Dec. 9, 2004 Massachusetts town votes against divestment By URIEL HEILMAN NEW YORK A legislative committee in the Boston suburb of Somerville voted late Tuesday night to reject a resolution calling for divesting the city's public funds from Israel and companies that supply military equipment to Israel. The vote by a committee of the Massachusetts city's Board of Aldermen came after weeks of public debate that had mobilized passionate activists on both sides of the divestment issue. Ever since the proposal was put forward Oct. 28 by a grass-roots group calling itself the Somerville Divestment Project, Somerville's City Hall has been inundated with petitions, angry letters and raucous protestors, turning the usually sleepy city board into a place of heated political debate. "There were significant numbers of activists on both sides of this issue-more so than on other issues-no question about it," said Mark Horan, a spokesman for Somerville's mayor, Joseph Curtatone. "My guess is we have not yet seen the last of it." Had the resolution passed, it would have set the stage for Somerville, a city of 80,000 that abuts Cambridge and is just over the river from Boston, to become the first US city to divest from Israel. But Somerville's mayor had said he would have vetoed the non-binding resolution, which required an additional legislative vote before passage. The proposal called for Somerville to rid the city's pension fund of $250,000 in Israel bonds and divest from companies like Caterpillar and Boeing, which manufacture equipment used by the Israel Defense Forces. Even if it had passed all legislative hurdles at City Hall, it's not clear whether the resolution would have had sufficient legal standing to force the city's independent retirement board to alter its investment strategy. Jews and Israelis were on both sides of the issue. Iftach Shavit, an Israeli immigrant to the United States, was one of the supporters of the divestment initiative. He said he viewed the move as positive intervention to stop a war begun by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak with the goal of "ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from lands coveted by Israel." "I am sad to see my country of origin hurling itself down a path of self-destruction and I feel a responsibility to stop it," Shavit wrote in a statement. "As an American taxpayer and a resident of Somerville for ten years, I do not want my money supporting the wanton destruction of civilian properties and the leveling of entire neighborhoods." Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, was one of the leaders of a campaign to block the divestment initiative. She said the Boston JCRC now is putting together a coalition to make sure divestment campaigns in other Massachusetts cities do not get off the ground. "We won this battle; we haven't yet won the war," she told The Jerusalem Post. "The fact that it continues to be an issue is of great concern." In the lead-up to the vote in Somerville, the JCRC urged pro-Israel city residents to contact their aldermen-essentially, city council members-and lobby against the divestment initiative. JCRC officials also met with the mayor to ensure his support for their cause. Now, the JCRC is meeting with state assemblymen and representatives elsewhere in the Boston area to ensure their support on the matter. Kaufman said she also has met with Rep. Michael Capuano, who represents the area in Congress, and invited him to take his first-ever trip to Israel this winter. The congressman has accepted, she said. Capuano's office did not return a call seeking comment. "Israel is the only country Somerville is invested in," protested Ron Francis, one of the leading members of the Somerville Divestment Project and a public school teacher. "The thought that Somerville monies are connected to attacks on children by the [Israeli] military is just not acceptable to me as a teacher." Somerville city officials could not immediately confirm whether or not the city had investments in countries other than Israel. The Somerville Divestment Project first introduced its divestment proposal at an Oct. 28 meeting of the Board of Aldermen, Somerville's 11-member legislative body, and it nearly passed without debate. But the board decided to hold a public hearing on the matter Nov. 8. As community members learned about the proposal in advance of the scheduled vote on the matter Tuesday, proponents and opponents of divestment flooded City Hall with petitions, e-mails and phone calls. About 200 people turned out Tuesday night for the meeting of the five-member board of aldermen's Legislative Matters Committee. When the aldermen voted 3-0 to reject the proposal-one member was absent and one walked out before the vote-the proposal's advocates erupted into hisses and boos while the resolution's opponents, who were outnumbered at Tuesday's meeting, celebrated their victory. But this may not end the controversy in Somerville. Divestment advocates say they'll likely propose an alternative resolution to divest from Israel at a city meeting Thursday night, and pro-Israel advocates say they expect the issue to come up again elsewhere in the state and country, if not in Somerville. "We're continuing to build an overwhelming grass-roots force," Francis said. "We'll continue to support resolutions that support divestment."