Regarding the non-binding resolution at Town Meeting

This is a Letter to the Editor from Thetford resident Duncan Nichols to explain the pledge, supported by a petition of 5 percent of voters, under Article 23 of the Town Meeting Warning. Sidenote welcomes and considers writing on any topic related to Thetford.

It is time to help free the Palestinian people from the shameful conditions they are forced to live in on their own land. I believe it is our responsibility to help the Palestinians because our tax dollars are supporting the Israeli government — a government that administers a cruel Jim Crow-like system which, according to many in South Africa now, is worse than before the world divested from the white-minority government there in the late 1980s. See A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution | HRW.

At Thetford Town Meeting on March 1st, the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge to end support for Israel will come up for discussion as a non-binding resolution. Five percent of Thetford Voters petitioned to add the pledge to the Town Meeting Warning. Why at Town Meeting? Because this is our tradition of direct democracy. We say what is on our minds. In fact, in over 50% of the years since the mid-1970s, citizens of many towns across New England have addressed issues of war and peace and the environment at Town Meeting. 

Examples:

1982: 155 Vermont towns (and hundreds of others across New England) voted to reduce nuclear weapons testing and production.

2005: many towns including Thetford voted to withdraw American troops from Iraq “consistent with the mandate of international humanitarian law.” (4)

I and others in town oppose paying for these wars and immoral policies at the top. Nearly half of our federal taxes go to the Pentagon each year, when the poor among us in America don’t have basics like healthcare and decent housing.

Apartheid-Free pledges are on the town meeting warnings in five other towns this year. It is our hope and belief that the growing international movement to finally free the Palestinian people will be the banner leading us to peace and freedom everywhere on this small and beautiful planet.