California university will heed student call to boycott Israel institutions
Al Jazeera
Calls to boycott Israeli academic institutions have been a consistent demand of protesters against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Sonoma State University, a public school in northern California, has said that it will not enter partnerships with Israeli universities, heeding a call from pro-Palestine student groups pushing to boycott Israeli companies and institutions amid the war in Gaza.
The decision, announced on Tuesday, comes after a recent wave of campus protests spread across the United States, with encampments and demonstrations cropping up at schools like Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
As part of their demands, student activists aimed to sever school ties with academic bodies and companies perceived as complicit in Israel’s war and decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territory.
In an email to students on Tuesday, Sonoma State’s president, Mike Lee, said the school had reached an agreement with the protesters, who set up an on-campus encampment three weeks ago.
Sonoma State would do more to disclose its contracts and seek “divestment strategies”, Lee wrote. It would also not pursue partnerships that are “sponsored by, or represent, the Israeli state academic and research institutions”.
