Massachusetts Town Votes To Boycott Any Business That ‘Sustains Israel’s Apartheid’

Residents of Somerville, Massachusetts, voted Tuesday to pass a non-binding ballot measure recommending that city officials abstain from contracting with businesses that sustain “Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and illegal occupation of Palestine.” The measure passed with 11,489 votes for and 7,920 against.

The initiative was brought forth by Somerville for Palestine—”an intergenerational, interracial, interfaith group of Somerville Community members united in our steadfast advocacy for Palestinian liberation,” according to its Instagram account. The measure asked voters whether Sommerville’s elected officials should be instructed to “end all current city business and prohibit future city investments and contracts with companies as long as such companies engage in business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and illegal occupation of Palestine.”

That’s awfully vague phrasing. Determining whether a business is Israeli is difficult enough, considering the myriad shareholders in publicly traded multinational corporations. Whether a business “sustains Israel’s apartheid” is even more opaque, regardless of one’s feelings on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Materials shared by Somerville for Palestine shed some light on which specific companies the group wants the town to divest from.

One of the group’s fliers cites Hewlett-Packard as a business “complicit in Israeli apartheid.” The Boston-based public radio station WGBH reports that Hewlett-Packard provides Israel with “an automated biometric identification system [that is] installed at Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.” According to the activists, the city has awarded the company $1.7 million in school contracts over the past decade, an average of $170,000 per year.

On its website, Somerville for Palestine lists military contractor Lockheed Martin, “​​1,222 shares of [whose] stock [are] in the Somerville city employee pension fund,” and construction equipment firm Caterpillar Inc., whose machinery the group claims “has been widely used for house demolition and settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

It’s unclear how the measure will be effectuated. Somerville for Palestine says on its website that the measure was “non-binding by design—WHEN it passes, Lawmakers are then tasked with implementing it in a lawful and responsible manner.”

There’s good reason to be concerned about Israel’s treatment of Gaza, and Americans who feel this way should put their money where their mouths are and donate to one of the many relief organizations administering humanitarian aid to Palestinian noncombatants. But city officials should invest pension funds in the most prudent manner possible, not base their investment strategies on who has put in orders for Caterpillar equipment.