Letter to the Editor: Israel Divestment

David Zonshayn, Contributing Writer

A few weeks ago, the coalition of students and faculty NYU Out of Occupied Palestine sent an email to the NYU community containing a 14-page petition. The petition is titled, “Should NYU Divest? Labor, Fossil Fuels and Palestine.”

The petition bundles a radical proposal to boycott Israel with commonly shared concerns about fair labor and fossil fuels. This is as if to say if you support a cleaner world, you should also support a boycott of Israel, never mind that Israel is at the forefront of alternative energy technology.

The Students for Justice in Palestine describe the petition as “an advancement of the international campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel” — a movement that even Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, firmly opposes. In fact, the Palestinian Authority arrested four BDS activists in Ramallah last year.

Divesting from Israel does not serve the interests of the Palestinian people. There are currently 14 Israeli industrial parks in the West Bank. These include 758 factories and businesses, which employ 11,000 Palestinian workers. These workers are paid twice to three times as much as the average Palestinian salary, and they receive all the benefits given to Israeli workers.

Moreover, according to research conducted by Al Quds University, the volume of Palestinian investment into Israel is twice the amount that is invested into the Palestinian economy. This makes sense, considering Israel has more companies listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange than any country outside of the United States, save China. Approximately 16,000 Palestinians with entry visas to Israel choose to invest their money in Israel. If the divestment movement succeeds, Palestinians will suffer economically.

Page three of the petition demands that Israel comply with U.N. Resolution 194 with respect to compensating Palestinian refugees for their losses. In fact, Israel has already offered to do so multiple times. At both Camp David and Taba, Israel offered a $35 billion compensation package to Palestinian refugees, in addition to 97 percent of the West Bank, the entire Gaza strip and a capital in Jerusalem. No Arab nation has yet offered to compensate the 820,000 Jews who were forced to flee from their homes in Arab lands after the Arabs declared war on Israel in 1948. In fact, had the Arabs accepted the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan instead of going to war against Israel, there would now be an independent Palestinian state beside Israel, no refugees and no presumed need to divest from anybody.

Unlike what the petition will have you believe, Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not the main obstacles to peace. After all, the Arabs waged two major wars against Israel before a single settlement was even built, not to mention constant Fedayeen incursions during which Arab guerillas from Syria, Egypt and Jordan infiltrated Israel to attack civilians and soldiers. Moreover, settlements can be evacuated. As previously demonstrated, Israel returned every inch of land that it captured from Egypt during the Six-Day War as soon as Egypt renounced belligerency. Fifteen years later, it did the same with Jordan as soon as it made peace with Israel, and Israel has yet to reach a similar deal with the Palestinian Authority.

There are difficult issues to be resolved between Israel and the Palestinians, including the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian democracy and the recognition of a Jewish state. Boycotting Israeli companies, however, implies that Israel is solely to blame for the continuation of the occupation, and will defeat whatever coexistence there is between Israel and the Palestinians.

Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them.

Email David Zonshayn at [email protected].