Opinion

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Editorial

Divestment For Darfur

G

enocide and divestment are two
ugly words that resonate with
the Jewish people because both
have been used so viciously against us.
The Holocaust left us pledging "Never
again',' while the campaigns to support the
Palestinians by divesting from Israel left
us wary of the use of financial pressure in
place of diplomacy.
Divestment is such a dirty word in pro-
Israel circles that Jews even have hesitated
to support aiming that weapon at the evil
of genocide.
That attitude must change in the case
of Darfur, the one ongoing genocide in the
world.
The vehicle for that change is legisla-
tion to enable targeted divestment, a tactic
championed by the American Jewish
World Service. Unlike total divestment,
which could hurt the innocent with the
guilty, targeted divestment goes after
the companies most heavily involved
in the industries most important to the
Khartoum regime's efforts to eliminate the
people of Darfur.
The House passed the Darfur
Accountability and Divestment Act by a
vote of 418-1 in July. (Republican presi-
dential candidate Ron Paul was the one.)
Now the Sudan Accountability and
Divestment Act is before the Senate after
winning the unanimous endorsement of

the Senate Banking Committee.
Both bills would prohibit the federal
government from contracting with any
foreign company involved in the oil, power,
mineral-extraction or weapons industries
in Sudan. (American companies have
long been banned from doing business in
Sudan.)
The bills would protect states, local
governments and asset managers if they
decide to divest, as 22 states have done;
Michigan is not among them. And the bills
provide benchmarks Sudan must meet to
escape the sanctions.
In addition to more than 400,000 deaths
in Darfur, 2 million people are refugees,
and 4.2 million people need humanitarian
relief, the AJWS says.

Darfur has been in crisis for nearly
four years, but the time is ripe for U.S.
action because of something happening
half a world away next year: the Summer
Olympics in Beijing.
China is Sudan's top oil customer, and
Sudan pours 70 percent of its oil revenue
into the military. Targeted divestment,
which puts pressure on companies to
push a government to change, has many
Chinese companies in its sights, such as
PetroChina.
China is Sudan's No. 1 supporter, scut-
tling or watering down U.N. resolutions.
But China's desire to use the Olympics as a
global coming-out party makes it vulner-
able.
Despite the bipartisan support the

legislation won in the Senate commit-
tee, the fate of the Sudan Accountability
and Divestment Act is uncertain. Ruth
Messinger, the president of the AJWS,
warned in a conference call last month
that the White House wants to block or
weaken the bill. The Democratic leader-
ship of the Senate, focused on issues that
will play well at the polls next November,
has not made the bill a priority.
It's up to us to let our Democratic sena-
tors, Carl Levin (who's up for re-election
next year) and Debbie Stabenow know
that Darfur matters to us enough to affect
our choices in the voting booth and that
the least we expect is for the U.S. govern-
ment to do all it can to undermine the
financing of genocide. 1_I

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ENDLESSLY,

Forever Chelm by Michael Gilbert

Reality Check

Denmark Calling

S

everal weeks back, there was a
short news story about job recruit-
ers from Denmark visiting this

area.
How did that make you feel, asks the news
psychiatrist.
I'm not sure. It certainly is an example
of history doubling back on itself when a
European country comes over here to find
employees. For a couple of centuries it was
all the other way around.
There are many places, including the
Michigan town of Greenville that still cel-
ebrate their Danish heritage, brought to
these shores by eager young people looking
to start a new life. But in the economy of our
wounded state, Copenhagen is returning the
call.
It's understandable. Danish demographics
have been diving for decades. It's an aging
nation with a thriving economy that needs
workers, not to mention a new source of
taxation to support its generous health care
and retirement benefits.

It certainly is a pleasant place
to live. We celebrate the plucky
Danes who rescued so many
Jewish citizens from the Nazis
by boating them to Sweden.
Copenhagen is one of the world's
most livable cities, if you don't
mind a little rain. Then again, it
has less moisture than Seattle,
and look at how many people are
flocking there.
They make great pastries. I
was a big fan of Victor Borge and,
according to the song, the capital city is
wonderful, wonderful." So nice they praised
it twice.
I can see the Danish point of view. It also
would result in a net reduction of cultural
tensions to bring in Americans rather than
workers from the usual areas in the Middle
East.
Still at this holiday of counting our bless-
ings as Americans it does strike a discordant
note.

You can grasp job recruiters
from other states in growing
areas coming here to interview
teachers and medical workers.
Even Wyoming was among
them this year, although that
move may require a bigger
adjustment than Denmark.
There's just no telling, how-
ever, where you may find a
home. North Dakota sounds
like the unlikeliest relocation
choice imaginable. If I could
take a reader survey of states you have never
been to, my guess is North Dakota would
lead the pack.
It holds records for the most extreme
temperature swings, easily varying by 140
degrees between July and January. No big
cities, no mountains, no shoreline to speak
of.
But an old friend of mine from Free Press
days, Mike Maidenberg, loved the place.
Mike, who is Jewish, was named publisher

of the newspaper in Grand Forks (popula-
tion 50,000) almost 25 years ago, when it
was part of the former Knight-Ridder chain.
To me it sounded like exile. But Mike
found it exactly right, free of urban prob-
lems with the University of North Dakota
campus right in town.
He settled in and became something of a
local hero when he kept the paper publish-
ing during the worst flood in the town's
history. The paper won the Pulitzer Prize for
its efforts.
At one point, he was the chain's longest
tenured publisher at one location. So you
never can tell.
But I think if someone gave me that
choice I'd pick Denmark. I'd miss football
Saturdays and a few selected members of
my family. But I bet they make some great
cheese blintzes there, and just think of all
that herring. F 1

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aoLcom.

November 22 • 2007

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