The ASUC Senate has voted to divest GE and United Technology shares because of the companies' association with Israel's war effort. However, ASUC president Will Smelko vetoed the bill and the Senate now has to decide whether to override the veto. roversial move, the ASUC Senate passed a bill two weeks ago to remove ASUC investments in two companies (General Electric and United Technologies) allegedly associated with the Israeli war effort and called for the University of California to do the same. UC Berkeley's student government has a storied history of activism in foreign policy causes and divestmentin particular-a legacy we should be proud of. In 1986, the ASUC lead the cause of divesting from apartheid South Africa; soon after, the university divested $3.1 billion as well.
More recently, the senate has passed symbolic bills on a whole host of political causes, including Proposition 8 in 2008, U.S. foreign policy toward Israel in 2007 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent senate decisions to take sweeping political stances have served mainly to distract representatives from pressing campus causes and to divide senators and students alike.
However, we support the senate's right to pass divestment bills because they provide the means to actually effect change and not simply make statements that mean little outside Berkeley.
But the bill supporting divestment from Israel, as it stands, does not meet the standards of the campus's legacy of activism. While senators have a right to take political stances, it's impossible for them to represent the diversity of student opinion on this most contentious issue.
Israel-Palestine is quite a different conflict than others the senate has considered in the past and it's one that's proven to be explosive on our campus. Taking up such a divisive issue so close to the ASUC elections was an unwise decision on the part of senators.
Choosing to target only one country (Israel) in a bill supposedly in support of divestment from war crimes in general is also troubling. Though the bill states that the senate avoided taking sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict, it left a distinctly anti-Israel impression overall.
Additionally, the precedent of attempting to divest from all countries that have been allegedly involved in war crimes, as the bill hints at, would entail an extremely intensive effort by the senate. While an admirable goal, we question whether the senate has adequate expertise or time to determine which countries have violated international law and ought to be future targets of divestment.
To be sure, we appreciate the sincere passion of students and certain senators about this issue and the hours of effort they poured into the formation of the bill. But even a senate meeting lasting until 4 a.m. and featuring 80 speakers does not do justice to the complexity of the Israel-Palestine issue.
And though the bill itself acknowledges the inadequacy of the ASUC "to adjudicate matters of international law," senators failed to fully think through the bill's implications.
If our ASUC representatives want to tackle highly contentious issues, it is imperative that they do sufficient research-not just about the background of the conflict, but also about how divestment ought to be achieved.
The bill failed to address both the scope and the financial impact of the proposed divestment, and did not adequately lay out an effective strategy of going forward with disinvestment.
Because of these shortcomings, we support ASUC President Will Smelko's decision to veto the bill last week, though we disagree with the reasoning he offered. As senators ponder whether to override the veto in the next few weeks, they ought to consider these fundamental issues and attempt to improve their final product.
Tags: ISRAEL, ASUC PRESIDENT WILL SMELKO, PALESTINE, ASUC SENATE
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