Stanford re-votes, divestment passes in a landslide victory

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/stanford-divestment-landslide

On February 17, the Undergraduate Senate of Stanford University voted 10-1-4 to pass a resolution to divest from the occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The resolution, entitled A Resolution to Divest from Companies Violating Human Rights in Occupied Palestine, calls on Stanford to stop investing in multinational corporations facilitating human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Senate Chair and Senate Deputy Chair motioned to reconsider the resolution after it was narrowly defeated by one vote last week (9 for, 1 abstention, 5 against). The senators stated that the hostile environment opponents of divestment created at last week’s hearing impeded their ability to vote with clarity and requested the opportunity to align their votes with their true opinions. In the original vote, the two senators had respectively abstained and voted no. After their motion to reconsider passed in Tuesday’s hearing, they changed their votes to a ‘yes’ and ‘abstain.’ The re-vote followed a two hour-long hearing and ended in a historic vote in favor of divestment with 10 senators voting in support, one abstention, and 4 against.

Organizers of the campaign were surprised that the Senate decided to vote on the resolution again and expressed excitement about the Senate vote.

“After months of hard work, it is gratifying to witness the Senate answer our call and affirm our efforts towards divestment.” said sophomore Ramah Awad. “Our next step is to pressure the Board of Trustees to follow through. We ask the Board and President Hennessy directly: ‘Are you going to listen to the student voice?’”

BDS.

[Dick Dastardly]

1. They call a change of 1 vote a landslide? That is a hoot.

Calling it a landslide is just the usual embellishment and spin that comes from a BDS reeking of desperation to show its not just a bad joke.

Even a bigger hoot is the sneaky tactics they had to use to get that 1 vote especially considering its a meaningless bloviation that carries no weight and has no support among those who do make such decisions.
Unlike the previous failed vote attended by a large crowd, which plenty of notice was given and tthere was plenty of debate prior to the vote. The re-vote was passed pretty much by sneaking it in when no one was looking.
This re-vote was snuck in a week later in the middle of midterms, with little notice of less than 24 hours and holding almost no debate. The resolution also had to be watered down by being amended separating it from any relationship to the BDS organization, as well as add some other stuff about Israel's right to exist. Despite the sneaky tactics and amendments watering it down it still barely passed only garnering one more vote in support. It was hardly a landslide as claimed.

Sure BDS has had a few victories but only about as many as you can count on one hand in areas that have any real financial significance and those are so few they are meaningless. Most of the victories are in areas like the OP where you would expect to find a more radical element including those supportive of BDS. Not only do these victories lack any financial significance and meaning except to maybe the BDS supporters fooling themselves but they are victories that lack any authority to implement what they are calling for and lack support from those that do. Most are little more than empty gestures that have been closely decided.
Even if the Israeli economy stopped growing, BDS at its current rate of success will take almost to the end of time to have the least minuscule effect.
BDS supporters can continue to crow about its victories all it wants but they are only fooling themselves.


BDS supporters never provide any factual data to support its claims of its successfully putting effective economic pressure on the Israeli economy. Instead we get only ridiculous embellishment and spin of anything in order to hide the failure of BDS.

[grossproffit]

2. They are disgusting and that's putting it kindly.

The entire BDS movement is a disgrace.