UCSD Guardian Divestment Resolution
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UCSD DIVEST FOR PEACE Support the UCSD Divestment Resolution HOME DIVESTMENT RESOLUTION LETTERS OF SUPPORT NEWS VIDEO SIGN THE PETITION ENDORSEMENTS CONTACT US "No recent Twitter posts." — ucsddivest Search SEARCH Original URL: http://ucsddivestforpeace.org/ Talks Fail to Bring About Compromise – UCSD Divest For Peace. Thanks for dropping by! Stay updated by UCSD Guardian subscribing to the RSS feed. On May 6, 2010, In In The News, News, By ucsddivest CATEGORIES (Link to UCSD Guardian article) Endorsements (1) By Angela Chen In The News (12) The A.S. Campus Affairs Committee voted 7-8 last night to indefinitely table Letters of Support (4) a controversial resolution calling for the News (8) UC system to divest from General Electric and United Technologies — Op-Ed (9) companies the document claims are Video (8) profiting from alleged Israeli human- rights violations in the Palestinian UCSD Guardian Poll: Should the AS Council Condemn Alleged Israeli Human Rights Violations? territories. TAGS Because the resolution was tabled during the committee meeting, it was not brought up during the council meeting last night, and will not be brought up again next year unless the resolution is Angela Chen Anna Baltzer ASUCSD rewritten and submitted as a new item. Berkeley Democracy Now! Desmond Tutu Divestment Endorsements Fr. Bill O’Donnell Campuswide Senator and A.S. President-elect Wafa Ben Hassine, a member of the committee, said Hedy Epstein Jody Williams Location Mairead Maguire the issue was tabled because councilmembers thought it was repetitive to vote on an issue that had mondoweiss Noam Chomsky Palestine petition not changed since the prior debate. resolution Rigoberta Menchu Roger Hill Roger “People used the rhetoric that we’d been through the same discussion last year, and since it was the Waters SB118 Shirin Ebadi Taskforce Time UC same legislation, we didn’t want to go over it again,” Ben Hassine said. Berkeley UC San Diego UCSD UCSD Arts and Humanities Senator Omar Khan said he originally wanted to re-discuss the resolution at Guardian Veto last night’s meeting, but withdrew it because he worried it would divide the campus. “I tried to pull it from committee because I was unaware that this is an issue that could be brought ARTICLES up again,” he said. “I withdrew the motion because I realized that failing it or approving it would create a schism between the communities, and we want to continue the conversation.” May 2010 The resolution was first proposed at last week’s meeting, which drew an audience of over 200 April 2010 students. During that meeting, councilmembers amended the original resolution to remove any mention of specific nations or companies, revising it to state that the council should condemn all war crimes in general. A special committee was then charged to review the resolution. It included LINKS representatives from both SJP and Tritons for Israel, the latter of which opposed the original language. UC Berkeley Divestment Campaign SJP member Leena Barakat, who helped draft the original resolution, said the two groups were Featured in UCSD Guardian: Council Delays unable to agree as to whether Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip could be considered human rights Decision On Human Rights Violations violations, or whether Israel should be classified as an occupying force. UCSD Guardian Opinion Article “They couldn’t agree that internationally recognized, documented human rights violations have Sign the Petition occurred,” Barakat said. “They tried to play it off as opinion. They have accused these organizations — United Nations, Amnesty International — of bias, and they have made it clear that they don’t believe in unconditional human rights.” META TFI member Lior Abramson said the issue is unrelated to whether a certain group recognizes Israel’s actions as human rights violations. Log in Entries (RSS) “I think the wording of the resolution implied that if you weren’t for it, you didn’t support human rights, and that’s not true at all,” Abramson said. “I support human rights, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t, but we cannot support divestment from a company that supports the Israeli Defense Forces, which are what keeps our friends and family safe back home.” She added that TFI has not yet taken an official stance on whether “occupancy” is an accurate word to describe Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories. “The committee didn’t work because our goals were mutually exclusive,” Abramson said. “As a gesture, since no student fees directly go toward investment in Israel, it is anti-Israel — and we are a pro-Israel community.” SJP member Chris Westling said that multiple students in the TFI community have expressed support for the resolution. “There are at least 15 campus orgs that support our cause, and a very small number of one — one that’s fragmented anyway, and one in which many members support our resolution — which is essentially exercising veto power,” he said. TFI member Daniel Friedman and Abramson disagreed with Westling’s claim. “As with all good Jewish communities, there’s a lot of opinions and a lot of things going on,” Friedman said. “But at the end of the day, when we sit down and discussed it, everyone came to the same consensus. On the TFI executive board, there were different opinions voiced, but it’s a democratic thing. We voted, and what came out of the vote is what was represtend by the elected officials at committee.” Abramson said that, though there may be individual disagreements within TFI, the group itself remains united. “We are 100 percent unified on this issue,” she said. “Of course, people have individual opinions, but we have a board that decides for the group, and if anyone was angered by our decision, they would have left and not been in our group.” A.S. Associate Vice President of Enterprise Operations and SJP member Rishi Ghosh said he wishes to see the council continue pursuing the issue. “My idea toward the council is that you can run but you can’t hide,” he said. “Good things have happened, and I’m excited to further work with the pro-Israel community, but I’m confident that people will continue to work for this.” Friedman said the indefinite tabling of the resolution is a welcome end to the debate. “It’s not the ideal thing, but it’s what [the committee] decided,” Friedman said. “Hopefully now the communities will start working together to have conversation about the topic and bring them together.” Ghosh said it is possible that a similar resolution will be proposed to the 2010-11 council, which takes office next week. “It might have more success next year with a new council, if those new senators are willing to read the legislation and not just listen to the rhetoric surrounding it,” Ghosh said. Abramson said that TFI will continue to oppose the divestment resolution if it is reintroduced next year. “If this resolution comes up next year, TFI will keep coming out and speaking out against it,” Abramson said. Readers can contact Angela Chen at [email protected]. Tagged with: Angela Chen • ASUCSD • Divestment • resolution • UC San Diego • UCSD Guardian 0 COMMENTS LEAVE A RESPONSE Divestment Resolution Tabled for Next Council Term On May 6, 2010, In News, By ucsddivest Full press release coming soon. Tagged with: ASUCSD • Divestment • resolution • UC San Diego 0 COMMENTS LEAVE A RESPONSE Final Divestment Vote Wednesday, 5 May On May 5, 2010, In In The News, News, By ucsddivest The final vote on divestment will be Wednesday, 5 May at the AS Council meeting. When: Wednesday, 5 May at 6pm Where: UCSD Price Center Ballroom East Address: 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92192 Directions to Parking & UCSD Map to Price Center Tagged with: ASUCSD • Date • Divestment • Location • resolution • Time • UC San Diego 0 COMMENTS LEAVE A RESPONSE Endorsements On May 4, 2010, In Endorsements, By ucsddivest UCSD Student Organizations: Amnesty International Arab Student Union Black Student Union College Democrats Food Co-Op Forward Haiti Emergence Action Team Muslim Student Association One Earth One Justice Schools for Schools Student Sustainability Collective Students Take Action Now Darfur Students for Barack Obama Students for Civil Rights in Iran Students for Justice in Palestine UCSD Faculty and Staff: Chang, Edmond (History) Frank, Ross (Ethnic Studies) Kheshti, Roshanak (Ethnic Studies) Linton, April (Sociology) Prestholdt, Jeremy (History) Saier, Milton (Biology) Evans, Ivan (Sociology) Other Individuals: Anna Baltzer (Jewish Human Rights Activist) Fr. Bill O’Donnell (St. Joseph the Worker Church, Berkeley) Hedy Epstein (Holocaust survivor) Jody Williams (Nobel Peace Laureate, USA) Mairead Maguire (Nobel Peace Laureate, Ireland) Noam Chomsky (Professor, MIT) Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Nobel Peace Laureate, Guatemala) Roger Hill (Director Mental-Rev Productions) Roger Waters (Pink Floyd member) Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Peace Laureate, Iran) Other Organizations: Al Awda (USA) American Muslims for Palestine (USA) Arab Resource Organization Center Arab Youth for Palestine (Valdivia, Chile) Association for Muslim Professional Development Associations in Friendship with the Palestinian People (Catalonia, Spain) BOYCOTT Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Israel) Berkeley Women in Black British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (UK) Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK) Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK) Campus Radical Women Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel) Code Pink European Jews for a Just Peace (Europe) Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace Flashpoint radio