Berkeley Student Council votes to divest from Israel

[Yala]

This story is about 2 weeks old and I believe the council Pres vetoed it since.

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley student leaders voted early Thursday to drop the student Senate's investments in companies doing business with Israel.

The Senate, meeting into the early hours of the morning, voted 16-4 to divest itself from Israel and to ask the University of California system to do the same.

It was not immediately known whether the Senate had any such investments. But the UC system invests millions in funds that include General Electric and United Technologies, which supply Israel with military equipment, said Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, a student who cowrote the bill.
The UC system, he said, should not support a country that has committed human-rights abuses in the Gaza Strip. The 10-campus university has divested itself of tobacco- and Sudan-related funds.
The students' action was condemned by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, which called the vote hypocritical and troubling, citing violence by Palestinians. A UC spokesman said the university had not yet seen the resolution and could not comment.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14704225

[Yala]

http://www.forward.com/articles/126844/

The bill was revised and gained supporters over the course of the six-hour debate. An early version, published in the minutes of the previous week’s senate meeting, included language, some of which was ultimately removed, that was broadly critical of Israel’s actions in the West Bank and treatment of Palestinians living inside Israel.

As I mentioned on this forum several times, even if Israel manages to have peace or separate from the Palestinians in the WB and Gaza, this leftist-Islamist alliance will move their delegitimization campaign into Israel's 1967 borders with the argument that Israel is "racist" because it refers to itself as the Jewish state while there are Arab residents. They will stop at nothing to destroy Israel.

If Israel signs a peace agreement w/o handing over at least the Triangle to the Palestinian state then they are a bunch of suckers of the highest order.

A third Jewish senator voted for the bill.

Loser

[wat0n]

They should stop doing business with the US.

[Womble]

The BDSers are a laughable bunch. I used to take the whole "divestment" nonsense somewhat seiously. Not anymore. They get an institution to "divest", throw a noisy party and struggle hard to not notice that in a matter of weeks, the "divestment" isn't there anymore, overturned or just plain ignored. Presbyterians, anyone?

[Aliyah1995]

Let us take a look at Hampshire College, the US college to make the biggest ruckus when it comes to divesting from Israel:

http://www.hampshire.edu/discover/4637.htm

Total Number of Enrolled Students: 1,400
Student/Faculty Ratio: 12:1
Average Size of Class: 17
Endowment: $37 million
Annual Operating Budget: $60 million
Number of Faculty: 115
Number of Alumni/ae: 11,179
Alumni/ae who have Completed Graduate Degrees: 50+ percent
Students of Color: 20 percent
International Students: 3 percent
Faculty of Color: 18 percent
Faculty with Ph.D. or Other Terminal Degree in Their Fields: 83 percent
Average Student Debt upon Graduation, May 2009 Graduates: $20,700
Typical Length of Study: 8 semesters to graduation
Retention (First Year to Second Year): 87 percent
Six-Year Graduation Rate: 64 percent


Accreditation
Hampshire College is fully accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Membership in the association indicates that the institution has been carefully evaluated and found to meet standards agreed upon by qualified educators.

With a total alumni of 11,179 (since 1970) and an annual operating budget of a measly 60 million dollars (peanuts for a university), I am really losing sleep over Hampshire College's divestment from Israel They will be about as effective as trying to heat up an apartment in the winter by lighting a match

[Yala]

I don't know. I am not sure if we should just ignore these wackos or fight back? For sure, Israel is going slightly on the offensive, which is a positive. There was a time in the not too distant past where Israeli leaders wouldn't utter a single negative comment about Abbas or Fatah, while the latter were complaining and insulting Israel all over the world. I am glad Israelis showed the Palestinians are still naming squares and buildings after mass murderers but they should've made an even bigger deal about it. It would've been nothing for Netanyahu to go on FOX and mention this. I am not sure, but I think Michael Oren mentioned this on Charlie Rose.

[dayag]

latest update:

An effort by members of U.C. Berkeley’s student senate to overturn the veto of a resolution calling for university divestment from some companies doing business with Israel failed earlier today, but the debate is far from over.

In mid-March, the student senate passed a resolution that called for the University of California at Berkeley to divest from two companies with Israeli military contracts and create a committee to suggest additional companies for divestment. A week later, the president of the student government vetoed the bill, saying the decision was made too hastily.

In a marathon meeting that began last night and ended at 7:30 a.m. today, the resolution’s supporters failed to get the 14 votes needed to overturn a presidential veto. After the defeat, a motion to reconsider the bill was offered and then tabled, and may be revisited as early as April 21...

In vote at 5:30 a.m. today, 12 senators voted to overturn the veto, seven voted to let it stand, and one senator abstained. After the vote, one of the senators who had voted to uphold the veto made a motion to reopen discussion on the bill. That senator supported the bill and had voted for procedural reasons to oppose the veto. Debate continued until 7:30 a.m. when the measure was tabled....

source: http://forward.com/articles/127332/

[Yala]

I read that they tabled it so they wouldn't have to admit that their divestment attempt failed.

[redcake]

It's reassuring to know that these things never do succeed. I may have shared this story before but, there's a large health food coop grocery store in San Francisco that boycot Israeli products and the response was really impressive. The store reversed it's policy after it was shamed by even Liberals, who shockingly, viewed it as collective punishment, antisemitism, when push came to shove. Now there's no signs it ever happened, unless nitpick about the olive oil marked as "Palestinian".

I think it's right to take these things seriously.