The student senate at George Washington University narrowly rejected a resolution calling on the university to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
The vote by the Student Association Senate late on Monday night was 14 in favor, 15 against, and one abstention, the Washington DC-area university student newspaper The Hatchet reported.
The student senate held three hours of public comment by supporters and opponents of the resolution before the vote, and allowed comment after the vote as well.
The resolution, spearheaded by the campus Students for Justice in Palestine group which formed a coalition with other groups called Divest This Time, called for the university to withdraw investments from 10 companies that supporters charged “provide resources and materials that contribute to Palestinian oppression,” according to the Hatchet.
It is the first time that such a resolution has been proposed at the university.
The resolution relied heavily on United Nation’s Goldstone Report on the Gaza situation, which was issued in 2009 and accused Israel of war crimes against the residents of Gaza, and was retracted by author Richard Goldstone in 2011. It also contained many other factual inaccuracies and inconsistencies, according to the pro-Israel campus group StandWithUS, which joined a coalition of other campus groups opposing the resolution under the name GW Together.