Municipalities speak with collective voices when they divest funds from companies not aligned with their values.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s divestment supported ending South African apartheid, the system of racial separation and authoritarian culture that ensured rule by a white minority and violent discrimination against the Black majority. Recognizing apartheid as reprehensible, we’d assume these campaigns were popular, but initially they were controversial.
Today, numerous Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights organizations classify Israel as an apartheid state perpetrating an ongoing genocide in Gaza, illegal West Bank settlements, and dehumanization of Palestinians. The latest apartheid law instituted in March enacts a death penalty that in practice applies only to Palestinians. Death by hanging is the default sentence in military courts for deadly attacks intended to “negate the existence of the State of Israel.” Israeli citizens are generally not tried in military courts, but Palestinians are. Human rights groups identify a conviction rate of 96% for Palestinians in these courts.
Palestinian civil society has called on the international community to nonviolently engage in divestment campaigns until Israel ends the occupation of Arab lands, recognizes equality of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and follows UN Resolution 194 Right of Return for Palestinians.
Valley activists are answering this call by seeking municipal divestment from apartheid’s infrastructure and genocide’s weaponry. In Easthampton over $450,000 of city funds are invested in companies like GEAerospace, General Dynamics, and Planantir, which produce the jets, bombs, and surveillance technology used by Israel (often funded/bought by the US with our tax money). Through these investments, Easthampton is complicit in Israel’s crimes. City residents now ask City Council to be our collective voice and urge the mayor to take action to divest from these companies.
Carolyn Cushing
Easthampton