UCSD Israel divestment measure tabled

Washington – Student Senators at the University of California, San Diego indefinitely tabled a measure to divest funds from two US companies profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, activists said.

This came at a meeting on Wednesday night, a second attempt to pass a divestment measure after senators failed to agree on the language of a first proposal last week.

“[B]efore walking into the ASUCSD meeting, we were notified that it was tabled indefinitely,” pro-divestment campaigners said on their Twitter feed.

Like a parallel proposal at UC Berkeley, the UCSD measure called for the withdrawal of funds from General Electric and United Technologies, both of which have contracts with Israel’s armed forces.

After passing the Student Senate in March, Berkeley’s divestment measure was vetoed by the Senate president. An attempt to override the veto fell short last week.

In an editorial published in the UCSD paper The Guardian on the day of the vote, divestment campaigners said the campus faced a “historic opportunity.”

“We can no longer sit idly by as our university supports the alienation and the racist treatment of a group of people, no matter who they might be,” they wrote, “Yes, it will mean an uncomfortable conversation about things we”d rather not think about – but when has that ever stopped us before?”

Comments are closed.