BDS founder hails campus protests for taking Israeli divestment mainstream

Omar Barghouti, who attended Columbia University in 80s, says student solidarity with Palestine has educated the world

The student-led protests demanding universities cut financial and academic ties to Israel have led to unprecedented support for the Palestinian liberation struggle, and have propelled the divestment debate into the mainstream, according to the co-founder of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights defender who helped launch the BDS movement almost 20 years ago, said the students' solidarity had helped educate the world about the Israeli occupation and apartheid" while exposing the hypocrisy - and repressive tendencies - of some of the world's most prestigious universities with investments in corporations which put profit before people and the planet".