Stop Acting So Surprised
East Bay Cowboys Menacing Yidn
The JTA reports:
The bill calls for divestment of ASUC assets from General Electric and United Technologies “because of their military support of the occupation of Palestinian territories.” It further claims that the move is not an expression of support for either Israel or the Palestinians, but rather is “a principled expression of support for universal human rights and equality.”
Despite global efforts by pro-Palestinian groups, no American university has yet taken steps to divest specifically from companies alleged to support Israel’s military presence in the Palestinian Authority. Last year, Hampshire College’s trustees approved a measure to divest from 200 companies deemed to be in violation of the school’s investment guidelines, among them a number of companies that do business with Israel.
It is not particularly surprising, considering that much of the UC-Berkeley student body tends to gravitate towards a type of fashionably left-wing groupthink. I’m thoroughly convinced that pro-Palestinian activism is largely a loose web of flimsy slogans, fashion sense, flag-waving and arrogant pontification. Consequently, the successful campaign to divest from companies doing business with Israel is more a result of the vague sense that this community has of Jewish and Palestinian history, culture, spirituality and anxieties. I’m all for bringing to light the massive injustice done to the Palestinian people, and for more opportunities to contribute constructively to Jewish-Arab reconciliation.
Unfortunately, the vague sense here that militant Jewish nationalism broadly defined is more immoral than any other kind of militant nationalism, creates for Jewish students an atmosphere of hostility, disrespect, and at times, outright mockery. My fingers and toes are insufficient to count the amount of times I’ve been subjected to expletives and sarcastic remarks over the past 2 years from passersby who recognized my kippa but wouldn’t be able to tell me what the Talmud is, or who coined the term “Zionism.”
For those involved in divestment at Berkeley, I petition you to simply move to Israel/Palestine, and see for yourself what types of emotional, intellectual, religious and moral permutations take place in a land of hatred and indescribable beauty. I think, then, that creating the atmosphere you’ve created here will seem rather childish. Here is a video of type of pro-Palestinian activism that happens at Berkeley. Maybe I’m naive, but my guess is that many of your own supporters wouldn’t identify your cigarette and new era symbols of “human rights and equality.”
