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Our tuition dollars and our U of MN investments are supporting the Israeli apartheid state. Restriction of travel freedom, forced curfews sometimes lasting over 24-hours, separate laws for Palestinians and Israelis, the requirement of Palestinians to carry identification at all times, checkpoints where Palestinians are stopped, interrogated, frisked and humiliated at the hands of Israeli soldiers, mass arrests without due process, and the use of lethal military force against civilian populations are all part of the tactics of Israeli apartheid and violate the human rights of Palestinians.
Corporatization has become a serious issue at the U of MN, including the University's relationship to Glaxo, the manufacturer of the Ziagen AIDS drug, and the U of MN's usage of companies that use sweatshop labor to produce clothing and other items bearing the U of MN logo. Another effect of corporatization is the U of MN's investments in companies that fund Israel's campaign of racist policies against Palestinians.
During anti-apartheid student movements in the 1980s, students protested their universities' relationships to the racist South African government and economy. We can do the same and challenge big corporations financing and benefiting from the exploitation of Palestinians.
The U of MN should not financially support human rights abuses and it should make sure money that is being used to finance public education does not contribute to the disenfranchisement of people elsewhere.
But Doesn't Israel Need That Money?
People who argue that Israel needs more money are usually mean that Israel needs to defend itself against the hostile Arab neighbors. There are two things to be said about this. First, Israel receives $6 billion in aid per year from the US, more aid than any other country in the world, including some of the poorest countries in Africa or countries recently hit by disasters like El Salvador or India. Clearly, this is more money than is necessary for Òsurvival.Ó Secondly, the majority of the national conflicts in the Middle East have been initiated by Israel, which has the largest standing army and the only nuclear arsenal. Israel's current military spending per capita is about twice that of the US and about 25 times of its next largest rival in the Middle East, Egypt. Fundamentally, reducing the amount of military assistance that Israel receives will mean that it will have to find more democratic resolutions to the conflict and will mean that it is not able to brutalize the Palestinians in the name of national security.
Most importantly is that Israel's treatment of Palestinians has been repeatedly condemned by numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights. Israel violates international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, The international Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on Elmination of All Forms of Discrimination, and UN Resolutions 181, 242, and 338.
For more information about Israel's use of its US aid and Israel's violation of Palestinians' human rights visit: The Center for Economic and Social Rights http://www.cesr.org/ and The Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net/.
Anti-War
Committee |