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Divesting from Israel Is Counterproductive, Simplistic, Biased
(Daily Northwestern) Edmund Bannister - The Northwestern University Divest movement aims to prevent NU from investing in companies including G4S, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard, which make products for the Israeli military. Just last year, Lockheed Martin reached an $11.25 billion military contracting deal with Saudi Arabia. Both Lockheed and Boeing manufacture the F-16 and F-15 fighter jets used by the Saudi Air Force. According to the UN, the Saudis have killed over 3,000 civilians in their military intervention in Yemen's civil war. Boeing also recently reached a multi-billion dollar agreement with Turkey to manufacture F-16s, many of which are used in Turkey's violent repression of the Kurdish minority population. According to the Los Angeles Times, Turkey is responsible for the destruction of 4,000 Kurdish villages and the deaths of 35,000 Kurds. If we can't sanction every country on Earth that violates human rights, surely we must choose the worst ones first. I find it difficult to believe that Israel is more repressive than Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, Egypt's Al-Sisi, or the Saudi monarchy. As a result I find it impossible to believe that NU Divest is making rational choices when it attempts to sanction Israel. It is insulting and unfair for the divestment movement to target a small Jewish democracy over far larger and more violent actors.