Reader Responses to Divestment: Students for & Against

The letters of Frank Feldman and David Atwood in the January-March issue were heartening (“Middle East Conflict,” What Do You Think?).  I won’t refuse to contribute to the Brown Fund because of the Corporation’s refusal to divest from corporations doing business from Israel, for some of the same reasons I continued to pay income tax from 1968-1975, despite war crimes committed in Vietnam by my country, but I like to read opinions contrary to the usual rubbish about the Middle East that we usually have to wade through. Like many Americans born before 1955, I grew up with a favorable opinion of Israel. Then I lived in Beirut for five years in the 1970s, heard some of the other side of the Israel-Palestine story, and I have been attentive to that story ever since. Let’s start with the oft-repeated trope that the Israelis just want peace. I’m sure that’s true of some Israelis, but there is a sizable fraction of the population that want, above all, territory. I find it amazing that no one has publicly speculated that Israeli actions since October 7, 2023, have been guided by the ambition to complete the Zionist project—which would entail annexation of the West Bank, the occupation (as a prelude to annexation) of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, and the “removal” of most of the Arab population of those regions. Taking territory by atrocious means is something that humans do—I think the tendency is inborn, engraved in us by natural selection operating in pre- and early historic times—but in our times, our own guilt is no reason to support the increasingly atrocious behavior of Israel. With American aid, Israel has become a military Goliath in the Middle East, safely flouting international law and committing increasingly (since the assassination of Rabin) severe ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians. Perhaps enabled by the tactically unwise feeble attempts at armed resistance by the PLO, 1967-1982, Israel has managed to fix in the American mind the image of a plucky little Israel, fighting for its very existence against a snarling pack of Arab wolves.  Meanwhile, can anyone tell me what country or countries in the Middle East have taken territory in the period 1948-present?  I believe there is only one—although Iraq tried twice, and failed. On the bright side, I feel that the great Jewish people, a gift from history to the unworthy rest of us, are awakening, with whatever reluctance and with however much disappointment, to the reality of Israel, and its place in the evolution of Judaism:  it is the main component of a stumble into idolatry.

While protests at Brown and elsewhere about divestment may have given students a sense of excitement, divestment is hardly going to end the horrors of the conflict in the Middle East. Brown is not the place to deal with it, nor should it be. If the goal is to change U.S. policy, protesters’ energies would be better directed to the senators and representatives in their home state. Issues of harassment and prejudice on campus, which are crucial issues, are another matter and should not be conflated with divestment.

The comments on Israel are offensive. The goal of BDS is to destroy Israel. The duty of Israel is to protect its people from stabbings, car rammings, bus and café bombings, riots, arson balloons, and kidnapping and murder by way of terror tunnels and thousands and thousands of indiscriminately fired missiles (which are placed near or in civilian housing and schools). There is only one Jewish nation. There are 56 Islamic nations and 159 Christian majority nations. Jordan is a Palestinian Arab majority country. What is the Jewish population of Jordan? Zero. By the way, the Arabs (from what is now Saudi Arabia) conquered the region in the 7th century. There already existed an indigenous Jewish population in Israel. 

I am disappointed with your decision to publish the letter from Sandra Davis ’76 MD last month without a rejoinder referencing the 75-year brutality experienced by Palestinian civilians, e.g., “mowing the lawn” (Israel’s term for periodically going into Gaza and murdering several hundred or more people). To imply history began on October 7 fails to acknowledge Israel’s atrocities, prior and contemporary, which have, in the past year, dwarfed what happened that day. War crimes occurred that day, but to offer no counter-examples or arguments—which are especially timely in light of the ICC’s recent ruling, based on thousands of pages of documented atrocities by the journalists whom Israel had not yet murdered (118 was the recent figure) on the ground, in prisons, et al.—is deeply irresponsible. Rape has been repeatedly used against Palestinian prisoners—one example amongst many.

She says Gazan children are taught to hate in their schools and summer camps. This is no less true of the Israeli indoctrination of their children through textbooks, et al.

In such a contentious atmosphere, to only publish a letter so clearly biased towards one side of this conflict is not an equitable act.

I will no longer be contributing to Brown due to the Corporation’s failure to divest from corporations enabling Israel’s military occupation and human rights abuses. This is the moral litmus test of our time. When Russia bombs hospitals and schools in Ukraine or Syria, deliberately targeting civilians, it is tragic and morally repugnant. But when Israel uses U.S. weapons to do the same thing, it becomes more than an issue of self-defense vs. civilian “collateral” damage. U.S. complicity in Israel’s actions—despite the self-defense rationale—means the end of the international regime of rule of law, of which the U.S. was the key architect. We as a country have lost our moral authority now in calling Russia, or many others, to account for transgressing international humanitarian law, the law of war, and international human rights. We have paved the way—enabled in many ways but including the Brown endowment’s supposed “de minimis” $66 million investments—for a world of barbarism, might-makes-right, and impunity of nations. The Corporation has not made a neutral decision. It has now placed itself on the side of Russia, the worst part of the current Israeli government, and so many “bad actors” in helping dismantle the civilized restraints on the use of power and violence that took half a century to build. I will no longer be a part of this, and I hope others join me, until the U.S. role as a strong advocate for human rights and international law is restored, if it ever can now be.

Now we know that the Brown University administration puts Israel in the same category as South Africa’s apartheid regime. It does not matter that they voted it down, in part because they concluded there was little to divest. Having the vote legitimizes the question. Divestment is part of a BDS movement which includes boycotts and sanctions. If protesters demand it, will Brown vote on boycotting and sanctioning Israel and its supporters (yes, I mean Jews)?