Israel Matzav

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Norman Finkelstein lives on

Norman Finkelstein may have been forced out at DePaul University - barely missing tenure - but the Holocaust denier's spirit lives on at DePaul where there's now a food fight over where to buy the Humus.

Apparently the activists at De Paul University are made of sterner stuff and prepared to make the ultimate snack-rifice. That institution, which briefly banished and then reinstated the offending legumes last fall, has become a battlefield once again.

Sabra hummus reappeared on the dining tables there until the Fair Business Practices Committee could issue a judgment, but in the meantime, SJP, unwilling to wait for the result, secured a referendum on a proposed ban. As the Huffington Post puts it with understatement, the language on the ballot is "somewhat leading":
“Sabra, which currently supplies hummus to the DePaul cafeteria, is co-owned by the Strauss Group. The Strauss group provides financial support and supplies to the Golani and Givati brigades of the Israeli military, which have been found by the United Nations to be violators of human rights. Are you in favor of replacing Sabra with an alternative brand of hummus?”
Subtle. As one might suspect, the issues are actually a tad more complicated.

Voting is open until Friday. This is the first such campus-wide referendum there in a decade. (Nice to know the students have their priorities straight.) Oh, and by the way, according to a University spokeswoman: the result is not binding.

Two clashes over hummus at DePaul in half a year: once more into the ~~fridge~~ fray. Not exactly the Second Battle of the Marne, but as they say of academic politics: the fights are so nasty because the stakes are so low.

Norman Finkelstein would be proud.

Labels: BDS, DePaul University, hummus, Norman Finkelstein, Strauss

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Princeton students vote down boycott of Strauss hummus

You may recall the story of Israel's Strauss food conglomerate taking its support for the IDF off its English-language website in a bid to get the BDS'ers off its case. Strauss won a victory at Princeton University at the end of last week, although I'd be much happier if they hadn't compromised their principles while doing it.

With a vote count of 1014 to 699, the Princeton undergraduate student body voted down a referendum asking for the University to provide alternatives to Sabra hummus on campus shelves, Undergraduate Student Government President Mike Yaroshefsky ‘12 said in an email this afternoon.

The referendum, introduced last week by the Princeton Committee on Palestine, had faced some stumbling blocks between the initial petition and the official referendum. They sought the referendum due to allegations that the Strauss Group, co-owners of Sabra Hummus, were providing aid to an Israeli defense force that has allegedly committed human rights violations.

This story is developing, so we’ll let you know more as soon as we can.

Like I said, I'd be a lot happier if they had won this victory without compromising their principles.

Labels: boycott divest sanction, hummus, Princeton University, Strauss