By Roz Rothstein
LA JOLLA, California–Pro-Palestinian forces at UCSD failed early Thursday morning to persuade the student Senate at UCSD to divest their funds from companies doing business with Israel.
At 1:30am (the debate began at 6:00pm Wednesday event), the student Senate passed an amendment that watered down the resolution so much that it no longer had any obvious connection to Israel.
The Senate then voted to refer the newly amended bill to committee where three students from each side and two senators were to discuss and revise it. But school is almost over, and the new Senate will be taking over, and unfinished bills terminate.
However, the campus divestment campaign once again caused divisiveness and pain on campus.
The groups who orchestrate this effort to delegitimize Israel are fervently determined to succeed, no matter what the consequences are for the student body.
The UCSD Jewish and other pro-Israel students put up a vigorous defense, but the determination and hostility of the other side had created a difficult situation.
They featured videos of anti-Israel Jews like Heddy Epstein and Anna Baltzer to give the impression that Jews, too, denounce Israel ,even though the Jews they work with represent only an atypical, marginal percentage of Jewish views.
Israel’s actions were once again judged without any context. The 62-year-old Arab wars against Israel, the immediate threats posed by Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, and the terrorism Israel constantly faces were simply whitewashed away, giving the impression that Israel’s self-defense measures were not done for self-defense, but for malicious reasons.
The pro-Israel and especially Jewish students felt marginalized and frustrated. Some admitted they are reluctant to wear outside signs of their Jewishness on campus.
Nonetheless, these students rose to the occasion, and new pro-Israel leaders were created because necessity is the mother of invention.
The undecided senators should also be commended for trying hard to be fair and listen to both sides. Several said that they simply did not know enough to weigh in on as complex and long-standing an international issue as the Arab-Israeli conflict. They should be commended for their common sense.
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Rothstein is CEO of StandWithUs, a nine year-old, international, non-profit Israel education organization that ensures that Israel’s side of the story is told on campuses and in other venues.