(FORTUNE Magazine) – Divestment. If you're of a certain age--let's say on the wrong end of 35--that word conjures up a movement on American college campuses in the early to mid-1980s that tried to force university endowments to shed their investments in South Africa.

Now there is a new divestment movement afoot on U.S. campuses--only this time the target isn't South Africa. It's Israel. Groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Students Allied for Freedom and Equality--which consist mostly of U.S. students--at prominent universities such as Harvard, Princeton, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley are equating Israel with South Africa and borrowing activist strategy from a previous generation. Needless to say, this mini-movement has created a huge controversy.

I find this strategy rather misguided. Not because I am pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian--for the record, I am neither. And not because the situations in South Africa 20 years ago and Israel today are radically different, even though that's true. I'm finding fault on a very narrow point: how they sort through and identify which U.S. companies do business with Israel.

But first some color. According to a story in the Christian Science Monitor, at Berkeley (of course at Berkeley) a while back, Students for Justice in Palestine took over Sather Gate, a major campus entrance. Dressed as Israeli soldiers with cardboard guns, the group let students pass freely through one entrance of the gate marked JEWS ONLY. On the other side, marked PALESTINIANS, the group demanded students' papers and asked where they were going. How's that for theater?

The paper quoted one member of the SJP saying its goal is to put pressure on all companies in which the University of California system has invested that do substantial business in Israel. This is "defined by the group as transactions worth $5 million or more annually, or having branches or subsidiaries [in Israel]."

The students may be surprised to learn that $5 million is a pretty low threshold. I would imagine the vast majority of FORTUNE 500 companies (plus a heap of small and medium-sized U.S. firms) do at least $5 million worth of business in some shape or form in Israel each year. Especially when you consider what else the students mean by business ties to Israel. Subsidiaries, partnerships, joint ventures, franchises--they all make companies complicit. The University of Michigan divestment website points to the school's 9,000-share investment in French yogurt-maker Danone because it "Received Jubilee award--highest tribute awarded by Israel, that through trade relations and investments have done most to strengthen Israeli economy." Never mind that Danone has operations and sells products throughout the Arab world.

Yale's pro-divestment website lists Citibank as a target because it "Begins offering full banking services in Israel (6/00)." At Princeton, four dozen faculty members signed a petition demanding that the University divest. When asked if that meant that Old Nassau should divest its McDonald's stock even though the chain serves both Palestinians and Israelis, Robert Tignor, a Princeton history professor who signed the petition, replied, "Yes, that's what we're calling for."

So what we have is basically the whole kitchen sink. An umbrella website for the Divestmentites lists more than 500 U.S. companies with interests in Israel (that has to be low). What this suggests is that all academic institutions should be forced to sell all of their stocks! (Which, come to think about it, in this environment might not be a bad idea!)

To me this is all more than a little sad, because it's so misguided. Why spend time fixating on Danone instead of actually trying to work on the peace process? But just because this "movement" is off base doesn't mean it will go away--these new divestment activists have somehow hit a raw nerve.

Outside the Jack in the Box

Quick! What's the fourth-largest hamburger chain in the U.S.? Yup, after McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's, it's Jack in the Box, home of the Jumbo Jack. The chain took years to recover from a terrible episode of contaminated meat. Nine years ago, four people died and hundreds became ill after eating hamburgers tainted by E. coli from Jack in the Box restaurants. By early 1995 JBX had slipped to low single digits. Slowly the company rebuilt, and now the stock has climbed back up to the mid-$20s. With the burger wars becoming increasingly brutal, McDonald's and BK have been frantically tinkering with their stores and burgers: another slice of cheese here, some fresh paint there. Now Jack in the Box is making even more radical moves. It's opening new-format stores that combine food, a convenience store, and a gas station. And Jack will be looking beyond burgers. The chain, which already features chicken teriyaki bowls and Mexican items, will move more towards sandwiches and lighter fare. At least Jack is trying to, um, think outside the box.

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