USF’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has gathered more than 10,000 signatures on a petition that calls for the USF Foundation to withdraw its investments in certain management funds and re-invest in more “ethical” corporations.
The corporations that the SJP wants USF to disassociate itself from include Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, G4S PLC, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, all considered to be suppliers of weapons used by the government of Israel against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories..
"That's one-fourth of the student body," says Malak Fakhoury proudly. She's an SJP member and a sophomore majoring in psychology. Fakhoury says the group will present its petitions to the administration at the Board of Trustees meeting in early June at the Marshall Student Center Ballroom. "That's when we'll make our stand," she says.
Calls for divestment have been growing on U.S. university campuses, along with academic boycotts — all part of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement which has gained strong momentum in the past couple of years.
"We [SJP] chose the BDS approach because boycott, divestment, and sanctions bring results which are immediate and nonviolent," says Ahmad Saadaldin, president of Students for Justice in Palestine. "History has revealed that similar efforts are effective in altering the consciousness and actions of a society. As long as the occupation exists, we're going to speak out against it. As long as there are checkpoints, a wall, soldiers, and settlements, we're going to raise awareness. Palestinians are human beings, and their rights have every reason to be fulfilled entirely."
"The support we've received, from faculty members to other student organizations, has been phenomenal. More than twice the number of students that voted in the student government elections have already endorsed the petition," adds Omar Erchid, public relations officer of Students for Justice in Palestine.
"If you asked me, I’m pro-Israel, I’m pro-Palestinan, and I’m pro-peace. The BDS movement is not," counters Rabbi Ed Rosenthal, director of USF Hillel. Rosenthal also alleges that SJP wasn't up front when asking students to sign the petition, telling them it was about defending human rights, not divesting from Israel.
"We asked 10,000 people if they were against human rights violations and then we told them their signature would signify that they did not want the University of South Florida to financially support corporations complicit in such," responds Fakhoury. She adds that, although the majority of the signatures gathered were collected from students, "there is a minority of faculty, staff, and alumni present on the petition." She says that everyone who signed is part of the USF community.
When asked for a comment, USF spokesman Adam Freeman said, "The USF Foundation has not been presented with a petition and can’t respond to a petition that has not been received. If and when a petition is presented to the Foundation, it will be reviewed and considered."
However, USF President Judy Genshaft has criticized the American Studies Association's proposal to boycott Israeli academic institutions, calling it "antithetical to the core values of academic freedom and the open exchange of knowledge and ideas across institutions of higher education."