Cyrus Schayegh

Overview

Cyrus Schayegh is a founder of the Princeton University (Princeton) faculty divestment initiative on Palestine, a variation of the broader Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. 

As of September 2019, Schayegh was a professor of International History at the Graduate Institute of Geneva.

Faculty Divestment Petition

On November 5, 2014, Schayegh co-authored a petition entitled "An Invitation to the Tenured Faculty at Princeton" in Princeton’s student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. The advertisement invited tenured faculty to support divestment from companies “that contribute to or profit from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank until the State of Israel complies with UN Resolution 242, ends its military occupation of the West Bank and lifts its siege of Gaza.”

In a November 9, 2014 interview with the Daily Princetonian, Schayegh said that he drafted the petition "because he believes that the only way forward is to have communities with high reputations, like universities and churches with high moral standing, show the American public that there is a way of putting pressure on the government to make it act on its proclamations of protest against the Israeli occupation of the settlements."

The faculty petition was rejected by the Resources Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community, because it did not meet guidelines for consideration. It was reported that organizers of the faculty petition "plan to press on."

Princeton Divests Campaign

In April of 2015, Schayegh was part of Princeton Divests — a coalition of Princeton students and faculty "committed to divesting from companies committing human rights violations in occupied Palestine" — that initiated a BDS referendum at Princeton. The referendum, voted on by Princeton students, was narrowly defeated.

According to Professor Max Weiss, a co-founder of the faculty divestment initiative, the “faculty petition urging divestment set the stage for the student referendum.”

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

University Website: https://graduateinstitute.ch/academic-departments/faculty/cyrus-schayegh