“Divest Now!”: Students To Protest Victoria University’s Investments In Israel

Tomorrow at lunchtime, students and staff at Victoria University of Wellington will gather in front of the building where the Vice-Chancellor’s office is located, in protest of the university’s recently-announced investments in Israeli government bonds.

In July, the University Foundation disclosed to Salient, the university magazine, that it has almost $50,000 invested in Israeli government bonds. Israeli bonds finance the apartheid state’s military campaign and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“For months, we’ve had students and staff writing to the Foundation and the Vice-Chancellor, demanding that the university divests from apartheid and genocide. And the university has been consistently ignoring our voices.” said Nabilah Husna Abdul Rahman, an organiser from Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke. “At SJPP, we’ve been using many tactics to get the University Foundation and the Vice Chancellor to disclose where they have invested in Israel. Our requests and meetings have only been met with the leaders’ denial of responsibility and lack of accountability to the university community.”

“Right now, our University leaders do not seem to care about the International Court of Justice ruling which declared Israel an apartheid state, and that universities could be complicit in supporting apartheid should they fail to review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel. But as students and staff, we should want no part of this.”

“In a week, the Uni is having its Open Day to recruit new students into an institution that puts its money in a rogue, genocidal state. So we have a simple message to those thinking of studying here. If you’re looking for an educational experience that isn’t complicit in the devastation of an entire nation, you may want to reconsider.”

A journal article published in the medical journal Lancet has reported that the accumulative effects of the genocide in Gaza could mean the death toll could reach more than 186,000 people.

The rally will be happening Friday, 16 August, 12.30pm at the Hunter Lawn (Kelburn).