March 5, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

(Stanford University, CA) – In a powerful show of solidarity, over 75 Stanford students turned
out Tuesday evening to express support for the campaign calling for Stanford University’s Board
of Trustees to divest from a set of companies that violate international law and abuse human
rights in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The students hailed over the two dozen student groups, including the NAACP, Stanford Students
for Queer Liberation, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), Stanford Says No
to War, Asian American Student Association, the Stanford Labor Action Coalition, and the
Black Student Union. These were among the 10 student groups that spoke strongly in favor of
divestment at a Senate meeting the previous week.

While the divestment bill put forward by Students for Palestinian Equal Rights did not pass, the
Associated Students of Stanford University Undergraduate Senate passed a separate resolution
expressing its firm stance against investment in companies that cause “substantial social injury.”
It further called on the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing to review the
University’s investments to ensure compliance with the University’s Statement on Investment
Responsibility.

Inspired by the words of support they received from all corners of the globe, including from
Nobel Peace Laureates Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire, Rogers Waters of Pink Floyd,
Alice Walker, Jewish Voice for Peace, and a coalition of 86 Palestinian university elected
student councils and youth organizations, the 1500 individuals, including over 1000 students,
who have signed the Stanford divestment petition will continue to push forward in their efforts to
end Stanford’s complicity in human rights violations in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

In moments like this, we recall the wise words of Nelson Mandela: “there is no easy walk to
freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death
again and again before we reach the mountaintops of our desires.” While the summit remains
elusive, the climb continues.

Dear ASSU Undergraduate Senators,

As a coalition of more than 400 organizations around the United States advocating for an end to U.S. political and institutional support for the Israeli occupation, we wholeheartedly endorse the proposed Stanford University Undergraduate Senate Resolution: “Ensuring Investment Responsibility and Protecting Human Rights in Israel/Palestine.” Passage of this resolution would honor and continue Stanford’s proud history of divestment from companies that profit from violent, oppressive, and discriminatory practices.

Every day, Palestinians suffer ongoing displacement, discrimination, and exile as a consequence of Israel’s abusive policies, which are abetted by companies including those listed in this resolution. Struggling for their most basic rights to freedom, justice and equality, Palestinians are asking people of conscience to stop profiting from Palestinian suffering. We join them in this principled call. After all, we cannot talk about peace while simultaneously investing in violence.

Groups around the country are cheering you on, Senators. Campuses have been at the forefront of social justice struggles throughout recent history, even when doing so was unpopular. We cannot celebrate this legacy and simultaneously shy away from taking a stand on issues of today. It’s time to stand on the right side of history again by voting for this important resolution today, urging the Board of Trustees to review Stanford’s endowment and divest from companies unwilling to end their involvement in the brutal and ongoing violation of Palestinians’ basic rights.

With great anticipation,

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

P.O. Box 21539, Washington, D.C. 20009

202-332-0994

www.endtheoccupation.org

uscampaign@endtheoccupation.org

A national coalition of more than 400 groups–including 64 in California–the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation works to end U.S. support for Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. They support a U.S. policy that upholds freedom, justice and equality.

At Stanford, you face a major choice today. You can choose to take a clear stand against apartheid buses and apartheid roads, different laws for different people, separation and segregation, or you can stand for it. You can choose to support a country in which the abduction of children from their bed at the late hours of the night is a routine, or you can choose to oppose it. You can choose whether to stand with the oppressor, or to side with the oppressed. Whose side are you on Stanford? Tonight you choose.

We hope with all our hearts that you would choose to say no to apartheid, no to 64 years of land grab and oppression, no to military occupation. We hope that you would support freedom, justice and equality for all. We hope you will say yes to divestment.

Sincerely
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Boycott from Within)

March 5, 2013

From their website: “We, Palestinians, Jews, citizens of Israel, join the Palestinian call for a BDS campaign against Israel, inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid. We also call on others to do the same.
We are devoted to the promotion of just peace and true democracy in this region. We are particularly opposed to Western governments’ decision to boycott the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, most especially in besieged Gaza. This is particularly outrageous given the same Western governments’ prolonged support of Israel’s apartheid and other daily violations of international law.”

Tonight, you are faced with a very difficult decision–your vote on UGS-W2013-6.

As a representative of the ASSU, it can be crippling when you are faced with this type of resolution. You do as much research and outreach as you can, but at the end of the day, it is you and your vote on the line. I urge you to not think of the repercussions on yourself, but the legacy of which you are a part.

As young adults, this platform–the Stanford Student Senate–is one of the most powerful to which you have access. Buried in the minutia of Appropriations policy and elections drama, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that you are awarded consistent and meaningful press coverage–both Stanford-specific and national.

In 1976 and 1987, the ASSU took a stand against South African apartheid (http://csre.stanford.edu/theses/11_DErvin.pdf). Their actions helped lead the South African University Divestment movement; our alumni helped to bring apartheid to its knees.

Last year, I was faced with a very similar decision as the one before you tonight–whether to sign my support to the SPER petition on selective divestment. I conducted my research and I did what needed to be done–stand up and say that, for once, the ASSU would stand for something. I supported and support Israeli, Palestinian, and all human rights. (www.stanforddaily.com/2012/05/04/op-ed-why-i-support-israel-palestine-and-divestment/).

I urge you to use your voice to support rights Israeli, Palestinian, and human rights. I urge you to join the long legacy of strong ASSU advocacy. I urge you to make the brave choice and vote in favor of the bill.

Sincerely,

Michael Cruz

ASSU President || 2011 – 2012

B.A. History | Class of 2012 | Stanford University

ASSU Vice President || 2011

ASSU Chair of the Undergraduate Senate || 2010 – 2011

ASSU Undergraduate Senator || 2009 – 2011

Since June 2005, the people of Bil’in have struggled against the Israeli occupation, specifically against the construction of the apartheid wall, which cuts through the village, effectively cutting off the villagers from their own land. To show their support, several Bil’iners have recorded a statement encouraging the ASSU to vote Yes on the divestment bill tonight. Please share the video with your friends and allies; the people of Bil’in deserve to have their voices heard!

The Stanford bill in support of selective divestment is a powerful example of the critical role that students play in efforts to build a more humane world.

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network strongly supports the efforts of Stanford’s student body to hold companies accountable for their complicity in violence committed against the Palestinian people. Israel’s ongoing occupation not only violates international law, but is immoral. We join the call for the Stanford Student Senate to pass the divestment resolution.

As Jews, we have learned from a history of oppression that safety and liberation only comes from working together for the collective liberation of all people. Standing against the violation of the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people is not an act against Jews; on the contrary, it is an act that supports the freedom and well-being of all of us. To imagine that all Jews are united with Israel, even as Israel blatantly and flagrantly continues to violate decency and human rights, flies in the face of Jewish histories of resisting oppression and disregards the growing movement of Jewish people who stand for justice for Palestine

We cannot fail to act because some people will be upset.  The injustice of the status quo forces each of us to make a decision about where we stand and about which side of history we will be on. Efforts to end segregation in the U.S. South and efforts to put an end to the Vietnam War were seen as divisive, but there is no question about their necessity. Remaining complicit in the face of injustice does not create unity, it fails humanity.

Some portray the histories of Israel and Palestine as so complicated, that moral clarity is impossible to discern.

This is simply an attempt to obscure the bottom line: collective punishment, discrimination, illegally annexing and settling land, and building the separation wall violate international law, and are clearly immoral. There is no justification possible for such injustice and violence.

Stanford has an opportunity to lead with moral courage, and we hope that the Student Senate will take this opportunity.

Signed,

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

March 5, 2013

IJAN is an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part.

The CfP South Africa supports the divestment bill at Stanford University

The Coalition for a Free Palestine (CfP) supports the Students for Palestinian Equal Rights bill for selective divestment by Stanford University. The bill which will be voted on by the undergraduate senate represents an important step in the global campaign for justice and equality for the Palestinian people.

Stanford University has an illustrious history of mobilising against apartheid. In 1977, after sit-ins and actions by students, the university adopted a South Africa- related ethical investment policy. In 1985, Stanford adopted a selected divestment policy towards apartheid South Africa. International solidarity was one of the pillars of the South African struggle and it is through the principled decision by this university and hundreds like it, that South Africa is free today.

The recent decision to create separate bus lines for Palestinians is a microcosm of the larger injustices Palestinians face on a daily basis. Unequal access to land, water, education and a discriminatory legal system are horrifyingly reminiscent of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The African National Congress (ANC) which called for a global boycott of apartheid South Africa has called for the South African people to support campaigns which “seek to put pressure on Israel to engage with the Palestinian people to reach a just solution”. We have confidence that Stanford University will remain principled in its stance to oppose apartheid and injustice, one again, by adopting this bill.

*The Coalition for a Free Palestine is the largest South African Palestine solidarity umbrella body, which includes youth groups, trade unions, human rights organizations, faith based groups, artists collectives, student organizations and political parties. Some member organizations include the South African Council of Churches, Congress of South African Trade Unions, African National Congress, South African Communist Party, Muslim Judicial Council, Muslim Students Association, Palestine Solidarity Alliance, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Palestine Solidarity Group, Media Review Network, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in SA , StopTheJNF South Africa, Open Shuhadah Street and the student society.

END 

For further details contact Tahir Sema on 082 9403 403 or tsema@cfpsa.co.za 

Or Tehillah Niselow on 072 252 6054 or tniselow@cfpsa.co.za

TO THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Stanford University

Stanford, California

Dear ASSU Senators,

The call by some members of Stanford’s community is both encouraging and in keeping with a proud history of ethical intervention by the university against institutions and states where human rights are violated. As South Africans, we will not forget Stanford’s divestment from companies doing business with Apartheid South Africa. We hope Stanford will once again be on the right side of history.

In recent times our university, the University of Johannesburg (UJ), was called upon to make a similar decision. Briefly, it related to re-instating an apartheid-era agreement on water research established between the predecessor of UJ, the Rand Afrikaans University and institutions in Israel implicated in discriminating against Palestinians. This attempt in August 2009 took place shortly after Amnesty International and others produced damning indictments of the acquisition of water and its discriminatory distribution to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (see reports ‘Thirsting for Social Justice’ and ‘ Troubled Waters: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water’). The democratic, respectful and spirited debate which spanned over a year and involved almost all leading South African academic, cultural and faith-based leaders marked for all a turning point in the democratic evolution of our institution (see www.ujpetition.com).

It is unconscionable that Stanford has investments in companies that violate international human rights and humanitarian law as well as the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the ‘Separation Barrier’ referred to here in South Africa as the ‘Apartheid Wall’. We have no doubt at all that the companies named (by those sponsoring the motion to divest) are implicated in facilitating acts of collective punishment, building and maintaining the ‘Apartheid Wall’, engaging in practices that institutionally discriminate against particular groups, and operating within segregated, Israeli-only settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We can add to this list numerous other violations of human rights. By any social justice measure, these practices amount to “substantial social injury” and thus an infringement of the ‘SIRCES’ document on investment responsibility.

As citizens of a country with a history of brute racism on the one hand and both academic acquiescence and resistance to it on the other, we believe that it should not be ‘business as usual’ with those who cause social injury. A prominent feature in the UJ/water research imbroglio centred on the issue of academic freedom. Academic freedom in the case of violent occupation, apartheid, genocide and gross human rights abuse must surely bear some reference to these very conditions for the criteria of its determination. Failure to recognise this will mean that the very concept of freedom more generally, and academic freedom in particular, becomes both meaningless and bereft of any practical possibilities. We also echo both the brilliant American intellectual Howard Zinn and our own living icon, Archbishop Tutu, when they insist, “You cannot be neutral on a moving train”.

We urge Stanford University’s ASSU Undergraduate Senate to ponder over the words of Edward Said below and support the Bill sponsored by the SPER. If you do so on Tuesday the 5^th of March, 2013 you will become part of a growing tide of humanity that is doing what a previous generation of students did against racist rule in South Africa.

Yours in solidarity.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign-South Africa.

Salim Vally (Phd)

Director, Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg, Adjunct Professor, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

“Nothing in my mind is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You do not want to appear too political; you are afraid of seeming controversial; you need the approval of a boss or an authority figure; you want to keep a reputation for being balanced, objective, moderate; your hope is to be asked back, to consult, to be on a board or prestigious committee, and so to remain within the responsible mainstream; someday you hope to get an honorary degree, a big prize, perhaps even an ambassadorship. For an intellectual these habits of mind are corrupting par excellence. If anything can denature, neutralize, and finally kill a passionate intellectual life it is the internalization of such habits. Personally I have encountered them in one of the toughest of all contemporary issues, Palestine, where fear of speaking out about one of the greatest injustices in modern history has hobbled, blinkered, muzzled many who know the truth and are in a position to serve it. For despite the abuse and vilification that any outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and self-determination earns for him or herself, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an unafraid and compassionate intellectual”

Edward Said-Representations of the Intellectual, The 1993 Reith Lectures.

Just this week, Israel announced that inside the illegally occupied West Bank they will begin to run segregated bus lines for Palestinians. Such depraved indifference to equality is even more extreme than anything the American South practiced under Jim Crow, as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker has said about the myriad segregation laws Israel imposes on the 20 percent of its population who are Arabs and millions more living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As a Jew who stands full-square with the Palestinians in their quest for human rights, I truly hope Stanford does not cave to the chorus that claims to speak for me and millions of other Jews around the world when they defend Israel’s indefensible violations of international law. After all, there is nothing inherently Jewish about racism and colonial occupation. Quite the contrary, I hope.
Any cursory look at even the mainstream US media shows that the global movement for Palestinian human rights is on the rise. As a university that stands in the vanguard of research, Stanford should be proud to be in the forefront of institutions adhering to international law and human rights. Don’t look back years from now and think that your institution missed the boat on standing up for human rights when the opportunity presented itself. Hold on to your dignity and claims to the social good and divest from apartheid Israel now.
Yours truly,

Sherry Wolf, author, Sexuality and Socialism; associate editor, International Socialist Review

March 4, 2013

Sherry Wolf is a public speaker, writer and activist who is the Associate Editor of the International Socialist Review where she has written on U.S. imperialism, gender, sexuality and the history of the left.

To the attention of the Stanford University ASSU Undergraduate Senate,

We are writing to you from Jewish Voice to Peace to urge you to pass the Undergraduate Senate Resolution calling on the Stanford University Board of Trustees to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation and related human rights violations against Palestinians.

We believe that the resolution in front of you follows our core Jewish ethical values, shared with all cultures that make part of the human family. The Torah instructs us “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first ten women rabbis in this country and a member of JVP’s Rabbinical Council, explains further,

Home demolition to steal land is unethical. What would you do to stop your house from being demolished? If you’re among tens of thousands of Palestinians, you can put your body in front of the Caterpillar bulldozer. You and your children will be beaten, arrested and then Israel will force you to pay for destruction of your own home. The Talmud teaches, “You shall not derive profit nor benefit from products used to promote violence. You shall not buy them, nor sell them.”

Liza Behrendt, a member of Young, Jewish, and Proud—the youth wing of JVP—adds,

I recently joined Christians, Muslims, and fellow Jews in Jerusalem to rebuild a Palestinian family’s home destroyed by Caterpillar bulldozers. As we labored side by side, learning the Arabic words for “brick” and “mortar”, we knew the military could demolish our hard work at any moment. As an act of population control, Israel systematically targets Palestinian schools, hospitals, churches, businesses, and playgrounds, including billions worth of infrastructure built through European investments. Palestinians are asking us for divestment. Join Jews like me in our movement for freedom and justice. Thank you.

These are just two of the many Jewish voices asking you to follow your conscience and vote for divestment. While both quotes address one company—Caterpillar—the same logic applies to other companies profiting from human rights violations committed against Palestinians.

We call on you to support divestment as a nonviolent response to the daily violence of the Israeli occupation.

You may be hearing from others suggesting that divestment may be divisive or may hurt the feelings of some students on campus.

We believe that many matters of social justice start by being divisive, but eventually end up unifying people around common principles of freedom, justice, and equality. Slavery in this country was divisive; it nearly tore our country apart. The right of women to vote was divisive too; it took decades of controversy to pass the XIX amendment to the US Constitution. In fact the last vote before the amendment was ratified was in Tennessee passed with a single vote margin. These and other issues that seemed controversial in their time seem morally and ethically clear to us today.

Your task is by far less daunting, but no less important. We call on you to join us and be on the right side of history.

Thanks.

Sydney Levy
Advocacy Director
Jewish Voice for Peace

Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots peace organization, inspired by Jewish tradition to promoting a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East based on equality, human rights and respect for international law. JVP has offices in NY and CA, over 125,000 supporters, 35 chapters, a Rabbi’s Council, a youth wing, and an Advisory Board that includes Judith Butler, Tony Kushner, Ed Asner, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Eve Ensler and others.