College campuses among BDS battleground

Ohio Treasurer Mandel target of pro-Palestinian groups for state's $80 million investment in Israel
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Seventeen pro-Palestinian organizations from around Ohio signed an open letter demanding that the state of Ohio pull its $80 million investment in Israel bonds.

Palestine solidarity organizations, the International Socialist Organization chapters in Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo and pro-Palestinian groups at Kent State University, The Ohio State University, University of Toledo and Oberlin College endorsed the letter.

The letter stated that the investment, “undertaken without consent” of Ohio citizens, “shames the state of Ohio and poorly reflects upon the character” of the state’s citizens.

Josh Mandel, treasurer of the state of Ohio, said Israel Bonds generate three to four more times the yield of U.S. Bonds, which he said the state of Ohio and the U.S. government also invest in. He said Israel bonds are a “safe, secure and responsible” investment for Ohio tax dollars.

“In the Ohio Treasurer’s office, we make decisions on what’s best for our taxpayers,” Mandel said, “not based on what radical Islamic groups want us to do.”

While it would not comment directly, Kent State Students for Justice in Palestine issued an email about signing the open letter.

“We are a group that calls for equality for Palestinians and all oppressed people around the world. Hence, it is our conviction that, by virtue of this purchase, the state of Ohio is being complicit with Israeli policies that discriminate against Palestinians. While the Israeli government claims to want peace, it continues to build illegal settlements while refusing to allow the return of Palestinian refugees because of their ethnicity and religion. This is apartheid, and it must end if we are to see a just resolution. Therefore, we support a boycott of these bonds, which could easily have been purchased without involvement in Israel’s discriminating policies. When Ohio chooses to invest in apartheid instead of domestic projects, it sends a message to all Ohioans and to Palestinians that they support Israeli apartheid over US projects and a just resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Put simply: Ohio should invest in Ohio, not apartheid.”

Omar Kurdi, president of Students for Justice in Palestine and Israel, said the organization signed the letter because it was the best divestment option at the time to get its message across.

“We find that the (investment) money is going to promote injustice in that region and promote apartheid and discrimination in Israel and the Palestinian region,” said Kurdi, a junior at Ohio University in Athens. “We want to apply pressure to to those in charge to further escalate the peace process.”

Unity of Nobility, a blog that provides “news and documents on the destruction of the white race,” published an article, “Ohio just got Jewed, Jewish treasurer buys $60 million in Israel bonds,” in March. The site published a picture of Mandel wearing a yellow star of David and the word “Jude,” a badge Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

Mandel said he is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, and he found the digitally altered picture very offensive.

Mandel said as a U.S. Marine and as a state representative, these groups opposed his mission, but “we never backed down to them.” He called their allegations of Israel being an apartheid state a “false, ridiculous and shameful claim.”

“I have no plans in backing down to radical Islamic groups that are opposing my purchase of Israel bonds,” he said.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns have been part of a global movement since 2005, when Palestinian civil society initiated the movement against Israel until it complied with “international law and Palestinian rights,” according to the Palestinian BDS National Campaign’s website.

The movement and supporting groups like Students for Justice in Palestine have taken to college campuses to protest Israeli occupation in Palestine and get college students across the U.S. to think about divestment from Israel.

Student-run legislatures at University of California campuses in Berkeley, Irvine and San Diego have passed resolutions urging divestment from Israel, according to an article from jns.org. Other resolutions were defeated at UC-Riverside, UC-Santa Cruz and UC-Santa Barbara, as well as Stanford University.

The Student Senate at Oberlin College endorsed a resolution in May that called for divestment from six companies – Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Group 4 Securicor, SodaStream, Elbit Systems and Veolia – that do business in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Noa Flesichacker, co-chair of JStreet U, the pro-Israel group at Oberlin College, said the resolution polarized campus conversation.

“It brought to surface a lot of the conversation about Israel,” she said. “It was uncomfortable for a lot of people because they had to decide whether they were pro-Israel or anti-Israel.”

Gary Coleman, executive director at Cleveland Hillel, said the university’s board of trustees will likely defeat the resolution, but talk of divestment still hinders the peace process.

“Campuses should be a marketplace of ideas, and the freedom of speech allows people to talk about issues you might not agree with,” Coleman said. “But there’s a difference between not agreeing and hating. One of the words that is a dirty word to the Jewish people is divestment from the state of Israel. The way we read it is saying that the state of Israel is not legitimate as a Jewish state.”

Adina Holzman, assistant director of the research center for the Anti-Defamation League, said at least 35 colleges throughout the U.S. participated in Israel Apartheid Week in March. She said campus chapters for Students for Justice in Palestine have grown to 92 across the United States.

“Certain anti-Israel themes and language, like BDS and apartheid, have seeped into mainstream language more than in the past,” she said. “The quantity of events hasn’t been different, but it has been holding its own in the last three or four years. We express concern that these expressions have become more acceptable.”

The Ohio State University Committee for Justice in Palestine hosted a rally outside the Ohio Union in Columbus last Nov. 16, when its president, Jana Al-Akhras, spoke about Israeli military actions in the Gaza region.

“This is a massacre. The Gazans are being ethnically cleansed,” said Al-Akhras in a YouTube video, “Die-In Solidarity Protest: Committee for Justice in Palestine @ OSU,” from the rally. “The weapons used to massacre these Gazan civilians are paid for by our tax dollars. They are paid for by United States tax dollars. It is important to boycott, divest and sanction these things.”

Al-Akhras participated in the “Viva Palestina” convoy in 2009 in which she and others in the humanitarian aid convoy met with Hamas leaders who have been designated as global terrorists by the U.S. government, according to an article in The Jawa Report. Al-Akhras did not respond to emails asking for her comments.

Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Toledo created a mock Israeli checkpoint last year and constructed a drywall barrier to represent the wall that separates Israel from the West Bank, according to the school’s newspaper, The Independent Collegian.

The chapter’s president, Butheina Hamdah, wrote in a column in The Independent Collegian in March 2010 about Israel’s decision to construct 1,600 additional housing units in East Jerusalem.

“It is becoming clearer that the implementation of a ‘two-state solution’ is no longer a viable means by which to secure peace, due to Israel’s continued occupation and oppression of the Palestinians in their own territory,” Hamdah wrote. “If Israel is unwavering on the settlements and occupation, we cannot expect them to be willing to completely dissolve the state of Israel to form a single state with the Palestinians.”

Hamdah did not respond to emails requesting comment.

Kent State University’s SJP chapter posed a demonstration similar to Toledo’s SJP by setting up an “apartheid wall” outside the university’s student center for Israel Apartheid Week this March 4-8, according to an article on the school newspaper’s website, KentWired.com. Kent State SJP declined to comment on matters other than the state of Ohio’s purchase of Israel Bonds.

Holzman, the ADL spokesperson, said pro-Israel groups on college campuses need to counter anti-Israel speech with programs that showcase Israel in a positive way. She said students should get involved in student government or leadership positions to affect policy on campus.

What is the BDS movement?

The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement started in 2005, when a “clear majority of Palestinian civil society called upon their counterparts and people of conscience all over the world to launch boycotts, implement divestment initiatives, and demand sanctions against Israel.” The Palestinian BDS National Committee coordinates BDS campaigns.

The movement was inspired by the boycott, divestment and sanctions movements against South Africa’s apartheid that began in 1948. The BDS movement urges “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194,” according to the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s website.

College campuses among BDS battleground

Ohio Treasurer Mandel target of pro-Palestinian groups for state's $80 million investment in Israel
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