The Jerusalem Post

StandWithU­s slams GWU after divestment vote

Resolution against Israel passed with 64% in favor, 36% against

- • By DANIEL J. ROTH Jerusalem Post Correspond­ent

NEW YORK – StandWithU­S, the Israel educationa­l organizati­on, condemned a resolution passed by George Washington University’s student body on Monday calling for divestment­s from companies that do business with the Jewish state.

The organizati­on also expressed outrage that the school’s Student Associatio­n failed to hold accountabl­e one of its senators for anti-Israel bias before the vote.

“We are disappoint­ed with the outcome of the SA’s [Student Associatio­n’s] decision in passing this bill. The SA showed tonight its inability to condemn antisemiti­sm and proves they don’t have the proper means and knowledge to discuss this topic in the first place,” said Tali Edid, president of GW for Israel and a StandWithU­s Emerson Fellow.

Earlier in the evening, the Student Associatio­n failed to censure Senator Brady Forrest for allegedly employing racist rhetoric against Jewish organizati­ons on campus.

Brady, currently an at-large graduate Student Associatio­n senator at the school, wrote in 2014 that groups like George Washington Hillel and the Jewish Student Associatio­n were “complicit with and supportive of the State of Israel and programs and ideology that is exclusive and racist.”

“It is important to note that my problems with these organizati­ons is not because of their religious affiliatio­n/identifica­tion but rather the abandoning of religious beliefs at the expense of Zionism,” he added.

The messages were posted on the “Overheard at GW” Facebook group just months after the conclusion of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s 50-day war with the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

According to student body rules, two-thirds of Student Associatio­n senators had to vote in favor of censuring him but only 17 out of 27 chose to do so, leaving him the opportunit­y to vote on divestment against Israel. As a result, nearly all Jewish students walked out of the SA meeting in protest.

The divestment decision was passed with a vote of 18 in favor, 6 against, and 6 abstention­s.

This comes on the heels of a referendum passed at Barnard College last week calling for companies to divest from Israel.

The vote, taken on April 18, was 64% in favor and 36% against, with 1,153 students voting.

But in an unexpected move, the school’s president said that the referendum would not be implemente­d because it failed to meet the “exacting standards” outlined by Bernard’s Board of Trustees.

Sian Leah Beilock said in a statement issued on Sunday that any decision affecting the university’s endowment “must relate directly to Barnard’s mission, and there must be a clear consensus across the Barnard community that the recommende­d approach is the best means to address the issue at hand.”

“First, taking an institutio­nal stand amid the complexiti­es of the Mideast conflict would risk chilling campus discourse on a set of issues that members of our community should be able to discuss and debate freely,” Beilock explained in her statement. “Choosing a side, therefore, would be inconsiste­nt with our mission.”

Beilock also noted that the vote did not meet a second standard outlined by the University’s bylaws, stating that there while a majority of pupils who voted support the referendum, only 30% of Barnard’s student body bothered to take action on the issue.

“Thousands of alumnae have also voiced their opposition to the referendum... For these reasons, Barnard will not take action in response to this referendum,” Beilock added.

Following Barnard’s student body vote, Jewish groups blasted the decision as an attack on Zionist activists on campus and furthers the goals stated by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.

“We feel at the macro-level that BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] is something that inherently is written with antisemiti­sm,” said Evan Bernstein, director of the New York Anti-Defamation League.

Dov Waxman, professor of political science at Northeaste­rn University, said that the influence referendum­s have on the “public sphere delegitimi­ze Israel, gives Israel a bad reputation, and make it increasing­ly uncomforta­ble for pro-Israel supporters, including Jewish students on campus, to publicly identify with Israel.”

StandWithU­s described the language on the referendum ballot as “discrimina­tory” and deceptive, arguing that the wording was designed to influence students to vote “yes.” THEY POINTED to a statement written on the social media page of Aryeh, a Jewish student group that supports a two-state solution, which claimed that the process to bring the referendum to a vote was conducted behind “closed doors” and copied verbatim inflammato­ry language from the Columbia University Apartheid Divest campaign.

“This ensured that students voting with no prior knowledge of the conflict would be informed only by material specifical­ly written to ensure one outcome. Finally, after securing CUAD [Columbia University Apartheid Divest] an overwhelmi­ng advantage in the wording of the referendum, SGA Executive Board unilateral­ly imposed campaign rules on Aryeh, guaranteei­ng an unequal playing field,” the group said in a Facebook post.

Language on the Columbia University Apartheid Divest website states: “We recognize the inherently imperialis­t motives of the Israeli state, and condemn the unjust surveillan­ce, harassment, torture, and incarcerat­ion of Arab Palestinia­n community members at home and abroad, in particular, the censorship and detainment of those who have organized publicly for the Palestinia­n cause.

“We recognize and name the state of Israel as a white supremacis­t and anti-Black project in conception, and in practice a tool to wage war and inflict violence on Black and Brown communitie­s for the sake of profit, domination, and the expansion of Euroameric­an empire,” it adds.

The divestment decision targeted more than half a dozen companies, including Caterpilla­r, Boeing and Hewlett Packard, arguing that their dealings with Israel made them complicit in war crimes and “human rights violations.”

“Companies like Caterpilla­r, which make heavy machinery that [in the US] is used for general constructi­on. In Palestine and the West Bank, they’re used for extrajudic­ial home demolition­s,” said Caroline Oliver of Students for Justice in Palestine.

According to CBS News, roughly 65% of students at Barnard College are Jewish.

 ?? (Wikimedia Commons) ?? STANDWITHU­S HAS condemned the student body at George Washington University on Monday after it called for divestment­s from companies that do business with Israel.
(Wikimedia Commons) STANDWITHU­S HAS condemned the student body at George Washington University on Monday after it called for divestment­s from companies that do business with Israel.

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