Members of UCLA’s student government listen to supporters and opponents of a divestment resolution targeting Israel in a session that stretched into the early morning hours of Feb. 26, 2014 (Courtesy of StandWithUs)
The University of California at Los Angeles’s undergraduate student union passed a resolution Tuesday night calling on the University of California to divest from American firms that are engaged in violence against Palestinians, reported UCLA's student-run newspaper Daily Bruin.
According to the resolution, the council formally urges the University of California to “withdraw investments in securities, endowments, mutual funds, and other monetary instruments with holdings” in 11 American firms that support Israel and its human rights violations.
In spite of the efforts of several groups in UCLA, the resolution was ratified with a majority of votes; eight in favour, two opposed and two abstentions.
Hillel, a large Jewish campus organisation, hired a public relations firm last month in an attempt to counter BDS campaigns in the universities, American website Mondoweiss reported.
During the student council meeting, representatives from Hillel at UCLA gave a presentation expressing their opposition to the call for divestment.
UCLA has become the sixth undergraduate campus out of the nine that make up the University of California to join the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement in solidarity with Palestinians.
In the past two years, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC Riverside and UC Berkeley have passed divestment resolutions.
Joe Catron, BDS activist, told Ahram Online that actions like the UCLA resolution, as well as divestment measures by churches and other bodies, show the depth of the popular discontent with the American government's unconditional support of Israel, citing “the successful Block the Boat campaign against Israel's Zim Integrated Shipping Services… an imminent vote by United Auto Workers 2865, (and) the University of California Student-Workers Union, to support a full boycott of Israel.”
“California clearly leads the way among BDS activists in the United States,” he said.
Launched in 2007, BDS is a global movement that calls for boycotting Israel, in order to pressure it to comply with international law, to end the Israeli aggression against Palestine.
The BDS campaign has persuaded many to boycott products and companies that profit from the violation of Palestinian rights, and to boycott academic and cultural institutions that directly contribute to maintaining, defending or whitewashing the oppression of Palestinians.
Catron argues that the Israeli onslaughts against both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank this summer, as well as ongoing aggression against its own Palestinian citizens, have clearly “reduced its international standing and spurred public opposition to its crimes.”
The Israeli assault on Gaza in July and August killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians.
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