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UC Berkeley student senate votes to divest from companies that profit from Israeli Occupation

IMEMC | April 18, 2013

After a ten hour debate that began Wednesday evening and continued through the night, the Student Senate at the University of California – Berkeley voted to divest University funds from three companies that profit from Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Three years ago, UC-Berkeley’s Student Senate passed a similar resolution calling for divestment, but the then-President of the Student Union vetoed the measure. Thursday’s vote follows the narrow defeat of a similar divestment resolution at UC-Santa Barbara last week. Two weeks ago, students at UC-Riverside overturned a resolution they had passed the week before calling for divestment.

The heated debate at UC-Berkeley included the voices of dozens of Jewish and Arab students who supported the divestment resolution, and led some students to break down in tears as emotions ran high.

“There are few experiences more traumatic than losing your home or being forced out of the place you call home,” said UC Berkeley junior Kamyar Jarahzadeh, according to the student newspaper The Daily Cal. “This university’s money — our money — is complicit in the deprivation of human rights.”

In addition to the students, many community members attended the hearing – most were in favor of the resolution, but some opponents also attended. Pulitzer-prize winning author Alice Walker spoke in favor of the divestment resolution, as someone who participated in a flotilla to Gaza that attempted to break the Israeli siege put in place in 2007.

Students opposed to the resolution organized a party called ‘SQUELCH!’, aimed at stopping the divestment resolution from passing. In the Daily Cal newspaper, SQUELCH! Party chair Noah Ickowitz commented, “We will take home that this body takes divestment as a weapon of choice when that is not the only weapon in our arsenal.”

According to the Daily Cal, “SB 160, authored by Student Action Senator George Kadifa, calls the UC system a “complicit third party” in Israel’s “illegal occupation and ensuing human rights abuses” and seeks the divestment of more than $14 million in ASUC and UC assets from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Cement Roadstone Holdings. According to the bill, these companies provide equipment, materials and technology to the Israeli military, including bulldozers and biometric identification systems.”

April 19, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Berkeley’s Daily Californian denies activist’s right to respond to defamatory attack

By Allison Weir | June 4, 2012

In late May the Daily Californian, the UC Berkeley campus newspaper, published letters to the editor defaming If Americans Knew and me personally.

As soon as I became aware of these letters, online, I phoned the person responsible for the letters section, Jonathan Kuperberg, to ask if they had also been published in the print newspaper. I did not reach Kuperberg but left him a voicemail politely asking this question. Kuperberg did not return my call, but I have since learned that they were also in the print publication distributed all over the campus (and probably beyond).

I then wrote a letter to the editor (see below) and sent it to the Daily Cal early the next morning, May 30th. The following day, when I again had received no response, I re-sent the letter and copied other Daily Cal editors.

The managing editor sent a short reply email saying that the opinion editor (Kuperberg) would be considering my letter and told me that in the summer they only print letters once a week.

The Daily Cal has now printed the next week’s letters to the editor and did not include my letter. In fact, although I know personally of at least four additional letters sent to them on this topic, they printed none of them.

Meanwhile, oddly, the defamatory letter against me remains at the top of their letters section.

It doesn’t take an expert to know that such behavior is unconscionable. Newspaper ethics codes – and normal concepts of fairness – affirm the right of a person accused of wrongdoing to respond. The American Society of Newspaper Editors Statement of Principles, for example, decrees: “Persons publicly accused should be given the earliest opportunity to respond.”

In addition, letters containing factual errors should also be corrected.

My letter, and at least one other, should have been published. Last night I emailed the editors asking when they are going to print my letter. None has yet replied. I have now phoned the office and finally reached an editor in person. She said that staff members were talking about this and that Kuperberg would get back me today. I thanked her and said I look forward to hearing from him.

I truly hope that this doesn’t turn into another Michigan Radio situation, in which the Ann Arbor NPR affiliate under director Steve Schram refused to run our announcement, refused to return email and phone calls, lied about their behavior to the public, and only finally aired our announcement over a year later following public pressure.

It would be nice if Kuperberg and the Daily Cal would simply do the right thing.

Below is my letter:

Commissioner pushes pro-Israel pro-war falsehoods 

To the Editor:

I was saddened that an ad about Israel-Palestine in the Daily Californian (now posted on our website) elicited vitriolic, nonfactual letters attacking me personally and our organization, If Americans Knew.

It is particularly troubling to see such a letter by a City of Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission member, Thyme Siegel (“Anti-Israel ad breaks trust, propagates lies,” May 21-27).

In her letter, Ms. Siegel claims that in 1967 Israel was “attacked by all its neighbors.” However, even Israel discarded this initial falsehood many years ago. In reality, Israel perpetrated a sneak attack on Egypt that wiped out most of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground, launching what is called the Six Day war.

During that very rapid war of conquest, Israel also attacked a US Navy ship, killing or injuring 200+ Americans and destroying a $40 million ship (they eventually gave us $6 million compensation for the ship).

Even more disturbing than Ms. Siegel’s misrepresentation of history are her claims about Iran, in which she uses the same kind of inflammatory, inaccurate rhetoric that was used against Iraq, another perceived Israeli adversary.

Such mendacious rhetoric led to a tragic, unnecessary American war; the deaths of millions of Iraqi men, women, and children and thousands of Americans (many more left permanently maimed); and triggered a financial meltdown that cost multitudes of Americans their jobs, businesses, homes, and happiness.

It is time to expose and oppose the manipulation that has created war and misery for over 60 years. Americans give Israel over $8 million per day; we have the power to end the carnage. May this generation of college students be the ones to do it.

Sincerely,

Alison Weir

Executive Director, If Americans Knew, and President, Council for the National Interest

June 5, 2012 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | 1 Comment