Campus Activism
Lots of campus news lately. On April 7 the student government at Ohio State University passed a resolution calling on the school to divest from companies connected to human rights abuses in Palestine. The two companies targeted are Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who provides technology to the Israeli military, and Caterpillar Inc., whose bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian homes. “The passage of this resolution is merely one milestone on the long journey to the Palestinian people’s eventual triumph,” said the school’s SJP chapter in a statement. “We urge our supporters to remain vigilant and empowered as we take our next steps for accountability.”
This victory was short-lived, as the effort was immediately stonewalled. Outgoing student senate president Jacob Chang didn’t sign it. Here’s what Ohio State University’s senior director of media relations Benjamin Johnson emailed to a reporter:
Ohio State has an unwavering commitment to free speech and encourages our students, faculty and staff to engage in discussion and debate and respects the right of the USG General Assembly to engage in free expression on issues it believes are pertinent to campus affairs. Based on the USG bylaws, because the outgoing USG president did not sign this resolution, it represents the opinion of the outgoing USG General Assembly and not of the entire USG as an organization. This distinction means that this resolution does not meet the threshold described in the university’s investment policy, and the university will not move forward with any action on this resolution.
“Whether the president signed it or not, whether it made it through the trustees or not, at the end, the end game was the same, because it was never going to be implemented,” alternate student senator Ethan Wolf told the Cleveland Jewish News. “It’s illegal in the state of Ohio to pass the divestment bill from the State of Israel specifically.”
Wolf is referring to Ohio’s 2016 anti-BDS bill, which was signed into law by former Governor John Kasich. When Kasich ran for the GOP presidential nomination he vowed to fight BDS on campuses if elected. “I will use the full force of the White House to fight this scourge,” he told the crowd at AIPAC’s policy conference.
It’s unclear what happened at Princeton, where a similar voted recently took place. The student government voted on whether to stop Caterpillar construction machinery from being used on campus over the “role its played in the mass demolition of Palestinian homes, the murder of Palestinians and other innocent people, and the promotion of the prison-industrial complex.” Students tried to pass a similar measure in 2015, but it was unsuccessful.
The school’s newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, is reporting that the measure met the threshold to be passed based on preliminary election results. However, the Jewish Insider is reporting that it looks like the vote failed. The group Princeton for Palestine apparently made an Instagram post celebrating a victory, but then deleted it. Undergraduate Student Government President Mayu Takeuchi hasn’t confirmed any result and says the official totals will be released “no earlier than this Friday, April 15 at noon.”
A coalition of groups, including Academic Engagement Network (AEN) and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, have sent a letter to twelve universities, calling on them to disassociate themselves from the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) over the organization’s BDS endorsement. The letter claims that the measure will “directly and substantively harm” students and faculty. It was sent to Columbia University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Indiana University, New York University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, and Yale University.
As we’ve reported at the site, school’s have already begun cutting off ties with MESA over the vote. “Brandeis University condemns MESA’s boycott of institutions of higher education in Israel,” said the school in a recent statement. “The resolution attacks the fundamental principles of academic freedom and association to which MESA specifically refers in its mission statement, and to which Brandeis is committed. As a matter of principle, Brandeis University opposes academic boycotts of universities in any country. In light of this vote and the boycott, Brandeis dissociates from MESA and reaffirms our support for academic freedom.”
Author and human rights attorney Noura Erakat, who originally introduced the resolution, has a piece about the vote in Middle East Eye. “The members of this association, now more than half a century old, have harnessed years of rigorous scholarship and intellectual output to conclude that solidarity with Palestinians must today deepen and expand,” she writes. “More active solidarity is necessary in the face of a farcical US-brokered peace process that has enabled Israel to entrench its apartheid regime, and is consistent with the association’s ethical commitments, as the BDS call has come from Palestinians themselves.”
Shontel Brown
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) backed Nina Turner during Ohio’s 11th District special election in 2021, but this time around they’re endorsing Rep. Shontel Brown, who ended up winning this race. Brown distinguished herself as a staunch advocate for Israel during the campaign and received vast support from lobbying groups as a result of the position. One of Brown’s most enthusiastic backers was Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), a PAC that takes GOP money and sports a board member that has called for a genocide against Palestinians. DMFI reportedly spent $1.9 million to help elect Brown.
Brown is one of the Democrats currently working to undermine Biden’s effort to reboot the Iran Deal. What’s her motivation here? “I will review any announced deal closely to determine whether it will make the U.S. safer, improve stability in the region, and strengthen the security of our longtime ally Israel,” she said recently.
“Democratic Majority for Israel spent millions electing Shontel Brown over Nina Turner and as one of her first acts in Congress she’s joining an effort to undermine Biden’s effort to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal,” tweeted The Intercept’s Ryan Grim earlier this month.
Here’s the statement from CPC PAC Co-Chairs Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, and Jamie Raskin about their midterm endorsements: “We’re proud to support and endorse this group of bold, progressive leaders that are fighting for working people in their communities and across the country. Each and every one of them is working every day to take on corporate special interests, fight for economic and social justice, universal health care, climate action, and bold solutions to the urgent crises facing our country. We are thrilled to support their campaigns and look forward to continuing to build the progressive movement alongside them in Congress.”
Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed Turner again this week, which is obviously not surprising as she worked for his presidential campaigns. However, it will be interesting to see if other big name progressive politicians jump ship or sit this one out.
Odds & Ends
? Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor and Senate candidate John Fetterman has become popular for his progressive political positions but, as these things generally go, they don’t extend to Palestine. Talking to Jewish Insider about Israel this week Fetterman said, “I would also respectfully say that I’m not really a progressive in that sense. Our campaign is based on core Democratic values and principles, and always has been, and there is no daylight between myself and these kinds of unwavering commitments to Israel’s security.” He went onto say that he opposes any conditioning of military aid to Israel, believes that BDS is “just wrong”, and said he was “dismayed” that some House members voted against additional Iron Dome funding.
?? The six Palestinian civil society organizations who were designated as terrorists groups by Israel months ago have put out a joint statement demanding that the decision be reversed. The statement calls on third party states, including the US, EU, and IGOs) to “take concrete action against the Israeli occupation authorities’ continued harassment and criminalization of Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society organizations; by calling for full revocation of the designation.”
?? Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi at MSNBC: “In conversations with diplomats and analysts from across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, it was evident to me that these countries largely sympathize with the plight of the Ukrainian people and view Russia as the aggressor. But Western demands that they make costly sacrifices by cutting off economic ties with Russia to uphold a “rules-based order” have begotten an allergic reaction. That order hasn’t been rules-based; instead, it has allowed the U.S. to violate international law with impunity. The West’s messaging on Ukraine has taken its tone-deafness to a whole new level, and it is unlikely to win over the support of countries that have often experienced the worse sides of the international order.”
? Adalah-NY on Twitter: “4.5 days on, shameless New York Times still hasn’t reported Israel’s execution of Palestinian mother Ghada al Sabateen. Just today Israel killed at least 3 Palestinians, and wounded more, but NYT prioritized this puff piece. In last 3 weeks, NYT did FIVE stories on Israelis killed.”
? Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban donated $1 million to AIPAC’s new super PAC.
? Very interesting poll from the Jewish Electoral Institute found, which finds an overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans want the Iran Deal renewed and very few view Israel as a political priority. Of course this directly contradicts the narrative parroted by pro-Israel organizations and lawmakers. At the site Phil Weiss shows how the study lines up with other recent findings:
A survey in 2007 showing that young Jews were becoming alienated from Israel, with only about half of those under 35 saying Israel’s end as a Jewish state would be a personal tragedy. And a survey by the Jewish Electoral Institute a year ago saying a quarter of Jews regard Israel as an apartheid state, and 38 percent of Jews under 40 say Israel is an apartheid state.
Polling from the Electoral Institute two and three years ago also suggests greater concern about Israel. In a 2020 survey, 68 percent of Jewish voters said a candidate’s position on Israel was somewhat or very important in choosing who to vote for. Though the poll said, “Israel remains the lowest priority for Jewish voters,” behind many other issues. (These polls apparently did not force respondents to name just two issues, as the latest one does.)
?? A new report from Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) found that Canada’s arms exports to Israel have been increasing since the mid-2000s, hitting a 30-year high in 2020. The value of the exports are at the highest level since 1987.
?? The New York Times reports that after leaving The White House Jared Kushner got a $2 billion investment committed to his firm from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman:
Ethics experts say that such a deal creates the appearance of potential payback for Mr. Kushner’s actions in the White House — or of a bid for future favor if Mr. Trump seeks and wins another presidential term in 2024.
Mr. Kushner played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending Crown Prince Mohammed after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that he had approved the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia who had criticized the kingdom’s rulers.
The Saudi fund agreed to invest twice as much and on more generous terms with Mr. Kushner than it did at about the same time with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — who was also starting a new fund — even though Mr. Mnuchin had a record as a successful investor before entering government, the documents show. The amount of the investment in his firm, Liberty Strategic Capital — $1 billion — has not been previously disclosed.
⚖️ Human rights lawyer Eric Lewis is in The Independent writing about how Ketanji Brown Jackson shouldn’t have downplayed her work at Guantanamo:
During the time Judge Jackson served as a public defender, the vast majority of detainees at Guantanamo were either entirely innocent, or were low-level foot soldiers who came to Afghanistan before September 11. The so-called high value detainees were brought to Guantanamo in 2006, specifically because the Bush administration knew that it was not incarcerating the “worst of the worst,” despite the fact that Secretary Rumsfeld and others falsely reiterated this time and time again to the American people.
If someone is suspected to be a terrorist, that is a serious charge which must be proved or disproved by evidence, as with any other charge in our system. We have effectively tried many terrorists over many years in US courts. The problem with Guantanamo is that there was a serious question as to whether any of these men were terrorists and, if so, which ones. The US government just assumed the desired conclusion; even when it came to know that most of them were not terrorists, it continued to hold many of them because it was politically unacceptable to admit its grievous mistakes and deprivations of liberty in the name of the “war on terror.”
? GOP Senators Rick Scott and Mike Braun have introduced a bill that would prohibit employees of Amnesty International from receiving federal assistance or funding from the U.S. government. “Israel is such an important ally to the United States, and an organization that uses its platform to undermine their sovereignty should not be receiving U.S. taxpayer funds,” said Braun.
Stay safe out there,
Michael
