At its meeting on Friday, the University Board of Regents was presented with 140 signatures of past and present faculty and students demanding the University consider cutting its financial investments in Israel. The list includes 75 staff and faculty and 65 students and alumni from all three University of Michigan campuses.

Accusing Israel of breaching human rights laws, four staff and faculty from Ann Arbor and UM-Dearborn urged regents to form a committee to explore the possibility of divestment.

It appears, though, that divestment is not even a remote possibility.

University Regent Larry Deitch (D-Bingham Farms) said regents do not support divestment and would never support it.

"It's just not a good idea," Deitch said. "Many of us feel that divestment should only be used in the most extreme and egregious examples, and even then there's a question of whether it's a good thing for universities to do."

The regents last voted for divestment in 2000, withdrawing the University's investments in the tobacco industry.

Deitch said he considers his vote in favor of tobacco divestment a mistake because it goes against the regents' goal of encouraging investment whose income supports the University.

"I voted for divestment of tobacco stocks, but if I had that choice again, I'd take my vote back," he said.

A letter from the divestment supporters to the regents accused Israel of forcibly evicting Palestinians from their homes, destroying their homes, collectively punishing the Palestinian people for the actions of a few by disrupting their daily lives, excessive violence against Palestinians and settlement in Palestinian territory.

A letter outlining the intent of the divestment supporters accused Israel of forcibly evicting Palestinians from their homes, destroying the homes of Palestinians, collectively punishing the Palestinian people for the actions of a few by disrupting their daily lives, excessive violence against the Palestinian people and settlement in Palestinian territory.

"We should support an inquiry on moral principle. The occupation is wrong and efforts promoting its end are morally right actions," Philosophy Prof. David Skrbina of UM-Dearborn wrote in the University Record last October.

Issue divides student gov'ts

When the resolution for a divestment committee came before the Michigan Student Assembly in March, hundreds of students attended the meeting. It had to be moved to a larger ballroom, and then-MSA president Jason Mironov barely managed to control the raucous crowd.

Mironov gave a passionate anti-divestment speech at the meeting. Some present at the meeting believed the speech had a strong impact on the voting.

The resolution was voted down.

Out of the 40 MSA representatives, 25 voted against the resolution, 11 voted in favor of it and 4 abstained.

One of those abstentions was Michigan Progressive Party presidential candidate Rese Fox, leading some pro-Israel students to worry about another divestment vote if Fox wins office in this week's elections.

Jen Gonik, vice chair of the American Movement for Israel, wrote an e-mail to members of the pro-Israel community urging them to vote for Students 4 Michigan because the party supports Israel.

"Students 4 Michigan has been proactive in promoting the interests of Pro-Israel students," she wrote.

She discouraged students from voting for MPP, citing MPP presidential candidate Rese Fox's abstention and MPP's alleged support of the pro-divestment Defend Affirmative Action Party.

But MPP never supported DAAP as a party.

"MPP has never endorsed any candidates in other parties," wrote MPP chair Jon Koller in a statement yesterday.