New push for divestment from Cornell's pro-BDS groups

Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine are starting a new campaign to get Cornell to divest from Israel companies that they consider "war-profiteering." Five years ago they tried to get the Student Assembly to approve their divestment vote, with complete lack of success. [Their account is that a "sickeningly racist campus climate revealed itself" when the Assembly voted to table the resolution, but the account by Legal Insurrection that shows there's no basis for their claim that racism led to the rejection of BDS]. Now they're trying again, in an announcement replete with florid denunciations. I particularly like the rhetorical flourish that Cornell is guilty of being built on "stolen Cayuga land," as if that has anything to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So in 2019, BDS measures will unravel differently. at this Ivory Tower on stolen Cayuga land. BDS will be put “back on the table” in the form of a Student Assembly resolution authored by SJP and backed by 20+ organizations. We will publicly name endowment investments in war-profiteering Israeli entities, demand immediate action to secure their severance, and hold university leadership responsible for complicity in crimes of apartheid.

Check out the letter delivered to President Martha Pollack Monday morning. We are thankful for the Palestine support and solidarity present on Cornell's campus.

They haven't yet named the "war-profiteering Israeli entities" that they demand the administration take out of the Cornell endowment.

Legal Insurrection, a conservative blog run by Cornell law professor William Jacobson, has more details and will I'm sure follow this story closely. I tend not to agree with him on other political issues, but I think he's usually on the mark when it comes to the BDS movement.