Occidental College, which original President Barack Obama attended before transferring to Columbia University, capitulated to a pro- Hamas “encampment” this month— and violated California “anti- BDS” rules in doing so.
As the pupil- run , Occidental , reported, the secret college signed an agreement with the protesters, agreeing to keep a vote by the governing body to acquire divesting from companies that do business with the State of Israel:
Occidental President Harry J. Elam Jr. announced via email that the university had reached an agreement with Occidental Students for Justice in Palestine ( Oxy SJP), Occidental National Jewish Voices for Peace ( Oxy JVP), and other organizations to end their eight-day academic boycott on May 10.
In a special session, Oxy SJP’s divestment demands will be discussed by the Board of Trustees ‘ Investment Committee, according to Elam’s email. The full Board will vote on divestment after this, at its upcoming next business meeting in June. In exchange, Oxy SJP and Oxy JVP agreed to permanently decamp from the Academic Quad by May 10 and to not disrupt Occidental’s May 19 commencement ceremony. In addition, it was stated in the email that students would be granted full amnesty if they complied with this agreement. The administration promised amnesty to students who peacefully protested up to and including May 10 at 6 pm, according to documents obtained from Oxy SJP. This promise is voided if student demonstrators expand the encampment or increase their activities.
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” After eight days of camping, we won”, Oxy SJP said via instagram. Oxy has made its investments in four businesses that support and abet the IDF’s genocide in Gaza public. Meetings will be held and a vote on divestment of Oxy’s money in the four aforementioned companies]Lockheed Martin, Elbit, Boeing and Caterpillar ] will take place no later than June 6, 2024. No students, staff, faculty members, or community will be punished for participation in the Oxy Gaza Solidarity Encampment or related campus protests”.
( Jewish Voices for Peace is a misnamed and explicitly pro- terror organization, as documented by Breitbart News. )
However, as Breitbart News pointed out last week in a discussion of a similar deal made by the University of California Riverside, selling off Israeli businesses is against California law. In 2016, then- governor Jerry Brown ( D) signed a law designed to discourage the anti- Israel ( and arguably antisemitic ) “boycott, divestment, sanctions” ( BDS ) movement, barring any public or private entities contracting with the State of California from boycotting Israel.
A number of states, including liberal ones, passed the anti-BDS law to counteract the potential for well-funded anti-Israel organizations to intimidate people into signing up, as has happened on some college campuses.
At least one Jewish freshman declared she would not return to the campus for her spring semester because of the “amnesty” for the encampment’s situation, which Occidental has become a source of antisemitic abuse.
The left- wing , Forward reported in January:
A Jewish student at Occidental College in Los Angeles, who is 18 years old, has announced she wo n’t be attending for the spring semester because much of the faculty and students have started expressing anti-Israel and antisemitic opinions following Hamas ‘ terror attack on Israel on October 7.
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More Jewish students who feel isolated on campus as a result of protests and demonstrations during the war reportedly spoke to the parents of three additional Jewish students from Occidental. For fear of reprisals, the parents all spoke under the guise of anonymity.
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Another parent said her son questioned how the letter’s signers treated him “fairly” as a Jew. When pro-Palestine demonstrations were at their height this fall, the same parent claimed that his son was afraid and locked himself in his room.
President Joe Biden described the “encampments” as antisemitic in a speech on Holocaust memorial day Tuesday.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor- at- Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p. m. to 10 p. m. ET ( 4 p. m. to 7 p. m. PT ). He is the author of the recent e- book,” The Zionist Conspiracy ( and how to join it )”, now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e- book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U. S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
