LB Protesters Demand CSU Divestment from Israeli Arms Suppliers

By Daniel Rivera, Reporter 

On May 21, several students and community members gathered at Lincoln Park in Downtown Long Beach. They marched along Ocean Boulevard to the California State University Office of the Chancellor where several of the participants delivered speeches until the afternoon. They were marching to pressure the state university system into divesting from the defense industries supplying Israel with arms and munitions. 

“We are out here to demand that the CSU system disclose its investments in companies that monetarily and materially support genocide,” Amy Parker, a computer science major at Cal State Fullerton, told Random Lengths News. 

The protestors gathered in Downtown Long Beach, then marched down Ocean, blocking half the street with a small group of police trailing them and warning them to disperse or be arrested. They eventually made it to the CSU office without incident or conflict with the police that followed them.

The CSU and all of its campuses have investments in defense industries that support the Israeli military. The CSU also provides trained labor for the research and development departments of these companies in the development of new generations of weapons.  

Cal State Long Beach has a particularly close relationship with Boeing, with grants, scholarships, presentations, programs and other forms of outreach done at the campus. 

CSU is a part of the golden triangle between the military, technology companies and research institutions aimed at developing surveillance and military products that are being used in theaters of war, including Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Though Cal State University has not publicly released the precise extent of the investments, the CSU currently holds $8 billion in reserve funds spread over a vast investment portfolio. 

The CSU issued a general statement that reads, “The California State University does not intend to alter existing investment policies related to Israel or the Israel-Hamas conflict.” 

On the CSU investment page, it states that about $3.2 million or .04% of investment in any mutual funds based in Israel and $51.4 million or about .62% of funds invested are in Aerospace and Defense. But it also states that it’s impossible to determine the portion of the Aerospace funds that are going to Israel directly. The CSU says that it is minimal, but military technology is shared within the NATO alliance for the purposes of standardization and goes beyond direct funding and into tactics, doctrines, production and objectives like surveillance or policing. 

“It’s just the complete ignoring of all the human suffering that is going on in Gaza. It reduces the genocide to a war between Israel and Hamas,” Parker said of the statement made by the CSU. 

The protesters are a part of a global movement known as BDS, or Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions that works to peacefully pressure Israel — similarly to South Africa in the 1980s — to obey international law and respect Palestinians’ human rights with a focus on the settlements and businesses in the West Bank. The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

No Western government has criminalized the BDS movement, but many U.S. states, including California, have used anti-boycott laws to punish companies that do not do business with illegal Israeli settlements. California passed an anti-BDS law in 2016, When Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 2844 into law after it passed the Senate 34–1.

A few schools have made steps towards divestments, such as Sacramento State and San Francisco State. But others have faced backlash, such as Sonoma State, with President Mike Lee promising to move towards divestment, only to be sacked not long after by CSU Chancellor Mildred García. 

Israel began its assault on the Gaza Strip about seven months ago, in retaliation for terror attacks committed by Hamas, leaving more than 1,000 dead and the kidnapping of a few hundred citizens who have yet to be recovered.  

Up to this point, Palestinian civilians make up the overwhelming majority of casualties. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians while Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis in the October attack. An additional 3,500 Israeli soldiers have been injured according to Israeli figures.