Allen Dershowitz has finally called off the dogs and will no longer lead a worldwide divestment campaign against Hampshire College. The JTA reports:
“Hampshire has now done the right thing," [Dershowitz] said in a statement. "It has made it unequivocally clear that it did not and will not divest from Israel. Indeed, it will continue to hold stock in companies that do business with Israel as well as with Israeli companies, so long as these companies meet the general standards that Hampshire applies to all of its holdings."
“We welcome this unequivocal statement from Hampshire College that it did not divest from Israel, and that Israel in fact played no role in the college’s recent decision to disinvest from a mutual fund,” Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director, said in a separate statement. “This is an emphatic repudiation of the campaign of misinformation that has cast the college’s investment decisions in a false and politically biased light."
The students brought six companies to the school's Board of Trustees that the were profiting from the Israeli occupation. In the course of reviewing those companies the school also decided to divest from others, but this doesn't change the fact the school divested from those six companies because of the occupation. From the Hampshire SJP website:
The bottom line is that before February 7th, Hampshire College was invested in companies that directly profited from the occupation. Today, we are not. This is a direct result of pressure and efforts by SJP. However, we are glad that our anti-occupation movement also helped us divest from other bad companies.
Or to use Dershowitz's own language the Israeli occupation does not meet "the general standards that Hampshire applies to all of its holdings." In other words, Hampshire divested.
Related posts:
- Dershowitz threatens boycott of Hampshire College
- Dershowitz clarifies his threat to Hampshire – ‘make it impossible for the students to plausibly be able to declare victory’ or else
- First calls to students who spearheaded Hampshire divestment came from an angered Alan Dershowitz
- Hampshire students urge their cold-feet administration to ‘embrace the moment’ of divestment
- Hampshire students continue to speak out: ‘This is our movement, this is our divestment’
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Phil,
With Hampshire you were mildly deceived. The school believed your misreading, briefly. But Dersh is right, and you're wrong.
NOW, with NYU! I urge EVERYONE to watch this!
http://gawker.com/5159003/the-painfully-ridiculous-end-to-the-nyu-revolution
Uh, I say this as a current Hampshire student: most people on campus now agree that we didn't divest. Frankly, most people here find SJP obnoxious–there've been a number of articles in different school publications as of late referring to their unwillingness to let any other voice speak. I mean, at the different events they've set up, they've openly laughed and mocked people who disagree with them.
"NOW, with NYU! I urge EVERYONE to watch this!
http://gawker.com/5159003/the-painfully-ridiculous-end-to-the-nyu-revolution"
Great. Just great. Stick a fork in them, they're done.
That gawker.com thing was an SNL skit, no?
Jane, how long have you been at Hampshire?
Please provide links to the " number of articles in different school publications as of late referring to their unwillingness to let any other voice speak." Frankly, it's hard to believe that the SJP students have "openly laughed and mocked people who disagree with them."
For the record, the board obviously knew what it was doing when A GROUP CALLED STUDENTS FOR JUSTICE IN PALESTINE approached it with their concerns. The board initially agreed with the sentiments of the student group, but then cowardly backed off when threatened with negative financial ramifications. The entire sequence of events has been amply documented, and is clear to anyone with half a brain. Any other interpretation of the events is clearly guided by ulterior motives vis a vis Israel.
"Uh, I say this as a current Hampshire student: most people now agree that Jane speaks for no one and only misrepresent her personal view for an entire campus collective perspective."
You are quite the authority figure.
The statement "Dershowitz and Foxman just can't come to grips with the fact that Hampshire divested" is incredibly problematic. Read the facts about what Hampshire has done and you will see the College's decision to re-invest its funds in a new index have nothing to do with the political rantings of a small group of radical students on campus. SJP has, again and again, mislead people regarding this issue, in addition to creating an atmosphere of fear on campus for students who may not completely agree with them.
You can read more about this here:
http://www.hampshire.edu/shared_files/Letter_to_HC.pdf
http://www.hampshire.edu/shared_files/appendix.pdf
It may be wise to base reportings not off of a student group who does not even close to speak for the entire campus nor has any right to speak for the school.
@Phil
Are you ignorant of the facts or just dishonest? This is a college with money in multiple funds that together represent investments in literally hundreds of companies that do business with Israel, including companies that are themselves Israeli companies. The school is not divesting from any of those other funds.
I will spell it out for those of you who can't connect the dots yourselves. If they were divesting from companies because they do business with Israel, they would not be keeping investments in funds that invest in hundreds of companies that do business with Israel. They are keeping investments in hundreds of companies that do business with Israel therefore they are not divesting from companies because they do business with Israel.
In fact, the College even said that some of the six companies that the SJP is whining about are entirely within their ethical investing guidelines. The college said that they are divesting from the fund that has investments in those companies because of reasons that have nothing to do with Israel.
The SJP is like the crazy cat lady that reports to the cops that her neighbor murdered his wife. The cops humor the crazy lady and investigate, to find the wife alive and well and working in the neighbors hydroponic pot farm. The cops arrest the neighbor for the pot, and the crazy cat lady tells everyone that the cops arrested her neighbor for murdering his wife.
Then the ex-journalist writes on his blog that the cops arrested the neighbor for murder, even after the cops said "the wife was fine, we busted the guy for pot."
I am surprised at your lack of journalistic standards and ethics given that you used to be a real journalist.
The link that "A Hampshire Student" posted is dated February 24, 2009. Unless documentation from the actual proceedings is presented, there is no good reason to believe any explanation that is offered after the fact. It is obvious damage control. Again, the sequence of events has been amply documented, and it's apparent to anyone with a pulse what happened.
"In trying to dissociate Hampshire's divestment decision from the Palestinian cause, the statement asserts that in addition to corporations like Caterpillar and United Technologies–which were among the six targeted by SJP for their support of the Israeli occupation–"the State Street fund included 200-plus companies engaged in multiple violations of the college's investment policy."
But the minutes of the university's own Committee at Hampshire on Investment Responsibility (CHOIR), a subcommittee of the Board of Trustees' investment committee, proves this to be a deception at best.
After two SJP presentations in 2008, CHOIR's own minutes recorded a vote "to recommend to the investment committee that Hampshire College divest of the following six companies–Caterpillar, Terex, Motorola, ITT, General Electric, United Technologies–based on full consideration of the presentation by SJP."
In its own statement, SJP points out:
SJP was explicitly asked by the administration what companies to avoid in the future in terms of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This fact illustrates that the Israeli occupation and SJP's work were undoubtedly the primary reasons for the decision to divest.
Furthermore, the violations of the other 200 companies…were only researched days before the investment committee's decision to divest…For eight and a half months, the only specific companies in the State Street fund that were discussed were the six companies SJP targeted.
These facts prove that the decision was made on the grounds of the six companies' involvement in the occupation of Palestine. We can only assume the reason the Board and administration chose to depoliticize this decision is because of the volatile nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
This is what one should look for if one is interested in finding out how things really went down – THE ACTUAL MINUTES FROM THE PROCEEDINGS. "Statements of clarification" and other such nonsense written AFTER THE FACT are worthless in determining the truth of how things unfolded.
Hampshire students defend their victory
NOTES ON THE CAMPAIGN
SJP's two-year-long campaign featured over 27 educational activities. These included weekly film screenings; lectures by Palestinians and Israelis; an emergency candlelight vigil and poetry reading for over 120 who had died in Gaza and eight Israeli students who had died in Jerusalem; a facsimile annexation wall erected on the library lawn; dialogues among members of Hampshire's Jewish community, its Jewish Student Union, and Union of Progressive Zionists; a five-college Western Massachusetts protest against Israel's assaults on Gaza. (For a "time-line" of all these see "History of SJP" at https://hampedia.org/wiki/SJP.)
Little of this was initially easy. "We had lots of resistance from Jewish students who thought we were putting our message out too forcefully," says 22-year-old Kanya D'Almeida, a junior. "We had open forums, specific events for Jewish students who thought there anti-Semitism was involved. We made a space for people to approach us, we always had literature. We had tables outside of the dining hall and other buildings. We've always tried to be accessible."
SJP presentations to the board of trustees included a 45-minute power point that demonstrated, says Matan Cohen, "how all the companies violate both our investment policy, and more broadly [Palestinians'] human rights and [commit] war crimes in Palestine. We used reports from the UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about house demolitions. For instance, Caterpillar profits from the clear violation of human rights, and is aware that selling D9 bulldozers to Israel is paramount to facilitating violations of international law. Hence these companies are more than silently complicit; they are direct beneficiaries of the occupation. Therefore they should be targeted as those who allow occupation to keep on going."
It probably didn't hurt that two Israeli Jews were central in its activities. 20-year-old sophomore, Matan Cohen, co-founder of Israel's non-violent Anarchists against the Wall, which tries to protect West Bank Palestinians, has been arrested "numerous times" for participating in nonviolent protests. He has been investigated by Israel's secret service. In his words, he's "the first person to be denied service in the army." Another SJP member, Noam Bahat, spent five years in Israeli prison for conscientious objection to service in the occupied territories. But the group is multi-ethnic and includes Jews and non-Jews, Palestinians and Israelis. For this writer the campaign illustrates an exemplary collective effort. (For moving statements about it all, hear "Voices of Divestment" at http://www.hsjp.)
Do The Right Thing: Hampshire's Selective Divestment Movement
Thank you Thom for climbing into the dirt to explain to Phil in language even he might understand.
Of course, Phil's response is someday we'll be saying pray in honor of the crazy cat lady.
'The students have made it clear from the beginning that the school had divested from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.'
The school however claims it did this not because of the companies' involvement with Israel, but due to their failing to meet 'socially responsible' criteria as defined by consultants KLD Research & Analytics, 'the gold standard for socially responsible investment screening' according to college President Ralph Hexter. The criteria include 'employment discrimination, environmental abuse, military weapons manufacturing, unsafe workplace settings, and dealings with Burma or Sudan' – but nothing at all about Israel.
'The board initially agreed with the sentiments of the student group, but then cowardly backed off when threatened with negative financial ramifications.'
That about sums it up. They wanted to soothe both of these vital constituencies, and to an extent they succeeded with their backtrack, but next time, perhaps propelled by some Bibi/Leiberman outrage in Gaza or Lebanon or wherever, they may not have the safety of a fence to sit on.
Hexter's letter to Dershowitz via JPost also said: 'The investment committee and now the full board have recognized during this process that the college's policy on socially responsible investment, last revised in 1994, has become outdated and much too awkward to implement. We are now at work developing a new college policy on socially responsible investing, one that is up-to-date and provides clear guidance for our investment advisors.'
The real test will be whether this new policy does involve restrictions upon investment in the Israeli occupation (which of course any halfway decent 'socially responsible' investment policy would). If Israel remains persona grata, if they meet the new 'gold standard' we will know for sure which path the college has chosen. The SJP could not then claim the moral victory it has managed this time. Things would I'm sure get ugly for Hampshire if this were to happen.
You can run a college without Zionist funds; with some difficulty perhaps, but it can be done. But you can't run a college without students. There would of course be a rump of Janes happy to back the college's retreat from the ethical courage that has over the years marked it out as something special, but that could not compensate for the loss of people like Brian van Slyke, who along with his friends has gone some way to restoring my faith in the possibility of our children rescuing us from the follies our own cowardice and greed.
Hampshire should be proud to own students such as these, and perhaps in private they are. But at some point they will have to make such sentiments a little more public, whatever the cost.
@Phil
Your statement "In the course of reviewing those companies the school also decided to divest from others, but this doesn't change the fact the school divested from those six companies because of the occupation." makes me think that you are simply ignorant about what is going on rather than dishonest.
Feel free to verify this, if you have any journalistic integrity, you will retract what you said above after verifying it.
The college did not own shares in any of those six companies. They had no way of divesting from any of the (non-Israel supporting) companies they divested from without divesting from all of the companies that they divested from, including those six.
The college owned shares of something called a “mutual fund”. For the ignorant members of the audience, a mutual fund is a collective investment. The mutual fund buys shares in many companies, according to the desires of the fund managers, not the people who own shares in the fund. The fund then sells shares of the fund, not the stocks, to investors.
Let's try an example.
Mutual Fund X owns shares in IBM, Microsoft, and Apple. John Doe buys 1000 shares of Mutual Fund X. John’s wife Jane hears that IBM does something that she doesn’t approve of and complains to John about it and says he should divest from IBM. John looks into it and finds out that IBM is all sunshine and puppies, and doesn’t do anything he thinks is wrong. But, while checking on IBM, he also checks on Microsoft. John finds that Microsoft is doing something he disapproves of. John decides he no longer wants to invest in Microsoft. But wait, John has no shares of Microsoft. John only has his shares in Mutual Fund X. John calls his broker and says he should sell the part of Mutual Fund X that has Microsoft shares. The broker explains to John that he can either sell his shares in Mutual Fund X or he can keep them, but he can’t just sell the part that has Microsoft, sell all companies in the fund or keep all. John sells his shares of Mutual Fund X, not because of what his wife said about IBM, but because he can’t keep the investment in IBM without also keeping the investment in Microsoft.
It isn’t a matter of the college choosing to divest from companies that do business with Israel, and also choosing to divest from others. It is that they chose to divest from a mutual fund that happens to have some companies that do business with Israel.
Glenn! Good on ya! How are things in Gumdale?
Thom,
First, I was the one who wrote the post, not Phil.
Second, no where did I or anyone say that Hampshire was divesting funds from Israeli companies or companies that do business in or with Israel. They divested from companies that benefit from the occupation. This is totally different and one of the points of the post. I'm sorry if this wasn't more clear.
Last, I understand your point about the mutual funds and think I could have made this more clear in the post. I still think the fact remains the school looked into the mutual fund after SJP's presentation and ended up pulling out its investments due to the those six companies connection to the occupation in addition to other companies in the fund. I think Dan's posts above demonstrate this. So in the end was the college's decision totally because of the occupation? No. Was is it due in part to the occupation? Yes. Does this constitute divesting from the mutual fund because of the occupation? I think it does.
@Dan Kelly
Anybody got any independent source for the minutes, or are we just supposed to take the SJP's word for it? Also, it is entirely possible that the sub-committee contained enough dupes and/or anti-Semites to vote to send the issue of divesting from this mutual fund to the full board, who then chose to divest for entirely unrelated reasons.
The SJP is like the sane neighbor who reports on the crazy cat lady that pretends be an animal lover so she can get funds from PETA; knowing she has been found out in that her activities poison a certain group of cats, she concedes to the SJP neighbor SJP has a point, lots of dead and ailing cats of a certain subset–traced to those who fund her livelyhood. She cannot admit outright this truth, so she does what the earnest neighbor and cat lover wants, but gives a PR release to the public that will seem to show she did nothing wrong in the first place, thus trying to have her cake and eat it too. She would have done nothing at all BUT FOR the intervention of the SJP neighbor.
Most shares today are owned as part of mutual funds, otherwise there would be only a very small amount
of people or entities owning any stocks at all.
Anybody got any independent source for the minutes, or are we just supposed to take the SJP's word for it?
Thom,
Are you insinuating that the minutes are fabricated? That's an extremely serious allegation, and the board would assuredly discipline the students (with expulsion, I'd imagine) and probably seek legal action if that were true. Further, there would be an immediate press release by the board indicating that minutes of the meeting were fabricated. None of this has taken place.
There is no basis for your assertion, and frankly I don't even know why I'm responding to what is obviously a further attempt to smear the SJP, in the face of the evidence that proves the original reason for the divestment was indeed due to companies that were profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.
I don't know all of the details but the idea that Hampshire's divestment from the funds in question was entirely unrelated to the campaign by SJP focusing on six of the companies contained in that fund just doesn't seem reasonable.
It sounds like a bigger battle is looming re: the college's new socially responsible investing policy.
lol! This reminds of the way Hamas and Hezbollah insisted they slaughtered Israel right after they got pounded.
Unbelievable.
Put your tail between your legs and walk out gracefully. NOW!
What are you talking about? One of Phil's regulars, "a Blogger from Lebanon" who was watching the Arab news and said that thousands of Israelis were killed in Gaza, dozens of tanks destroyed, tens of jets and helicopters shot down, and 143 Israelis were being held prisoner by Hamas. She swore to it! She even gave us the name of a Colonel! And all the assholes lined up beside her (Phil even thanked her for her insightful journalism).
How does that relate Suzanne? You're so inanely idiotic it's a sight to behold.
I love it when antisemites get hogtied with facts. They then blurt out the most amazing things.
Who is an antisemite? I really hope you're not this dense in real life Berel. Even for a troll.
Anybody got any independent source for the minutes, or are we just supposed to take the SJP's word for it? Also, it is entirely possible that the sub-committee contained enough dupes and/or anti-Semites to vote to send the issue of divesting from this mutual fund to the full board, who then chose to divest for entirely unrelated reasons.
I didn't look closely into these matters, but let me babble anyway:
The case of SJP shows a lot of things. The first is that they are much more focused than NYU, while the NYU shows a basic problem: transparency in the university's investments. I was baffled when I read the NYU demands, it's much too provocative and seem to relegate the occupation to an addition, at least in their first statement. From a PR point of view that suggest, the Palestinians are "social" window-dressing. That clearly is a problem. This doesn't mean, I do not consider basic lines of their demands supportable. But their statements could have profited from more reflection and realism. As initial communication with the admin shouldn't be avoided. Did they move from zero to the last step?
Palestinians could appear here in a more obvious way: We can't do this, they can't that's why we demand scholarships for some of them. … They even got their university bombed. Some kind of solidarity address? Connected with a more realistic demand, what about 4-5 instead of 15 scholarships? Imagine it's supposed to become a world movement.
But back to SJP one problem may be bad communications and analysis. In an earlier article Hexter (was that his name?) addresses the demands of the students, that is the singling out of 6 companies that profit from the occupation and states one of these wasn't in the portfolio, and two were considered ethically kosher. So, what criteria did KLD employ? Where and why are their decisions different? What evaluation processes are they founded on? Did they communicate with KLD? Or tried to, and got no answer?
And why celebrate a semi-victory as a complete one? It's really easy to spin that into a lie. Why not celebrate a tiny victory on the way BUT based on solid information and evidence? Didn't they have complete infos when they went public. Did they communicate with the admin first? … Or did they react spontaneously on a press-release they misjudged. No specific inquiries, no contact with the communications or admin?
Another problem, as Richard Witty has pointed out in an earlier thread: the selected companies are giants. The share of the gains related to the occupation must thus be negligible. But what does this mean? …
Why do SJP and NYU-like groups not form networks and share infos, analysis, approaches, experiences. Couldn't there be mental support instead of financial one, from lawyers? law students? … proofread the stuff before it goes public and point out inherent problems. Amend matters that makes it harder to use repressive tools.
I think a close study of the activities and an assessment why things went wrong would be a good start these groups should form networks and share experiences. Turn this a larger learning process. Learn to live with throwbacks analyze them and move on, and especially share.
Boycottwatch
What about the occupied territories? What does it mean in this context that the US blocked all decision of the UN? Does this mean Israel from a US point of view has some customary right to the territories now? Can be regarded as part of Israel in the US from a legal point of view? If so, how could this issue be used as leverage concerning BDS.
Has anyone here looked into the activist material?
Network slogan could be something like: bringing democracy elsewhere means starting at home first. And it could be linked to BDS and send them a solidarity address. That is much better than squeezing them in, in a half-hearted way.
sorry I am gone again. But obviously meant a Solidarity Address to Palestinian students.
Adam,
I am inconsistent again:
So in the end was the college's decision totally because of the occupation? No. Was is it due in part to the occupation? Yes. Does this constitute divesting from the mutual fund because of the occupation? I think it does.
Why not communicate it especially like this then, in the header and not somewhere in the article? That would send a message that is much harder to distort. As it sends a positive message, activities work. Let's analyze why not completely the way it was planned.
If transparency is a core problem, you have to use open two way dialog. Base your communications on the aims and not on some kind of narcism. My list favorite's infantile: I won.
It sounds like a bigger battle is looming re: the college's new socially responsible investing policy.
David, that's exactly my suspicion. It means it is a process and not a game about easy victories.
One of Phil's regulars, "a Blogger from Lebanon" who was watching the Arab news and said that thousands of Israelis were killed in Gaza, dozens of tanks destroyed,
This seems to be a central communications strategy now: The obviously partly helpless boasting by Hamas, human in such a situation, is singled out to hammer in the old message: Palestinian's (Hamas) can't be trusted.
While these are obviously attempts at keeping up the fighting moral. It's hard to accept you are beaten, you ultimately have no chance.
Israel needs the message it has won. Is that so hard to understand?
I didn't watch this closely. Can you provide a link?
Israel is not technically an "ally" of the USA, nor visa-versa of course, despite the common characterization employed by our government spokesmen/women.
I agree with LeaNder's comments. Well stated, worth a lot about the subject discussed.
LD: The lady is only using the old talking point:
leftist/or democratic process supporters = terrorism lovers. Or any verbal variation on the theme.
If something doesn't fit consider it is triggered associatively in the person's mind. Then look for possible connections. I'll arrived at the above.
"What are you talking about? One of Phil's regulars, "a Blogger from Lebanon" who was watching the Arab news and said that thousands of Israelis were killed in Gaza, dozens of tanks destroyed, tens of jets and helicopters shot down, and 143 Israelis were being held prisoner by Hamas. She swore to it! She even gave us the name of a Colonel! And all the assholes lined up beside her (Phil even thanked her for her insightful journalism)."
Lol! Love it! Theater of the absurd.
Anybody who didn't get my Hamas analogy about false claims of victory, when in reality you took a serious beating…
is in a very deep, deep morphine fog. No amount of explanation will work on them.
@Dan Kelly
I am not insinuating anything. I am saying flat out that as Barbara Lubin demonstrated with her lies about her false atrocity story, some supporters of the Palestinians (including self-hating Jews) will lie without conscience in order to further their cause. We haven't seen the minutes, we have seen one purported quote from the minutes. While it is possible that the quote is accurate (even a liar tells the truth sometimes) it is also possible that it is anywhere from taken out of context, to subtly distorted, to an outright fabrication. So provide us with a source for the full minutes that doesn't rely on the SJP.
Not that the minutes would be definative, since the question is not "what did the subcommittee say" but "why did the entire board vote the way it did".
Oh, and Hamas Charter.
Strange this is a feature and line of argument we so far didn't know from Todd, although he surely has a slightly authoritarian perspective. If he is spoofed, as I already suspected above, could this explain matters. Or didn't I get Todd's profile right by now.
Filth like Suzanne would sooner dwell on Iraq's preposterous claims of wiping out US invaders than the fact that these American Nazis murdered hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed a country in a war based exclusively on lies. She'd sooner focus on inaccurate boasts by hamas than on the horrors inflicted by the Israelis on gaza, reported in nauseating detail in all the international press.
@ Suzanne
"Anybody who didn't get my Hamas analogy about false claims of victory, when in reality you took a serious beating…
is in a very deep, deep morphine fog. No amount of explanation will work on them."
Correct, Suzanne. Similarly, the actual extent of the few feeble attempts at rising up against the comparatively militarily powerful Nazis
have been portrayed as great victories, signs of great courage, to build moral, e.g., the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Surely you understand the HAMAS claims. Why pretend you don't, especially to readers who
know just how lopsided the "war" is/was, since they pay for Israel's war power endlessly with their tax dollars? Or should Americans say nothing critical about its # 1 welfare client?
I have to confess, Citizen, the glamorization of Hamas is really cute. Too bad you don't really believe it.
How upset can I really get about the comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany when I know the sole purpose is to push buttons and try to incite anger?
Not very.
It's like watching a 4 year old attempting to manipulate an adult. :-)
@Phil
Again with rykart and personal attacks.
Again with no ban on an anti-Semite (albeit one who claims to be Jewish) apparently breaking the posting rules.
I'm shocked, shocked I say.
@Citizen
Here is a little life lesson I pass on to the Palestinians. If you are tempted to attack a country, think about whether that country can stomp you. If they can, then don't attack them. The 9/11 bunch should have thought of that too.
That's not the point. The point, like citizens fetid point, is to be so annoying, so often, that the stronger country makes a mistake so repugnant as to cause the stronger to have give in to the weaker.
However, Israel is safe in the knowledge that it has done nothing in comparison to the genocidal attempts of Hamas, Fatah, and all of their legions.
"Here is a little life lesson I pass on to the Palestinians. If you are tempted to attack a country, think about whether that country can stomp you. If they can, then don't attack them. The 9/11 bunch should have thought of that too." – Thom
How gracious of you to pass that 'little life lesson' to Palestinians Thom, really. I bet you would also pass on to them the lessons of accepting occupation, the ways of how to live as subordinate to your oppressors, maybe also how to look the right way and speak the right way as to not anger your persecutors. How so benevolent of you to part with such precious pearls of wisdom.
Unbelievable.
I wonder if Thom would offer the same lecture to the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto.
Of course, in the end, the underdog often DOES win, as we saw when the U.S. vermin were booted out of Indochina.
One day, the world will be rid of Israel.
@Thom
I am not insinuating anything. I am saying flat out that as Barbara Lubin demonstrated with her lies about her false atrocity story, some supporters of the Palestinians (including self-hating Jews) will lie without conscience in order to further their cause. We haven't seen the minutes, we have seen one purported quote from the minutes. While it is possible that the quote is accurate (even a liar tells the truth sometimes) it is also possible that it is anywhere from taken out of context, to subtly distorted, to an outright fabrication. So provide us with a source for the full minutes that doesn't rely on the SJP.
I already explained why there is no way in hell the minutes are fabricated. The board has been on top of everything SJP has done. As I explained, if the minutes were fabricated, the board would have expelled the students, brought legal action, and it would have immediately sent out a press release indicating that the SJP fabricated minutes in an attempt to change the record of events as they occurred. The press release would be all over the internet. NONE of this has happened.
As for the ludicrous suggestion that the quote was somehow "taken out of context", here is the quote again: "to recommend to the investment committee that Hampshire College divest of the following six companies–Caterpillar, Terex, Motorola, ITT, General Electric, United Technologies–based on full consideration of the presentation by SJP." The quote is straightfoward, pulled directly from the minutes, and there is no conceivable way it can be "taken out of context." Frankly, I don't believe you think it was. I think this is a wild goose chase you enjoy sending people on. Anything to obfuscate the truth about Israel. And again, if indeed the quote had been taken out of context, the board would be all over it, and we'd all be well aware of it by now.
The minutes are real, and the original intent of the divestment is obvious, as per the minutes and sequence of events: To divest from companies profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. Everything else is obfuscation in the face of undeniable facts that Israeli apologists can't handle.
I don't have access to original copies of the minutes, and I don't know if they would be available to the public, being that this isn't government or public related. As I've clearly stated, there is no way in hell the SJP posted fabricated minutes on the internet. The board would be all over it. It's an extremely serious offense to fabricate official meeting minutes.
If you honestly think the minutes are fabricated, I would suggest contacting the board at Hampshire and bringing it to their attention. They would most certainly be quite interested in this. I suspect you're not serious with this whole endeavor, however, but are engaged in a typical Zionist attempt to obfuscate any truth that shows your beloved Israel in a bad light. It's sad, really.
But again, please do contact the board at Hampshire with your concerns. And please get back to us with their response. I'm very interested in seeing how you carry this forward.
@Dan Kelly
What minutes? You talk about "fabricating the minutes" I am talking about one quote, not a forged document with 17 holographic seals. Let's see, how that could be out of context…How about "We vote not" in front and "however for other reasons we vote to…" at the end?
As for the board doing anything if the students fabricated it, LOL. You remind me of people who fall for TV con jobs because "the government wouldn't let them say it if it weren't true". Well of course they could say it. The board may not care, they may not want to spend more energy on it, or they may just not want to bother reading the actual minutes.
BTW, we aren't talking about fabricating official meeting minutes. We are talking about making one alleged quote in an online article. Not some student slipping into the filing cabinet where the minutes are kept to replace them with a forgery.
Show me the minutes, not one alleged quote from them. Of course, you can't since one quote, from the Students against Jewish People (that is what SJP stands for, right?) is all you have. Nice excuse BTW, "not available to the public", so how did the SJP get their alleged quote?
Thom, I don't know if you're not too bright, or you're attempting to obfuscate and waste everyone's time, or some combination thereof, but I will go over this one more time SLOWLY, and then I'm done with you.
What minutes? You talk about "fabricating the minutes" I am talking about one quote, not a forged document with 17 holographic seals. Let's see, how that could be out of context…How about "We vote not" in front and "however for other reasons we vote to…" at the end?
The quote IS TAKEN FROM THE BODY OF THE MINUTES, Thom. Your "We vote not" example is so ludicrous it needn't be addressed. If the quote was somehow taken out of context to give it a meaning other than what is obvious on its face, then the board would be all over it.
As for the board doing anything if the students fabricated it, LOL. You remind me of people who fall for TV con jobs because "the government wouldn't let them say it if it weren't true". Well of course they could say it. The board may not care, they may not want to spend more energy on it, or they may just not want to bother reading the actual minutes.
I don't know where you came up with the bizarre government example. If you think that, in the face of everything else they've done to completely distance themselves from SJP and the divestment, that the board would suddenly "not care", or "not want to spend more energy on it", then frankly you're delusional.
You honestly think that the board would not be made aware of a quote taken out of context and act on it? There are an untold number of Israel advocates such as yourself just waiting to jump on any mistake that may be made by Palestinian activists. They would surely make this known to the board. But that hasn't happened, because the quote is taken from official meeting minutes and is completely in context. Thus, there is nothing the board, or you and your friends, can do to change the fact that CHOIR's vote was initially to divest from companies profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, as per SJP's presentation. It's all there in black and white.
BTW, we aren't talking about fabricating official meeting minutes. We are talking about making one alleged quote in an online article. Not some student slipping into the filing cabinet where the minutes are kept to replace them with a forgery.
Again, the quote IS FROM THE MINUTES. It's not "alleged", it's the official account of what happened at the meeting, which is that they chose to divest from companies profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, as per SJP's presentation. If an SJP member did what you allege, and just randomly made up a quote and then attributed it to the minutes of the meeting in an online article, that would in fact be fabricating the minutes.
Actually, the line from the minutes isn't attributed to an SJP student, which means the author of the article, Gary Lapon, was able to verify its veracity. Whether he got a copy of the minutes himself, or spoke to someone from CHOIR or someone else, I do not know.
Show me the minutes, not one alleged quote from them. Of course, you can't since one quote, from the Students against Jewish People (that is what SJP stands for, right?) is all you have. Nice excuse BTW, "not available to the public", so how did the SJP get their alleged quote?
I don't have to show you anything. As I told you in my previous post, if you feel so strongly that the quote is not from the actual minutes, or is somehow taken out of context, then by all means please contact the board at Hampshire. They will most certainly be interested in it, as it gives them further reason to distance themselves from the original intent of the divestment (it actually would entirely disprove the original intent, something the board would obviously like to do, given its actions to this point.
SJP stands for Students for Justice in Palestine, and is comprised of many Jewish students (it may even be a majority of Jewish students). The SJP can obviously get a copy of minutes from a campus meeting that they're directly involved with. They're a campus group, Thom, not the public. For all I know, you can get a copy of the minutes. I don't know the school's policy is on the availability of campus group meeting minutes. It may be up to the groups themselves.
I suggest you contact Hampshire and inquire as to whether or not you can get a copy. You may well be able to. I would suggest first contacting CHOIR, as it is the minutes of their meeting that we're talking about. You can also contact Gary Lapon, the author of the online article, to inquire as to where he got the line from the minutes that he cited in his article. If he can't produce any proof, then you can accuse him of lying too, and you can go back to the board with your proof, and Alan Dershowitz will buy you dinner.
Please do get back to us when you've gotten to the bottom of this. I know how much it means to you to prove that this isn't true. I'm very curious to know what you find out. The world is waiting Thom.
Thom, Gary Lapon can be reached at: glapon@gmail.com. Happy hunting.
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