To the Editor:
In a recent editorial ("Israel divestment is hypocritical," Nov. 27), The Herald editorial page board accused Brown Students for Justice in Palestine and the Brown Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies of hypocrisy for considering divestment from Israel without doing so for every other human rights violation on the planet. The double standard is not on our end, however, but on theirs. We cannot address all the problems in the world at once, and that does not mean we should not fight against any of them. Brown has "singled out" other perpetrators of human rights violations before - the University has divested from companies that supported the genocide in Sudan, served the apartheid regime in South Africa and violated labor laws. To hold Israel to a different standard or to exempt them from similar scrutiny would be the real hypocrisy.
In fact, Israel's relationship with the United States, and with our tax dollars, is highly "singular." Israel receives $3 billion in military and economic assistance annually from the United States, making up more than one-fifth of total U.S. foreign aid. Israel likewise has a unique relationship with the United Nations, which remains silent while Israel violates one international law after another with total impunity. And yet, when activists demand an end to this exceptional treatment, they are accused of anti-Semitism.
BSJP speaks out against Israel's crimes because the core of our movement is the rejection of racism, settler-colonialism and violence - not just in Israel - but everywhere. While we actively organize around the Palestinian struggle, we stand in solidarity with other liberation movements, and we reject the editorial page board's attempt to pit justice for one people against that of any other.
Brown Students for Justice in Palestine
