NORTHAMPTON — A Hampshire Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the city’s resolution to divest from companies linked to human rights violations in Israel and Palestine on Tuesday, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case.
The National Jewish Advocacy Center, representing 10 Northampton residents, filed a lawsuit in March, months after City Council approved the resolution last September. Since then, Hampshire Superior Court Judge Charles W. Groce III has heard from both the city in its motion to dismiss the case and the plaintiff’s motion seeking preliminary injunction.
“Because the plaintiffs lack standing to bring this action, it must be dismissed,” Groce wrote in his decision. “The court will dismiss the plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction and the motion to intervene as moot.”
In a lively debate before Groce on Aug. 26, the city, represented by attorneys Jason Talerman and Alan Seewald, argued that the case challenging the resolution should be dismissed because it constituted free governmental speech, was nonbinding and simply “urged” the city to divest from companies or entities that profit off the war.
At that same August hearing, which followed a rally of more than 65 people in favor of the resolution, attorney Douglas Brooks, who represented the plaintiff, argued that regardless of whether the resolution was, in fact, binding, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra began to act on it as if it were policy.
Groce, however, ruled that the plaintiff’s assertion that the resolution’s implementation or enforcement “would involve the expenditure of staff time and the incurrence of transaction costs,” lacked legal standing.
City Council President Rachel Maiore, who was among the resolution’s co-sponsors, said she was glad, though “not surprised,” that the case was dismissed.
“I hope that this will empower other communities to do what’s right and what’s in their legal right,” Maiore said.
The council passed the resolution in response to concerns from residents and activists. The measure urges divestment from Israeli bonds, as well as companies identified by the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee as complicit in human rights abuses in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Companies listed by the nonprofit include Boeing, Chevron and defense contractor L3Harris, which has a manufacturing facility in Northampton. According to the resolution, the city currently has around $71,000 invested in such companies, and the council’s vote calls for full divestment within two years.
At a rally held outside the courthouse prior to the case’s Aug. 26 hearing, members of the public gathered to speak in support of the resolution and against the Israel-Hamas war in general.
Among those who spoke was former Ward 7 Councilor Alisa Klein, a dual citizen of both Israel and the U.S., who described the war as a “genocide” against Palestinians and called for an end to the conflict.
“I hold dual American-Israeli citizenship and grew up as an avid supporter of Israel and Zionism. I attended high school and university in Israel [and] served two years of compulsory service in a tank unit of the Israeli army,” Klein said at the rally. “Yet, what I witnessed throughout my army service and beyond — not just apartheid conditions, but Israeli brutalization and dehumanization of Palestinians — made me dig deeper into the Zionism on which I was raised.”
Klein said she was “deeply offended” by the claim that divestment from Israel was an antisemitic act and further argued that the practice is not unprecedented or radical.
Kevin Hale, one of the case’s main plaintiffs, could not be reached immediately for comment Tuesday afternoon.
