The idea of divestment from Israel is not anti-Semitic because it is aimed at ending the occupation, a brutal condition that is dehumanizing all Semites (Palestinians and Israelis). Occupation is the deadly disease that has been claiming lives of both peoples and infecting the health of the Israeli civil society. Israel continues to be the most politically charged and polarized nation in the region. To the admission of many Israeli peace activists whom have been visiting Ann Arbor this summer, opposing views on the issue of "land for peace" ravage almost every households. "Israel is standing on one foot," says Aliyah Strauss, an Israeli-American and president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom who was visiting Ann Arbor this weekend.

She lives in Jaffa and has come on a tour to initiate dialogue within the Jewish community in favor of a peaceful solution to the situation in Palestine/Israel. On Saturday, I asked Aliyah how she feels about our divestment campaign. She replied, "I support your work." Later in the day as she was addressing a crowd of mostly Jewish community members the question of divestment was put to her again and she responded with much enthusiasm, "you do it".

The goal of divestment is to render non-functional the military machinery (the Israeli army) that creates the unbearable state of utter disrespect for Palestinian and Israeli dignity and life. Divestment can prove effective in exerting political pressure on the government of Ariel Sharon to withdraw Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza. European and American divestment from apartheid South Africa helped bring an end to an unjust and inhumane condition and can do the same in Israel. It has been done once and it can be done again.

In the name of humanity and decency we must divest from the horrors of occupation; we must stop providing bullets, tanks, helicopters, tear gas, sound bombs, dart bombs and a hundred other types of bombs that destroy human lives, devastate the environment and tear down foundations of democracy in Israel. Let us defend our own humanity and that of the Palestinians and Israelis. Let us divest from the brutality of occupation at once.

I am neither an Arab nor a Jew. But I lived the horrors of occupation for two years in Ramallah. The situation has worsened many times over since then (1992). Today, Palestinians are marching the streets of Ramallah and Gaza in defiance of Israeli curfew, U.S. and Israeli guns, tanks, bombs and bullets. To remain docile at a time when the world is outraged at these atrocities is nothing less than cowardly and it will only prolong the current agonizing conditions to the detriment of both Palestinian society and that of Israel's. To accuse divestment supporters, like me, of anti-Semitism is, at best, disingenuous and, at worst, a lie.

Savabieasfahani is a Research Fellow in Environmental Health Sciences.