In the recent Israeli elections, hope for productive negotiations with Palestinians was dealt a serious blow. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out definitively against the two-state solution as a means to solidify his support on the Israeli right wing, then rode his public insistence on an indefinite military occupation of the West Bank to victory. Despite two-faced attempts to recover the Obama administration’s confidence, the re-elected Prime Minister’s stance has been made clear: he is in no way committed to achieving a peaceful end to the illegal military occupation. Netanyahu’s credibility to negotiate in good faith was further eroded by racialized remarks warning that Arab voters were going to the polls “in droves,” aimed at stoking fear — and electoral turnout — among his base. In view of this bleak political reality, additional measures to get Israelis and Palestinians to the table are required.
Last fall, over 700 members of the university community signed a statement calling on the University to divest from all multinational corporations that contribute to or profit from the illegal military occupation of the Palestinian territories. Pointing to the half-century of international law violations, the globally condemned onslaughts against the blockaded Gaza Strip, the continued expansion of West Bank settlements in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the military occupation’s ongoing egregious human and civil rights violations, this Princeton coalition rallied around the idea that our university endowment should not finance corporations that abet these injustices. We previously laid out the case for divestment as a necessary and effective tool to achieve a lasting peace in the region, without which the peace process will only continue to flounder. Following elections, the cause of divestment is more urgent than ever. Absent our demanding as a global citizenry that international humanitarian law be upheld, Netanyahu’s campaign decree opposing the creation of a Palestinian state will be realized.
To actualize our commitments to basic principles of human rights, a diverse alliance of students and organizations have come together as the Princeton Divests Coalition to bring a divestment referendum before the entire undergraduate body. Our referendum calls on the University to divest from multinational corporations that maintain the illegal infrastructure of the occupation, facilitate Israel’s and Egypt’s collective punishment of civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip or facilitate state repression against civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israeli, Egyptian or Palestinian Authority security forces. To name but a few examples, Caterpillar supplies bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes and olive orchards to make way for segregated settlements. Combined Systems, Inc., makes the tear gas used to repress peaceful demonstrators in the West Bank (and Ferguson and Tahrir Square), sometimes causing deaths and abortions from exposure. Hewlett Packard produces the identification cards restricting Palestinians’ freedom of movement based on their race and religion, plus the biometric scanning technology tracking these civilians through military checkpoints between home, work and school.
Divestment from human rights-abusing corporations should not be controversial. The endowment is as much a part of the University as our campus itself, and we are as ethically responsible for its stewardship as we are for our health facilities and laboratories. Maintaining the status quo, in which the University financially supports an illegal military occupation, is not a position of neutrality. Rather, we currently facilitate collective punishment against a civilian population and enable disregard for a lawful international order when our endowment could instead be constructively invested elsewhere. It is incumbent upon the University to link its mission as an educational institution — fostering both students’ intellectual and moral development — to the ethics of its own conduct, on campus and off. To dismiss the question of divestment as “political” constitutes a grave failure in preparing Princetonians to act in the service of all nations beyond the Orange Bubble.
Divestment is the most direct and effective lever at the University’s disposal to bring positive change on the ground. Other universities nationwide, recently including Northwestern and Stanford, have passed resolutions to divest from corporations complicit in human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories, and more are on the way. Princeton could be the first Ivy League university to endorse divestment, galvanizing the larger movement to halt the illegal military occupation. In this respect, we can choose between acting now as a leading example for our peer institutions, or waiting to become followers.
We as members of the Princeton University community are committed to ensuring our endowment does not prolong an illegal military occupation responsible for systematic human rights violations since 1967 and to doing what we can to promote peace and justice around the world. While we do not necessarily profess to speak for these organizations as a whole, our respective affiliations inform a common commitment to democracy and freedom for all. Divestment is an important step in that direction. We urge the Princeton undergraduate student body to call for integrity and consistency between our words and actions, and when that time comes, for the University to heed our appeal.
Signed,
Achille Tenkiang ’17, Black Leadership Coalition
Clarissa Kimmey ’16, Students for Prison Education and Reform
Courtney Perales Reyes ’17, Princeton DREAM Team
Daniel Teehan ’17, The Princeton Progressive
Dayton Martindale ’15, Princeton Animal Welfare Society
Farah Amjad ’16, Muslim Advocates for Social Justice
Frances Steere ’16, Guarding Liberties Against the Security State
Isaac Lederman ’15, Students United for a Responsible Global Environment
Joshua Leifer ’17, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives
Mason Herson-Hord ’15, Princeton Committee on Palestine
Maya Rosen ’17, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives
Tucker Jones ’16, Princeton College Democrats
Will Johnson ’18, Princeton Pride Alliance
Yasin Hegazy ’15, MASJID
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