Comments on Protest Ends with 'Whoops'

• How many divestment hoaxes make a pattern
• Posted by Jon on September 14, 2009 at 7:15am EDT

• The claim that divestment activists made a simple error in claiming that TIAA CREF had made a political (rather than a financial) divestment decision would hold more weight if there was not a pattern of similar hoaxing that has been going on with the boycott-divestment-and-sanctions "movement" all year long.

  As I chronicle on my divestment site www.divestthis.com, BDSers started the year claiming that Hampshire College had divested from Israel, only being forced to admit this was not the case when the administration of the college threatened consequences for students unofficiallly speaking on behalf of the school to spread mis-information.

  The TIAA CREF "error" bears a striking similarity to a claim made earlier in the year that Motorola had divested itself of a division that made bomb fuses due to boycotter's pressure. Like the TIAA CREF story, protestors claimed that their actions triggered decisions by Motorola shortly thereafter, failing to point out that a business transaction like the sale of a division would have been in the works months before their protests against Motorola began.

  I've been tracking divestment related stories for quite some time, and calls for divestemnt in Israel-Africa (I-A) just started showing up on my radar. Looking into this timing, it seems like protests against I-A began just as the company showed signs of not being able to meet its bond obligations, causing a crash in its stock price.

  Could it be that divestment activists, unable to obtain genuine victories (especially after the Mainline Protestant churches in the US have distanced themselves from the divestment project over the last 2-3 years) are looking for likely financial situations (like organizations choosing to sell their Israel-Africa shares) which they can then dress up as political divestment choices, over which they can claim victory.

  We'll find out.

• divestment hypocrisy
• Posted by Prof Ethan on September 14, 2009 at 7:45am EDT

• If divesters were truly interested in morality rather than anti-Israel politics, they would be urging divestment and running a sharp campaign against investments in the following countries, or companies that do business with the following ountries, which are far more repressive than Israel:

  Sudan (the genocide in Darfur, which has cost 400,000 lives according to the UN, and before that the genocide in the South)
  Iran (suppression of democracy, to begin with)
  Pakistan (women's rights)
  Libya (welcoming back as a hero a terrorist who killed 250 Americans)
  China (talk about occupation: how about the bloody occupation of Tibet, with millions dead and an entire culture totally destroyed?)

  But...where is the outrage? Where are the sustained campaigns to force universities to divest from these countries or companies that do business with these countries? Where is the move to boycott scholars from these countries?

  Nowhere. The Israel thing is just politics masquerading as morality.

• "Where is the outrage"?
• Posted by James W. Gettys on September 14, 2009 at 9:15am EDT

• Prof Ethan,
  Try Amy Goodman and the daily broadcast of Democracy Now! All the stories you mention have been extensively covered over the years. And many more such stories you don't mention here:
  the Honduran coup,
  Haiti,
  Hurricane Katrina follow-ups,
  Burma,
  Nigeria's hanging of Ken Sarowewa on behalf of Shell Oil,
  Iraq (including the rape of female troops, high suicide rates among all the troops, atrocities by private security firms, etc.) mountaintop removal in West Virginia,
  what the subprime crime did to African Americans,
  Enron (and the third world),
  East Timor,
  Aceh,
  Somalia,
  the Panama invasion,
  Afghanistan,
  the list goes on.

  Your complaint does admirably condemn the mass media's practice of self-censorship on behalf of the corporations that own the mass media.

  Try www.democracynow.org for another perspective.

  I've seen the outrage over Lybia in the tabloids. But you probably don't want to know the deeper analysis by which that and many such stories may be re-contextualized. If it's outrage, and consistency, you want.

• Divestment issues
• Posted by John K. Wilson at collegefreedom.org on September 14, 2009 at 9:30am EDT

• It's always hard to know exactly what somewhat secretive institutions are invested in at any moment, or to know the reasons why they shift investments. Institutions that divest to avoid

  But I am curious about the first comment's claim that at Hampshire, "the administration of the college threatened consequences for students unofficiallly speaking on behalf of the school to spread mis-information." Can anyone provide a link to this? This would be very disturbing for any college to try to punish students for saying things the administration deems to be false.

• Divestment Issues
• Posted by Moll on September 14, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT

• So much for american university professors adhering to "scientific rigour". The degrees obtained from whatever institutions the pseudo-academic-Joel Beinin-types propagandize, must be useless! No "higher critical thinking" happening in american universities anymore. Any thinking going on seems to be driven by the nuts of imbeciles.

• Posted by Prof Ethan on September 14, 2009 at 12:30pm EDT

• James G--the question is where is the *academic* push for "divestment" from countries with human rights records infinitely worse than that of Israel;  that's the question I asked and it was quite a specific one.  

  I'm not talking about Amy Goodman.  I'm talking about parallels to the nation-wide concerted push by academics  for divestment from Israel or companies that do business with Israel, and the boycotting of Israeli academic people. The answer is:  there is no parallel to the latter effort,none, despite the infinitely worse human rights records of the countries I mentioned. , There is no concerted national-wide push on any of these places, nor to boycott academics from these place. 

   I don't think you've answered my question by bringing up Hurricane Katrina.

• Divestment Issues
• Posted by Jon on September 14, 2009 at 12:30pm EDT

• Regarding Mr. Wilson's comment on the murkyness of investment/divestment decisions taken by universities, while it's true that these choices are taken behind closed doors, keep in mind that the difference between generic divestment (i.e., selling a stock because you think it will go down in value in the future) and "political divestment" (selling a stock for political reasons, such as protest against a company or country) is chrystal clear. The only way we can know that political divestment has taken place is that the divesting organization says so. This is why divestment "victories" such as Hampshire College, Motorola and now TIAA-CREF are suspicious since, in each case, the institution that was supposed to have made a political divestment decision either said nothing about it or strenously denied that divestment had taken place.

  Regarding Hampshire, the President's call to students was to ask them to behave responsibly by no longer claiming to speak for the college and spreading information that contradicted the college's official position can be found here: http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/guest/entry/an_open_letter_to_alan. From what I gather, action was not necessary since the students who engaged in this behavior came to understand that their freedom of speech comes with responsibilities. Otherwise, you could end up with preposterous situations, like the one I parody here:

  http://hampshire.dailyjolt.com/forum/hampshire?id=29c6831010a549dab30a2a89cc136f71&hi=a1adb0ab8f864ce2accbaab8c1318fd3

• Another divestment:
• Posted by DFS on September 14, 2009 at 2:30pm EDT

• Why do we always forget about Saudi Aramco? Perhaps higher education is just way too tainted.

• it's not a research article
• Posted by Debbie on September 14, 2009 at 6:30pm EDT

• One-sided divestment
• Posted by EC on September 14, 2009 at 6:30pm EDT

• Following on the heels of Prof Ethan, I would like to point out that none of these calling for divestment from Israel are calling for boycotts of Hizbullah/Lebanon or Hamas who have attacked innocent civilians and violated sovereign Israeli territory to kidnap Israeli citizens to exchange for the release of terrorists with blood on their hands. It smacks directly of anti-Semitism. The « irony » of Hamas is that they are bombing the very people that provided jobs for Azans before the border was closed in response to the daily qassam firings. Wherein is the justice for that ?

• The Unheard Voices
• Posted by MLO on September 16, 2009 at 2:45pm EDT

• I disagree with James G. Gettey's insination: "But you probably don't want to know the deeper analysis by which that and many such stories may be re-contextualized. If it's outrage, and consistency, you want."

  I think we all want to know larger and larger truths, scary though that may be. For instance, many contend that criticism of Israeli policy never has even the slightest tinge of antisemitism, of which there is plenty in the West. It in fact lumps both Jews and Arabs together as "semites." I am no doubt infected, by the culture that produced me, with prejudices toward both camps. I deeply regret it and dedicate my life to a struggle for recovery. So I may have no right to speak, only to listen, both to Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. But if I speak my possibly, regrettably antisemitic thoughts at present it is to enable and to hear the next level of truths from all the parties involved, in hopes that prejudices on all sides may diminish.

  Suppose Neve Gordon loves his country and sincerely feels that its official policy is tantamount to treason. Since Israel is a democracy, there is indeed a specificity to his proposal that might have far less hope for effect in the other human rights contexts, "far worse than in Israel," that Prof. Ethan points out. In so doing, though, he seems to acknowledge a human rights problem in Israel. If not a boycott, what more appropriate and effective action to Israel's human rights problem, does he propose? Yet his point is most telling, most telling indeed, that while Noam Chomsky and company back a boycott of Israeli buinesses and academics, they don't propose similar measures against far worse regimes. (Chomsky actually holds the U.S. largely responsible for many such world wide atrocities! But that is again to argue over historical narration.)

  To understand, do we go back to, say, the British empire which occupied the Palestinians before and during the Holocaust? Are certain elements of Hezbolah and Hamas wholly Other? A purely external threat to Israel and in many ways a threat to the Palestinians themselves? If it is true that there is no national security without mutual security, how is mutual security to be achieved, despite potentially abusive leaders on both sides? That is the question, it seems to me, for all morally responsible parties. A tall order for all in a climate of fear and unscrupulous leaders who derive political power therefrom. We seldom hear certain Palestinian and Israeli voices who seem independent of the official leaders. These are ordinary people on both sides! proclaiming the right of Israel to exist and to thrive! This is where Chomsky's critique of the U.S. media may be telling, very telling indeed.

• Re: Divestment hypocrisy
• Posted by Nina on September 19, 2009 at 8:15am EDT

• Prof. Ethan -- did you read the letter to TIAA-CREF the professors signed? Because it compliments the company for divesting from Sudan. That undermines your hypocrisy argument. Check out the last paragraph of the letter:

  http://tiaa-cref.adalahny.org/

  As clients, we expect TIAA-CREF to live up to its motto of "Financial Services for the Greater Good." No TIAA-CREF funds should be invested in a company that builds settlements in violation of human rights and international law. In its decision to divest from companies involved in supporting human rights abuses in Darfur,[16] TIAA-CREF has demonstrated leadership in socially responsible investing. Let it continue to lead the way by divesting from Africa-Israel.

• To Jon, comment #1
• Posted by Nina on September 19, 2009 at 8:15am EDT

• Jon, you said:

  "I've been tracking divestment related stories for quite some time, and calls for divestemnt in Israel-Africa (I-A) just started showing up on my radar. Looking into this timing, it seems like protests against I-A began just as the company showed signs of not being able to meet its bond obligations, causing a crash in its stock price."

  I don't think you're right. The campaign against Leviev started in November of 2007, when Leviev opened his jewelry boutique in Manhattan. The protest of the opening gala was covered here: http://www.forward.com/articles/12030/ I believe the signs of A-I's not being able to pay bondholders is pretty recent.

  BTW, his real estate company is Africa-Israel, not Israel-Africa.

• Re: To Jon: Comment #1
• Posted by Jon on September 21, 2009 at 5:00am EDT

• Thanks for the link to the Forward (and the correction on I-A/or A-I I should say). It looks as though the Forward made the same mistake as Ha'aretz did in their original reporting on this story, assuming that action by the New York-based Adalah organization resulted in TIAA-CREF's decision to sell it's Africa Israel shares.

  Given that Adalah itself admits that TIAA-CREF's decision took place months before their protest (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/14/israel), the best source to determine the truth - as always - are the investors themselves (not a self-anointed interpreter of other people's financial decisions). And, as has been pointed out on this site and elsewhere, (http://www.tiaa-cref.org/support/news/articles/gen0909_185.html) TIAA CREF has made it completely clear that their decision to sell shares in an Israeli company (similar to their decisions over the years to buy shares in Israeli companies) is based on financial considerations, not their own politics, and not the politics of single-issue pressure groups.

  Regarding the Forward's note that Israeli companies have been targeted by boycotters for years, and then ascribing subsequent investment/divestment decisions to the actions of protesters, this is what is known as a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy, that is a fallacy that assumes because action #1 preceded action #2 that #1 was the cause of #2.

  Since people have been hectoring groups to divest in Israel for years, it's easy for those not familiar with the facts to make a post hoc error like the one that appeared in the Forward (which is why we must rely - as noted above - on the people who actually made the decisions to explain to us their motives, rather than allowing others to project their motives onto investors.

  After all, if BDS advocates are allowed to claim credit for anything that happens subsequent to their actions, why can't anyone? Why can't I, for example, use the fact that investments in Israel have dramatically INCREASED since the divestment project began be proof that the investment community supports Israel politically or at least vehemently rejects BDS?