Talk:Disinvestment from Israel

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Neutrality issues?[edit]

Someone added a complaint about Neutrality. Please discuss this on the talk page or I will remove the tag as is customary Wikipedia policy with regards to article tagging.

I should note that I didn't do much new research into the issue when I created this article, instead what I did is put together a number of disseparate summaries of the issue that were spread across multiple Wikipedia articles. I drew mostly from Economic and political boycotts of Israel‎ and Disinvestment#Israel. I didn't set out to make an argument for or against, I just tied to report what has been happening while sticking as close as possible to the sources used. --John Bahrain (talk) 19:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Verify tag[edit]

I have removed the verify tag since there are a ton of citations in this article. The one thing I am good at is sticking close to sources and citing just about everything. There are a few areas where I use the [citation needed] or [citation needed] tag and that is because the material wasn't properly sourced in the summaries I integrated into this article from the distributed summaries I found in other Wikipedia articles. Thus I am trying to consistently cite all material, there is just a few sections that I haven't gotten to. Feel free to help out with this. --John Bahrain (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problem: "Disinvestment" is not a "product boycott" / "academic boycott"[edit]

IronDuke, the majority of the sources you just added to the article do not deal directly with the disinvestment drive but rather appear to deal with the topic of the Academic boycotts of Israel, such as the Richard Cohen WP article that makes the comparison to the Nazi boycotts. I suspect you made these additions quickly, but could you read through the sources you are citing to ensure that they deal with "disinvestment" or "divestment" and remove those that deal with other topics? Thanks. --John Bahrain (talk) 12:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have just removed the following section as it completely does not deal with the issue of disinvestment at all.
Critics of the proposals argue that making unilateral demands on Israel will not promote negotiation and a just peace.[1] [2] [3] Some opponents of a boycott claim similarities with the Nazi boycotts of Jews of the 1930s and claim this is a form of anti-Semitism.[4]
The Economist contends that the boycott is "flimsy" and ineffective, that "blaming Israel alone for the impasse in the occupied territories will continue to strike many outsiders as unfair," and points out that the Palestinian leadership does not support the boycott.[5]
The first sentence and the reference from Alan Dershowitz is relevant and I've added it back in, but the second citation for the first sentence is not relevant to the topic of disinvestment.
The CUPE criticism is complex, one issue is that CUPE voted to engage in both a disinvestment campaign as well as a full product boycott. The criticism of Buzz Hargrove appears to only deal with the boycott aspect of CUPE's move and CUPE itself seems to focus more on this aspect -- thus I understand the confusion. The Economist article does mention the term disinvestment in a quote, and I guess that's good enough, I'll add it back now. That said, with regards to the Economist article we should maintain precision and try to deal specifically with the opposition to the disinvestment campaign, not the academic boycotts and other aspects. --John Bahrain (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are making a distinction that does not really exist. The article Disinvestment makes clear that a "disinvestment" campaign is merely one type of "economic boycott." Therefore, material relating to economic boycotts is relevant (or at least potentially relevant) to this article... but I think there is a bigger problem. This article seems to be a POV fork of Economic and political boycotts of Israel and should therefore be considered for deletion or at least a merger. (I have not reviewed the other article to see which would be appropriate.) 6SJ7 (talk) 03:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two responses:
(1) Product boycotts and academic boycotts are quite different than disinvestment, and especially different than selective disinvestment. (And the lack of explanation of what is "selective disinvestment" is something that needs to be addressed.)
(2) It's not a POV fork. Instead it is a needed integration of the coverage of this topic from a number of separate articles (specifically the article you mention as well as the article entitled Disinvestment.) The Economic and political boycotts of Israel article I find is poorly done and in part I think it is because it combined too many topics into tne confusing take on things. The other article that needs to be separated out from that unwieldy mishmash is Arab League boycott of Israel as it is a coherent topic that deserves its own article.
--John Bahrain (talk) 04:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see this as a POV fork as well, though I'm trying to get it into decent shape even if it is. How is this article not related to economic boycotts of Israel? IronDuke 01:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NB: Couldn't find a reliable cite for the Tutu stuff, and I looked. Anyone? IronDuke 01:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a quality link [1]. --John Bahrain (talk) 14:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Presbyterians' Shameful Boycott by Alan Dershowitz (Los Angeles Times) August 4, 2004
  2. ^ Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Strongly Condemns Actions of British Union to Boycott/Blacklist Israeli Scholars (SPME press release) May 29, 2006
  3. ^ CUPE boycott of Israel won't help cause of peace by Buzz Hargrove (Toronto Star) June 5, 2006
  4. ^ For instance, see Richard Cohen, "Why Boycott Israel?", Washington Post, 24 April 2007, A21, accessed 16 May 2008.
  5. ^ "Boycotting Israel: New pariah on the block". The Economist. 2007-09-13. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

Name?[edit]

Is 'Disinvestment from Israel' a formal name of an organisation, or is it a term given to a wider, more loosely-defined campaign? --Soman (talk) 11:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The latter. gren グレン 12:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then the first sentence might needs to be rewritten, in order to clarify that. --Soman (talk) 12:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Historic Background[edit]

I made an edit to the start of this article before realizing I was not logged in (I'm a newcomer, so please forgive any initial blunders I may make, and any support or input is welcome).

I think the original article is a good start in collecting information about this subject in one place. While I agree that we need to maintain clarity as to how divestment differs from academic or other forms of boycott, the fact that various aspects of what is referred to as the "BDS Campaign" (i.e., Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) are spread out over so many articles means that it may take some time to pull these together into a coherent set of documents that spells out how these elements interact, and where they are distinct.

Regarding this article, I started by clarifying the historic origins of divest-from-Israel campaigns. While they first received media attention due to statements by Desmond Tutu (as well as the Harvard/MIT petition described in my update), historically the Harvard petition and similar university calls for divestment preceded Tutu's statements on the matter by several months. Going back further, divestment programs (while low profile and not focused), did exist in the aftermath of the fall of Apartheid which needs to be noted.

As I get better at Wikipedia editing (it took me close to two hours to just make the changes I made this morning), I would like to reorganize the rest of the article by institution (schools, churches, municipalities and unions), rather than geographically. You always have a choice in historic overviews to organize information geographically, institionally or chronologically. Given the way divestment has played out over the last 7-8 years (as a series of battles within specific organizations), I believe this institutional approach makes the most sense.

Any input and advice is welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TimeOnHands (talk • contribs) 15:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Strange...[edit]

I think there is a small contradiction in part of the article... one part says that the United Methodist Church does not support divestment, another part says that it does... read this selected text and you'll see...

>snip<

New England Conference of the United Methodist Church

The New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, at its Annual Conference session held June 8-11, 2005, voted to urge the divesting of funds from companies that support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories. [15] The resolution stated: 

   * "Whereas the United Methodist Church should not profit from the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land or the destruction of Palestinian homes, orchards, and lives,"
   * "Whereas we are committed to ensuring that our denomination’s money is used in a manner consistent with our beliefs, with international law, and with Christ’s teaching."

Others

Other mainline churches have debated the subject of divestment. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America rejected a pro-divestment resolution during the summer of 2005.[citation needed] The Episcopal Church USA ruled out the possibility of an Israel divestment later that year, and the United Methodist Church has also avoided divestment.

>snip<

Does the United Methodist Church support divestment from Israeli companies, or does it not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.203.50.75 (talk) 01:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with much of this piece is that most of it is based on information that appeared in the media between 2004-2006 and does not include enough information on what happened before and after this short period when divestment was widely in the news. I'm in the process of putting together an update that organizes divestment campaigns by institution (schools, churches, municipalities and unions) and brings the whole story up to date. The Methodist question will be more clear when their history of voting for and against divestment (at the national level) is spelled out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TimeOnHands (talk • contribs) 19:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

scope of article[edit]

I removed the section about an attempt to force Trader Joes to boycott Israel. The article should be limited to actual boycotts or significantly notable efforts. rather than the include the multiple number of attempts. --Shuki (talk) 22:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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