Limiting choices for the starving students.
Via Campus Reform:
Students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania are calling for their president to take Sabra Hummus out of campus stores, citing the company’s ties to Israel.
A petition created by the Swarthmore Students for Justice Palestine (SJP) chapter states that the reason for protesting Sabra Hummus is because the company is “owned by the Strauss Group, a multinational corporation that invests in, financially supports, and even sends care packages to the Golani Brigade of the Israeli armed forces.”
he petition asserts that the Golani Brigade is “particularly brutal,” claiming that it “has carried out countless human rights violations against Palestinians in Hebron, including arbitrary murders, assaults, incarcerations, evictions, and arrests of children.”
The petition says it is “morally unacceptable” for Swarthmore to sell Sabra Hummus, arguing that by doing so the school is supporting “the international human rights violations of the Golani Brigade and Israeli Apartheid at large.”
Leaving no room for ambiguity, it adds that “by selling Sabra, Swarthmore is an accessory to the occupation of Palestine,” calling on Swarthmore President Valerie Smith to “affirm the dignity of Palestinian life, recognize the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and deshelve all current Sabra products and end their future sale at Swarthmore College.”
According to the SJP petition, Sabra Hummus is currently sold at three locations on campus: the Kohlberg Coffee Bar, the Science Center Coffee Bar, and Essie Mae’s Snack Bar.
The boycott is getting wide support across the Swarthmore campus, with more than 350 members of the Swarthmore community signing the petition, according to a tweet by the Swarthmore SJP.
In addition, the movement to ban Sabra Hummus from the Swarthmore campus has gotten multiple letters of support from student organizations on campus, including the Swarthmore African American Student Society (SASS), the Swarthmore Indigenous Students Association (SISA), the LatinX Students Organization (ENLACE), the Interfaith Center Interns, the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and the Swarthmore Queer Union (SQU).
SQU, for instance, says it supports the effort to rid the campus of Sabra Hummus because “queer and trans liberation cannot take place without Palestinian liberation as well.”