Editor’s note: This is in response to the recent op-ed “Israel Divestment campaign poses threat to peace, cooperation,” and concerns the overarching debate over student proposals for divestment from Israel.

In the past few weeks, Blue Demons Against BDS (Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions) have used ad-hominem attacks, name-calling and racist tropes against fellow students in attempt to undercut the DePaul Divest campaign, which calls on DePaul University to divest from companies that profit from Israeli human rights violations. Members of Demon PAC (the student organization behind the anti-BDS campaign) claim that DePaul Divest doesn’t want dialogue, and that without it there will be no peace.

But let’s face it: The DePaul Divest campaign has generated more campus-wide discussion on Israel/Palestine than we’ve seen since the 2010 Sabra Hummus Boycott. And in the history of the struggle for justice in Palestine, there has been no shortage of dialogue, with few tangible changes to speak of. In fact, statistics show that throughout the so-called “peace process,” the occupation has only grown more brutal. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Israeli settler population in Palestine has doubled, over 15,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished, a second Intifada (an Arabic term for uprising) has occurred (Oslo was supposed to have remedied the first) and a 430-mile-long wall has been constructed by Israel for “security purposes.”

Today, endless cycles of dialogue are the status quo that groups like Demon PAC hope to maintain. They claim that the 16 student organizations backing DePaul Divest don’t want peace simply because we are not satisfied with dialogue as the only means of producing change. To the contrary, in the words of Augusto Boal, the Brazilian activist, theorist, and director, “we seek peace, not passivity.”

Yes, we need critical conversations on our campus. So far, we have succeeding in creating that. But more than that, we need concrete action that will produce tangible change. BDS is a call to action for human rights, justice and equality, which was put forth by Palestinian Civil Society in 2005. Even the UN “calls on civil society to vigorously pursue initiatives to boycott, divest and sanction (companies complicit in Israel’s human rights violations) within their own national contexts, until such time as they bring their policies and practices into line with international laws and standards, as well as the Global Compact.” (From Article 99, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.)

Since the BDS call was issued, people worldwide have heeded it, from Israeli organizations like Boycott From Within, to student groups across the United States who are currently petitioning their universities to divest from Israeli human rights violations. To date, there have been divestment campaigns at over 20 schools in the US and Canada, with 13 schools successfully passing divestment resolutions or referendums, and conversations about Israel/Palestine occurring on a scale that is historically unprecedented.

What’s more, BDS has produced tangible results. In response to a worldwide boycott campaign, Veolia stopped running segregated bus lines in Palestine and Israel in 2013. Supermarket co-ops worldwide have halted trade with products sourced from Israeli settlements. Investment portfolios and major European banks have collectively pulled millions of dollars out of companies like G4S and Caterpillar, which are complicit in Israel’s human rights violations. And as a result, fewer companies are willing to sign contracts in settlements, with many ending contracts with the IPS and IDF.

Given that BDS is a non-violent movement, it is puzzling that groups like StandWithUs and Demon PAC, who supposedly call for a peaceful resolution, so vehemently oppose the movement. The fact of the matter is that no form of Palestinian resistance to occupation is acceptable to Israel. Palestinians are expected to sit and accept siege, bombings, torture, arbitrary arrests and administrative detention, the building of the wall, the stealing of their land and destruction of their homes, continued displacement and ethnic cleansing, and are not to resist. In this way, Palestinian suffering is seen as acceptable, even normal. That is the message that advocates for Israel continually sends us.

I have a challenge for groups like Demon PAC: Please explain how, if we do not engage in BDS, we are to take direct action against Israel’s human rights violations. “Dialogue” is not direct action. It seems that Demon PAC does not believe in direct action against blatant human rights violations at all.

And if Demon PAC does not believe that Israel is doing anything wrong, I dare them to explain how Israeli government policy is in any way acceptable, without attempting to legitimize human rights abuses, and without whitewashing them by calling attention to similar activities elsewhere in the world or Israel’s technological innovations.

“Security” is not an excuse. Checkpoints assume Israelis to be innocent until proven guilty, and Palestinians guilty until proven innocent. Here in the US, we have seen how racist “security” policies like stop-and-frisk have criminalized entire populations. And in the last 10 years or so, we have seen intimately how the pursuit of “security” been used to justify everything from the decimation of entire nations, to drone warfare, to national surveillance programs. These policies are not acceptable in the US, and they are not acceptable abroad. Israel is no exception.

In Palestine, there is military occupation. There is a siege. There is colonization. There are not two equal sides, eternally in conflict, in need of a heart-to-heart about their feelings over a plate of hummus. There is an oppressor, and an oppressed. There is a world of difference between co-existence and co-resistance.  In the words of Assata Shakur, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” DePaul Divest will happily work with those who will stand alongside us and actively oppose systems of oppression, no matter where they occur. We have realized that we are capable of creating tangible change through direct action. That is why we heed the BDS call.