The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) student government voted late Tuesday to recommend that the university divest from companies that are alleged to profit from Israeli human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The motion passed after a similar measure failed in the spring–and just hours after a deadly Palestinian terror attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem that killed five, including a rabbi formerly from Los Angeles.
The Daily Bruin, the UCLA student newspaper, reported that the motion passed with eight votes in favor, two against, and two abstentions. A few Jewish students and organizations expressed their strong opposition to the one-sided motion, but to no avail. The director of Students for Justice in Palestine said: “…[A]s a Palestinian, I want to thank every single person who helped us pass this bill, for getting us one step closer to a free Palestine.”
The student government took no action against the Egyptian government, which recently demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes in an effort to defeat terror groups that have launched attacks in the Sinai desert. Nor did it vote against the Syrian regime, or the ISIS terrorist organization. After the student vote, UCLA Gene Block reiterated the university’s strong opposition to divestment from Israel, according to the local Jewish Journal.
The Journal added that most Jewish student organizations boycotted the resolution. One student was quoted as saying: “We don’t validate this conversation, not in a space where people are able to spew hatred and anti-Semitism.” Another pro-Israel student mourned that UCLA would henceforth be looked at as “not a good place for an entire Jewish community…Look at it now–it’s already heartbreaking for the six of us that came.”
Senior Editor-at-Large Joel B. Pollak edits Breitbart California and is the author of the new ebook, Wacko Birds: The Fall (and Rise) of the Tea Party, available for Amazon Kindle.
Follow Joel on Twitter: @joelpollak
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