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| Introduction to
Divestment Watch |
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Let's face some facts: The purpose of the
Divest-from-Israel campaign is to hurt Israel economically. It is being
sponsored by Palestinian groups in the United States and around the world as a
form of economic terrorism. The campaign itself was created by a consultant to
the Palestinian Authority who was, in his own words, key in the negotiations
for an independent Palestinian state. The goal of the campaign is to destroy
Israel's economy while claiming to negotiate for peace in good faith, which
obviously undermines the entire peace initiative.
In essence, the
divest-from-Israel campaign is a direct function of the Palestinian Authority,
and is therefore a part of the official Arab League boycott of Israel, of which
the Palestinian Authority is signatory.
It stands, therefore, in
violation of US laws that protect countries that are friendly to the US from
foreign boycotts, which is exactly what the Palestinian-based divestment
campaign is. A foreign boycott is a state sponsored boycott, and the Arab
boycott of Israel certainly fits that bill because it is an official function
of Arab League member states.
The US law forbidding participation in
foreign boycotts was created to prevent private citizens from creating de-facto
foreign policy, since that is the domain of Congress and the President. The
divest-from-Israel campaign is a form of boycott, and therefore illegal
boycott. The purpose of this website is to give people the information they
need to properly combat this assault on democracy, the free market economy and
US laws that protect our allies. |
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Divest-from-Israel campaigns have proliferated in
the last two years, mostly on college campuses, but also in cities and towns,
churches, businesses and non-profit organizations.
These movements have
precedents, notably the illegal eight-decade Arab Boycott of Israel, the
Zionism = Racism propaganda campaign that began in the mid-1970s with rise of
Arab oil power, and worldwide calls to boycott the Jewish state since the
outbreak of most recent violence in the Middle East.
Using the rhetoric
(and claiming the mantle) of the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980s,
anti-Israel activists have tried to recruit universities, municipalities and
other institutions to punish the Jewish state economically and to get these
institutions to (wittingly or unwittingly) lend their name and reputations to
further a propaganda agenda, singling out Israel as a racist, apartheid state
alone in the world deserving economic sanction and separation from "decent"
humankind.
The good news is that these movements have found little
success. Not a single university has chosen to follow calls for divestment in
companies doing business with the Jewish state, and the movement's first major
foray into municipalities (the city of Somerville, MA) met with total failure.
Still, the goal of the divestment-from-Israel movement, and similar
groups who use the vocabulary of human rights to attack the only democracy in
the Middle East is to resurrect through endless attack the "Big Lie" buried a
decade ago in the UN: that "Zionism equals racism."
The resources on
this site are designed to provide those battling calls to divest from Israel in
their schools, towns, and churches the resources they need to expose the
divestment-from-Israel for what it is: a request to have noble institutions
take part in an immoral and possibly illegal worldwide boycott and propaganda
campaign. |
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