University of California, Santa Barbara students following the UC Santa Barbara’s student government rejection of a proposed Israel divestment resolution. Photo by Santa Barbara Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Evan Goodman The student government at CSU Long Beach (CSULB) on May 10 voted in favor of Israel divestment while UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) voted against it a day later.
The Associated Students Inc., an advocacy group at CSULB, passed a resolution calling on the university to divest from companies that the resolution alleges perpetuate Israeli oppression against the Palestinians, citing such companies as Caterpillar, General Electric and Hewlett Packard.
The vote was 15-7, with one abstention.
The resolution is titled “Suggestions for Socially Responsible Investing: Companies Complicit in and Profiting from Palestinian Oppression.”
General Electric, according to a draft of the resolution, has provided supplies to the Israeli Defense Forces “used in violent attacks on people living in Israel and Palestine.”
The vote followed an April 26 statement by CSULB President Jane Close Conoley expressing opposition to the resolution. She said she could not support it despite her reservations about the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
“A careful study of the BDS movement illustrates to me that this movement is opposed to the existence of the State of Israel,” Conoley said, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Conoley was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
The Associated Students of the University of California, Santa Barbara (ASUCSB), the UCSB student senate, voted 16-0 with seven abstentions against an Israel divestment resolution, according to the Daily Nexus, the campus newspaper. The vote followed an all-night debate that concluded at 4 a.m. with more than 400 students and observers participating. Among them was Rabbi Evan Goodman, the Edgar M. Bronfman Executive Director at the Santa Barbara Hillel.
The UCSB resolution was proposed on April 23 by the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine.
Goodman was not immediately available for an interview on Thursday.
UCSB is the “last University of California campus to not pass a divestment resolution,” the Daily Nexus reported.
In statements released May 11, pro-Israel organization StandWithUs, which works with college students to combat anti-Israel sentiment, hailed the UCSB vote while condemning the vote at CSULB.
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