OSFP Calls on College to Divest From Pro-Israel Firms

To the Editors:

We, Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine, call on Oberlin College, the Board of Trustees, and the Investments Office to make public its investments and financial holdings in Israel. As members of the Oberlin community, we think it is imperative that we have a voice in what our institutional funds support through companies in which they are invested. We have asked the college to give us this information and have been denied. We plan to continue to ask for this information until it is provided. We feel strongly that we are responsible for the uses to which Oberlin’s money is put.

The United States provides at least $2 billion a year to Israel in military aid, at least 75 percent of which has to be spent in the U.S. (for more information, see www.sustaincampaign.org). In this way, the American government and U.S. companies supply the Israeli military with tanks, tear gas, bulldozers, bullets, and other weapons they use to oppress Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. We call on Oberlin College as an institution to conscientiously divest itself from companies supporting this systematic bloodshed and oppression.

In the 1980s, Oberlin College was the site of a very successful divestment campaign from apartheid South Africa. It was part of a network of campaigns that led to international pressure and the end of apartheid. We have great hope that similar efforts will lead to pressure on the Israeli government that can effectively end the occupation of Palestine and the systematic oppression of Palestinians.

We call on the College to affirm that it is not invested in companies that finance the military occupation of Palestine by Israel, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, and Osh Kosh. Until the administration affirms this, we will demand this information to which everyone in our community should be privy.

–Nava Etshalom
College sophomore
Oberlin Students for a Free Palestine