AP. 19 August 2002. Looking to South African example, Palestinian camp to demand divestment from Israel.
JERUSALEM -- E-mail by e-mail, teach-in by teach-in, students and professors at institutions like the University of California, Harvard, MIT and Princeton are backing the Palestinian cause by campaigning to get U.S. universities out of stocks that do business in Israel. They are modeling their effort on the divestment movement that helped topple apartheid. Francis A. Boyle, a University of Illinois professor of international law and an early advocate of divestment from Israel, said in a telephone interview: "It worked once to produce peace, justice and reconciliation, and I believe it can work again." To date, no university has moved to divest. Harvard's president has said his institution will not. Boyle said campaigns were under way on 40 campuses. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian human rights activist Jabr Wishah points to Jewish settlements separated from crowded Palestinian refugee camps by wide stretches of no man's land and sees a parallel to South Africa. In his lobby, a poster in the colors of the Israeli flag calls Israel "the state of apartheid." Wishah recalls chatting with Nelson Mandela, the South African who went from prisoner to president, when he visited Gaza three years ago. Wishah, who served 15 years in Israeli prisons, said he compared notes with Mandela on Israeli and South African interrogation tactics, he said. He applauds the divestment campaign, saying: "If in South Africa they reached a peaceful solution, it can be achieved here as well." The petitions on U.S. campuses call for divestment to pressure Israel to withdraw from territory captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; return to peace talks; stop building settlements; and treat the Palestinians better. Divestment lists circulated on the Internet include names such as AT&T and McDonald's, Hewlett Packard and General Electric. Khader Shkirat, a Palestinian lawyer, said South Africans will join him and other Palestinians to discuss the divestment campaign and other nonviolent tactics drawn from the South African experience on the sidelines of the Earth Summit beginning in a week. In a pro-divestment column published in U.S. newspapers in June, South African Nobel laureate and former Archbishop Desmond Tutu drew parallels between Palestinians under occupation and blacks who lived in segregated districts during apartheid. In the United States, a national pro-divestment students' conference is scheduled at the University of Michigan this fall. Boyle, who has given legal advice to South Africans and Palestinians, has signed a contract for a handbook laying out legal arguments for divestment. Boyle said he raised the divestment strategy in a speech to students in Illinois two years ago, at the start of the latest wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence. He said he expected the campaign to be difficult because Israel has firm friends in the United States. Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said she was encouraged. "It will begin to get people to question their assumptions," Ashrawi said, noting American Jews were among the "people of courage and wisdom" who have signed divestment petitions. Ilan Pappe, a Jewish Israeli political scientist, sees clear parallels between his country and apartheid South Africa. "The only thing that can end the Israeli occupation is outside pressure," Pappe said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://www.utopia2000.org The NEW ProletarianNews _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
