Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)

I wrote this blog entry on May 28, 2025, before a group of Jewish activists were firebombed in Colorado. I did write it after two Israeli Embassy employees (one a Christian Israeli and one an American Jew) were shot at close range by a man who shouted “Free free Palestine.”

I have supported rights for Palestinians since I was in college. This was not a comfortable place to be; the position drew ire from some of my fellow Jews in the 1980’s. It was radical to support an economically viable free state for Palestinian people.

By the 2000’s, support for Palestinians turned to supporting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The hope for co-existence was dimming.

BDS in 2005:

On April 14th, I published my experience with BDS activity in Somerville, past and current. It included a recounting of my experience of being berated and followed for refusing to discuss signing the 2005 BDS petition.

BDS in 2025:

This spring, when the Somerville City Council heard debate over a 2025 ballot initiative regarding BDS, one city councilor (who is now running for mayor) pointedly walked out of the room when a Jewish constituent spoke. Elena Bloomfield published a Cambridge Day letter describing these events.

… Somerville city councilor and mayoral candidate, stood up and left the council chamber March 27 when a resident shared his sincere, deeply emotional testimony related to the boycott, divestment and sanctions proposal he supports. He described his experience and fears as someone who has lived in Somerville for many years. Right after he finished, [this councilor] walked casually back in to retake his seat, a seltzer in hand. When I asked him at the break why he chose not to listen, he told me, “I can’t hear you.”

And then I saw him as I exited the chamber with my two elementary-aged children, lining the hallways alongside Somerville for Palestine community members, screaming and chanting and pushing signs into the gantlet that we were forced to walk… I realized that to [this councilor] and his community members, we stood not as fellow Somerville residents but as the “other,” worthy of no sensitivity or care. [full letter available at Cambridge Day]

That City Councilor (and mayoral candidate) is proud of his leadership that evening. He was quoted in the Tufts Daily: “It takes real leaders to … take a stand, and many of my colleagues did not take a stand today, and I’m really disappointed in them for that,” he said.

If leadership is demonstrated by making a point of walking out on a constituent who is expressing a safety concern, I can do without that kind of leadership. A City Councilor’s first duty is to his city and its constituents.

By an overwhelming vote, 9 out of 11 City Councilors chose not to address this international issue as a municipal ballot initiative. The recourse of the group who support BDS for Somerville is to attempt to collect more than 5000 voter signatures in support of adding the initiative to the ballot in November 2025. This ballot initiative is a non-binding resolution which could take a comparatively petty amount of funding from the Israeli war budget, years from now.

What could stop the carnage in Gaza?

What would be more effective than a resolution in Somerville, Massachusetts? Israelis confronting their national government. Marches have been going on regularly in Israel. It’s been happening, and and happening.  The most recent one ended at the border of Gaza last Friday.

Also, Americans standing up to their national government on Gaza. The national investment in the Israeli war machine is in the billions. Somerville, on the other hand, might have $1-2 million.