现在一些大学正小心翼翼地从以色列撤资 这曾经是不可想象的
【中美创新时报2024 年 5 月 14 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）就在几年前，布朗在撤资问题上的让步似乎是不可想象的，当时抵制、撤资和制裁以色列的激进运动还只是一场受到反犹太主义指控困扰的边缘运动。但现在情况正在发生变化。《波士顿环球报》记者 Hilary Burns 和 Mike Damiano对此作了下述报道。
两周前，布朗大学的学生在校园里搭建了一个营地，抗议加沙战争，他们发誓，在学校领导满足他们的要求之前，他们不会离开，其中包括剥离任何与以色列军方有联系的公司的捐赠。
布朗大学的领导者没有像其他大学那样派遣警察，而是与学生活动人士谈判做出了一项重要让步：他们将在 10 月份将撤资问题提交理事会投票。作为交换，学生们清理了营地。
“我们终于克服了这个障碍，”学生谈判代表伊莎贝拉·加罗说。现在，她表示活动人士将游说理事会投票支持撤资。“我们必须确保我们能够发挥作用，”她说。
就在几年前，布朗在撤资问题上的让步似乎是不可想象的，当时抵制、撤资和制裁以色列的激进运动还只是一场受到反犹太主义指控困扰的边缘运动。
但现在情况正在发生变化。
在一场与 20 世纪 60 年代反战运动相呼应的全国性学生抗议运动以及加沙地带半年多的战争之后，至少有一些机构领导人，从大学校长到拜登总统，正在采取措施——尽管 小而试探性的——谴责以色列的战争行为和对待巴勒斯坦人的方式。
学生抗议者对加沙惊人的平民伤亡感到愤怒，他们认为对以色列的投资和向以色列提供战争物资的公司是战争的同谋，这场战争是由哈马斯去年 10 月 7 日在以色列的杀戮和绑架狂潮引发的。最近几天，随着以色列入侵拉法，超过 100 万人在加沙地带北部寻求避难，以躲避轰炸。拜登暂停向以色列运送炸弹，敦促以色列总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡不要入侵——近几十年来，美国很少对以色列施加这种压力。
至少有七所美国学院和大学部分默许了学生的撤资要求，同意披露有关其投资的更多细节，制定投资指南，将一些在以色列开展业务的公司列入黑名单，或者像布朗一样，就是否某些公司进行正式投票。撤资类型应成为官方政策。
萨克拉门托州立大学是加州州立大学系统的一部分，上周宣布将剥离任何“从种族灭绝、种族清洗和侵犯基本人权的活动中获利”的公司。这些术语反映了学生抗议者的语言，他们将以色列在加沙的战争描述为种族灭绝，据巴勒斯坦当局称，这场战争导致超过 34,000 人死亡。
华盛顿长青州立学院的领导人同意成立一个工作组，“将为社会责任投资制定定义”并“解决从严重侵犯人权和/或占领巴勒斯坦领土中获利的公司的撤资问题”，参考文献 加沙和约旦河西岸是以色列自 1967 年以来占领的大部分巴勒斯坦人的领土。
包括芝加哥大学在内的一些学校通过引用其机构中立政策来保护自己免受激进分子的要求，这些政策认为它们不应在政治问题或国际事务上采取立场。
哈佛大学的一个委员会正在研究该大学是否应该采取中立政策。但一些教师表示，出于这个原因，学校应该避免从以色列撤资：这将表明该大学已经在以色列-巴勒斯坦冲突上采取了立场。
哈佛大学经济学家埃里克·马斯金表示：“对于一个中立的机构来说，投资和撤资政策也必须保持中立，这一点很重要。” “你根据财务回报做出这些决定，而不是根据政治。”
大学领导者历来抵制撤资的呼吁，指出从指数基金中剔除特定资产的技术复杂性，以及确保捐赠基金长期财务稳定的机构义务。 经过数年高调的学生倡导和公民抗命，各大学才在 20 世纪 80 年代因种族隔离而中断了与南非的经济联系。最近，学生示威和教师的抵制促使一些大学放弃化石燃料。而且，在 2022 年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后，一些机构迅速采取行动从俄罗斯撤资。
美国和以色列一直是长期盟友。许多美国犹太人和非犹太人都将纳粹在大屠杀中杀害 600 万犹太人后成立的以色列视为必要的堡垒，是长期遭受迫害的民族的保护源泉。
尽管自哈马斯领导的 10 月 7 日袭击造成约 1,200 名以色列人（其中大部分是平民）死亡，另有 250 人被绑架，以色列发动报复性战争以来，抗议活动席卷了许多校园，但对大多数学校来说，从以色列撤资的想法仍然难以理解。
例如，西北大学向校园抗议者做出了一些让步，包括同意披露有关其投资的更多信息。但校长迈克尔·席尔在上周四的一篇专栏文章中表示，针对抗议者要求“从以色列撤资并结束专注于以色列创新的学术项目”的要求，他的答案是“断然拒绝”。
当前的要求与长期的抵制、撤资、制裁运动有关，该运动敦促大学、公司、政府和其他机构断绝与以色列的关系，并将该国视为贱民国家。许多人认为这场运动是反犹太主义的，因为它针对的是唯一的犹太国家，而忽视了其他地方的侵犯人权行为。
当 Crimson 编辑委员会在 2022 年支持 BDS 运动时，引起了校友的强烈反对和时任哈佛大学校长劳伦斯·巴科 (Lawrence Bacow) 的批评。
如今，学校面临着巨大的政治压力，尤其是来自右翼以及知名校友和捐助者的压力，要求学校逮捕和惩罚抗议者，而不是与他们谈判。布朗大学和西北大学因与学生抗议者进行谈判而遭到捐助者和保守派政客的强烈反对。据《纽约时报》报道，亿万富翁巴里·斯特恩利希特暂停了对布朗的捐款。来自北卡罗来纳州的共和党众议员弗吉尼亚·福克斯 (Virginia Foxx) 已要求西北大学、罗格斯大学和加州大学洛杉矶分校的校长在去年 12 月审讯时任哈佛大学校长克劳丁·盖伊 (Claudine Gay) 的同一个委员会作证，导致她辞职。
福克斯在一份声明中说：“在过去的几天里，西北大学和罗格斯大学的校长对校园内的非法反犹太主义营地做出了令人震惊的让步。” “他们向反犹太激进分子投降，表现出卑鄙的怯懦。”
然而，大学领导者也面临着来自学生和教师的持续压力。自 10 月 7 日以来，哈佛大学一直是政治家和捐助者关注校园反犹太主义的主要目标，该校上周有 350 多名教职员工签署了一封信，敦促学校领导与学生抗议者会面，临时校长艾伦·加伯 (Alan Garber) 于周三晚上同意这样做。哈佛表示，这次会议不是谈判。抗议者拒绝了加伯结束营地的提议。
在哈佛，政府教授史蒂夫·莱维茨基 (Steve Levitsky) 表示：“我认为大学甚至不愿意倾听或谈论[撤资]，这更多是因为他们担心捐助者、右翼批评者和国会以各种形式进一步报复。”
其他教授在一封由约 150 名教职员工签名的信中敦促加伯拆除营地，不要向抗议者做出让步。
一位发言人表示，加伯周三告诉学生抗议者，该大学不会将其捐赠基金“作为政治工具”。
目前尚不清楚撤资会对以色列产生多大影响。根据美国大学商业官员协会的数据，美国大学捐赠基金总共持有 8,390 亿美元的资产，但它们的投资组合不透明，且分布在广泛的投资领域。撤资可能更具象征意义，有人说这有可能改变公众对以色列的看法，自冲突开始以来，以色列在许多美国人，尤其是年轻人的眼中已经失去了地位。
人权观察组织前执行主任肯尼思·罗斯表示，学生抗议者确实帮助提高了公众对南非种族隔离的认识，加强了美国对该国实施的制裁，有人认为这有助于结束种族隔离。
然而，他表示，大学撤资本身“对经济的影响为零。这是一种道德工具。这是强调问题的一种方式。”
拉比戴维·沃尔普 (David Wolpe) 去年在盖伊 12 月 5 日在国会作证后退出了哈佛反犹太主义咨询委员会。尽管他认为撤资不会“对以色列的实力和未来产生重大影响”。
“我认为学生不应该是决定大学政策的人，”沃尔普说。“参与这些抗议活动的大多数学生对中东的真相极其无知。”
布朗大学学生加罗在本学年早些时候的一次静坐抗议中被捕，该静坐呼吁撤资“以色列军事占领”。他说，学生们知道撤资运动通常不会产生什么财务影响。
但她相信它们背后的逻辑仍然很强大。
加罗说：“这在与侵犯人权者保持政治和社会联系方面造成了耻辱。” “撤资是一件值得关注的狭隘事情，并让人们谈论[加沙]。”
题图：4 月 30 日，布朗大学抗议以色列与哈马斯战争的营地被拆除后，草坪上出现了广场，草坪上曾经矗立着帐篷。DAVID GOLDMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
附原英文报道：
It was once unthinkable. Now some universities tiptoe toward divestment from Israel.
By Hilary Burns and Mike Damiano Globe Staff,Updated May 13, 2024
Two weeks ago, Brown University students who had set up an encampment on campus to protest the war in Gaza vowed they would not leave until school leaders met their demands, which included divesting the endowment from any company tied to Israel’s military.
Instead of sending in the police, as other universities had, Brown’s leaders negotiated a key concession with the student activists: They would put the question of divestment to a vote by the governing board in October. In exchange, students cleared the encampment.
“We finally got past this obstacle,” said Isabella Garo, a student negotiator. Now, she said activists will lobby the governing board to vote for divestment. “We have to make sure we make it count,” she said.
Brown’s concession on divestment might have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago, when the activist campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel was a fringe movement dogged by allegations of antisemitism.
But the ground is now shifting.
After a nationwide student protest movement with echoes of the antiwar movement of the 1960s, and following more than half a year of war in the Gaza Strip, at least a handful of institutional leaders, from university presidents to President Biden, are taking steps — albeit small and tentative ones — toward censuring Israel over its conduct of the war and its treatment of Palestinians.
Student protesters are outraged by the staggering civilian toll in Gaza and view investments in Israel and companies that supply it with war materials as a form of complicity in the war, which was triggered by Hamas’s killing and kidnapping spree in Israel last Oct. 7. Their concerns have grown in recent days as Israel invaded Rafah, where more than 1 million people had sought refuge from the bombardment in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Biden paused a shipment of bombs to Israel as he urged the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to invade — a form of pressure the United States has rarely brought to bear on Israel in recent decades.
At least seven US colleges and universities have partially acquiesced to students’ divestment demands by agreeing to disclose more details about their investments, formulate investment guidelines that could blacklist some companies doing business in Israel, or, like Brown, hold a formal vote on whether some type of divestment should become official policy.
Sacramento State, part of the California State University system, announced last week it would divest from any companies that “profit from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and activities that violate fundamental human rights.” Those terms mirror the language of student protesters who describe Israel’s war in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have died, according to Palestinian authorities, as genocide.
The leaders of Evergreen State College in Washington agreed to create a task force that “will develop a definition for socially responsible investing” and “address divestment from companies that profit from gross human rights violations and/or the occupation of Palestinian territories,” a reference to Gaza and the West Bank, a majority-Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967.
Some schools, including the University of Chicago, shield themselves from activist demands by citing their policies of institutional neutrality, which hold that they should not take positions on political issues or international affairs.
A committee at Harvard is studying whether the university should adopt a neutrality policy. But some faculty say the school should stay clear of divestment from Israel for that reason: It would signal that the university has taken a position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“For a neutral institution, it’s important that the investments and divestment policies also be neutral,” said Harvard economist Eric Maskin. “You make these decisions according to financial returns, not according to politics.”
University leaders have a history of resisting calls for divestment, pointing to technical complications of weeding out specific assets from index funds, and institutional obligations to ensure the long-term financial stability of the endowment. It took years of high-profile student advocacy and civil disobedience before colleges broke financial ties to South Africa over racial apartheid in the 1980s. More recently, student demonstrations and faculty pushback have prompted some universities to divest from fossil fuels. And, some institutions moved quickly to divest from Russia in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine.
The United States and Israel have been long-standing allies. Many American Jews and non-Jews alike regard Israel, which formed after the Nazis killed six million Jews in the Holocaust, as a necessary bulwark, a source of protection for a people with a long history of persecution.
The idea of divestment from Israel is still unfathomable for most schools, despite protests that have roiled many campuses since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, while another 250 were kidnapped, and Israel launched its retaliatory war in Gaza.
Northwestern University, for example, made some concessions to campus protesters, including agreeing to disclose more information about its investments. But in an op-ed last Thursday, president Michael Schill said in response to protesters’ demands for “divestment from Israel and the end of an academic program that focused on Israeli innovation,” his answer was “a flat no.”
The current demands are related to the long-running Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that urges universities, companies, governments, and other institutions to sever ties with Israel and treat the country as a pariah state. Many see the movement as antisemitic because it targets the only Jewish state while ignoring human rights abuses elsewhere.
When the Crimson editorial board endorsed the BDS movement in 2022, it provoked a backlash from alumni and criticism from then-Harvard president Lawrence Bacow.
Today, schools are under tremendous political pressure, especially from the right and from high-profile, vocal alumni and donors, to arrest and punish protesters instead of negotiating with them. Brown and Northwestern drew backlash from donors and conservative politicians for negotiating with student protesters. Billionaire Barry Sternlicht suspended donations to Brown, the New York Times reported. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, has called the presidents of Northwestern, Rutgers University, and UCLA to testify before the same committee that interrogated then-Harvard president Claudine Gay in December, contributing to her resignation.
“Over the last several days, the presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers have made shocking concessions to the unlawful antisemitic encampments on their campuses,” Foxx said in a statement. “They have surrendered to antisemitic radicals in despicable displays of cowardice.”
University leaders, though, are also under unrelenting pressure from students and faculty. At Harvard, a primary target for politicians and donors concerned about antisemitism on campuses since Oct. 7, more than 350 faculty members last week signed a letter urging school leaders to meet with student protesters, which interim president Alan Garber agreed to do Wednesday evening. Harvard said the meeting was not a negotiation. The protesters rejected Garber’s proposal to end the encampment.
“My sense about the universities’ unwillingness to even listen or talk about [divestment] has more to do with the optics and fears of further retaliation in various forms by donors, right-wing critics, Congress,” said Steve Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard.
Other professors, in a letter signed by around 150 faculty members, urged Garber to remove the encampment and not make concessions to the protesters.
Garber told student protesters Wednesday the university will not use its endowment “as a political tool,” a spokesperson said.
It’s not clear that divestment would have much impact on Israel. US university endowments collectively hold $839 billion in assets, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, but their portfolios are opaque and spread across a vast variety of investment areas. Divestment would probably carry a more symbolic weight, one that some say has the potential to shift public opinion on Israel, which has already lost standing in the eyes of many Americans, particularly younger ones, since the conflict began.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said student protesters did help raise public awareness about apartheid in South Africa, bolstering US-imposed sanctions on the country, which some say contributed to the end of apartheid.
University divestment itself, however, he said, “has zero economic impact. It’s a moral tool. It’s a way of highlighting an issue.”
Rabbi David Wolpe, who quit a Harvard advisory board on antisemitism last year after Gay’s Dec. 5 congressional testimony, said he is concerned about the slight shift among some universities in considering the request for Israeli divestment, though he does not think divesting would “materially impact Israel’s strength and future.”
“I don’t think the students ought to be the people who dictate the policies of the university,” Wolpe said. “Most students involved in these protests are abysmally ignorant about the truth in the Middle East.”
Garo, the Brown student who was arrested at a sit-in earlier in the academic year that called for divestment from “Israeli military occupation,” said students are aware that divestment campaigns typically have little financial impact.
But she believes the logic behind them is nevertheless strong.
“It create[s] a stigma in maintaining political and social connections to human rights abusers,” Garo said. “Divestment is a narrow thing to focus on, and get people talking about [Gaza].”
