Home

Welcome to the UNC divestment petition website!

NC Divest is a group made up of UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty and staff, alumni and of members of the community. NC Divest was formed in the summer of 2002 with the aim of divesting the UNC system, beginning with UNC Chapel Hill, from all holdings in corporations that have profited by trading in weapons that have armed the military Occupation of the Palestinian people and their lands, or that have benefitted from or supported the Occupation in other ways.

We do this in the firm conviction that only if justice first comes to the Palestinian people through the end of the Occupation will peace, security and prosperity be possible for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. Since the current Israeli government is bent on continuing the Occupation (and possibly on coerced “transfer” of Palestinians from their lands), we feel we must do everything in our power to peacefully force it to end its Occupation. Much as American universities’ divestment from corporations operating in South Africa played an essential role in ending South African apartheid in the 1980s, so too do we feel that it is now time for American universities to divest from the corporations that benefit from and support Israel’s violent (and apartheid) Occupation to bring it to an end.

We are part of a larger national movement by university students, faculty, staff and community members for divestment by universities of their holdings that profit from the Israeli Occupation. This movement now includes campaigns at between 30 and 40 universities throughout the country, at institutions as diverse as Harvard, Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, as well as many others. This movement has received the strong support of many Israeli and Palestinian academics who realize, as we do, that only an ending of the Occupation will bring justice, peace and stability to the region.

We welcome your participation in NC Divest as a UNC student, faculty or staff member, alumni or resident in the community. Please go to our petition to the University on this web site, read it, if you agree with it then sign it, and join our listserv.

We urge you to join us!