WASHINGTON, Friday, November 11, 2022 (WAFA) - The Case Western Reserve University student government Wednesday adopted a resolution declaring Israel an apartheid state.
According to The Observer: The Student Newspaper of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) website, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) General Assembly of CWRU Tuesday voted decisively in support of Resolution 31-15, the “Students for Justice in Palestine” bill, which calls on CWRU administration to investigate whether any of its financial assets are invested in companies that support violence against Palestinians, and divest from them if they are found to do so.
The resolution, which was authored by the CWRU chapter of the pro-Palestinian college student activism organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), was overwhelmingly passed by a vote of 35 to 17, with seven abstentions.
The bill begins by listing the various illegal acts committed by the Israeli state, such as the annexation and “military occupation” of Palestinian territory including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the building of settlements in annexed territory. The bill also states that Israel is an “apartheid state” due to the mistreatment of Palestinians living under the Israeli government, citing examples including the blockade of goods to the Gaza Strip preventing adequate quality of life within the region, a justice system that detains and convicts thousands of Palestinians often without trial, a strategy of targeted extrajudicial killings against Palestinians, among others, the Observer said.
The resolution calls on CWRU to investigate whether its endowment includes investments in companies within the military-industrial complex that provide weapons to Israel’s military, companies within the prison-industrial complex that operate private prisons that detains Palestinians and companies that support the illegal building of Israeli settlements within occupied land. If such companies are found to be supported by CWRU, the resolution implores the university to desist its investments and provide updates on its progress in the future, it added.
The bill lists specific targets for divestment, including weapons companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, private prison companies like the GEO Group and CoreCivic (formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America) and various companies that “facilitate the building, maintenance, or economic development of illegal Israeli settlements, outposts, and settler-only roads and transportation systems on occupied Palestinian territory,” it explained.
In response to claims that the resolution supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, advocates of the bill “reiterated that this was not strictly a BDS bill, though it is born out of that movement, and instead was purely investigatory to see if CWRU was supporting companies and institutions that cause human suffering.”
“This bill is to determine where our money is going,” one student said. “This is not a Jewish versus Palestinian issue. This is a ‘look at where we are spending our money’ issue.”
A spokesman for SJP explained the reasoning of the bill by saying, “The divestment bill holds great significance to many students of [CWRU] that have strong sentiments against the military and prison industrial complexes of the world. [CWRU] is an institution that is dedicated to educating individuals from all around the world, enabling them to pursue their future careers. With that in mind, the acceptance and passing of this bill would allow the students of [CWRU] to rest easy knowing that their institution does not support for-profit war and apartheid.”
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Cleveland chapter (CAIR-Cleveland) Thursday called in a press statement Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) President Eric Kaler’s response to the resolution “dishonest, dangerous and defamatory.”
CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, also called on President Kaler to “immediately apologize, retract his false statement, and meet with students.”
Following its passage, CWRU President Eric Kaler issued a message to students and staff condemning the resolution. In his message, Kaler falsely claimed the foundation of the resolution was “profoundly antisemitic.”
“In his message to students and faculty on the passage of the resolution, President Kaler conflates the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people with antisemitism and hate. In doing so, he commits the logical fallacy of attacking a straw man. Moreover, he dismissively erases the perspective of the Palestinian students on campus, many of whose immediate families are directly impacted by the Israeli occupation,” CAIR-Ohio, Cleveland Chapter Executive Director Julia Shearson said in response to President Kaler’s statement.
“If President Kaler wants to promote the university’s stated core values, he should stop denigrating Palestinian students and instead reach out to them and their allies on campus and listen with an unbiased ear to their perspectives”, she added.
K.F.
