Several Jewish students had to be escorted to safety by campus police after the student government at the University of Illinois at Chicago unanimously passed a divestment resolution, “urging the university to divest from corporations profiting off of the Israeli occupation and other human rights violations.”
The resolution, titled “Divestment from Corporations Complicit in Human Rights Violations and Fiduciary Responsibility at UIC,” calls on the university to divest its $2.3 billion investment funds from companies including Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar, and Lockheed Martin.
Following the resolution’s passage, anti-Israel students chanted “Free Palestine,” and, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” UIC student Amitai Loew said he and several friends “had to be escorted to another exit by campus police while they had jeering laughter and insults hurled at them by the mob.”
Though Israel is not the only country mentioned in the revised resolution, this passage is an example of the alarming trend of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement on college campuses, known as BDS.
Loew posted on Facebook when the resolution was introduced last week, pointing out that originally, Israel was the only country targeted.
“Its writers claimed that the resolution was apolitical and about only human rights, fiscal transparency, and socially responsible investment,” he wrote. “Through long talks and a lot of late nights, myself, my cohorts, and members of the USG and the UIC Divest movement worked TOGETHER to change the language of the resolution to accurately reflect those tenets; human rights, fiscal transparency, and socially responsible investing.”
Loew added that Israel is mentioned in the new version “in the same vein as the U.S., China, UK, and more are mentioned as specific examples of where the example corporations profit from human rights violations.”
According to the AMCHA Initiative, which fights anti-Semitism on campuses, “BDS campaigns on college campuses are part of [Students for Justice in Palestine’s] stated mission, and many SJP groups… have been responsible for promoting BDS campaigns, accompanied by talks, rallies and exhibits which contain anti-Semitic imagery, rhetoric and action.”
According to the AMCHA Initiative, SJP members on dozens of campuses have lobbied for divestment resolutions to be considered by their student senates, however, to date, only three divestment resolutions have succeeded at Hampshire College, Arizona State University, and the University of California Irvine.
The group anticipates a number of successful divestment campaigns on college campuses in the coming year.
