Serious question here. The BDS movement has long targeted Israel for that country's treatment of Arabs in the Occupied Territories. I get boycott and sanction, two rational (but generally futile) strategies for forcing change. I don't understand divestment. If, for example, a U.S. University has State of Israel bonds in its portfolio, divestment should mean selling those bonds. Well, so what? The market price for Israel securities might soften a bit for a little while but Israel still has the loan proceeds on the same terms as before. Similarly, if a U.S. company has business interests in Israel, divestment means selling off those interests. So what? Who owns an Israeli aircraft engine factory means much less to the economy of Israel than the fact that the factory is there. So how does this work?
Start point is collecting truthful evidence vs anti Israel propaganda, the hostilities are from both sides of the conflict. It's hard to see the real situation, political, religious and other motives are behind the conflict. Biased anti Israel media spreads distorted information. Example it took 3 weeks for media even CNN to admit that hospital bombing was as a result of Jihad mifired rocket. There was footage and other evidence, even the Hamas footage proved it. Yet for weeks Israel was accused for bombing the hospital in Gaza. Same in the Territories. Hope of normalization, Oslo accords died. World is presuring Israel for 2 state solution.
If the Israeli government, or businesses operating in Israel or occupied territories can’t sell out their future offerings of debt, and in the case of businesses their future offerings of equity, their cost of capital could become too high to absorb comfortably, pressuring them to lower their cost of capital by changing policies on Palestine?
But divestment is very unlikely to have any long-term effect. Does Israel pay its debts? Yes. A few institutions deciding to put their money elsewhere is unlikely to skew the market. At least, as far as I can see.
It's an equivalent of shooting at cans of Bud Light on camera, for people with graduate degrees in Poli Sci. Performative bullcrap.
This article looked half way decent. Some students want their colleges to divest from Israel. Here's what that really means https://www.cbsnews.com/news/divest-israel-what-does-it-mean-college-university-endowment-cbs-news-explains/
That article was quite helpful, thank you. I also note that The Evergreen State College, known to us at (then) St. Martin's College just across the Inlet as "TESC Tech" has agreed to divest from Israeli investments. I'm not sure they have the right to do so. Evergreen is an unusual school in an unusual State that has unusual ideas about how the world should run but I suspect that the State itself has something to say about how investment decisions are made. Where public money is concerned, Washington can be quite conservative.
