno what your argument is sorry.
So, you know better than Napolitano. Right.
I’m sure there are plenty of other divestment movements out there. But BDS targets the only Jewish country on the planet, which is surely partly responsible for BDS getting more traction than those other movements generally. Furthermore, these “Boycott the Jews” campaigns have been around for generations, much longer than you’ve been alive (which is not very long, assuming you’re a UCLA undergrad) and much longer than the modern state of Israel has existed. The “Boycott Israel” heyday was about 1.5 generations ago, when the Arab countries successfully strong-armed a lot of foreign countries and companies into avoiding business with Israel. Moral persuasion wasn’t really a part of their strategy for selling the boycott back then. I’m also not convinced that most BDSers understand the historical roots and the deep ugliness of using boycott tactics against a Jewish target.
The BDSers’ singular focus on Israel reminds me of an anecdote that I heard from a law professor once. Back in the early 20th century, the president of Harvard University wanted to enact a new admissions policy, designed to favor Protestants and limit the number of Jews admitted. When somebody asked him why, he said it’s because Jewish students cheat. A prominent judge, who happened to be a Harvard alum, wrote to the president to remind him that Protestant students also cheat. The president shot back: “Quit changing the subject–we’re talking about Jews.”
As for Jews supposedly supporting BDS: Talk to those Jews who are most likely to have children and grandchildren who are Jewish. There’s a reason why those types fight harder against antisemitism, which has been steadily on the rise in the 21st century, especially in academia (which is, surprise surprise, also where Jew-hatred caught on most noticeably in America in the 1920s and 1930s).
I never said I know better than Napolitano, but I would venture to say I know of a better, more democratic method of selecting the UC president. But that is a topic for another day.
As for your peculiar history of BDS, I’m amazed that you have somehow worked it into your head that avoiding business with anyone is somehow an act of violence. It seems to me like you create a lot more violence by financing the people who commit the violence.
I mean what, really, is the “deep ugliness” of choosing not to invest our tuition money into caterpillar so we can place economic pressure on them to get them to stop building weaponized bulldozers that destroy Palestinian homes and kill American students like Rachel Corrie? What is Anti-Semitic about not wanting the money we put into this institution as students to go towards HP so they can make biometric identification systems that further entrench the injustice of apartheid into the lives of innocent people?
Also, you need to step into reality and understand that Jews do not “supposedly” support BDS. Jews support BDS. You do not speak for all Jews, or “authentic” Jews. Jewish Voice for Peace, Boycott From Within, Coalition of Women for Peace, Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, the many Jewish people who participate in SJPs and the US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation, etc etc etc are all putting in work, and the fact that they put in work against the project of political Zionism does not in any way detract from their Jewishness.
There are ways to imagine and conceptualize what Jewish self-determination could look like that don’t involve inhibiting the self-determination of others.
Peep this Judith Butler article:
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/08/judith_butler_on_bds_anti_semitism_and_speech/
Andrew, get out of the closet and admit that you’re anti-semitic. You’re borrowing a page from the playbook of the European anti-semetics in 1920’s and the ’30s. You’re using the same arguments they did in your efforts to try to argue your position toward Jews.
Go get a life and stop colonizing this webpage!
sorry for responding to your comments, I thought u wanted dialogue?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWLk7vm2Zkk
You don’t get it! You litter this webpage with your endless rant in order to bury any other opinion. This is a classic technique anti-semitics used in the last century when they couldn’t convince an argument in public debate.
You’re so transparent in what you’re trying to do here. At least try something original.
As another poster pointed out, you also look ridicules with your second voice postings.
I will repeat it again, slowly this time – G E T A L I F E
again, it would be a huge waste of time for me to make second voice postings on the daily bruin website when I have stuff to do in the day and it is nice out. I have only posted in my own voice. I haven’t buried anyone else’s opinion, everyone has spoken and I have responded. maybe the reason y’all have a hard time making “dialogue” with Palestinians is because you give people shit when they actually respond to you.
I’m gonna take a screenshot of that, because being told by an anonymous supporter of Israel to stop colonizing a space that actually doesn’t take up any physical space was the highlight of my night.
I hereby declare dailybruin.com a website without a people for a people without a website.
In the same manner that Jews support BDS, there are Muslims and Arabs who support Israel. There are groups out there like Arabs for Israel, British Muslims for Israel, etc. There are Palestinian-Israeli-Arab writers, such as Khaled Abu Toameh, who are usually classified as pro-Israel. Your argument is the type that I heard a law professor deride as “argument by ethnic admission.” Pretty silly.
Oh, and in case you don’t realize how silly it is to promote a boycott of Intel, HP, and Caterpillar… There’s a Caterpillar dealership in Ramallah for heaven’s sake. HP and Intel are very much involved in the IT infrastructure in the West Bank. The Palestinians themselves don’t even boycott these companies.
I guess i’m glad that you support Jewish self-determination in some form or another.
While you point to some academics’ arguments for a one-state solution, you should think about the reason why you keep pointing to them: because thinking about a one-state solution is a purely academic exercise. The kind that 19-year-olds from Canada who spend their days in Southern California can partake in, without worrying about their families getting murdered next time some radical Islamic party comes to power.
Well you’re about a decade off on my age but that was a good attempt at an ad hominem.
Indeed there are Arab supporters of Israel and I never said there weren’t. “Look, we have Arabs too!” does not do much to support your argument against the claims that I have rather thoroughly laid out here against the state of Israel, and honestly it sounds like the equivalent of saying something racist followed by “but I have black friends!”. What matters is the initial act in and of itself, not the identity of whatever random individuals happen to support the action (be it against the interests of their own group or whatever, that is not my place to say). If one group colonizes a land and establishes a state that systemically favours the colonizer, then it is an imperative for the colonizer and colonized and all complicit parties to do whatever is in their power to collaborate on challenging that power structure.
Criticizing Palestinians for their economic choices while trying to get by while living under occupation is not a good look for you. How could Palestinians living in Palestine boycott Israeli products if Israel has a stranglehold on the Palestinian economy? They have asked for US to do that work, and we can either listen and respond ethically or we can go around blaming them for the choices they make to survive.
By defending Israeli war crimes and then speaking condescendingly towards Palestinians for inadequately responding to those war crimes by not meeting the standards that you don’t even agree with, you have revealed your callous propensity for victim-blaming.
Speak of alleged Israeli war crimes as much as you want (another empty slogan for empty-headed parrots), but at least you should have the decency to speak of Palestinian war crimes as well, of which there have been numbers considerably higher than the alleged Israeli ones. To wit: each and every one of the 10,000+ rockets fired from Gaza in the last 15 years meet the international law definition of a DOUBLE war crime: one for shooting from Palestinian civilian population areas, thus inviting return fire and using them as human shields, and two by shooting into Israeli civilian areas without any possibility of distinguishing between lawful military objectives and unlawful civilian ones. Can we talk about these war crimes a bit, for a change? Or are you predictably going to say that since they’re under occupation (as in Gaza, maybe?), they can’t afford the luxury of weapons that can differentiate between military and civilian objectives? Let’s hear it.
Show me how UCLA is invested in Hamas rocket fire.
“Jewish Voice for Peace”? You mean “Jewish Voice for Palestine”? JVP supports anything but Peace. They do nothing but fan the flames of hatred and intolerance. If you truly were the peacemaker you like to come off as, you’d stay as far away as you could from these frauds.
Hmm, you actually made no substantive argument in any way here about how Jewish Voice for Peace is against peace.
Good point. But please don’t propagate the old trope that “U.S. military which by most accounts has caused more Muslim civilian deaths in the last 12 years than those killed in the entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict?”. The estimated Arab losses in the last hundred years or so that they’ve been trying to annihilate Israel has been around 40,000. That’s peanuts compared to Syria alone, where 120,000 people so far have been slaughtered by Assad’s army. It is Muslims who have caused the most of other Muslim civilian deaths in the last 12 years. By a very long shot. But for people with tight ideological blinders like Newton, the pile of bodies in Arab countries don’t exist since they’ve been killed by other Arab.s far more important and outrageous in his warped universe are the Palestinians having to go through checkpoints for which they are themselves entirely responsible (hint: it has a lot to do with Palestinian terrorism and Palestinian suicide bombers). Ridiculous doesn’t even begin to describe his narrow and suspiciously partisan mindset.
Assad’s regime has been horribly brutal, and I support the popular revolution in Syria (despite the fact that there are many forces that are currently attempting to co-opt it for their own interests). As I have stated elsewhere in these comments, I am quite privvy to crimes committed by any number of political entities (Arab, South Asian, Israeli or otherwise) and my awareness of those crimes does not preclude me from organizing against the illegal human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli state and the corporations that we support that make this possible.
Also, If checkpoints in Palestine had to do with terrorism, then why would there be checkpoints ALL THROUGHOUT the occupied West Bank instead of just on the border with Israel? Here is a map of checkpoints, and mind you this is NOT including spontaneous checkpoints that can spring up at any time: http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/albums/maps_media/lg_checkpoints_map_annabaltzer_small.jpg
Here’s a video about checkpoints I made for SJP-UCLA last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_8BcBMYCxU
Hmm, maybe there are checkpoints in the West Bank because there are Israeli civilians living there too, not just in Israel. Are you saying Israeli civilians who live in the West Bank are fair game for terrorists and don’t have the right to be protected from attacks? Also, according to B’Tselem Palestinians can now move relatively freely in the West Bank, because Israel has taken down so many checkpoints. Get your facts straight.
yes, there are israeli civilians (aka settlers) living there in violation of the geneva convention. and those settlers are armed as well as preferentially protected by the israeli legal system.
secondly, I am amazed how your uncited reference to B’tselem completely contradicts everything B’tselem has published. check out this wiki page and write in “according to b’tselem” and you will find 19 direct contradictions to what you just said. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_freedom_of_movement
Derp: http://www.btselem.org/freedom_of_movement/20121217_restrictions_lifted
I think you should follow your own suggestion and stop buying gas for your car. After all, Saudi Arabia has committed and continues to commit egregious human rights violations. You don’t wanna help companies profit from human rights abuses right? And this applies to ALL countries and not just Israel, right? You’re not being antisemitic by singling out Israel and applying a double standard to it, right?
Divesting from fossil fuels is a great idea, and I think we should support E3 UCLA’s efforts to do exactly that (http://www.e3ucla.org/fossil-free-ucla-divestment-campaign.html). Our continued reliance on fossil fuels is undeniably perpetuating geopolitical strife globally as well as rapidly making our planet less inhabitable through climate change, and it sickens me and I’m pretty sure it sickens most students. Maybe we should even consider some “positive investments” in renewable energies?
As far as the Saudis go, I do not support their government, nor do I think the United States or UCLA should support their government. Their occupation of Bahrain (which we also are complicit in) is unconscionable. But then again I do not support the United States government or my own Canadian government, because of countless instances that we see in the news of us politically repressing and enacting violence on huge parts of the population in and out of the country from South Chicago to the Mi’kmaq blockades to Iraq and Afghanistan to every Free Trade Zone maquiladora hell hole our multinational corporations build in the Global South.
I also wish there was a way we could meaningfully divest from the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Maybe if you weren’t so busy defending a state that systemically discriminates against 20 percent of its population with over 30 laws, forcibly sterilizes African refugees, refuses to allow its indigenous population to return home after being expelled forcibly, etc etc etc etc then you would have time to actually put in work to help out with this Western Sahara situation. If you could pull that off without resorting to islamophobic generalizations, then I would support you in that cause.
It is my firm belief that we should not support any state that tries to maintain demographic control and applies different sets of rights to different parts of its population based on nationality or any number of other factors.
I understand that you have been taught to think that people like me just hate Jews and want to make them suffer unduly, but I will tell you very honestly that I would love to see Jews and Palestinians co-existing in the land that means so much to both groups, but that can never be possible so long as there is an exclusionary state in power. In order to co-exist, however, we must first co-resist. BDS is a wonderful and empowering non-violent way for us to do that.
OK, I’ll be honest, my opinion of you has risen a little bit in reading a few of your comments. You’ve acknowledged that we should also divest from certain specific Arab countries (which you’re willing to name) that are also involved in occupations and human rights violations. You’re at least somewhat consistent, which separates you from a lot of the BDSers out there who are hypocritical and duplicitous to the point of comic absurdity.
That being said, I really don’t think you and I have much to agree on from which we can have a deeper conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You’ve openly admitted you “do not support the United States government or [your] own Canadian government.” I know this sounds patronizing, but based on those paragraphs you just wrote, your worldview is like one of a high school kid who has read a couple of Chomsky books and thinks he understands the world. I was that kid once, although I grew out of it by about the age of 19.
Back to the matter at hand: you propose a one-state solution to the Israel/Palestine mess. The Israelis aren’t going to let it happen voluntarily. They’re not going back to being dhimmis in Arab countries and vulnerable minorities in those countries and Europe and other places. It didn’t work out well. You don’t need me to tell you that.
“this white one seems to have his intentions in the right place, but he naively trusts the natives and this will be his own undoing” – the colonizer in your mind
Andrew, would you please stop posting under two different screen names as if you’re having a dialog with an imaginary person? It’s pathetic.
I’ve only posted under one name here, which links to my facebook. This is the only name I have posted under (though I accidentally posted the same post twice at one point and tried to get that comment deleted and then it wouldn’t delete so came up as ‘guest’). If you think I’d actually take the time to write out zionist talking points and then my own counterpoints on the daily bruin website when I could be outside enjoying the day, then you’d be wrong in that assumption.
Andrew, stop lying! You have been caught and now you’re trying to cover it up with more lies.
You posted under the two screen names late at night Monday and into the early hours on Tuesday. Not during the day!
You’re a liar, and not a very good one.
This is hilarious… Andrew Newton “a former board member of SJP at UCLA” is caught deceiving and is lying in attempt to cover up…
do you have an actual argument about the merits of zionism or just a random accusation of me posting the same thing twice on the internet by accident?
lol what? I only posted with one screen name. read the post above.
is this your actual argument?
Factual correction: Israel doesn’t “forcibly sterilize African refugees.” Haaretz itself has issues a correction of that story. The short version is, it didn’t happen.
I don’t know where you got your information on that one, but it probably wasn’t the original “news source” that broke the story–if it was, you certainly didn’t see the correction, or you just didn’t care because you had some explosive anti-Israel rhetorical ammo and that’s what you really cared about.
link me to the article wherein they printed a “correction”, because all I can find via google is more information corroborating my earlier statement.
Disqus seems to have eaten my last comment. I’ll try it again.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/126486/haaretz-corrects-forced-contraception-story
Consider that Haaretz was the paper that blew up this explosive story, and everyone else took it and ran without doing their own original investigative reporting.
not so sure if an article with the line “I have really no idea where the truth is in this highly unnerving and disquieting story” does much to prove or disprove what many outlets have reported in this instance, but I will further research.
The country of Pakistan carried out a disgusting genocide against Hindus in 1971. 3 million people were killed. Pakistan remains one of the largest state sponsors of terror in the world. Their military and intelligence agency had a direct hand in planning the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which killed hundreds of innocents, including fellow Americans.
I was wondering, if you are so empathetic, would you support a resolution divesting from Pakistan?
first, we should divest ourselves from the mentality that partition of any sort is a solution to these kinds of problems. some suggested reading from UCLA professor Vinay Lal:
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Independent/partition_bibliography.html
second, we should look to see if UCLA is invested in companies that directly facilitate and are knowingly complicit in this process of supporting Pakistani terrorism. I would venture to say you will find none, and if you do they will be very tenuous connections. this is a dead end. you are attempting to get concessions from me (a white atheist) about how horrible the dark-skinned muslims are in order to validate your worldview and distract readers (and yourself) from the very real crimes of the Israeli state.
Well one bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt had a direct role in facilitating the Mumbai bombing that happened in the early 90’s so I guess we could start there. All those companies that you wish to divest in include Hewlett Packard. How does a computer company “directly facilitate” and how is it “knowingly complicit” in Israeli upending of Palestinian homes. Seems kind of a double standard that we have to find a direct link with companies investing in Pakistan, but we don’t have to find a direct link to companies investing in Israel. The fact that you support divesting from companies that are associated with the Israeli military, but do not support divesting from companies that are associated with the Pakistani military (which did carry out a genocide of 3 million people and continues to have a direct link in sponsoring terrorism against India) shows how hypocritical your stance is.
I am neutral about Israel and Palestine, because the fact is that both sides are no good. It seems that Israel is subjected to much harsher standards though. Seems that the action of Islamic fanatics is often not given as much attention.
Hewlett Packard is directly complicit in developing a system of biometric identification used at checkpoints that further entrenches apartheid into the lives of Palestinians. A simple google search could help you discover this, but I will send you this link to make things easier: http://www.whoprofits.org/company/hewlett-packard-hp
Again, you have given me no corporations supported by UCLA that are complicit in crimes committed by the Pakistani military. What does UCLA’s investment portfolio have to do with Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt?
Erhmagherd it’s divisive to stop giving money to human rights abusers! That might make the corporations who abuse human rights get hurt feelings, or something….
Instead, we should just continue financing violations of international law by the Israeli state against Palestinian people, and then give a bit of cash additionally to the victims of these aggressions. That’ll keep our campus climate fine, which is the real issue here, not the lives of people who must live daily in exile or under apartheid conditions….
Hurray for clean consciences in safe communities whose standards of living rest on the exploitation and murder of others across the globe!
BDS is bigotry. The goal of the movement is to force Israel to turn itself into a majority-Palestinian state. It is a clear call for the violation of Jewish rights to self-determination and the elimination of Israel as the democratic state of the Jewish people. UCLA’s student leaders should have no qualms about standing against this malicious international propaganda campaign. If you feel that preventing the BDS movement from silencing and marginalizing Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus would silence and marginalize you, then YOU’RE the problem. There’s nothing wrong with marginalizing bigotry. In fact, it is the only moral thing to do.
was gandhi’s salt march bigotry against the british?
Your comparison of BDS to Ghandi is a disgusting abuse and misappropriation of Ghandi’s legacy. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Gandhi was not a perfect person by any means, and his legacy has indeed been co-opted by forces within India that are doing things that were in many ways the exact opposite of what he was talking about, but do you really think my eliciting the comparison of one non-violent anti-imperialist movement with another non-violent anti-imperialist movement is completely off base?
I think comparing an anti-imperialist leader like Ghandi to BDS, which seeks to eliminate Israel and deny Jews their rights as an indigenous people is 100%, completely off base. Arab dictators began enforcing boycotts against Israel and demanding the “right of return” from the very moment Israel was established. You’re just picking up where they left off.
Unfortunately for your argument, it was not just Arab dictators but also the United Nations who reaffirmed Palestinians’ right of return in UN resolution 194.
Nowhere in the language or actions of BDS is there anything about denying the right of Jewish people right to exist in historic Palestine (a land to which a relatively small number of the Jewish population currently living in Israel and the occupied West Bank were actually indigenous to, based on the fact that the area’s population was 5-7% Jewish prior to the establishment of Israel according to Ottoman census data).
If you want to get “historic” with the naming of that particular land mass, then here goes: Historically, the area of land on which the modern state of Israel and the West Bank lies was known as Judea, the post-biblical historic homeland of the Jewish people. In 70 CE, the Romans invaded Judea, expelled the Jews, and out of spite renamed the land “Palestine” in reference to the Jews’ biblical enemies, the Philistines (which have no connection to the modern day Palestinians). Even then, though, there was still always a small number of Jewish communities living in the land. The name Palestine stuck until 1948 when the modern state of Israel was established. So yes, immediately before the establishment of Israel there was only a small percentage of Jews living there, but the indigenous nature of the Jewish people in modern day Israel/historic Judea extends much farther back in history than the 20th century, literally millennia.
Here comes another useful idiot. You are dead wrong. UN Resolution 194 doesn’t give the Palestinians the right of return! It is a complete misrepresentation of Resolution 194. UN never gave any group the right of return.
The idea was introduced by Arab leaders after the 1948 war as a way to annihilate Israel.
Muhammad Salah al-Din, the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs said: “In demanding the restoration of the refugees to Palestine, the Arabs intend that they shall return as the masters… more explicitly, they intend to exterminate the State of Israel”
The 1957 Refugee Conference in Homs, Syria declaration included “… any discussion aims at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not based on ensuring the refugees’ right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as desecration of Arab people and act of treason.”
In 1960, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Egypt’s President, said “If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.”
And you have the nerve to suggest that in 2013. Shame on you!
You make a habit of missing the point. I’m not talking about Jewish people’s right to exist, I’m talking about their right to self-determination, which is enshrined in international law along with all other peoples’ right to self-determination. And UN res. 194 is irrelevant, it has no force in international law and was rejected by Arab states, as was mentioned in a different comment here.
And your denial of indigenous status to Jews is disgusting. Jews are not just a religious group, they are a people, with indigenous roots in Israel. This is a scientifically and historically proven fact. Most have direct ancestral ties, and all have an identity that was born in Israel. Jews in exile maintained that unique identity and connection to Israel for 1900 years, and your attempt to deny that connection is extremely offensive. Which only serves to underline my original point: BDS is bigotry.
I actually didn’t deny at any point that Jews have had a historical connection to the land, indeed for millenia. Nor did I deny the Jewish people’s right to self-determination (indeed I believe I openly affirmed I support this elsewhere). Does that mean that their self-determination has to come in the form of a nation that systemically excludes Palestinians from having their own self-determination?
Yea, you essentially did, you tried to claim that only a tiny percentage of Jews are actually indigenous to Israel, which is ignorant at best and malicious at worst.
Both Jews and Palestinians deserve self-determination. The side that refuses to recognize this is the Palestinian leadership. Zionist leaders have been willing to compromise repeatedly in order to ensure that both people’s rights are fulfilled. They agreed to two-state plans in 1937, 1947, 2000, and 2008. It was Palestinian leaders who said no every time. And why? Because they don’t recognize that Jews have rights to self-determination. At best they think Jews should be allowed to live as a minority under Palestinian rule. Which is incidentally the exact outcome BDS is calling for. Which once again brings me back to my original point: BDS is bigotry.
So much for liberals’ tolerance of others’ opinions and views, right Andrew?
oh, am I a liberal now? that’s a new one.
where did I say I was a liberal? and where did I exhibit intolerance?
“Nevertheless, I decided to support the bill as a member of the pro-Israel community.”
Really? That’s like saying “I voted Bush because I’m a Republican.”