Angela Migally: Getting past the fog over divestment

In early October, a campaign calling on Penn to divest from arms manufacturers that sell weapons to Israel and other human rights violators was launched by a coalition of concerned students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Since then, this campaign and 40 others nationwide have been topics of heated debate, provoking both intense criticism and growing support. The purpose of this column is to clarify the objectives of Penn's divestment campaign and correct the misconceptions recently expressed in The Daily Pennsylvanian and in national newspapers.

We do not call for "divestment from the state of Israel," "divestment from all Israeli companies" or a boycott of Israeli scholars. Rather, we focus on companies whose business and products promote the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

We target the arms manufacturers, mostly American, that supply the weapons and bulldozers that make the occupation possible, as well as companies that do business with the illegal colonies and settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

We act out of concern for all human rights. Anyone who has read our petition understands that we call for divestment from companies that promote the illegal Israeli occupation, as well as all "arms manufacturers that do business with any nation that has been shown to violate human rights, including Egypt, Turkey, Colombia or any other." We view human rights as a global matter, and accordingly, we demand that the University stop support for human rights violations anywhere.

We unconditionally condemn anti-Semitism. Much of the coverage of our campaign disturbingly plays into the misconception that our campaign is motivated by anti-Semitism. This is simply false. Our coalition includes Israeli and American Jews, Palestinians and many other people of diverse backgrounds. We condemn all forms of racism, sexism, class discrimination, homophobia or other persecution.

Another frequent accusation is that "singling out" Israel is anti-Semitic. University President Judith Rodin, in her column on the subject, wrote that "many countries in the current Middle East dispute have been aggressors and calls for divestment against them have been notably absent." Notably, we do indeed call for divestment from any and all human rights abusers.

That said, perhaps the best response to this argument was made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and, alongside Nelson Mandela, towering leader of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Tutu writes, "divestment from apartheid South Africa was certainly no less justified because there was repression elsewhere on the African continent." In the same way, divestment from Israel is no less justified because there is repression elsewhere in the Middle East.

But why focus on Israel?

First, Israel receives far more U.S. military aid than any other human rights abuser, around $1.8 billion annually, most of it funded by American taxpayers.

Second, Israel's human rights violations have been systematically documented by all leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli group B'Tselem, as well as by the State Department.

Third, Israel uses its military power to enforce racist and illegal policies of occupation and settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, and we believe that as long as these policies continue, peace will be impossible to achieve.

Still, shouldn't the University be neutral toward foreign conflicts?

Predictably, because it is the same strategy used for over a decade while reaping dividends from companies that supported apartheid South Africa, the Penn administration is trying to present itself as "neutral." President Rodin claims, "we will not use the power of the University either to stifle political debates or to endorse hostile measures against any country or its citizens." Yet by investing money in arms manufacturers that profit from the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and from human rights abuses around the world, the "power of the University" is indeed deeply aligned with "hostile measures" against many people.

This must end. History will prove our campaign truthful and just and the doomed avoidance maneuvers of the University of Pennsylvania shameful.

In the words of Archbishop Tutu, "if apartheid ended, so can this occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction."

Angela Migally is a second-year law student from Dayton, Ohio, and a board member of Free Palestine Action Network.

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