BDS Fraud at Hampshire College : AZ IMC

Hampshire College- more BDS Fraud

Divestment has always been more about symbolism than economics. After all, boycotting a company or country can have a direct impact on the top (and thus the bottom) line. But you can only divest in a company by selling your shares of its stock, which requires someone to buy them. And unless the world knows WHY you have sold a particular stock, your choice becomes just one more “sell” decision taken by investors millions of times a day for millions of undisclosed reasons.

This is why divestment campaigns are all about getting prominent institutions (such as universities, cities, churches and unions) to make divestment decisions, no matter how minimal in economic terms, tied to public declarations that these actions are specifically about Israel or the Israeli-Arab conflict. After all, a student organization calling for boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) against Israel is just part of ongoing campus political noise. But Harvard University or the Presbyterian Church tying its name to a divestment call packs political power, allowing anti-Israel groups to punch way above their weight by leveraging the reputation of someone else.

But what happens when an institution refuses to play along? You then end up with strange cases like the recent divestment brouhaha at Hampshire College.

Hampshire, a small, progressive liberal arts college in Western Massachusetts, has one of the smallest endowments in the country. But it stands as a symbol having been the first college to publically divest that small endowment from companies doing business in South Africa in the 1980s. Hampshire as a symbolic prize meant that divestment activists, in the form of a student group called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), kept up its divestment crusade years after divestment had moved on at most other schools.

College administrators were respectful and polite to SJP, even if they made it clear they had no intention of joining SJP in denouncing the Jewish state as the next South Africa. But during the course of an outside consultant’s review of school investment holdings, Hampshire decided to sell shares in a particular fund identified as invested in companies that did not meet the school’s ethical investment guidelines (policies that included support for unions, and statements on issues such as Sudan/Darfur, but no stance regarding Israel). SJP, which had asked the school to divest in companies doing business with Israel (some of which turned out to be in the fund selected by Hampshire’s outside consultant), quickly declared victory, announcing to the world that Hampshire had become the first US college to openly divest from the Jewish state.

Given the importance of this alleged “victory,” it was curious why SJP made these public pronouncements on its own, rather than standing alongside college administrators and investment managers to announce this supposedly historic decision. The reason for SJP’s independent action quickly became clear when the administration announced that its investment decisions had nothing to do with Israel or the Middle East, and that SJP was deliberately misleading the public for its own political ends.

This confusion continued for several weeks as Hampshire College administrators tried to have it both ways, allowing the student group to declare victory while assuring the press and alumni that the school had not divested. Much is made of Alan Dershowitz’s call for a boycott of donations to Hampshire (where Dershowitz’s son attended), but in fact the prominent Harvard attorney only clarified that the school could not straddle this issue, leading Hampshire President Hexter to declare in no uncertain terms that (1) the school had not divested in Israel; (2) the school maintained investments in the very companies SJP claimed were being boycotted and would continue to invest in them in the future; and (3) that SJP was inappropriately speaking on behalf of the college, unacceptable behavior that could have consequences for the student group.

By then, SJP had already sent out press releases and public statements saying Hampshire had done what it clearly had not, taking advantage of the administration’s initial lack of clarity to encourage similar decisions at other schools. While they eventually modified their statements, moving from unequivocally declaring Hampshire was on their side to saying that SJP simply believed this to be the case (despite administration denials) with all their hearts.

On the one hand, this campaign of deception was successful with Hampshire continuing to be held aloft as an example for other institutions to join Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaigns against Israel. At the same time, the behavior of SJP has put other schools on notice that being polite and respectful to student groups calling for divestment reviews caries a risk since these groups have proven themselves willing to do and say anything (including manipulating institutions and deceiving the public, regardless of the cost to a university) to gain their own political ends.

While the recent Hampshire fiasco offered groups like SJP a temporary perceived victory, it may have also spelled defeat for any other similar divestment project in the future by broadcasting a warning regarding the excesses and dishonesty of divestment’s promoters. Having seen the results of Hampshire falling for divestment’s bait-and-switch, what are the chances that other colleges will fall into the same trap?

Hampshire BDS Conference Transcript

I've been having a little fun over at my friend Sol's blog (http://www.solomonia.com) regard next weekend's divestment conference at Hampshire. I'll try to post thoughts on that event here, but in the meantime you can find stuff on a blog which, unlike this one, has the advantage of actually being read by thousands...

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/hampshire-bds-planning-meeting---exclusi/index.shtml

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/hampshire-sjp-planning-meeting---continu/index.shtml

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/buy-cott-invest-celebrate/index.shtml

Is there some way to counter divestment-realted frauds or hoaxes like what went on at Hampshire earlier this year?

Remember that political divestment cannot be said to have taken place unless the institution doing the divestment makes it unambiguously clear why they are divesting. In the case of Hampshire, it was reasonable to ask students making claims on behalf of the college why campus decision makers (such as the college president or investment committee members) were not standing alongside them, substantiating their claims, rather than communicating the opposite (that Hampshire had not divested from Israel) to the world.

Is what happened in Hampshire typical of the behavior of the BDS “movement?”

Because divestment has proven so unpopular with students, educators and college administrators, BDS activists often have to go to great lengths to obtain anything they can portray as some kind of victory. While outright fraud (as in Hampshire) has yet to be repeated, more common questionable behavior includes portraying petition drives (even those out-petitioned by anti-divestment activists 10:1) or student council votes (even unsuccessful ones) as representing campus opinion.

There has also been a tendency of BDS leaders to meet with administrators or student government leaders behind closed doors, hoping to obtain support before Israel’s supporters are aware that divestment decisions or votes are underway.

Finally, when discussing divestment with school or student leadership, BDS activists will often “sell” less-controversial messages such as “ethical investment” or “human rights,” only to turn around after gaining some level of support to declare that an institution is entirely in agreement with their real message that Israel is an “Apartheid State” alone in the world deserving economic punishment. More than one institution has had the unwelcomed experience of having the words of the BDS movement “stuffed into its mouth” by this type of bait-and-switch tactic.

Bonding with BDS
The agenda for this weekend's Hampshire BDS conference is up, and it's fair to say that they've put together a pretty comprehensive program. Given that this event (and similar ones on other campuses) is likely a spin off from the 8th annual national divestment meeting that took place in Chicago earlier this year, you can't say that the Israel-dislikers out there have not been putting time, money and resources into this tactic over the last decade.

Which begs the question as to why, after nearly ten years of effort, they have far less to show for themselves than they did even four years ago?

One explanation (the one BDS champions have used in the past) is that it takes time to build a movement, and that everything that's taken place over the last 8+ years are small steps that will culminate in their overall victory getting Israel branded as the successor to Apartheid South Africa. But if we are to measure progress by success, rather than noise level, at best BDS is a project that has had its ups and downs, but is generally trending southward in terms of actual institutional victories.

Another explanation is that the early victories of BDS (Presbyterians, British unions) and divestment hoaxes (Hampshire, TIAA-CREF) created countervailing forces in the form of activists such as myself, and awareness by those who would be involved with divestment decisions of the nastiness that underlies boycott, divestment and sanctions. In this way, the Presbyterian Church took one for Mainline Christianity by getting infected, healing and then spreading its antibodies around its fellow churches.

There is a third option (one that, admittedly, remains speculative) that BDS conferences like the one at Hampshire this weekend are ends in themselves. Under this interpretation, the purpose of these events is to make the participants feel like they are all part of a virtuous, all-seeing vanguard that understands the world in ways the masses who overwhelmingly support Israel and reject BDS do not.

Given the number of Israel=Apartheid events featuring posters with the world "Apartheid" misspelled, it's safe to say that current campus Boycott Israel participants are not propelled by experience or understanding of what the injustice of Apartheid was really like (beyond being a dirty word with emotional resonance). And given the speed at which BDSers turn their head and spin on their heels whenever they're confronted with their indifference to genuine human rights abuses committed by their political allies, it's safe to say that the distance between their virtuous self-image and reality remains as vast as ever.

Which gets us back to the notion that hate-fests like Israel-Apartheid Week and divestment hoax celebrations like this weekend's event at Hampshire may actually serve as a form of social bonding for the participants, rather than as a genuine form of political activity. After all, a truly political movement would have to put at least a few minutes into thinking through the consequences of their actions. And given how much worse the plight of the very Palestinians BDSers claim to care so much about has gotten with every year the divestment bandwagon marches on, serious political reflection is the one thing that won't be on the agenda at Hampshire this weekend.

Hampshire and The Brain - Part 1

Pinky (running on a wheel in his cage): What are we going to do tonight Brain?

Brain (turning towards the camera): The same thing we do every night Pinky: try to get Hampshire College to divest from Israel!

They’re Pinky and The Brain
Yes Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius, the other’s insane
They’ll do their very best
To get Hampshire to divest
They’re dinky, their Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Narf!

Scene 1: Pinky is playing with a keffiyeh, trying desperately to tie it around his head in a form that resembles Israel. Unfortunately, his attempts leave the scarf looking more like the former Soviet Union. Brain, in the meanwhile, is tinkering with some undisclosed technology.

Pinky: Look at me Brain! I’m Yassir Aeroflot!

Pinky puts his arms in the air and begins running around the cage. Brain grabs him by the snout, causing his keffiyeh to fly off.

Brain: While I appreciate your attempts at solidarity with the downtrodden, my cretinous companion, we have no time for such tomfoolery. For tonight, I have come up with my most ingenious plan yet for getting Hampshire College to remove investment’s that benefit the Zionist Entity from its $10,000 endowment.

Pinky: Are you going to send out press releases pretending the college already divested?

Brain: Pinky, think for a moment. What imbecile would believe a press release coming from a set of experimental laboratory mice? Why the idea is almost as ridiculous as a press release from a student group claiming to speak for the college. No, in order for such an announcement to be taken seriously it must come directly from Hampshire’s administration and Board of Trustees. And in order to secure such an annoucement: Behold, the Hypno-Hat!

Brain pulls off a sheet covering his latest creation: A top hat featuring a spinning hypno-wheel bolted to its brim. Pinky starts staring at the wheel, his head spinning in circles.

Brain: Just a few minutes of exposure to my Hypno-Hat and Hampshire’s Board of Trustees will do whatever I command. And I shall command them to sell off the $437.85 they currently have invested in the state of “Israel”.

Pinky (getting dizzy as he continues to stare at the hat’s spinning disk): That’s great Brain, but why do you have quote marks around “Israel?”

Brain: Never mind that now, Pinky [turning off the hat before his companion falls under its spell]. For tonight we shall achieve the greatest triumph for BDS in ten years.

Pinky: But wait a minute, what about Katie Couric?

Brain: Not CBS, you dolt, BDS: the global movement for boycott, sanctions and divestment against the so-called “Jewish state.”

Pinky: Oh right Brain! Oh wait, no. No. Your hat is really whirly-twirly and everything, but how are you going to get it in front of the entire Hampshire board?

Brain: I’m glad you asked that, Pinky. [Walking towards a computer which he operates with a pair of robot arms typing on the keyboard.] For as we speak, a six-point ballot I have created using my free SurveyChimp subscription is winging its way to every Hampshire student, alumni and teacher, including everyone who has ever visited the Eric Carl Museum. Behold!

Brain’s ballot/survey appears on the screen that reads the following:

We, the Undersigned, agree to the following six point plan for Hampshire College:

· Free beer in the dining hall
· Bongs installed in the public lavatories
· Sabbaticals extended to every month containing the letter R
· An end to ROTC recruitment on campus
· Free Eric Carl finger puppets for each museum visitor

Pinky: I can’t read the sixth point Brain. The print is too tiny.

Brain: Let me magnify it for you friend.

Brain hits another button which zooms in on the tiny print which now reads:

· And we declare The Brain to be the sole, legitimate representative of the Hampshire Student body

Brain: Now let’s see what has transpired since my petition hit Facebook a half an hour ago.

[The screen indicates that the petition has been signed by 800 people.]

Brain: Yes! The student body has unanimously declared me their spokesmouse. And tomorrow we will present our demands to the Hampshire Board of Trustees!

Pinky: Oh, nummy!