Call to the Associated Students of the University of California, Santa Barbara

to Divest From Companies that Profit From Human Rights Violations in

Palestine/Israel
We, as Students for Justice in Palestine, are a diverse collective of UCSB students who strive
to form unity, solidarity, and empowerment across differences of race, gender, sexuality,
class, culture, and history. Together, we have created a community committed to educating
ourselves and raising awareness on campus about the history of Israel/Palestine, and about
the transnational corporations that currently aid Israel in their institutional policies of
occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and ethno-racial supremacy towards Palestine. We
believe that the Palestinian people, like all people, are entitled to human rights.
In line with this mission, and in recognizing our immense privilege as students on a
university campus, we aim to not only educate our fellow peers about the consequences of
Israels policies of occupation and apartheid, but also answer the Palestinian Civil Societys
global call for a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Therefore, we call on the Associated Students (AS) of UC Santa Barbara to pass a resolution
directing the University of California to financially divest from the corporations that directly
profit from human rights violations in Palestine/Israel. Currently, UCSB has financial
holdings in Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Caterpillar, and Hewlett
Packard. These are all corporations that directly participate and profit from Israeli apartheid
policies such as: segregated bus lines and roads, continuation of illegal settlement building,
excessive and disproportionate deadly force used against Palestinian civilians, checkpoints
and roadblocks, unlawful imprisonment, home demolitions, housing discrimination, voting
disenfranchisement, economic blockades, and destruction of infrastructure.
Our advocacy for Palestinian self-determination and critique of Israel's apartheid regime is
not one-dimensional, nor is it an anti-semitic attempt to single out Israel. Rather, this
resolution solely targets UC financial investments in corporations that enable apartheid and
other violations of international law towards the Palestinian people; it is about unethical
corporations, not any particular community or individual persons.
Further, we believe our advocacy for Palestinian liberation is interconnected to all injustices
based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, and other markers of
difference. At the heart of SJP is a passion to engage and develop an approach to coalition
building and solidarity activism that is animated by the spirit of decolonial, antiracist, and
other global liberationist movements. As a collective, we stand against all forms of systemic,
institutional, interpersonal, and internalized forms of oppression and express solidarity with
all groups and communities fighting such diverse forms of injustice and violence. Now more
than ever, we see how the struggle for self-determination and liberation for the Palestinian
people is connected to the struggle for self-determination and liberation for people all over
the world: from Ferguson to Ayotzinapa to Palestine, from the indigenous on this land to
the indigenous Palestinians. This is not a single issue or single people struggle.

It is vital to remember that students at the University of California have historically been at
the forefront of social justice movements: from the Civil Rights Movements to the BDS
movement against South African Apartheid, and from the modern LGBTQ liberation
movement to the contemporary anti-racist movements, such as Black Lives Matter. In all
these social justice movements and more, student power has been an integral part of
progress and change. As young people at a top tier research institution, it is our duty to
combat racism, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, colonization, and global
inequality. A resolution to Divest From Companies that Profit From Human Rights
Violations in Palestine/Israel is in no way intended to alienate students on campus; rather, it
is intended to create a critical dialogue about state sanctioned violence that violates human
rights and international law, ultimately bringing together students across communities over a
connected struggle.
SJP at UCSB does not align itself with any particular faction of government in Palestine nor
do we take a stance on any particular solution. We advocate for the right of return, selfdetermination, freedom of movement, justice, voting enfranchisement, and equality for all
Palestinians. We stand in solidarity with all communities living under occupation inside and
outside the United States. Furthermore, as student activists who stand against all forms of
institutionalized oppressions, we denounce all forms of anti-semitism and islamophobia and
we insist that this call for divestment should not be conflated with these forms of hate.
Instead this call for divestment should be understood as a call for the University of
California and the UC regents to take financial holdings out of corporations that perpetuate
violations against humanity.
We urge our campus community and our AS to discuss, engage, understand this issue and
choose to finally be on the right side of history. It is time to resist, time to educate, and time
to divest!