Subject: UW Regents Urged to Divest from Israel Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:09:15 -0600 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD02038F567F@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Hale, C. Kate" <HALECL@uwec.edu>
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories//index.php?ntid=61221&ntpid=2
Regents urged to divest from Israel
By Aaron Nathans
November 11, 2005
Protesters packed a hearing Thursday on the University of Wisconsin's
investment portfolio, encouraging the Board of Regents to divest from
Israel.
Many held Palestinian flags, as speaker after speaker called for the
university to divest from companies that do business with the Israeli
military. They argued, for example, that Caterpillar makes bulldozers
that are used to knock down houses of families of suspected Palestinian
terrorists. And Lockheed Martin supplies the Israeli Air Force.
"As a mother, my heart goes out to the mothers of Palestine," said Rae
Vogeler, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate. She brought along
her 8-year-old son. "Do we want to be investing in machines that kill?"
But local supporters of Israel said the effort had nothing to do with
changing its military, and was instead part of a sustained campaign on
American campuses to delegitimize the Jewish state.
The UW Board of Regents' Business and Finance Committee held its annual
forum on trust funds at Grainger Hall, with committee members, as usual,
sitting quietly at a table in front while members of the public said
their piece. The event, usually a tepid and sparsely attended affair, is
designed to allow people to comment on the university's investment
choices. About 70 attended on Thursday.
Occasionally, the Board of Regents has taken action, such as two years
ago, when it briefly divested in Tyson Foods bonds to show solidarity
with striking workers at the plant in Jefferson.
Mohammed Abed of the University of Wisconsin Divest From Israel Campaign
said Israel should be the board's next target. He said the Jewish
peoples' history of suffering does not justify keeping the Palestinian
people down.
"Is it not substantial personal injury when a person's home is
demolished, and they have nowhere else to live?" Abed said. "People come
along and say, why Israel? That is not the real question. The real
question is, why not Israel?"
Ken Goldstein, a UW-Madison political science professor, was one of the
few pro-Israel speakers to attend the event. He said everyone knows that
the best solution is Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side.
The Palestinians have yet to control their radical elements and take
risks for peace, he said.
Referring to Vogeler, he said: "When a Palestinian mother loves her
child as much as that woman loves her child, and does not encourage 14-,
15-, 16-year-olds to strap bombs onto their body and blow up Israeli -3,
4-, 5-year-olds at a pizzeria, then we'll have a two-state solution,"
Goldstein said.
"This terrorism is not about a two-state solution," Goldstein said.
"This is about driving the Israelis into the sea."
On another topic, freshman Molly Glasgow said the university should
divest from Abercrombie & Fitch because, she said, it has factories in
nations where labor is treated unfairly.
The UW's current investment portfolio is at $350 million, up slightly
from last year.