As is the case with the academic boycott in Britain, the We Divest campaign
illuminates aspects of the BDS movement’s organizational form. In this respect, the We Divest campaign is decentralized with characteristics of horizontal and vertical
149 organizing. According to the campaign, “We Divest is a national campaign with global reach, but its strength comes from local organizing.”250 Vertically, the structure
of campaign is national in that it is a coalition-based organization of coordinating members from around the US, with priorities and strategies largely set at the national level through the CC. Communicating these objectives and information about the campaign down to the local level occurs through networks using various means of communication such as email, listservs, Facebook, Twitter, and the We Divest website.
The We Divest website is a central channel for spreading information about the campaign; it is the location where groups can endorse the campaign and
supporters can sign the petition asking TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that violate human rights principles and international law. It contains the most updated information on the campaign and also highlights the successes of other BDS campaigns that have similar corporate targets. The national campaign provides resources and toolkits for starting local campaigns and facilitates “opportunities to network between campaigners.”251 The website has a widget that activists can use to
find groups with We Divest related campaigns in their area.252
Despite the national structure of the We Divest campaign, the initiative is largely decentralized and horizontal in that it is comprised of local campaigns across the country. Local groups determine how local campaigns are organized. They decide the goals of the local campaign (e.g. faculty statement), and how to make it relevant within the larger We Divest campaign and BDS movement. Local groups form a web of activity, that taken together, form a national campaign to pressure TIAA-CREF to
250 We Divest, “Organize Locally,” https://wedivest.org/p/231/local#.UwyPPPmSxhg. 251 Ibid.
150 divest from companies that profit from violations of international law and human rights standards.
The frames that activists deploy in conceptualizing the We Divest campaign are parallel to the frames that other BDS initiatives adopt. The first is that of human rights and other forms of international law in constructing a basis and justification for action. These themes were written into the original petition to TIAA-CREF organized by JVP in 2010, and further reinforced in We Divest statements as shown in
campaign’s rationale for BDS quoted earlier. Both shareholder resolutions submitted to TIAA-CREF on behalf of We Divest investors significantly emphasized human rights and international law throughout the short proposals. These themes are also prevalent in the work of all members on the We Divest national Coordinating Committee and in many of the endorsing organizations of the campaign. The AFSC investment screen and the work of Grassroots International discussed earlier are two such examples.
Motivations for participating in the We Divest campaign and the BDS movement more generally indicate that issues of corporate complicity with Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights are important for BDS participants. Activists in the BDS movement want to draw attention to and target corporations that profit from Israel’s human rights abuses and violations of other international laws, thereby exposing an underlying system of support and
maintenance for Israel’s colonization and occupation. By creating bad press through negative associations with Israel’s activities, these campaigns hope that individuals and institutions will divest from companies that are engaged in these endeavors.
These frames correspond with other contemporary transnational movements working on justice related causes and are analyzed more in chapter six, where I
151 consider the BDS movement in a global justice framework. The We Divest campaign embraces ideas of global justice by focusing on issues of socially responsible
investment, corporate complicity, international law, and principles of human rights, which resonates with activists working on issues other than Palestine-related activism. As these cross-cutting themes have proliferated, particularly through the development of anti-globalization and global justice movements from the late 1990s onward, the priorities of the We Divest campaign have interconnecting linkages with ideas that are promoted on a wide-range of issues and in other struggles across the globe. From sweatshop labor to climate change, corporations are susceptible to public scrutiny of profit making at the expense human rights and environmental considerations, among others.
Organizationally as well, the We Divest campaign corresponds to the dynamics of other groups and organizations that are involved in issues related to global justice. Coalition-building, consensus-based decision-making, and a
decentralized national campaign through local community-based groups parallels how groups working on causes not specific to Palestine are organized. By exploring the organizational dynamics of the We Divest campaign, we can see that BDS campaigns have similarities to other groups that work on other issues. This opens up possibilities for broad-based coalitions in which Palestine is considered among other issues, such as the case in a number of Veolia campaigns where labor, resource-privatization, and Palestine activism have all intersected and worked together to prevent Veolia
contracts from going through.253
253 Charlotte Silver, “Palestine Activists, Labor and Environment Groups in US Unite Against Veolia,”
The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2014; http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-activists-labor- and-environment-groups-us-unite-against-veolia/13221.
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Conclusion
In this case study, I analyzed the We Divest campaign to identify facets of the wider BDS movement across borders. As explained in the chapter, the campaign is one of the largest divestment initiatives in the BDS movement and targets TIAA-CREF, a major provider of retirement funds in the US. The chapter began with an overview of the company and the We Divest campaign aimed at its investments. Some of the groups involved in the campaign and the organizational dynamics of We Divest were then discussed, along with the significance of the case. Following these sections, dynamics between We Divest campaigners and opponents were considered, especially the actions by the SEC and Shurat HaDin, and the chapter ended with an analysis of the case study. In this section, I identified features of the campaign such as its organizational structure and collective action frames that are illustrative of the movement in general.
The We Divest campaign is similar to the academic boycott in Britain that I analyzed in the previous chapter in that both initiatives represent how the movement is decentralized and uses hybrid forms of organizing that are both vertical and horizontal. The campaign in vertical in that priorities and strategies are set at the national level and communicated to local community-based campaigns. However, the campaign is largely decentralized and horizontal as activists in their own locales decide for themselves how to operationalize the campaign in their area. In addition, We Divest utilizes collective action frames such as international law, corporate complicity, and socially responsible investment, which are the same frames used in other BDS campaigns and among other border-crossing movements working on justice-related causes. Evidence from this chapter informs part of my analysis in chapter six on the BDS movement in a global justice discourse. The rationale assigned
153 in these collective action fames also provides motives for mobilization, and are
generally similar for participants in the academic boycott in Britain and We Divest campaigns. Although there are general similarities in motives between the two BDS campaigns analyzed thus far, each campaign illustrates that activists interested in or working in a specific sector are more likely to join a campaign around that theme. Thus, academics are more likely than people in other professions to join the academic boycott of Israel and activists that are TIAA-CREF participants are more inclined to join the We Divest campaign. Taken together, this case study provides evidence on the movement’s organizational structure and collective action frames, which
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