DEARBORN — In a move already sparking debate, the student government at the University of Michigan-Dearborn passed a resolution last week demanding the school stop doing business with Israel.

The student Senate unanimously approved a resolution last Tuesday calling on the Board of Regents, which also sets policy for Michigan’s campuses in Ann Arbor and Flint, to divest from companies that profit from the actions of the Israeli military in what the resolution claims are “illegally occupied territories.”

“We want the university to withdraw their investments so these companies think twice about selling their products or their services to the military,” said Bilal Dabaja, 21, a senior political science major.

The vote passed unanimously, and Dabaja said it had nothing to do with the campus’s location in Dearborn, the heart of the region’s Arab-American community. Dabaja said student leaders at UM-Dearborn hope students at the university’s Ann Arbor and Flint campuses will pass similar resolutions.

Julie Peterson, spokeswoman for the university, said investment and divestment decisions are made according to a policy established by the Board of Regents with input from the faculty.

“Students are students, and they have all kinds of ways of expressing themselves — that’s part of what being a student is about,” Peterson said.

Dabaja said the 33-member student Senate is a diverse body, representative of the entire campus community. UM-Dearborn spokesman Terry Gallager said the university doesn’t track students by ethnicity, but about 11 percent of students who fill out information forms at registration say they are Muslim.

It’s unclear how much — if any — support the measure has outside UM-Dearborn. Terry Teicher, chairman of the Jewish student group Hillel at UM’s main campus, said it’s unlikely student leaders in Ann Arbor would support such a resolution.

“We feel that the situation is improving and there’s hope for peace,” Teicher said of the conflicts in the Middle East. “We would rather invest to help the Palestinians, the Lebanese and Israelis in productive ways.

“At Michigan (in Ann Arbor), the representatives of student government as a whole recognize that divestment is counterproductive to encouraging peace, and encouraging dialogue.”

You can reach Karen Bouffard at (734) 462-2206 or kbouffard@detnews.com.