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editorial
U-M Must Speak Out Against Substance Of Student BDS Vote
I
t took 10 attempts over 15 years
and an eight-hour meeting for the
Central Student Government at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
to finally pass a resolution supporting
divestment from several companies
doing business in Israel. The resolu-
tion, calling for a committee to discuss
whether the university should divest
from Boeing, Hewlett-Packard and
United Technologies passed by a vote
of 23 in favor, 17 against with 5 absten-
tions. The largely symbolic resolution
was quickly rejected by the university,
which issued a statement saying “the
university’s longstanding policy is to
shield the endowment from political
pressures and to base our investment
decisions solely on financial factors such
as risk and return.” It added, “We do not
anticipate a change in this approach nor
the creation of a committee.”
The BDS (boycott divestment, sanc-
tions) campaign is a pernicious effort to
delegitimize the State of Israel, brand-
ing it an apartheid state and a prime
violator of human rights. The toothless
resolution seeks to establish a universi-
ty-sanctioned committee to ostensibly
discuss university investments, but the
core reason is to castigate, isolate and
punish Israel for its policies seen as vio-
lating the human rights of Palestinians.
We support the human rights of
Palestinians and all people, but not
in isolation from the realities of the
Middle East and the policies of the
Palestinian leaders — elected and not-
so-elected — who still deny Jewish his-
torical ties to any of the land of Israel,
and promote and applaud “armed
struggle” to destroy it. And certainly not
at the expense of the human rights of
the Jewish people.
We resolutely support the right — the
moral and internationally sanctioned
right — of Israel to defend itself. BDS
proponents argue that Israel is illegal
and illegitimate, so in their reading
Israel’s efforts to secure its nation and
people — Arabs included — are never
OK. Such denial of Jewish peoplehood
and nationhood are rightly seen as anti-
Semitic. We don’t see the conflict as a
zero-sum game; there is room for both
sides to be winners if the goal is peace-
ful co-existence and mutual respect.
Because not one American university
has divested from companies doing
business with Israel, BDS has failed in
its stated goals. But there is more at
stake. Even a symbolic resolution, likely
not supported by anything close to a
majority of U-M students means some-
thing. We can’t ignore that the con-
tinued demonization of Israel, and it’s
Jewish and non-Jewish supporters, can
poison the minds of future leaders and
intimidate or silence those who would
speak up for Israel.
The University of Michigan should
speak out against this bait and switch,
and not simply assert the specious argu-
ment that politics is irrelevant to invest-
ment decisions. If Israel was even half the
villain its detractors say it is, it would be
wrong to provide support. But it isn’t.
Even students must sometimes be
told they are wrong. And the pro-Israel
community, and advocates of human
rights and justice, must educate youth
and others about the reality of Israel,
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the
realities of the Middle East and the
world. Unlike BDS proponents, we must
seek out and engage in meaningful ways
to dialogue, seek solutions and affirm
and protect the human rights of all. •
commentary
Anti-Semitism at U-M: Different Excuse, Same Result
O
Kobi Erez
8
n Nov. 14, the anti-Semitic
BDS movement succeeded
when the Central Student
Government at University of
Michigan voted for a resolution to
divest the university’s holdings in
companies that do business with
Israel and pass that recommenda-
tion on to the university.
The results of the vote were disap-
pointing to be sure, but the passing
of the resolution should come as no
surprise in a world bursting with
anti-Semitic rhetoric. Looking more
closely at the BDS movement, it
becomes clear that it’s just another
chapter in a book of many who have
failed in the past to destroy the
Jewish State through violence and
terrorism, except the BDS move-
ment aims to do so through eco-
nomic warfare and isolation.
Nazi SS officers stood outside
Jewish stores in Germany, boycot-
ting them simply because the own-
ers were Jewish. Similarly, the BDS
movement is boycotting a state
because it’s Jewish, not in spite of
November 23 • 2017
jn
the fact. The Nazi movement had
the goal to destroy the Jewish peo-
ple, and the BDS movement has the
goal to destroy the Jewish state.
While BDS representatives may
claim their movement is about
equality, the fact remains that the
movement has nothing to do with
human rights and everything to do
with anti-Semitism, otherwise the
BDS movement would target coun-
tries such as Iran, Syria and Saudi
Arabia, three countries with a long
history of appalling human rights
violations.
What is even more alarming than
the movement’s goals, however, is
the fact that more and more young
Jews are identifying with different
elements of the BDS movement.
Speaking with a number of Jewish
students from the University of
Michigan, some of whom are sup-
porters of JStreet, I found that while
they don’t support divesting from
Jewish companies inside the green
line, they do see merit in boycot-
ting Jews who live outside the green
line. After I offered Israeli snacks to
a student, his response was, “I don’t
support products that were created
in the settlements.”
The Jewish community needs to
ask itself how more than 70 years
after the Nuremberg Laws, Jewish
young adults, although still a minor-
ity, albeit a growing one, can believe
it is right to boycott other Jews. The
situation is bad, but it will only get
worse if we continue to ignore it. If
Jewish students think it’s OK to boy-
cott other Jews based on where they
live, why should we expect anything
different from the BDS movement?
Typically on campus, when Jews
oppose BDS, they will start their
argument by saying that Israel is not
perfect, but BDS is not the solution,
as we saw when some of the Jewish
students spoke against the resolu-
tion.
We need to stop apologizing for
ourselves. No country is perfect, but
Israel has a higher regard for human
rights than any other country on the
planet. No other nation endangers
its own soldiers and citizens just
to make sure that enemy civilians
remain safe. Israel does.
The pro-Israel community must
adjust its strategy from defense to
offense. The conversation should
shift from whether Israel deserves
to be boycotted to the actual human
rights violations that Palestinians
create and commit. Daily attempts
by Palestinians to murder Jews,
teaching their children to glorify the
killing of Jews and paying murdering
terrorists should be the main topic
when discussing the conflict or the
BDS movement.
Before convincing others about
the case against BDS, we first must
convince our own people to be
proud advocates for Israel. Time to
stop being on the defense and take
the initiative to change the conver-
sation on campus, so similar resolu-
tions like this don’t pass again. •
Kobi Erez is executive director of ZOA-
Michigan.