The network, which has long supported the movement, says U.S. university endowments are not withdrawing funds from companies with ties to Israel, even as pro-Palestinian student demands intensify in campus protests across the country. .
Legal and practical obstacles to divestment and the difficulty of building consensus on the issue have constrained action on a campaign launched nearly 20 years ago.
Omar Barghouti, a Columbia University alumnus and co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement for Palestinian Rights, said in 2005 that many higher education institutions do not have voting rights for faculty or students. However, he said he was not aware of any higher education institutions that had sold their shares. Some advocated doing so and introduced an academic boycott.
His assessment confirmed tracking by the American-Israel Cooperative Enterprise, which found that 50 U.S. university staff and student organizations have passed some form of BDS resolution, but none are binding. , indicating that many governments have vowed not to sell.
BDS demands have been at the center of calls in recent weeks by students on U.S. campuses to protest the destruction and death in the Gaza Strip caused by Israel's retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“Thousands of students are building an unprecedented mass movement on campuses in the United States, Europe, Australia, and beyond in solidarity with the liberation of Palestine,” Barghouti said. He added that his organization's purpose is to “end Israel's military occupation, its system of racial domination.” . . And he supports the UN-recognized right of return for Palestinian refugees. ”
New York's Vassar College announced over the weekend that it would consider “defense divestment proposals,” but stopped short of committing to action.
Meanwhile, protests continued across the country. Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted prom and graduation ceremonies at multiple campuses over the weekend, and police arrested dozens more demonstrators, including at the Art Institute of Chicago.
“Vanderbilt University in Nashville took early action to prosecute students who occupied the building in March,” said Daniel Diermeyer, president of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “Our investment committee has a clear policy of not selling for political reasons. Boycotting specific entities or countries is contrary to our values. It would be a violation of neutrality.”
He added that legal advisers have warned that doing so could violate federal law prohibiting boycotts with friendly countries of the United States. He said Tennessee law is even stricter. “We cannot afford to do that. If we did, we would lose significant state funding. That would be a serious risk to the university. Our legal analysis is that the law… There is no valid objection to this.”
Some people question divestment for more practical reasons. Usha Haley, a professor at Wichita State University who studied South Africa's anti-apartheid boycotts from the 1960s to the 1980s, said, “Boycotts and sanctions have minimal impact on the operations of multinational companies, and in fact have little impact on boycott participants.'' “I weakened my power,” he said.
Since then, the use of private equity vehicles and endowment managed investment funds has increased, making stock ownership more opaque and difficult to sell.
Georges Dyer, executive director of the International Fund Network, which supports investments in the low-carbon economy, said: “Moving to an external manager or pooled fund can be very difficult, with no real costs and associated fees. But anything is possible.”
He said that while calls for geopolitical divestment, such as the one for Israel, may not impose significant economic penalties on the targeted companies, they can have a “signaling effect and a political impact” on change. “It has the potential to become a major driving force.”
Columbia University President Minoush Shafiq said this week that the university has proposed a mechanism to consider direct investment disclosure and student requests through its Socially Responsible Investment Advisory Committee, but at the same time, “the university will not withdraw from Israel.” He also emphasized.
Other U.S. universities that have been negotiating with protesters in recent days, including Brown University, Northwestern University, Rutgers University and the University of Minnesota, have agreed to similar processes without committing to a sale.
“It's important to understand that we're not going to be able to do that,” said Sheldon Pollock, a former professor at Columbia University who was involved in the debate about divestment from fossil fuels. “Columbia University has a history of socially responsible divestment. It took away tobacco, guns, private prisons, and property from South Africa.”
But he said teachers had not been involved in recent talks with protesters, adding: “The regime has completely lost its legitimacy and it is not entirely clear whether the students had an honest negotiator. It's not clear.”
Columbia University professor Adam Tooze recently cited research showing a lack of transparency in the university's finances and said pressure from donors may be driving resistance to government divestment discussions. suggested.
Barghouti said BDS is “strategically focused on a relatively small number of carefully selected complicit companies and products for maximum impact.” . . It plays a clear and direct role in Israel's crimes, and there is a real chance of victory. ” Among them were arms companies that supply military equipment to Israel.
The current “target list” includes Israeli arms supplier Elbit Systems and Chinese surveillance camera system manufacturer Hikvision, but also includes multinationals such as Intel, Chevron, HD Hyundai, Volvo, CAT and JCB. It also includes companies that BDS says provide machines used to clear out Palestinians. Village.
The campaign has also targeted Barclays, which was at the center of the anti-apartheid boycott against South Africa in the 1980s that sparked BDS. The company says it has lent more than £3bn and holds stakes worth more than £1bn in nine munitions suppliers whose products are used. in the Israeli army.
Individual student organizations, including Columbia University Apartheid Divest, have cited a long list of companies they are seeking to divest, including Alphabet, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon.
Volvo and Intel did not respond to requests for comment. Barclays, referring to a briefing document released ahead of next week's annual general meeting, said that claim was false because its shareholdings were in customers' shares, not the banks themselves.
The report said the government needs to regulate and determine the rules for the transportation of arms, and said that “the entire defense sector makes an important contribution to our national security.” It supplies equipment to a wide range of countries, including the UK, other European NATO members, and more recently Ukraine. ”
