MIM builds momentum for UC Divestment from Israel;
Humyn rights violations against Palestinians are staggering

By mid-October, MIM, SLALA and RAIL comrades had collected 
more than 830 signatures supporting our demands that the 
University of California divest from apartheid Israel. In 
Los Angeles, SLALA and RAIL have made a strong start to the 
school year. They have made our demands known and generated 
some controversy on the UCLA campus(1) with regular tabling 
and literature distribution, and collecting more signatures 
week by week. The University of California has at least 
$1.4 billion invested in companies that provide arms and 
military technology to Israel.

MIM is not the only organization raising the demand that 
U.$. universities withdraw their investments in Israel. At 
the University of Texas, students have collected between 
500 and 700 signatures asking their school to divest from 
Israel and Wayne State University students in Detroit have 
50 to 70 signatures on a similar petition. Harvard students 
are targeting their university's $615 million in 
investments, and students at the Universities of Michigan 
and Texas have learned that their schools invest at least 
$155 million and $90 million respectively in companies that 
do business with Israel.(2)

The Israeli apartheid state is in violation of 70 UN 
resolutions condemning it for unparalleled humyn rights 
abuses, legalized torture and land theft. In addition to 
divesting, MIM calls on the University of California to 
make its investment policy plain and public, and to join 
the international community in renouncing Israel's 
violation of humyn rights and the laws of nations.(3)

MIM has said over and over that no one is safe in a 
militarist society, so we call on Israelis and their 
Amerikan supporters both to seek peace with the 
Palestinians for their own sakes, if not for the sake of 
humanity. Ultimately it will not be possible for Israelis 
or Amerikans to reserve to themselves the "right" to live 
in domestic peace and safety while they deprive the 
Palestinians of all basic survival rights. As an Israeli 
army reservist said of his refusal to serve the occupation 
of the West Bank and Gaza: "if I'm in the army in the 
territories, I'm not protecting people here in Tel Aviv. 
Being a soldier increases the danger to my family here You 
have to be blind to think that people under oppression 
won't rebel."(4)

The grinding oppression Palestinians live under includes a 
system of pass cards and curfews--much like in South Africa 
under the pre-1994 Apartheid regime--so that the Israeli 
army controls the basic movements of the Palestinian 
people. The constant curfews are onerous, regularly 
confining people to their homes until they run out of food, 
and for their inability to get to work they run out of 
money to buy food as well.(1) These conditions, and the 
fact that the army does not clearly state when a curfew is 
beginning and ending, make it impossible to abide the 
military rule. Since June of this year, the military has 
killed 15 people for violating curfews. 12 of these were 
children under age 16. The Israeli humyn rights group 
B'Tselem called the killings "excessive use of force" and 
"a sweeping means of collective punishment," which violates 
international law.(5)

One adult and three of the children killed for curfew 
violations died in Jenin on June 21, when they and hundreds 
of residents rushed to shops, mistakenly believing that the 
army had lifted the curfew. An Israeli tank fired on and 
killed all four. Another adult, a widower with 7 children, 
was killed on August 11. A municipal electric company 
worker, he was legally exempt from the curfew, and drove a 
truck that B'Tselem videotapes showed to be clearly marked 
as that of a municipal worker.(5)

Just as a military occupation cannot but kill some 
innocents, "targeted actions"--the name the Israeli 
military gives its assassination operations-- will take 
civilians with them. Two humyn rights organizations in 
Israel report that between November, 2000 and January 14, 
2002, the Israeli army assassinated 53 Palestinians, 
killing 19 bystanders including 5 children in the process. 
The army also attempted and failed at 11 other 
assassinations, and wounded a total of 57 bystanders in the 
successful and failed assassinations. From January 14 
through the middle of October, Israel assassinated another 
51 people, killing 27 civilians. To carry out 
assassinations, Israel uses gunfire, missiles (helicopter-
to-ground and ground-to-ground), tank fire, and car or 
phone booth bombs. It would be shocking if Israel did not 
kill bystanders by these methods. Israel's High Court has 
so far rejected to petitions contesting the legality of the 
assassination policy.(6)

Of course the ubiquity of "collateral damage" extends 
beyond assassination attempts. On October 13, a Palestinian 
toddler in Rafah, Gaza, was killed by falling debris during 
an Israeli military raid. Also in Rafah during the same 
week, six Palestinians were killed, including two women and 
two children, and 50 others were wounded, all during a 
firefight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.(7)

While it was claiming credit in the international press for 
not responding militarily to a bus bombing, Israel clamped 
down hard with bans on drilling for water and olive picking 
in the West Bank. This is the height of the olive harvest, 
a vital link in Palestinian agricultural economy.(8) The 
water ban is an even more immediate danger. The head of the 
Palestinian Water has said that now 225 villages have no 
water supply other than rainfall (occasional in the winter 
months, but always scarce) and the black market. "In the 
northern West Bank, we have no more than three wells. For 
example, Tubas has only one well for 60,000 people, which 
means about 12 liters per family per day."(9)

In October, the United Snakes floated a new co-called 
"peace plan." For the immediate future, the plan would see 
Israel retain all the land it had occupied before November, 
2000, along with all the settlements and military outposts 
in the West Bank and Gaza that helped instigate the 
intifada. The November, 2000 Palestinian borders would be 
"temporary" for two years. In 2005 a Palestinian state 
could be established, subject to Israeli conditions on its 
internal operations and borders. After both Sharon and 
Arafat rejected this plan,(10) the u.$. withdrew to the 
Israeli corner, saying there can be no peace talks until 
"terrorism and violence" against Israelis stop.(11)

While the U.$. tells Palestinians to suck up ongoing 
assaults, it is considering a new request for $10 billion 
to help Israel out of the economic rut its occupation of 
the West Bank and Gaza, and the subsequent intifada, has 
caused. A Hebrew University economics professor said that 
since the current intifada started in November, 2000: 
"Tourism revenues have halved. Foreign investment has 
fallen by two-thirds since the start of the intifada 
[though part of this is the international slide in 
imperialist economies]. I think nothing will improve until 
something happens to the peace process." Most of the aid 
package would go to buying weapons from Amerikan companies, 
like those the University of California and others invest 
in. Though the Israeli apologists suggest that letting 
Israel buy weapons from its own "defense" industry would 
enhance the restorative benefits of the aid.(12)

Either way, ramping up Israeli militarism a poor plan for 
stabilizing the political situation in the Middle East and 
insuring long-term economic growth. The economics of war 
profiteering have had their chance and failed big time. In 
the end opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a 
matter of standing up for survival rights of the humyn 
species, not just Israelis and Amerikans--a basic plank in 
any anti-imperialist's platform. As "Electronic Intifada" 
website co-founder Ali Abunimah has pointed out: "There is 
an inability for the U.S. to deal with the objective facts. 
Five times as many Palestinians have been killed [as] 
Israelis."(2) The Palestinian people have taken up the 
struggle for statehood because Israel has left them no 
options: they can have death under occupation, or make 
their own history for a chance at survival.

The mounting numbers who are paying attention to and 
signing on with the campaign to divest from Israel are our 
hope for some sanity in this country. Stay up to date on 
the UC Divest campaign, take up the demands on your own 
campus, help stop the death march before it's too late!

http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/cal/DivestIsrael.htm

Notes:
1. MIM Notes 269, 1 November, 2002.
2. The Houston Chronicle 21 October, 2002.
3. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/cal/DivestIsrael.htm
4. The Guardian (London) 22 October, 2002.
5. Financial Times (London) 17 October, 2002; Los Angeles 
Times 17 October, 2002.
6. The Jerusalem Post 17 October, 2002.
7. Los Angeles Times 18 October, 2002.
8. The Guardian (London) 23 October, 2002.
9. The Jerusalem Post 23 October, 2002.
10. The Independent (London) 24 October, 2002.
11. The Guardian (London) 25 October, 2002.
12. The Guardian (London) 22 October, 2002