NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton City Council voted in favor of two resolutions during its Oct. 17 regular meeting and introduced one that supports a total embargo on U.S. arms to Israel.
The first resolution the council approved was to support the passage of Ballot Question 2, which calls for the replacement of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as a graduation requirement, while the second resolution they approved shows support for Ballot Question 4, which, if passed, would decriminalize natural psychedelics for therapeutic use.
The third resolution the council introduced, the one supporting a total embargo on U.S. arms to Israel, will be voted on during the council’s regular Nov. 7 meeting.
“I believe that this is a way that the council can use our voice to try to encourage our senators to disapprove of the military aid that we’ve been giving as a country,” said Ward 4 City Councilor Jeremy Dubs, who sponsored the embargo resolution. “It’s a big step that we can take on a local level.”
The resolution also backs U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval in Congress to block the sale of more than $20 billion in offensive U.S. weaponry to Israel, and states that the continued shipment of U.S. weapons to Israel violates the Leahy Law and other U.S. laws including the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act.
The introduction of this resolution comes several months after the council became the first community in Western Mass. and the third in the state to back a ceasefire on Gaza.
“Unfortunately, the situation hasn’t gotten any better since we passed that resolution,” Dubs said, referring to the ceasefire resolution the council passed in late winter.
The resolution presented on Oct. 17 comes at a time when the U.S. has sent $17.9 billion to Israel over the past year, and as over 2 million Palestinian civilians have been killed, wounded or displaced as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza over the last year-plus.
According to the Northampton resolution, “the flow of U.S. weapons to the government of Israel is continuing and has enabled attacks against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem, including the unlawful restriction of lifesaving humanitarian aid, resulting in untold numbers of civilian deaths, which The Lancet medical journal estimates may exceed 186,000; and the illegal widespread assault against the Lebanese people and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, all of which threaten to lead to a Middle East, and possibly, a global war.”
By passing this resolution, the Northampton City Council would require U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Malden) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge), and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Worcester) to support Sanders’ resolutions and to introduce their own legislation to impose and immediate embargo on sales and shipment of U.S. weapons to Israel.
“It breaks our policies as a country to be sending these arms when they are breaking our policies around letting humanitarian supplies in,” said Ward 7 City Councilor Rachel Maiore.
For the ballot question resolutions, every councilor voted yes except Ward 3 City Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg, who said she supported the ballot questions, but decided to abstain because she did not feel comfortable telling her ward how to vote.
