Faisal Chaudhry delivered this speech at the teach-in held on May 6th, 2002

Why Divest,

We should acknowledge first and foremost the context in which we are asking this question and within which today, here, we are answering it in the affirmative. In particular, the past few weeks have made clear that there is not merely or mainly a "cycle of violence," but instead there is a conflict between an Occupying Power and the people it has been occupying for over three decades now, in the longest military occupation of modern history. " And a conflict in which the Occupying Power, moreover, not only Occupies the remaining 22 % of historical Palestine but ALSO systematically sponsors a campaign of illegal settlement that progressively eats up more and more of this ever dwindling percentage."

Perhaps the only thing more shocking than this power disparity is the ability to distort and misrepresent it to obscure its fundamental nature, another crucial feature of the context of the past few weeks that has compelled us to take action. Historically, this misrepresentation has taken various forms, not the least of which has been near total dehumanization of the indigenous Palestinian Arab population of historical Palestine. We can recall the early and still repeated denials that “the Palestinians are not a people,” the insistent attempts to cast them as a random “bunch of Arabs” who could just as well go to Jordan, and especially since the beginning of the Occupation, to rework the balance of the equation between the wrong-doer and the wronged, quite remarkably, to one in which the Occupied and dispossessed becomes the super terrorist assaulting the Occupier and Dispossessor. These, of course, are amazing reversals, especially given the historical disproportion by near every imaginable indicator of “wrong doing”—from numbers of noncombatants killed, to numbers of homes destroyed, to acres of land expropriated, to the direction of the discriminatory legal and administrative policies, and on and on.

The most recent incarnation of this reversal, since the beginning of the second Intifada has been to obscure the balance of this relationship within the a discourse of parity that speaks of a “cycle of violence” but not of the history of this “cycle,” AND not of the fact that the atrocious suicide bombings we have seen multiply in the last few months are actually, in scale and scope, a relatively recent development that have accelerated markedly in the last 20 some months of the Intifada; AND it is a discourse of parity that speaks of the “cycle of violence” but not of the Occupation, AND not of the three fold greater number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of the Second Intifada, nor of the disparity in the numbers injured, the numbers of homes destroyed, etc. etc. Indeed, it has only been in the last few weeks, as Israeli tanks have rolled back into the Occupied Territories in what is very clearly a well-planned and systematic assault that the vividness of these disparities have begun to cause the discourse of parity to stretch to its breaking point. And it is for that reason that we are here today: in acknowledgment that we can no longer allow this disparity in relations to be purchased with our support, and to be obscured by our own institutions of media and thought, as they spin rhetoric designed only to allow the disparity to be widened, much to the detriment of all sides in the conflict.

As we see what has happened at Jenin, as we have seen the images from Nablus, and Ramallah, and on and on with seemingly little hope in site, concerned and decent people will react with dismay. Yet, this is not enough for the crucial reason that the conflict is not just one involving “those people over there” nor one born from a disparity in which the Occupier chooses to act as it wishes. Quite to the contrary the Occupier acts within the limits allowed to it by us, by our country/government (as Chomsky notes). For this reason it is incumbent upon us to not only “see with dismay” but to seize this rare moment of clarity, in which it is becoming increasingly clear to the great many in this country that we must begin imagining together how to meet our responsibility and end our support for the Occupation, presently the most immediate cause of Palestinian suffering and Israeli insecurity alike. Furthermore, we must imagine together how to work towards ending our support for the efforts concomitant with the Occupation, like the illegal settlement activity, that destroys any possibility of a real peace of equals as it turns the remaining 22% of historical Palestine into a set of disconnected parcels of misery amidst a sea of settlers. Just three weeks ago, on April 20 some 75,000 plus American of all stripes marched through the streets of Washington in a wide ranging demonstration that the Washington Post called the biggest demonstration in support of Palestinian rights and genuine self determination ever in the U.S. We are here today animated by that spirit.

As we attempt to “imagine together,” however, we must start by having a realistic and comprehensive sense of “how” we are involved. This requires paying attention to our own society and how political and economic power is distributed and structured within it. Only by doing so can we see that we “support” the Occupation and the misery it produces not simply by offering “peace plans” that do not seem to make possible real or just peace, nor simply by our media institutions consistently disappearing the facts of Occupation and the sufferings of Palestinians, nor simply by our government’s vigorous efforts to provide diplomatic license for the Occupying power to do as it wishes, by vetoing UN resolutions, forestalling more equitable and honest efforts to broker a workable peace, etc. etc.

Much more crucial than all of this is the direct “material support” we provide from which the Occupation draws its lifeblood. Given the decisive role we play, then, being realistic about “how” we are involved, further requires that we do two things: 1. unpack what “support” means and 2. unpack who “we” are. In other words support is not only the billions in military assistance, government loan guarantees, training etc. that our tax money funds , but also what other powerful institutions in the our society are doing to “support” the immoral Occupation, often in direct connection to the forms of support our government provides. Turning to the second question who “we” are, “we” are not only citizens of the U.S., nonresident immigrants, or simply “people in America” but also people with some real and tangible connection to certain of these powerful institutions, in particular, that are tied in very direct and obvious ways to the Occupation through the companies they invest in.

Today, then, with these last two points in mind, WE are here to say it is not right for the universities of which WE are a part—whether as students, staff, faculty, service workers, alumni, or people in the community – to be supporting the Occupation by doing business in Companies invested in the Israeli Occupation.

• Therefore, we are here to question Harvard’s support for General Electric to the tune of $132 million when this company’s sizeable operations in Israel find it tied to the Israeli military in a myriad of ways, including producing the propulsion systems for Israeli military aircrafts, like the Apache helicopters that are used to attack Palestinian civilians.
• Therefore, we are here to ask how it can be that our Universities, with their proclaimed commitment to the dignity and equality of all people can invest some $13 million between them in Hewlett Packard, a company which holds substantial ownership of the Technion Institute in Israel which helps to develop the high-tech military weaponry that the Israeli government and military use to pacify those it Occupies, amongst them many whom it has already dispossessed decades earlier.
• Therefore, we are here to say it is in fundamental violation of our university’s commitment to Socially Responsible Investing to continue holding some $30 million between them in Boeing given its role as the principal shareholder in RADA, an Israeli defense contractor supplying the Israeli Air Force with components for Apache attack helicopters as well as for the F-16’s used to attack the Jenin Refugee Camp from the sky after the first few days of “house to house operations” pushed the “restraint” of the invading army to its threshold, as the international press was reporting.

So in a sentence, Why Divest? Because responsibility requires us to identify how “we” with our various components of identity are tied to the Occupation and the misery it produces for all parties suffering from the conflict, both Israeli and Palestinian.

As individuals affiliated with institutions of higher education we feel that this message is especially important given the mission of our universities. Because it is not possible for us to learn about morality, human rights, the rule of law, and the like and then selectively forget these lessons when those in positions of power choose to disregard them. Since education, moreover, means not simply pondering the world but being engaged in it, we cannot learn these lessons and choose not to seek to end our involvement by taking real and meaningful action to this effect—with its concomitant requirements of thinking and working together collectively, locating principled ways in which to “work” on our ideas, discovering that we can and must persist in these efforts since the price for us is unthinkably trivial compared to the price our continued inaction foists upon those directly suffering from it. In doing so we seek to imagine how to create new efforts and institutions that are far truer to the spirit of real education: not some process of “learning” how to throw up “arguments” in order to insulate the powerful from critique, but by thinking, reflecting, and “doing” together, to truly bring about a better world.

In this sense, “we” here are hardly the only ones taking action and our call today for divestment echoes ones being made at universities around the country. Much as happened in the 1980’s around the issue of university support for the type of injustice adhering in the relationship between the two sides in Apartheid era South Africa, today many people feel no longer capable of remaining silent in the face of the role they play in supporting the Occupation and it’s attendant injustices, crimes, and humiliations. Just a few weeks ago some 1400 people gathered in University of California at Berkeley to call for the University of California system to divest from the Israeli Occupation; around the country other students as well are calling for their colleges and universities to divest--from Princeton University in New Jersey to the University of Illinois to the University of Michigan and many others. Today we at Harvard and MIT join these efforts, and we also urge and invite other Boston area universities to join us in this call. None of this, of course, means that we need to “prove” that the situation in Israel/Palestine is the same as that in South Africa (though interesting comparisons have been drawn—most importantly by Bishop Desmond Tutu) . It is only to have to point out that there are relevant enough parallels as there will likely be whenever such an extreme disparity of institutional power pertains between two peoples. It is hardly surprising that concerned and decent people should decide, in thinking and imagining how to meet their moral responsibility, that seeking to end their support as it occurs closest to home by calling for their Universities to divest, makes the most sense, both from the perspective of moral honesty as well as our likely ability to effect real change.

Why divest, then? Because we recognize that to make this call is hardly to “single out” Israel, as will be the inevitable counter “argument.” As seems obvious, thinking and imagining together to call for divestment is no more “singling out” Israel than it was “singling out” Harvard to pay an “above market wage,” when students last year conducted their much acclaimed “sit-in” for a living wage. It is no more singling out Israel, than it was to “single out” the city of Cambridge when individuals concerned with global economic justice sought for it to boycott (successfully) World Bank Bonds. It is no more singling out Israel, than Students calling for an end to the Chinese Government’s repression and denial of Tibetan freedom and self determination are “singling” out China. And finally and most obviously, it is no more “singling” out Israel than it was “singling out” South Africa when all over the country people called for their Universities to divest from companies supporting the Apartheid policies of the South African government. Where we are tied in various ways to injustice against others—and let us be clear Occupying and illegally settling the remaining 22% of Historical Palestine is, indeed, a form of vigorous “oppression”—decent people seek to end these ties. Decent people think and act together to locate principled means by which to do so. Decent people seriously question whether it is an evasive pretense to dismiss such attempts by decalring that it is better to “engage” the Israeli Government, when we know full well that “engagement” means not only turning a blind eye towards criminal acts, human rights abuses, and countless other deprivations, but playing a determining role in enabling these by encouraging the Occupation and illegal settlement to continue.

We are here to say that we are stakeholders in our universities, and just as we would vote our “stake” to say no to our universities profiting from child labor, so now do we say NO to our universities profiting from the negation of Palestinian freedom and self-determination, and from Israeli insecurity. We ask our universities to cease investing in oppression and occupation. Why only Israel? The question is not genuine or accurately stated. It is not genuine because the answer is so obvious: Because only Israel is conducting the Israeli Occupation under which millions of Occupied Palestinians, many of whom were already dispossessed decades earlier, continue to suffer. Because only Israel continues to Occupy the 22% that remains of Historical Palestine and has been so for over three decades now. The question is not accurately stated, however, since it fails to make note of the two other questions we here are saying it is imperative for us to be asking along side it: namely, why us? and why our universities? If in answering these questions as we have suggested above, we are similarly “singling out” ourselves and our universities, then, so be it. Let us single out ourselves, and single out our universities. And in doing so do what we are obligated to, at least if peace and justice are worth fighting for.

Today is the start of our campaign; it will continue as long as necessary. And we thank you for listening and invite you to join us. Sign the petition, sign up for the email list, see our website at www.harvardmitdivest.org, spread the word, and keep your ears open next fall.