Nathaniel Solley/Staff

When former ASUC senator Sadia Saifuddin was appointed to the position of UC student-regent designate at this month’s UC Board of Regents meeting, what should have been a conversation focusing on the candidate’s qualifications devolved into a shameful spectacle.

The conversation to approve Saifuddin failed to assess her preparedness to be a successful student regent in favor of demonizing her for co-sponsoring a campus divestment bill this spring. The bill, which would have divested ASUC funds from companies that provide resources to the Israeli military, initially passed in the senate but was later found to have violated ASUC bylaws and stripped of its financial effects.

In a rare gesture, UC Regent Richard Blum abstained from the vote to approve Saifuddin, stating that he disagreed with Saifuddin’s point of view but did not know her well enough to warrant a negative vote. He justified his abstention by stating that Saifuddin’s support of divestment would alienate the student body and make her too divisive of a figure.

This is flawed reasoning. For one thing, not one current UC student stood up at the regents meeting to speak out against Saifuddin’s nomination or say that she would fail to adequately represent them. In fact, students and alumni, including former student regent Jonathan Stein came to her defense, saying that Saifuddin brought students together in the spring by inviting them to Muslim and Jewish student halls to discuss divestment.

Furthermore, given that UC Berkeley originally passed the resolution with more than half of its student senators in support of the bill and that similar resolutions have cropped up at at least three other UC campuses this past year, it’s clear that the issue is important to many UC students. For that reason, Blum’s claim that her support of divestment will make Saifuddin divisive feels more like an attempt to stifle legitimate political debate than to preserve student unity. Blum’s comments were out of line and seemed to be aimed at appeasing lobbyists critical of divestment.

It would be one thing if the board itself did not pick Saifuddin for the role. But the process of choosing Saifuddin is the same one that is used every year: Applicants must go through a series of interviews with campus and UC student government leaders before being interviewed and selected by a special committee of the UC Board of Regents.

If the regents felt Saifuddin would not be an adequate representative of the student body, they should have voiced their concerns earlier. Some of the regents said that though they respectfully disagreed with Saifuddin, they still respected her appointment through the long-standing student regent selection process. Blum should have taken a similar stance instead of focusing so heavily on divestment.

We are also very disappointed in the way that much of the commentary on Saifuddin’s appointment, both during public comment at the meeting and elsewhere, has been openly Islamophobic and perpetuated stereotypes that have nothing to do with the work she has done as a student senator or how she will perform in the student regent position.

We believe Saifuddin is a qualified candidate and worry that her reputation has been wrongfully damaged by some of the comments made at the board’s meeting. Student government representatives should be able to openly address controversial issues like divestment and involve the student body in honest political conversation, even when there is disagreement among students. The board hindered this conversation at its meeting by focusing on just one aspect of Saifuddin’s experience.

The post Overstepping boundaries appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Sureya Melkonian/Staff

The UC Board of Regents appointed UC Berkeley senior Sadia Saifuddin as student regent-designate, discussed a proposed increase in some professional degree fees and heard outgoing remarks from UC President Mark Yudof, among other matters, at its meeting Wednesday.

Yudof addressed the board to open what will be his last regents’ meeting before he steps down in late August. Yudof reflected on his philosophy for governing a large and complex university system, which he said requires consistent and balanced progress rather than sweeping change.

“I receive letters all the time that call for UC to sell two campuses or to jettison its graduate programs or to close various departments,” he said. “All of these actions would be ‘spectacular,’ (but) none of them would work. The University of California requires thoughtful, consistent and constant reform efforts — but not extreme ones.”

Yudof also thanked UC faculty, students and regents for their support during his five years as president and noted the UC system’s positive outlook for the future. Janet Napolitano, U.S. secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to be approved as Yudof’s successor at Thursday’s meeting.

The committee on finance discussed the state’s 2013-14 budget, underlining the planned budget increases and debt restructuring planned through 2015. Preliminary discussion for the 2014-15 budget also began and focused on Gov. Jerry Brown’s call for a tuition freeze. The 2014-15 budget will be discussed in greater detail at the regents’ September meeting.

The finance committee later recommended an increase in the amount UC employees contribute to the UC retirement plan. It also recommended increasing professional degree supplemental tuition, or PDST, for some programs.

If the recommendation is approved, tuition for the system’s four nursing programs — at UC San Francisco, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Irvine — would see an 8 percent increase that would take effect Aug. 1 and result in about $250,000 in revenue per year.

Four new fees for new programs were also approved: Games and Playable Media at UC Santa Cruz, Health Services-Physician Assistant Studies at UC Davis, Technology and Information Management at UC Santa Cruz and Translational Medicine at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.

The board also discussed the 2014-15 student regent nominee, Sadia Saifuddin.

Student regent appointments are typically unanimous, but Regent Richard Blum abstained from the vote. He cited Saifuddin’s support for divesting UC funds from companies doing business with the Israeli military, saying that he disagreed with her views but did not know her well enough to justify a negative vote. Other regents also disagreed with her stance but said they did not think those views would impact her ability to act as student regent.

Contact Simon Greenhill and Mary Zhou at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Twelve of the warmest years on record have come in the last 15 years, and while 97 percent of climate scientists agree that this trend is a direct result of human activities, progress on comprehensive national climate legislation has long been stalled. In a speech at Georgetown University in June, Barack Obama unveiled his administration’s long-awaited climate plan, which has been lauded as a step in the right direction, and criticized for its support of nuclear and natural gas, among other shortcomings. One sentence toward the end of the president’s speech, however, stood out to thousands of student activists across the nation: “Invest. Divest. Remind folks there’s no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth.” While many Americans did not recognize the sentence as a reference to an expansive climate justice movement growing in the United States and abroad, students at more than 300 campuses took Obama’s words as an acknowledgment of the now two-year-old campaign to pressure their institutions to drop stocks from the fossil fuel industry.

The campaign originated at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 2010 when students visited communities in Appalachia decimated by mountaintop removal coal mining. Infuriated by systemic inaction at the federal and state level, students decided to target their board of trustees, arguing that it is morally wrong to invest money in companies that destroy mountains and pollute the air, water and land. Since 2011, thousands of students, religious leaders and elected city officials across the country have taken up the same logic, leveraging divestiture as a tactic to target the reputation of the fossil fuel industry, whose business model relies on mining and burning five times more carbon than scientists agree is safe to burn to avert runaway climate change.

In ridding a portfolio of fossil fuel stocks, institutional investors have an opportunity to make a moral statement as well as an economically wise decision that is in line with their fiduciary responsibilities. Many institutions and municipalities that have already voted to divest have done so because it is also prudent to avoid unnecessary risks associated with the existing international market for carbon. According to recent UC Berkeley graduate Katie Hoffman, “The economic research coming out of this movement makes it clear that there exists a carbon bubble, and if governments take any steps to regulate carbon in the ways necessary to avert certain climate catastrophe, more than half of the industry’s assets are at risk of becoming stranded.” Beyond focus on divestment, some students are also proposing that institutions reallocate divested funds into areas of the economy that are productive in climate-change adaptation and mitigation, thereby contributing to tangible climate and energy solutions.

Perhaps this logic spurred the recent commitment from the city of Berkeley to divest its asset holdings from the fossil fuel industry. Inspired by the work of UC students across the state, particularly the Fossil Free Cal campaign at UC Berkeley, the city became one of the first to move forward on climate by making fossil fuel divestment official city policy. It is likely that the Fossil Free UC campaign will have to remain vigilant to sway the regents toward full divestment, given the complicated nature of the UC investment portfolio structure, but students leading the effort are prepared to do just that. This Wednesday, student leaders from across the UC system will address the Regents for the third time to propose a five-year plan to put the University of California system on a similar path to the city of Berkeley.

College campuses have long served as wellsprings for widespread social and political change, and the city of Berkeley’s decision to divest alongside other municipalities like Seattle and Cambridge, Mass., illustrates that the movement is transcending its collegiate origins. More importantly, it is sparking the kind of national conversation needed to force climate change and the future of energy onto the U.S. political agenda. While Obama’s speech and climate action plan may have little bearing on the trajectory of federal climate policy during his term, the movement to address the climate crisis will continue to play out on and off campuses at the state and local level as the case for fossil fuel divestment continues to gain political and economic legitimacy.

Ophir Bruck is a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley and a fossil free summer fellow with 350.org.Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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SB 160 divests ASUC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military. The Judicial Council originally issued the gag order around 8 p.m. Saturday evening, demanding silence on the case from all parties involved. The gag order came after the ASUC rescinded its previous decision to approve a settlement of charges against SB 160 that removed any clauses that required the ASUC to divest its funds.

“While the judicial procedures allow for a gag order to be placed any time, I believe that their reason was not sufficient to overstep the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said Noah Ickowitz, a petitioner in the case, SQUELCH! party chair and a former Daily Cal columnist.

In an email obtained by The Daily Californian, Associate Justice Scott Lara thanked all parties involved for their patience during the gag order and stated that currently, “the confusion about trial procedure and the judicial process between the parties has largely been cleared up.”

Members of the ASUC Judicial Council could not be reached for comment as of 4:30 p.m.

On Friday, the Judicial Council voted in favor of a settlement between the petitioners and the bill’s author, Student Action Senator George Kadifa. The settlement would have removed clauses that petitioners had said were unconstitutional. Petitioners alleged that the bill had not been approved by the appropriate ASUC committees and was not passed by the necessary two-thirds vote. Two ASUC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the gag order, were sharply critical — even angered — at what they called the council’s freehanded use of the gag orders, which the officials said was an overreach of the council’s authority.

The original charges will now go to trial, and the Judicial Council will rule on their validity. The trial for Ickowitz-Freeman v. ASUC Senate & SB 160 is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. at a location to be determined.

UPDATE at 6:12 pm: The trial will be held at Anna Head Hall and is open to members of the public.

Staff writer Jeremy Gordon contributed to this report. 

Contact Shirin Ghaffary at newsdesk@dailycal.org

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It looks something like Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s statement that was recently released in response to SB 160, the ASUC bill that calls for targeted divestment from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and illegal settlement.

Birgeneau explained his opposition to SB 160 just hours after the student senate passed the bill but waited over two weeks to condemn an April 1 assault on a Students for Justice in Palestine member.

The SJP member was publicly attacked in Sproul Plaza for vocally affirming Israel’s status as an apartheid state – a description which notable figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, award-winning author Alice Walker, former President Jimmy Carter and former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair agree with.

When the chancellor is quick to condemn a decision by the student senate majority but drags his feet before condemning an assault on a SJP member, it should be obvious which group is being marginalized.

Moreover, the chancellor downplays the severity of the assault by writing in his statement that the SJP member was “struck in the face.” In reality, the SJP member was punched in the face with a closed fist and knocked to the ground by a much larger assailant. The blow was so forceful that a witness reported shortly after the assault that the assailant’s knuckles were bleeding.

Birgeneau’s statement was insensitive, and it employed victim-blaming rhetoric. He argued that it was the divestment campaign that caused a divisive, hostile climate on campus. Nothing could be further from the truth. Divestment is in actuality an effective, nonviolent and legitimate tactic in the struggle against Israeli apartheid.

The chancellor argued that the campus is divided, but who stands on which side?

Thirty-one student organizations endorsed targeted divestment from Israeli apartheid, but Birgeneau sided with a small number of pro-Zionist students. It should be clear that the major division is not within the student body but between students and the administration.

To continue employing rhetoric that builds on a narrative of conflict between “students of color” and “Jewish students” is to disregard developing bonds of solidarity between Palestinian students and diverse networks of allies, including Jewish and Israeli students who supported SB 160.

Even Noah Kulwin, an opponent of SB 160, stated in a Daily Californian opinion blog that Palestine solidarity activists are constantly “demonized,” “delegitimized” and held to an unfair “double standard.” When Palestine activists face hostility, their victimhood is often removed from them, and they are blamed for their own victimization. Merely holding a political opinion is perceived as hostile, and violent reactions to such a “hostile” political opinion are seen as a natural reaction — as if saying violent response to Palestine solidarity activism is only to be expected. As if saying divestment is to blame for violent reactions – not the perpetrators of such violence. Such is the underlying rhetoric being employed in the aftermath of the inexcusable assault on a member of SJP.

UC Berkeley has a rich history of activism – from the Free Speech Movement to the Third World Liberation Front to the divestment campaigns against South African apartheid – that we should ultimately be proud of. What many of us take for granted today – free speech, ethnic studies and the end of South African apartheid – were once deemed “controversial,” publicly demonized and met with repression from authorities.

Whereas the campus administration has repeatedly attempted to suppress students’ activism and democracy, students and community members have nonetheless persisted in connecting many struggles in our own community to the struggle for justice in Palestine. There is a clear connection between American imperialism allied with Israel in the Middle East and the austerity, racism, militarization and violence here in the United States.

We say no to Israeli apartheid and illegal settlement. We say no to victim-blaming and the scapegoating of divestment. We demand recognition and reversal of these policies, and we stand as students united in solidarity for justice in Palestine – and for justice at our school.

Ley Cerezo is a sophomore at UC Berkeley and Alex Schmaus is a current student at Berkeley City College.

The post Coming together for campus justice appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Graham Haught/Staff

With the passage of SB 160 on April 18, the UC Berkeley campus has been packed with people pointing fingers at their peers for the controversial decision. Even the Daily Cal has been going crazy about the vote, talking about how so-and-so was harassed by so-and-so and is now pointing fingers at so-and-so. Well, I want a turn too. I’m not going to talk much about SB 160, though; that’s been done. I want to point a finger at the ASUC as a whole.

Most senators know, or at least should know, about Article IX, Section 2, Clause A, of the ASUC Constitution. It states: “The ASUC Senate, the Judicial Council, and the Graduate Assembly shall not take action on any main motion unless and until that motion has been publicly posted for at least one week.” But no materials were posted in advance for the SB 160 meeting and, in fact, this lack of public notification has been the standard operating procedure all year. So here’s my question: Why did the ASUC Senate even discuss SB 160 – or SB 158, for that matter – if no agenda was published? In fact, why did the ASUC Senate take action on most things this year if the agendas were hardly ever published on time? Technically, it’s  all unconstitutional… rendering the 10-hour Senate meeting to discuss SB 160 entirely inane.

That’s not the only problem. The ASUC website is a mess: It still, for example, says the Senate meets at Eshleman Hall … last I checked, Eshleman isn’t really accessible. Bills up for consideration aren’t published until after they’re approved. But most importantly, ASUC agendas aren’t being published in advance. In my role as a staff member for a nearby local government, part of my job involves posting city agendas week after week. And sometimes, I admit, it seems like a waste of time. I’ve even asked myself: “Who the hell reads this? Who the hell cares?” But those questions are beside the point. It’s the government’s obligation to serve the people and to follow the guidelines and rules it puts foward in its bylaws. And I believe the people have the right to know what’s going on – especially at UC Berkeley, where students often take pride in their activism and involvement.

About two weeks ago, a day before an ASUC meeting, a friend asked multiple senators about the meeting location. They all replied, “I don’t know.” I understand that Lower Sproul is under development and that many events are being shuffled around, but that’s no excuse for the senate’s failure to communicate properly with the students it claims to serve.

We live in an era of transparency. Everyone cries for it. The senate even passed “A Bill in Support of Transparency, Accountability, and Enforcement” earlier this year. Yet, for some reason, the ASUC fails time and again to follow its own rules. The meeting on SB 160 brought the room to maximum occupancy, so it’s safe to assume that a decent portion of the UC Berkeley community knew about it.

But what about the less controversial topics that may well affect students more than the ASUC striking down foreign policy? Isn’t it our right to know about those issues too?

Surprisingly, only after I casually brought up the notion of taking legal action with ASUC staff members did agendas get posted, and even that took place days after the fact.

The crafters of the ASUC Constitution thought the community should know what the senate is doing. That’s why Article IX, Section 2, exists. I believe the current senate should act in accordance with this founding principle. I call upon the new ASUC Senate, the executive officials and their staff to take responsibility for their actions, and stop hiding behind unpublished agendas. Be transparent and accountable. You care about this school and what happens with it. So have some respect for the rest of us, who care too, and let us know what the ASUC is up to.

Nir Maoz is a freshman at UC Berkeley.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this op-ed incorrectly stated that ASUC Senate office manager Jordan Tauber sent no agenda packet on the day of a April 17 ASUC meeting scheduled to discuss SB 160. In fact, Jordan Tauber did send out an agenda packet to ASUC senators and other members of the campus community listing SB 160 as a special order item.

The post Demanding transparency from the ASUC appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The ASUC Judicial Council backtracked on its previous decision to approve a settlement of charges against controversial divestment bill SB 160 on Saturday.

On Friday, the Judicial Council voted in favor of the settlement, which would have removed clauses that petitioners had said were unconstitutional. They alleged that the bill had not been approved by the appropriate ASUC committees and was not passed by the necessary two-thirds vote.

The settlement removed any clauses that required the ASUC to divest its funds from companies associated with the Israeli military. The Judicial Council’s latest decision means the parts of the bill that were removed will be restored.

The original charges will now go to trial, and the Judicial Council will rule on the validity of the charges. The trial is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. at a location to be determined.

In an email obtained by The Daily Californian, Judicial Council Chief Justice Suneeta Israni said the settlement was reversed because the negotiators did not have the authority to modify a previously passed bill. According to the email, the original decision to accept the settlement was based on the impression that 11 senators officially voted to pass the post-settlement version of the bill.  In reality, that figure came only from a straw poll taken by ASUC Attorney General Hinh Tran, the chief negotiator in the settlement, to gauge support for reaching the settlement.

The Judicial Council issued a gag order around 8 p.m. Saturday, demanding silence on the case from all parties involved. Last Monday, the Council also issued a gag order on the case surrounding alleged election law violations by External Affairs Vice President-elect Safeena Mecklai. According to a high-ranking official within the ASUC, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of disciplinary action, gag orders have traditionally only been used to protect witnesses and defendants from possibly injurious information before a decision has been made.

However, the Judicial Council’s Rules of Procedure do not clarify or limit the circumstances under which the Council can issue such an order.

Two ASUC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the gag order, were sharply critical — even angered — at what they called the Council’s freehanded use of the gag orders, which the officials said was an overreach of the Council’s authority.

In an email sent to Israni before the gag order took effect, SQUELCH! party chair and former Daily Cal columnist Noah Ickowitz expressed his displeasure with the Judicial Council’s handling of the case as well as the decision to rescind the settlement.

“I need to express my deep sadness in both your procedure and transparency,” Ickowitz told Israni in the email. “The whirlwind of having so many verdicts in the span of 24 hours has taken a toll on me and I believe has tarnished my vision of a system I used to appreciate.”

Neither Israni nor Associate Justice Stephanie Chamberlain could be reached for comment for this story.

Like with the case surrounding the health and wellness referendum, the Judicial Council planned to decide the SB 160 case by summary judgement, in which the council can make a decision without the participation of involved parties and without hearing oral argument. According to the Rules of Procedure, the council may issue a summary judgement “in the extreme event the Council does not believe a hearing will provide any substance to the controversy brought to its attention.”

The council eventually reversed its intention to issue a summary judgement, reverting to the original plan to hold a trial.

Contact Jeremy Gordon at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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Nothing like a scandalous political quid pro quo, complete with new information about an ideologically stained physical assault on Sproul alongside bylaw violation charges galore to awaken our senses. I give you, Divestment: Season 2. After this latest flood of melodrama, politicians in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento look like snoozers.

Please understand, this is not a column about divestment and the many reasons it is an ineffective, rash and brazenly ignorant way to address the staggering conflict in Palestine. There have been human rights violations that require legitimate objection and scrutiny on the world stage, but few students at UC Berkeley truly understand the tense realities of living in a nation surrounded by enemies who desire nothing more than your nation’s complete annihilation. “From the river to the sea,” is the oft-repeated slogan. But this column is not about divestment. The only solution of any lasting quality to our public woes is a campuswide shift in political culture that transcends the issues.

Nor is this a column about judicial charges and constitutional violations. Former Daily Cal columnist and SQUELCH! senator Noah Ickowitz and former Student Action external affairs vice president Joey Freeman filed charges with the ASUC Judicial Council on Friday, alleging rampant constitutional violations in the passage of SB 160. Like America’s cultural obsession with litigation and the inevitable flurry of court cases that follows any major legislation in Sacramento and Washington, the charges of both Ickowitz and Freeman demonstrate a foolhardy determination not to lose this battle, no matter what the broader costs are of prolonging the conflict. In an interview with The Daily Californian, Ickowitz acknowledged that personal ideology was part of his motivation for dragging on this looming legal fiasco. But this is also not a column about ASUC legal affairs.

And this is not a column about ASUC Senator Jorge Pacheco’s recent public foul-up with ASUC President Connor Landgraf. Pacheco reportedly offered last Tuesday to remove his Judicial Council injunction on Landgraf’s health and wellness referendum in exchange for Landgraf opting not to veto the divestment bill Pacheco supported — classic you-scratch-my-back I’ll-scratch-yours political positioning. It’s embarrassing for Pacheco to place himself on such morally questionable grounds, embarrassing for the ASUC to become embroiled in the debacle and embarrassing for UC Berkeley students regardless of ideology. But this column is not about the latest of ASUC scandals, either.

Finally, this is not a column about “campus climate” or a plea for any recently mistreated Berkeley “communities.” Attend any ASUC Senate meeting or elections event, and one will quickly discover the true power those two simple phrases have over student political discourse at UC Berkeley. As George Orwell would have said, those phrases have “lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” But, alas, this is not a column about tired political rhetoric.

This is a column about simple maturity.

More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Isocrates criticized the Athenian democracy of his day by accusing it of training citizens to “(look upon) insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and license to do what they pleased as happiness.” Isocrates’ ancient words were later written by others to reflect modern realities in the Aegean and elsewhere: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

Isocrates on Berkeley politics: “Oh, please.” UC Berkeley and the ASUC are a perfect case studies for Isocrates’ theory, and as evidenced by the April 1 assault on a pro-Palestinian student at Sproul Plaza by a goon who disagreed with the victim’s political stance, we as a university are struggling to stop the bloodletting of overemotional worn-out rhetoric, repugnant political maneuvering and excessively theatrical squabbling that have characterized our campus for nearly a month — with no foreseeable end in sight.

More than anything else, campus politics is centered almost entirely on winning a disturbing and very public game — winning over votes, winning popular opinion and winning elections. It comes at the cost of a collaborative, academic atmosphere and civilized public dialogue.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We’d be wise to put the events of this month in perspective, to acknowledge that the ASUC is only a student government and that our politics do not, in fact, define us as individuals. What this campus needs most — and what Isocrates was hinting at — is a shift in the tone of public discourse.

Anything to stop the bleeding.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @connorgrubaugh.

The post Isocrates on divestment appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Jan Flatley-Feldman/Staff

Holding Israeli flags and standing with locked arms, a group of students gathered at noon Thursday at Sather Gate to protest the recently passed ASUC bill pushing for divestment from companies affiliated with the Israeli military.

The protest, organized by a mix of students in various Jewish student groups, started with around 20 people and grew to around 30 as passing students joined. The students linked arms across the central entrance of Sather Gate in protest of the ASUC Senate’s passing of SB 160, a bill that urges the divestment of ASUC and university funds from companies related to the Israeli armed forces.

The bill triggered immense controversy and was passed 11-9 after a 10-hour public comment session.

“We’re protesting against what the ASUC did,” said Baruch Nutovic, a protester and a former editor in chief of the Berkeley Jewish Journal. “We tried to put forward an alternative bill. It was completely rejected.”

On Wednesday, the ASUC tabled SB 160′s alternative bill, SB 158, which called for the ASUC to help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, acknowledging the harm inflicted on both sides and supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. If passed, SB 158 would also indicate that the ASUC supports a two-state solution.

“We want (SB 160) repealed,” said Jacob Lewis, a protester and former president of Tikvah: Students for Israel. “(The) narrative put forth by this bill is completely ignoring the Israeli side.”

The protesters placed duct tape over their mouths, held Israeli flags and handed out fliers that read, “Do not silence our voices.”

“A lot of people on campus don’t really know what is going on,” said Grant Fineman, a recently elected ASUC senator who participated in the protest. “(There) is a silent majority who don’t know anything about it.”

Nick Slater, who works in the campus financial aid department, was walking by the rally when he stopped to discuss with protesters his opposition to the protest’s message. While he opposed their anti-divestment stance, he said there should be recognition of both sides.

“A lot of Jewish students feel that their stories aren’t being recognized,” Slater said. “I accept that. I want to see a solution which recognizes the interests of Israelis and Palestinians.”

ASUC Senator Sadia Saifuddin, who co-sponsored SB 160, expressed similar sentiments.

“I commend the college and the community for moralizing and being able to express that side (of the debate),” Saifuddin said. “It adds to the diversity at Cal.”

However, Arielle Gabai,  a protester and a former president of the Jewish Student Union, said that the climate on campus remains tense and hostile toward Jewish students and those who oppose divestment.

“It’s unacceptable that Berkeley calls itself such a beautiful, diverse place (that is) accepting of all communities, except for one,” Gabai said.

Contact Tara Hurley at thurley@dailycal.org.

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SB 158, originally introduced as an alternative to divestment bill SB 160, was authored by SQUELCH! Senator Jason Bellet and Student Action Senator Rafi Lurie. The authors themselves requested that the bill be tabled indefinitely saying that to that the bill’s language had been too watered down in the ASUC’s Committee on University & External Affairs.

“The authors of this bill submitted the bill with certain language and the bill was edited down and edited down,” Lurie said during the meeting. “The language we (originally) put in there is what our community wanted to see. Table this instead of passing some half bill.”

The bill would encourage the ASUC to take financial and political action to help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recognizing harm inflicted on both side and affirming the right for a Jewish State. The bill would also indicate that the ASUC supports a two state solution.

Lurie maintained that the discussion surrounding the bill would not be laid to rest but instead addressed in a different bill.

Other senators, including CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack and Student Action Senator George Kadifa, also addressed issues with the bill’s wording.

“I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to passing the bill as it came out of committee, but I am definitely opposed to many of the changes the authors are proposing,” Pack said in an email. “Specifically, the authors are packing the bill with loaded language that implicitly endorses disagreeable policies that may not be obvious at face value.”

Independent Senator Sadia Saifuddin said that that she felt portions of the bill were exclusionary to non-Jewish people living in Israel.

“I was not in support of some of the proposed amendments by the senators because the language was exclusionary by its nature and extraordinarily vague,” Saifuddin said in an email.

Bellet addressed concerns about the language of the bill saying that the bill is grounded in international law and correct in referring to Israel as a Jewish state.

“Jewish people and Palestinian people have a right to self determination,” Bellet said during discussion. “This bill supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”

CalSERVE senator and ASUC President-elect DeeJay Pepito said she voted against tabling the bill because she felt the discussion while worthwhile, was too short.

“To be clear, Senators who voted yes on SB 160 were more than willing to vote yes on SB 158 also,” Pepito said in an email. “We just wanted a conversation on amendments and language use within its text. I am troubled tonight knowing that the conversation on 158 was so short. This bill deserved time on the Senate floor — the community supporting SB 158 deserved time on the Senate floor.”

Ally Rondoni is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at arondoni@dailycal.org.

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