ALBANY, NEW YORK - Assemblymembers Charles Lavine, President of the National Association of Jewish Legislators New York Chapter & Assemblymember David Weprin, NAJL Co-President, have sent a letter to SUNY Chancellor John B. King in response to the Binghamton University Student Association passage of a resolution that stops the organization from doing business with any companies that financially support the Israeli government. The resolution also calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and claims that Israel's current military campaign is a genocide.

In the letter, Lavine and Weprin urge Chancellor King to convey to the Student Association that they are in violation of the law:

“Effective June 15, 2016, New York State Executive Order 157 mandates that State entities divest all public funds that support the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, America’s ally. That first in the nation measure guarantees that no New York agency or authority engages in or promotes any investment activity that would further the harmful and discriminatory Palestinian backed BDS campaign.”

In addition, the legislators question the motives of the organization:

“The cynical action leads us to wonder why the Association would engage in such rash and ill-advised action without doing the most basic research into its legal authority to so act. Perhaps the emotion of the moment got the better of those who advanced and voted to support the resolution. This at a time when cooler heads need to prevail. Alternatively, there are certainly some who now find it most convenient to use the word genocide as an antisemitic trope in the context of the Gaza conflict.”

The letter in its entirety is attached.