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Columbia University "Apartheid Divest" Divests from Peace

(Columbia Spectator) Daniella Greenbaum - Earlier this week, members of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace teamed up to form "CU Apartheid Divest" (CUAD). The name is a creative, albeit manipulative, method aimed at ensuring that the allegation of apartheid enters campus discourse as an uncontested fact. Instead of valuing coexistence and the two-state solution, the divestment movement simply calls for the destruction of Israel. The movement's co-founder, Omar Barghouti, stated, "definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine." At Columbia, the broader campus community frequently grapples with the concepts of microaggressions and safe spaces, but the petition to divest is a tactic that marginalizes Jewish and Israeli students on campus. It is no different than any other exclusionary initiative. By encouraging polarization, discouraging negotiation, and misrepresenting the political landscape, CUAD abandons the aspiration for peace and embraces perpetual mutual hostility. We need to work constructively toward a plausible solution, not waste time doing what Journalism School professor Todd Gitlin described as "a stamping of the collective foot." We must work together as a student body - not to divest from Israel, but to invest in peace. The writer, a Barnard College junior, is president of Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel.
2016-02-05 00:00:00
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