The pro-Israel community at DePaul University applauds Loyola University United Student Government Association President Pedro Guerrero’s courageous decision to veto an anti-Israel Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution, which would prevent Loyola from purchasing from Israeli companies that they accuse of perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A BDS resolution was also flatly rejected March 26 at the University of Michigan (by a vote of 9 for, 25 against) and last month at UCLA. The veto of the one-sided BDS bill at Loyola brings yet another defeat to the larger Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that aims to single out the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, for supposed human rights violations in the Palestinian conflict.
We realize this is a highly sensitive and contentious issue for many and that no country is perfect. However, a targeted approach against Israel is no way to go about resolving an international conflict. Proponents of the BDS measure, in their belief that economic isolation and cultural boycott of Israel will dismantle her Jewish character and lead to the creation of a binational state, choose to reject the complexity of the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and are unable to identify tangible results in the haphazard blacklisting of corporations.
Simply put, the BDS measure that was brought before Loyola would not have had any meaningful outcomes other than deeply polarizing the student body. All people living in the Middle East – whether Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, Christian, Jew or Muslim – should have the inalienable right to live in peace.
Therefore, our campus community should pursue positive steps towards diplomacy, such as supporting current peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and not divisive measures like BDS, which opposes the Israeli right to self-determination and inhibits the Palestinian path to statehood. We reject the notion that opposing BDS is tantamount to opposing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
Quite the contrary. Since leaders of the BDS movement openly oppose a two-state solution, supporting BDS only further discourages the Palestinian leadership from accepting any reasonable peace offer.
The BDS movement threatens the peace process, and the only way forward is through direct negotiations, compromise and comity. We are resolved to create a campus environment that promotes tolerance, encourages collaboration, inspires constructive advocacy and welcomes open dialogue.
We support the current and ongoing peace process, which aims to honor both Israeli and Palestinian rights to self-determination and security. We urge the DePaul Student Government Association to oppose any effort to divest from Israel.
Furthermore, it is more collaboration – not less – between Israeli, Palestinian and American universities like DePaul that will lead to the kind of peace building and collaboration that is necessary to bring an end to the decades-long conflict.