Hampshire College BDS Conference transcripts : AZ IMC

Hampshire BDS Planning Meeting - Exclusive Transcript
A friend from Northampton slipped me a transcript of a recent planning meeting for next weekend's divestment conference at Hampshire College. Apparently some of the original audio recording was garbled, so forgive any dead patches.

Freddy (Student for Justice in Palestine leader): OK gang, we've got to start this conference off with a bang. Now we're still hoping Omar Barghouti can give the opening speech addressing the compelling need for a comprehensive boycott of Israeli academia. But in case he's still taking his finals at Tel Aviv University, I thought we could begin with a stemwinder about the outstanding successes BDS has had this year.

Unknown Student (Female): Yeah! We could talk about the Norwegian government's decision to pull out of Elbit!

Unknown Student (Male): Norway! Give me a break. They've already got squishy on us, highlighting the fact that they continue to invest in over 40 Israeli companies. Besides, who gives a sh*t what Norway thinks. Whoever heard of Norway?

Sven: I have. I was born there.

Unknown Student (Male): You know what I mean.

Yakov: As I Jew, I understand where you're coming from. So why don't we skip Norway for now and focus on university divestment. After all, most of the attendees will be college undergrads, and many of them - like me - will be Jewish.

Freddy: Yakov's right. So who's got the list of colleges that have divested from the Zionist Entity? Carlos - you're head of the academic subcommittee of the action committee of the steering committee. What's the number of wins have we had on the college front?

Carlos: [Sound of shuffling papers]. Well, according my latest research and calculations, the number of schools that have heeded our call and divested from Israel stands at [coughs].

Unknown Student [Female]: What was that Carlos? I didn't hear you.

Carlos: [Coughs a few more times.] Well, zero actually.

Freddy: You mean after eight years of BDS committees working tirelessly on every college in the nation, not one school has actually divested a single dollar from the NaZionist Colonial Power?

Carlos: Well it sounds bad when you put it that way.

[Unintelligible arguing. Sounds of papers being thrown in the air and doors slamming.]

Freddy: OK, OK so we know what to say if the subject of academic divestment comes up. Here on the East Coast, we would have won a series of unending triumphs except for the ugly intervention of Lawrence Summers who tried to muzzle us at Harvard by calling us anti-Semites.

Sven: Actually, I am an anti-Semite.

Freddy: Sorry, Sven. I was just making a point. OK, so by invoking knee-jerk accusations of bigotry, that tired old misogynist "Sexism Summers" censored us by having the gall to state his opinion about what Harvard should or shouldn't do, just because he as the college's President at the time. And then his lackey Alan Dershowitz forced our own President here at Hampshire to say he'd never divest from Israel.

Carlos: Actually, the President of Hampshire said he'd never divest a year before Dershowitz showed up.

Freddy: That's beside the point. After all, who gets to decide the school's investment policies, the administration and investment managers, or us? Of course they're going to use the excuse that we're just a bunch of undergraduates who don't speak on behalf of the college. But do any of them even know how to Tweet?

Yakov: I've got to agree with Freddy's interpretation of events. While we may not have won any actual "victories," I think it's fair to say we've already won the war on campus. Oh, and did I mention I'm Jewish?