UC Berkeley Votes in Favor of BDS

Mike L. 

The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) voted 11-9 to divest from companies affiliated with the IDF on Thursday, the Daily Californian reported. 

ASUC is made up of the elected representatives of the UC Berkeley student body.

According to the Daily Californian, the heated debate began Wednesday evening and carried on for 10 hours, continuing into Thursday. Hundreds of UC Berkeley students, faculty and community members engaged in a contentious debate regarding the bill, SB 160.

SB 160, authored by Student Action Senator George Kadifa, calls the UC system a “complicit third party” in what is called Israel’s “illegal occupation and ensuing human rights abuses” and seeks the divestment of more than $14 million in ASUC and UC assets from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Cement Roadstone Holdings.

According to the bill, these companies provide equipment, materials and technology to the Israeli military, including bulldozers and biometric identification systems.

The final vote, which occurred just before 5:30 a.m., was met with cheering, stomping and cries of joy by supporters of the bill, the Daily Californian reported.

What we need to realize is that the significance of these various BDS votes around the country, and on the campuses, is less whether the specific vote wins or loses, but that the very effort creates hatred among young Americans towards Israel and therefore, in some measure, hatred toward Jews.

It's less significant that the the University of California Santa Barbara votes down BDS, or that Berkeley votes in favor.

What matters is that millions of western youth are being trained to despise Jews.

They may vote up or down according to their particular beliefs or culture or campus, but the real significance is that the entire thing is creating hatred towards our family in Israel and toward your children and grandchildren.

I would not be too quick to jump and up and down, applauding like a monkey, when we win some of these fights, because the damage is already done.  One reason that the damage gets done is because when we use the language created by anti-Zionists - language that includes terms like "West Bank" for Judea and Samaria or the "Occupation" with the Big "O" - then we are already condemning Israel before the conversation even gets started.

For decades progressive-left Jews, both Israeli and diaspora, have been using terminology created by our enemies to discuss an issue that is vital to our lives.  We use language that assumes the guilt of our family and friends in Israel embedded within the conversation itself.  This is a huge mistake and one that almost never gets talked about.

I think that we need to discuss it, very much so.  Not only because some of this terminology puts us back on our heals from the get-go, but that very same terminology is neither historically accurate, nor fairly representative of facts on the ground.

We need to rethink this entire conversation and we need to do so beginning with our most fundamental terms.