California State University Student Body Votes To Boycott Israel

Walter Pyramid at California State University, Long Beach. Image by wikimedia

(JTA) — A student association affiliated with California State University, Long Beach passed a resolution calling for divestment from companies “profiting from Palestinian oppression.”

The senate of Associated Students, Inc., a nonprofit membership association and auxiliary organization of the university, passed the call Wednesday in a resolution addressed to the university but which is not binding on it, the Daily 49er student newspaper reported. 

University president Jane Close Conoley sent the senate an open letter on April 26 opposing plans to issue calls for a boycott against Israel.

In her letter, Close Conley warned that passing the resolution risked emboldening anti-Semites on campus and constitutes an endorsement the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which she said “is opposed to the existence of the State of Israel.”

The resolution did not specify which companies the senate believes should be a target for divestment. Virtually all of Israel’s commercial and industrial sectors have dealings in or with settlements in the West Bank or Golan Heights. Previous calls for divestment from firms allegedly profiting from Israel’s control of these lands have widely been interpreted as blanket calls for boycotting Israeli businesses.