The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/divestment/page/3/)
Protestors have blocked the intersection of Tower Road and East Avenue since 1 p.m. demanding that Cornell University end its investments in the fossil fuel industry, joining activists on campuses across the country on international divestment day.
On Friday, a coalition of student activist groups flooded Ho Plaza, where organizers gave speeches and led chants, and then the crowd marched through the streets before returning to Day Hall to stage a sit-in.
For the second time this semester, student groups will hold a strike for climate justice. Students will march at 11:30 a.m. this Friday on Ho Plaza in a display of frustration at what they see as the insufficient actions of leaders in the face of climate change.
After seven years of student activism to encourage the Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuels, Climate Justice Cornell is escalating the fight by filing a complaint to New York Attorney General Letitia James to initiate an investigation into Cornell University’s continued investment in fossil fuels.
Cornell is a tough place. Each semester often feels increasingly more trying. Last semester was particularly difficult because of three little letters: BDS, which stand for the movement to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel, a country to which many Cornellians, including myself, feel deeply connected. For those new to campus, the “divestment” campaign that was brought to the Student Assembly claimed to start conversations about the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a worthwhile goal that I share. Instead, after many twists and turns last semester, including President Martha Pollack’s principled rejection of BDS and the paralysis of student government for most of the semester, BDS caused a deep rift in the campus culture and was defeated.
Students slammed their palms and posters against the windows of the Friday afternoon Board of Trustees meeting in Myron Taylor Hall, chanting, “We won’t rest ’til you divest!”
The Student Assembly passed a resolution Thursday that would call upon Cornell to urge an association of universities to divest from the construction of an observatory on Hawaii’s indigenous lands.
This week’s Student Assembly meeting was marked by an open mic during which students spoke about concerns concerning last week’s community vote — a raucous affair that ultimately sealed a narrow failure of the divestment resolution.
Corrections appended. With the failure of the BDS resolution before the Student Assembly this past Thursday, Cornell Hillel and Cornellians for Israel, both of which strongly opposed the measure, declared a victory for peace. However, peace and dialogue have not won out just yet. If Hillel and CFI are serious about promoting human rights of Palestinians and Israelis, they must walk the walk. If Hillel cares about dialogue, it should strive to bring in Palestinian speakers as well as Israeli critics of the occupation of Palestinian land such as Breaking the Silence, a group of Israel Defense Forces veterans that candidly discusses military activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and B’tselem, a human rights organization dedicated to ending the occupation.
In January 2009, a long-range missile from Gaza was fired into Israel. This has been a common occurrence ever since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. As a child, I was taught at school to immediately run to a bomb shelter if sirens go off, so I did that. I was home alone in my room and quickly ran to the shelter we had in our house. It was 9:30 a.m. Normally, I would stay in the shelter and wait for the sirens to stop, as rockets rarely reached my town of Gedera.