[News] At Berkeley, moral victory despite divestment vote loss

[Anti-Imperialist News]

At Berkeley, moral victory despite divestment vote loss

Dina Omar, The Electronic Intifada, 3 May 2010
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11244.shtml

On 28 April, University of California, Berkeley's Student Senate 
narrowly missed an historic opportunity to divest its funds from 
United Technologies and General Electric which manufacture F-16 jets 
and Apache helicopters -- weapons sold to the Israeli military and 
used against civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

More than a month earlier, on 18 March 2010, the Student Senate 
approved a bill (SB118A) to divest from companies that provide 
military support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine. UC Berkeley 
student body president Will Smelko vetoed SB118A a week later, and 
the bill was voted on again on 14 April and 28 April was the last 
debate considering the bill. However, the count was one vote short of 
the two-thirds majority (14 votes) needed to override the veto.

The battle at Berkeley -- part of a global movement for boycott, 
divestment and sanctions of apartheid Israel -- was closely watched. 
Speakers for the bill on 28 April and on 14 April included UC 
Berkeley faculty members Judith Butler, Daniel Boyarin, Hatem Bazian, 
law professor George Bisharat of UC Hastings and UN Special 
Rapporteur on human rights Richard Falk along with testimonies of 
Palestinian students living under Israeli occupation.

Notable personalities and dozens of activist groups on campus and 
around the world strongly supported the resolution. More than 40 
student groups representing a variety of ethnic groups and political 
interests joined the call on the university to divest its funds from 
companies profiting from Israel's war crimes.

More than 100 UC faculty members, 45 from UC Berkeley, signed a 
statement supporting overriding the presidential veto. Prominent 
thinkers such as Naomi Klein, Alice Walker and five Nobel Peace Prize 
Laureates -- among them Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- supported UC 
Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine in their efforts to uphold 
the divestment bill.

Nobel Women Peace Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta 
Menchu Tum and Jody Williams issued a Statement of Support reading: 
"We stand united in our belief that divesting from companies that 
provide significant support for the Israeli military provides moral 
and strategic stewardship of tuition and taxpayer-funded public 
education money."

However, the tremendous amount of support for SB118A was not enough 
to override the veto.

According to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward, the Berkeley 
chapter of Hillel organized closed meetings for the student senators 
with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the American 
Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Jewish Community Relations 
Council, J Street and Akiva Tor, the Israeli consul general of San 
Francisco ("<http://forward.com/articles/127439/>How To Beat Back 
Israel Divestment Bill: Get Organized," 21 April 2010).

Some senators received threatening e-mails and Senator Emily Carlton 
told the Forward: "'There were undertones of intimidation'" during 
the meeting organized by Hillel. Three student senators reversed 
their votes over the course of multiple senate meetings and extensive 
lobbying efforts.

Waseem Salahi, a UC Berkeley student and senator-elect, questioned 
the influence of powers that be: "The senators knew what was right, 
but decided instead to cow to political pressure and intimidation." 
After the bill missed passage by one vote, international students 
expressed their dismay about attending a university that continues to 
actively support the oppression of their family members and friends overseas.

In support of the bill UC Berkeley alum Basima Sisemore told the 
student senators a moving story about her two-year-old cousin who 
died at an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank because he 
was turned away while in need of medical attention.

The final speaker and visiting scholar from Palestine, Ibrahim 
Shikaki, drew a standing ovation from the audience by when he 
challenged the senators, saying: "the narrative that has captured you 
is the same that named Nelson Mandela and Malcom X terrorists. If 
that is the case, then I am a proud, indigenous, Palestinian freedom 
fighter, because that is what we are. Rethink your terminology, 
rethink your narrative, rethink injustice and rethink this veto."

Once it was clear the veto was going to be upheld, despite the wishes 
of the 700 students, educators and community members supporting the 
bill, the supporters exited the room with their mouths covered in 
tape in a gesture meant to convey that their voices had been silenced 
by the veto.

Senator Rahul Patel, who supported the bill from the beginning, 
invited student supporters to raise their left fist in the air and to 
walk out. Patel said their fists raised symbolized "The seeds of 
truth and freedom that we have sowed tonight."

Hundreds of students walked out of the meeting, and reconvened 
outside to share their feelings about the vote. UC Berkeley and SJP 
alum Sophia Ritchie said: "Something has shifted -- in the discourse, 
in the sheer numbers of people who are concerned, in the solidarity 
work and coalition building amongst a broad and truly diverse range 
of student and community groups, in the energy around Palestine -- 
that cannot be ignored. In this way, we are winning."

Dina Omar is a UC Berkeley graduate student in Middle Eastern Studies 
and Anthropology. The author is a member of SJP and a poet and 
currently works as the membership coordinator for the Arab Resource 
and Organizing Center.



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