Editor’s note: Noah Kulwin is a member of J Street U at UC Berkeley. As word broke yesterday that ASUC President Connor Landgraf would not veto SB 160, the divestment bill targeting companies involved in Israeli human rights violations, which passed in the ASUC last week, I was not sure Read More…
I come from a family of refugees. My mother was younger than I am now when she was forced to flee for her life from the Islamic Revolution of Iran. My mother recalls being forced to sit in the back of her classroom along with a group of young Jewish Read More…
What does the marginalization of a large and diverse coalition of students look like? 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 Read More…
As Students For Justice in Palestine activists and a Berkeley attorney working with the SJP and Cal alumni, we feel compelled to respond to the chancellor’s criticism of the recent ASUC vote to divest from companies that profit from Israel’s human rights violations in Palestine. The chancellor’s concern about the Read More…
Last week, the ASUC Senate voted 11-9 to divest funds from companies committing human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. It was a historic moment for the ASUC and added to the legacy of the institution taking a stand for human rights, just as it had done with South African Read More…
Let’s get this straight: Wednesday’s ASUC Senate meeting was not just about supporting human rights through targeted divestment. No one will refute the challenge faced by Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, but there is another narrative that was conspicuously absent in the language of SB 160, “A Read More…
The ASUC Senate’s deeply misguided vote to divest UC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military is, in one sense, utterly irrelevant. Despite its best efforts, the coterie of far-left activists that dominates student politics rarely influences university policy — Chancellor Birgeneau helpfully reminded us that the regents’ investment portfolio will Read More…
Last Monday, after much dialogue and debate, the Organization of African Students unanimously decided to support the ASUC bill that calls for divestment from companies profiting from, or investing in, the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The decision to support divestment is a result Read More…
On Wednesday, the ASUC Senate will likely consider either to divest from companies that do business with Israel or to instead invest peacemaking initiatives that bring Israelis and Palestinians together. As a freshman, I experienced the divestment effort of spring 2010. From dusk to dawn on three Wednesday nights through Read More…
We, faculty at UC Berkeley, write to urge that you reject yet another call for a selective boycott against Israel and urge you to instead support ASUC Senate bill 158, “In Support of Positive Steps toward a Negotiated Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” We believe that the passage of the divestment bill would Read More…
