The seal of San Diego State University, whose student government voted down an Israel divestment resolution 16-3. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Resolutions to divest from Israel were resoundingly defeated in votes by the student governments of two California state schools, but a divestment measure was passed at one school, following marathon debates that lasted into the early hours of Thursday morning.

On Wednesday night, a divestment resolution against companies doing business in Israel was defeated by a vote of 16-3 with three abstentions at San Diego State University. Early on Thursday morning, after nearly eight hours of debate, a similar divestment resolution was defeated 16-8 at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

But the student government at nearby University of California, Riverside narrowly voted in favor of an Israel divestment resolution, 8-7, following another long debate that ended at 2 a.m.

In a statement, the pro-Israel group StandWithUs praised students on all three campuses who “worked hard to inform their governments about the misinformation and underlying malicious intent” of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which “seeks to delegitimize and demonize the world’s only Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.”

“We are heartened to see that the student governments were not misled by this deceptive campaign and voted responsibly,” StandWithUs said.