Sunday, December 12, 2004
I notice the group that sponsored the divestment attempt has finally gotten around to posting an update on their site:
Please, support our work to uphold human rights and promote peace by contributing today.
No, the end of the battle is no reason not to keep asking for cash. Wonder where the money will go now that the fight is over? Apparently, they have a staff(!) and a lot of other divestment battles to fight. It's worth noting that their links page is full of all sorts of divestment campaigns - many aimed at Israel as a whole, not just 'settlers' or 'occupation facilitators.'
Amazing that they blame the loss on lobbying from "an anti-Israel" group. I believe by "group" they mean every mainstream Jewish (and many non-Jewish) group on the planet. I'm not sure what could be more anti-Israel than disrespecting and undermining Israel's democracy and legitimacy by trying to strong-arm it into buckling under with coercive tactics to abandon its chosen policies and methods of protecting its own people from death. Failed politicians, radical Israelis with a minority viewpoint in league - knowingly or naively - with forces who would like nothing better than to dismantle the Jewish State. What could be more anti-Israel than that?
From what I heard from someone who was at the hearing, once the aldermen got a good look at the people running the divestment campaign they quickly realized they were dealing with extremists and haters. Local politicians may not be familiar with the ins and outs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (nor should they be expected to be) but they're superb at sizing people up and the "due to lobbying from an anti-Israel, anti-Palestine and anti-peace group" bit gives a sense of what kind of classy people the resolution had behind it.
Anyway, I'm very glad. I'm extremely fond of this city and am grateful to not have its government turned into a club to be used on Israel and just as glad for the precedent that wasn't set to turn the Somerville government into a free-for-all debating society. I strongly disapproved of the way the mayor handled the out-of-state gay marriage issue (old news, let's not bother arguing about it) but I give him credit for getting out in front on this one. Go Highlanders!
Meanwhile, if the divestment people really have a paid staff, they might want to invest some effort into cleaning all their blown-down posters out of my neighbors' gardens...
Very, very interesting. Thanks for that. It doesn't surprise me at all. I'm really sorry I couldn't attend the other night and give a first hand report. It must have been quite a scene.