Why do YOU support divestment?

by on February 13, 2009 15

About Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz is Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in BDS, Israel/Palestine

{ 15 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. dance says:
    February 14, 2009 at 12:00 am

    It should be humanitarian commonsense to sign the petition. I shouldn't have to say that they are brave, but they are brave. Good on them. I hope this gathers in strength.

  2. Glenn Condell says:
    February 14, 2009 at 1:25 am

    I can't tell you how invigorating these vids of the Hampshire kids are – jeez, who knew all this was there hiding under the surface, so rigorously patrolled by the usual suspects. It's breaking out, partly because of the internet's potential to talk around and over the media and the politicians, and partly because the Israelis went miles too far in Gaza, cutting their own nose off to spite their face. Talk about an own goal.

  3. Rowan says:
    February 14, 2009 at 4:14 am

    definitely a nice start, yes.

  4. Mark Elf says:
    February 14, 2009 at 7:01 am

    Sorry if I'm duplicating info here but I got this from J.Otto Pohl's blog:

    Hampshire College in Amherst has now become the first US institution of higher education to divest from Israel. The school is famous for a couple of reasons, but one of them is that it hosts the National Yiddish Book Center. The conflict between certain elements of the Jewish Diaspora and Zionism is not new. But, the presence of such a symbolic institution of the cultural history of the Jewish Diaspora at Hampshire certainly highlights this conflict. In the larger scheme of things it looks like the movement for Palestinian human rights is finally starting to get some support in the US.

    Otto links to this blog but I can't see any mention of the Yiddish Book Center here.

    So much for the "diaspora", see this youtube video from Israeli TV:

  5. chris berel says:
    February 14, 2009 at 7:49 am

    So many campus's, luckily there are so few idiots like these kids. But they're young and foolish.

  6. marc b.'s four-year old says:
    February 14, 2009 at 8:08 am

    It's "campuses", the noun, not "campus's", the possessive pronoun. Ignoramus.

  7. Sir les says:
    February 14, 2009 at 8:46 am

    Glenn! We all know you're Sandy Stone's sockpuppet

  8. Scott says:
    February 14, 2009 at 9:59 am

    Both stirring and depressing that so many of these kids are Jewish. Stirring because it seems that when an American Jew goes for a semester in Israel, he's reasonably likely to come back offended –having applied American values to the situation there. Depressing because our current Israel policy has terrible consequences for all Americans, not just Jews, leading us into one stupid war already with more to come. But few of the students here seem to realize that. . . they are all about morality, feeling good about themselves. That's useful too, but it's not enough.

  9. nwu student says:
    February 14, 2009 at 10:00 am

    @chris berel

    And you are old and foolish. Moron.

  10. Richard Witty says:
    February 14, 2009 at 10:40 am

    I strongly oppose divestment efforts.

    It is the oppossite of what the world and Israel needs to change. It NEEDS engagement, research, discussion, NOT separation.

  11. Rowan says:
    February 14, 2009 at 10:54 am

    engagement, research, discussion

    – If you mean, inter-university, then I for one would be prepared to consider it if the universities inside the green line disaffiliated from those without (like Ariel).

  12. Scott says:
    February 14, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Richard,
    Yes, engagement is good, divestment an imperfect tool. But how much engagement has there been in thirty years of colonization, and how much impact has it had? Divestment provides a focal point, and seems to get everyone's attention. If you really want Israel to change, you have to acknowledge that impact. While I have your attention, I've noted very few but some anti-Semitic incidents, in Canada I think. My question is: Does Israel welcome such, as confirming vision of Zionism?, encouragment of Aliyah. A topic for others to discuss too. (Chris? Suzanne?)

  13. MM says:
    February 14, 2009 at 11:36 am

    Wow, great question, Scott.

    As I understand it, Herzl himself asserted that anti-Semitism was necessary for Zionism to exist. (Maybe one of our Zionist scholars like Chris or Suzanne can point us to that instructive passage?)

    Of course plundering their land and resources has turned the Palestinians into real self-hating Semites, so I suppose Zionism will be fine–until it runs out of Palestinians and Palestinian land. But then what?

    Online hasbara peddlers are noxious and plenty repugnant, but they don't really incite much sensational "anti-Semitic" violence. Just an occasional fit of vomiting.

    Perhaps the future for Zionism lies in activities such as what transpired recently in Venezuela. A group including a synagogue security guard defaced that very synagogue, allowing the media to assume that something like this must go straight to the top (meaning Chavez). Now that Hugo has a Hitler mustache in the minds of zombie American Jews, an destroying Venezuela might become yet another moral military imperative–a good idea, according to one's Jewish newspaper.

  14. Chris Berel says:
    February 14, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    I see MM has taken a vow of idiocy.

  15. Citizen says:
    February 15, 2009 at 2:42 am

    Witty favors economic pressure as a political tool–except when it it is directed at something like Israel's long occupation.

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