Divest in Israeli occupation

Even after a cease-fire, it’s easy to feel hopeless about the situation in Israel/Palestine. The rockets have stopped (for now), but the violence continues. Gaza is still under siege. The West Bank is still under a brutal military occupation. Refugees are barred from returning home. The wall still stands. What can one do on a campus in North Carolina aside from light some candles, “raise awareness” or screen movies? Why should anyone care?

Every single person on this campus should care because we are all complicit in the suffering of the Palestinian people. Our tax money provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, which makes an illegal occupation and building of settlements possible. Our tax dollars helped pay for the bombs that rained destruction on the people of Gaza. Our politicians rightly condemned the targeting of civilians by armed resistance groups in Gaza, but justified the death of Palestinians as “self defense.” The blood of Gazan children is on our hands.

It’s difficult to make sense of the violence, and it’s tempting to throw our hands up in the air and accept that the Middle East will always be a savage and chaotic place. We could pretend that the suffering is due to a lack of civilization, to age-old enmity, to divine order, or we can critically ask ourselves how we personally perpetuate these injustices.

The answer to what we can do on this campus: divest. We have a moral responsibility to make sure that our University’s investment assets are not supporting corporations that profit from human rights abuses. In the ’80s, universities divested from South Africa and pressured the fall of the apartheid regime. There are other ethical and moral issues that universities have taken a stance on and responded to by divesting from certain interests. Whether it’s genocide in Darfur, companies with unfair labor practices, sustainable energy or conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, every member of the Duke community has a role in ensuring that our University invests its assets responsibly.

Duke University must divest from corporations that profit from the illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands. Corporations like Caterpillar, which provides bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes to help construct the separation wall. Or Sodastream, which operates its main manufacturing plant in an illegal Israeli settlement. Or Hewlett-Packard, which provides biometric identification systems that restrict Palestinians freedom of movement within the West Bank.

Palestinian civil society has made a call for divestment from and sanctions of Israel’s military operations as a non-violent method of resistance to Israeli occupation. Universities and civil society groups around the world are beginning to hear their call. Recently, UC Irvine’s student government voted unanimously in support of divestment from Israeli occupation and apartheid by calling upon their university “to dissociate itself from groups or companies that promote systematic prejudiced oppression … by divesting from companies that participate in or profit from human rights violations.” Brown University’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP) has also issued a statement strongly considering divestment, stating, “The documented abuses of Palestinian citizens by the Israeli Defense Force in the Occupied Territories are deeply troubling. Israel is indisputably engaged in ongoing systemic abuses of human rights and violations of international law, as documented by the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice.” It’s about time that Duke followed suit.

We know that, as a University, we can take tangible steps toward ending injustice in the world by ensuring that we are no longer complicit in financially supporting those injustices. Last year, Duke’s Board of Trustees approved a resolution authorizing DUMAC (Duke University’s endowment arm) to adopt a proxy voting guideline for their investment in companies regarding avoidance of conflict minerals. This is a far cry from full transparency of the University’s endowment, which is what is needed if we are serious about responsible investment, but it is at the very least a step in the right direction.

The Israeli occupation is just one of many injustices in the world that we have a stake in and can help put an end to. Given that the United States is one of the main supporters of the Israeli state and its human rights abuses, however, it is an appropriate target for divestment efforts. Divestment is just one strategy, along with pressuring our political representatives and generally raising awareness about the situation, at our disposal to put an end to the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis that has come about because of the occupation. Everyone should be invested in ending oppression and promoting the dignity of all human beings on our planet. As Nelson Mandela said, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”