About the series: Adalah ("justice" in Arabic) is a diary series about the Middle East, with special (but not exclusive) emphasis on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The authors of this series believe in the right of self-determination for all the people of the Middle East and that a just resolution respecting the rights and dignity of both Palestinians and Israelis is the only viable option for peace. Our diaries will consist of news roundup and analysis. We invite you to discuss them in the comments or contribute with stories from the region which deserve attention. We ask only that you be respectful and that the number of meta comments be kept to a minimum.
The eminent scholar Professor Cornel West, one of the great public intellectuals of our time and a champion of equality and justice, has endorsed the campaign of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) against corporations which profit from the Israeli occupation, a movement which seeks to end Israel's ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians and the continuing illegal settlement of Palestinian lands in the West Bank. Professor West joins towering intellectual figures in the US, including Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, and Adrienne Rich, as well as leading moral luminaries such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, in the campaign.
In a letter to the University of Arizona community, Professor West called on the University of Arizona to divest from corporations, including Caterpillar and Motorola, that profit from Israel's settlement policies and the occupation of Palestinian lands, linking the construction of the illegal separation/apartheid wall in the West Bank with the wall on the US-Mexico border in Arizona and anti-immigrant policies in Arizona:
As [South African Archbishop Desmond] Tutu and many others point out in the case of the Palestinians—as well as that of Latina/o immigrants and indigenous peoples in the U.S.—the tactic of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is an effectively nonviolent means of exerting moral and economic pressures to end unjust policies, from racial profiling to repressive laws, to foreign occupation and land settlement.
The BDS campaign exists precisely because the international community has refused to intervene on behalf of the human and political rights of Palestinians to live in peace and security in their own homeland. As Professor West writes:
Powerful social movements such as the one that helped end South African apartheid have shown that when world governments fail to enforce the rule of law, international civil community must arise to meet the challenge of upholding fundamental human rights and securing justice.
By connecting the struggles of indigenous peoples, immigrants, and people of the color in the US with the struggles of indigenous Palestinians for freedom and justice, and by lending his voice to the struggle for human dignity and human rights in Palestine, Professor West exposes the ways that state and corporate power profit from similar systems of injustice around the world.
U.S. corporations like Caterpillar and Motorola—and others especially in the prison-Industrial complex—continue to profit from the suffering of peoples who seek dignity and self-determination in Arizona. Similar corporations profit from the misery of occupied and distressed peoples in Palestine.
Join Professor West in his call for justice in Palestine by joining the BDS movement and by contacting your elected officials regarding our government's complicity in denying equal rights and self-determination to the Palestinian people. Sign the Jewish Voice for Peace petition to urge TIAA-CREF to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.