US city votes to divest from Israel

Providence, Rhode Island just became the first U.S. city to pass a divestment law that includes Israel. An overwhelming majority of voters want the city to stop its investments from supporting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide. So, Providence will have to end 20 years of investing in Israeli bonds and get companies like General Dynamics, Caterpillar, and Palantir out. of their $650 million pension investment fund. I asked an organizer from Providence for Palestine how they made this happen. We have been working on this ordinance for over a year now. Now, um, We started by collecting a total of over 10,000 signatures from Providence voters to place this ordinance on the ballot. The ordinance was met without cry. from pro-Israel groups and politicians. Question seven is unlawful, unmanageable, and will make us unsafe. Outgoing mayor Brett Smiley's administration even commissioned a legal analysis to question whether the ordinance can be enforced. It's absolutely enforceable. We drafted this ordinance ourselves very carefully with the guidance of experts who have done this in other cities to make sure that it was both legally binding and allowed for the city to divest in a step-by-step process. The city of Providence has divested before from both specifically the genocide in Darfur and from fossil fuel companies. And the ordinance has the support of mayor-elect David Morales. We have put forward an ordinance unlike any other across the country so we can achieve divestment and make it absolutely clear that Providence will not and will never again, never again. Will we contribute to genocide? This vote comes after decades of organizing in solidarity with Palestinians by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement and others. It's also part of a wider shift. The midterm elections have shown that other parts of the U.S. are moving in a similar direction, away from funding Israeli crimes. In an ex-post, Vice President J.D. Vance acknowledged voter frustration with the current U.S.-Israeli relationship, Listing it as one of the main reasons Voters switched sides, electing more pro-Palestinian lawmakers, like Abir Qawas, who ran on pulling New Yorkers' taxes from funding Israeli settler violence and banning the illegal sale of Palestinian land. She won her seat in New York State Senate. Abdullah Zayed, U.S. Senator-elect for Michigan, says that the U.S. must end their funding of Israel's genocide in Gaza. So, Providence just became the first U.S. city to split from Israel. The question is, Will it be the last?