Thank you
for standing with your
community.
No Divestment
Dershowitz, ADL praise
Hampshire College.
Jacob Berkman
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York
A
lan Dershowitz has gone
from criticizing Hampshire
College to pledging to
donate money to the school. The
high-profile attorney and the Anti-
Defamation League issued separate
statements praising the Massachusetts
school for stating emphatically that it
is not divesting from Israel.
On Feb. 7, Hampshire said it was
divesting from a market index fund
featuring several companies that do
business in Israel. Afterward, a pro-
Palestinian student
group at the school
issued a statement
saying the move
was aimed at Israel
in protest of its
dealings with the
Palestinians, mak-
ing Hampshire
the first American
university to adopt
a divestment policy
relating to Israeli
policy.
College officials
acknowledged that
the process was
launched in response to a complaint
filed by the group, Students for Justice
in Palestine, but denied that the final
decision related to Israel.
Still, Dershowitz, who has played a
lead role in defending Israel on cam-
puses across the country and sent one
of his children to Hampshire, called
for divestment from the Amherst
school because it had failed to state
unequivocally that the move had
nothing to do with Israel and did not
go far enough in criticizing the stu-
dent group.
School President Ralph Hexter
responded with an open letter to
Dershowitz reiterating that while
Students for Justice in Palestine
indeed had called for divestment
from United Technologies, Caterpillar,
Motorola, Terex, ITT and General
Electric — companies on the index
that do business with Israel —
Hampshire made the move because
an outside screen found that nearly
200 companies held by the fund did
not meet the school's investment stan-
dards.
The standards used to conduct the
screen, he added, had nothing to do
with Israel.
On Feb. 24, Dershowitz said he was
satisfied with Hexter's response.
"Hampshire has now done the right
thine he said in a statement. "It has
made it unequivocally clear that it did
not and will not divest from Israel.
Indeed, it will continue to hold stock
in companies that do business with
Israel as well as with Israeli compa-
nies, so long as these companies meet
the general standards that Hampshire
applies to all of its holdings.
"As I previ-
ously wrote to
President Hexter,
if Hampshire did
the right thing
and made its posi-
tion crystal clear. I
would urge contrib-
utors to continue to
contribute to this
fine school. I now
do se
Dershowitz also
said that he would
give money to the
- Alan Dershowltz school and urge
that his donation,
"and perhaps others, be used to start
a fund to encourage the presentation
of all reasonable views regarding the
Middle East to the college commu-
nity:"
The ADL also voiced support for
Hampshire.
"We welcome this unequivocal
statement from Hampshire College
that it did not divest from Israel, and
that Israel in fact played no role in
the college's recent decision to disin-
vest from a mutual fund;' Abraham
Foxman, the ADL's national director,
said in a separate statement.
"This is an emphatic repudiation of
the campaign of misinformation that
has cast the college's investment deci-
sions in a false and politically biased
light.
"In their zeal to demonize Israel,
some Hampshire students and others
among Israel's detractors engaged in a
deliberate campaign to mischaracter-
ize Hampshire College's decision:" H
"Hampshire .. .
has made it
unequivocally clear
that it did not and
will not divest from
Israel."
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