ANN ARBOR — After a prolonged debate that lasted until the early hours of Wednesday, March 26, the Central Student Government (CSG) at the University of Michigan voted against the resolution to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli military, after repealing last week’s motion to postpone the resolution indefinitely.

More than 600 students attended the meeting, which started Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. 

About 400 students were allowed into the Rogel Ballroom at the Union Building, where the meeting took place. An additional 200 students watched the meeting via livestream on a giant screen in a room on the same floor. However, both rooms did not fit all the people who came to the Union for the meeting. Many students had to follow the meeting on their laptops in the hallways and cafeterias of the building. The event was watched by more than 2,000 viewers on the internet.

After listening to the concerns of dozens of students and guest speakers advocating for and against the resolution, the CSG assembly repealed its motion to indefinitely postpone the resolution and eventually struck it down in a in a 25-9 vote with five abstentions.

The resolution, which was proposed by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) and endorsed by 36 student organizations, calls for forming an ad hoc committee to investigate the human rights record of international corporations that do business with the Israeli military and divesting from them if abuses are shown. 

UMDivest, a group of students who support the proposal, had staged a 5-day sit-in at the Chambers Room where CSG usually meets, after the student government assembly voted to postpone it indefinitely on Tuesday, March 18. During the sit-in, students hung Palestinian flags on the walls of the Chambers Room and renamed it the Edward Said Lounge. The sit-in came to an end after it was agreed that the resolution would be back on the agenda on the March 25 meeting.

Unlike last week’s meeting, students walked out quietly after CSG voted down the resolution. They said they intend to take it directly to the Board of Regents, the publicly elected body that governs the university. 

Nicole Khamis said the students will continue to push for divestment. “We are not going away. The decision has motivated us even more,” she said. 

“Nobody thought it was going to pass,” said U of M senior Ramrio Alvarez Gabriales. “Bringing it back on the agenda was a symbolic gesture.”

Gabriales said UMDivest is now “smarter” and more strategic after hearing arguments against the resolution from Zionist students. “It is interesting that they had a selective idea of peace,” he said. 

He added that the argument put the movement into the context of racial struggle, as those opposing it refused to recognize that they are white and “privileged” when facing minority students.

“They said they felt intimidated on campus over the past week. As a queer Latino, that’s how I’ve been feeling here for the past two years,” he said.

The debate over the argument started with guest speakers arguing the viewpoint of each side. SAFE invited renowned Jewish journalist Max Blumenthal, who spoke about Israeli policies that work to preserve the Jewish ethno-religious identity of Israel. 

He said Israel is engaged in an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Palestinians to keep a Jewish majority in the country.

He added that he saw entire Bedouin villages in the Negev desert leveled to the ground by the Israeli military because they pose a “demographic threat to Israel’s ethnic purity.” He quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying in 2003 that the purpose of the separation wall in the West Bank is to prevent a “demographic spillover.”

Blumenthal said Palestinians in the West Bank are not allowed to marry Palestinian Israeli citizens behind the wall, while he, as a Jewish American, can marry any woman in Israel, including women in illegal settlements in the West Bank. “Call it what you want. The U.S. State Department calls it institutional discrimination. I call it apartheid,” he said.

Hillel, a Jewish student organization that opposes the resolution, invited associate professor of international relations at Michigan State University Yael Aronoff and three law students to argue against the divestment proposal.

Aranoff countered Blumenthal’s argument, saying that Israeli policies are common in nation-states and the struggle between Bedouins and the Israeli government is not about ethnic purity but a clash between nomadic people and the modern state. She added that Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are facing similar issues with their nomadic populations.

She also argued that the resolution singles out Israel and is ambiguous, in that it does not specify when and where the boycott should stop.  

The law students speaking against the resolution said consensus among students is required for the university to pass divestment, and the number of students who oppose the resolution in the crowd proves the absence of that consensus. 

CSG invited U of M history professor Victor Lieberman to present an impartial narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. UMDivest supporters questioned Lieberman’s objectivity, but they were told that it was too late to bring a different speaker. Blumenthal tweeted a letter to the editor that Lieberman had published in the New York Times, in which he criticizes the leader of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). 

“A narrative of relentless Palestinian victimization may be emotionally satisfying, but ignores certain well-known events,” Lieberman states in the New York Times piece.

Inside the Rogel Ballroom, most students were supporters of the UMDivest movement, but most people in the neighboring room were associated with Hillel.

A UMDivest student explained Hillel brought students from neighboring universities to stand against the resolution, and by the time they arrived, the ballroom was at full capacity.

Two students who oppose the resolution told The Arab American News that at least one bus sponsored by Hillel drove students from Michigan State University in Lansing to the Union at U of M.

During the “community concerns” portion of the meeting, dozens took the podium and addressed CSG with three-minute speeches on the resolution. That segment of the meeting lasted 90 minuted after it was extended twice to allow more students to speak. 

Zionist students argued that divestment is divisive, singles out Israel, alienates them on campus and hurts the peace process, repeatedly citing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s opposition to BDS.

Similar to last week, Palestinian students recounted personal stories about their struggle with Israel. One student used his three minutes to list the names of his family members in Palestine who are affected by the Israeli occupation.  “Don’t forget about my family when you vote on this resolution,” he concluded.

Many students in the ballroom were moved to tears by Palestinian speakers’ accounts. UMDivest supporters silently raised their hands and moved their fingers as tribute for the speakers because applause and cheers are not allowed at the meting. 

A letter signed by more than 35 Jewish students in support of the resolution was read to the assembly. 

The CSG assembly voted via ballot box on the resolution, citing safety concerns for its members. CSG Vice President Bobby Dishell said he faced intimidation, threats and anti-Jewish racial slurs over the past week.

However, SCG member Dan Morales said the threats could not have come from members of the UMDivest movement, which is committed to peaceful activism. 

“Every single representative from both sides received passionate emails. But I guarantee that not a single student at the sit-in sent any threats. I was with those guys and have come to known them,” he said. “The movement is so powerful because it is non-violent.”