Voters in the Village of North Bennington narrowly rejected a motion to take the Apartheid-Free Community pledge at their annual town meeting on Tuesday night at The Village School after over an hour of debate.
The resolution would have made North Bennington the sixth town in Vermont and the first in Bennington County to sign the pledge. The paper ballot tally was 28 votes for and 33 against the resolution.
The annual town meeting started at 7:30 in The Village School auditorium and included discussion of village reports on the Park-McCullough Library, the status of Lake Paran and how school reform undertaken by the State Legislature may affect the Village School in the future.
The debate surrounded the Apartheid-Free Community Pledge, an initiative convened by the American Friends Service Committee, a quaker social justice organization active in Pro-Palestinian activism. The pledge’s language commits the community to affirming a commitment “to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people; we oppose all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and we declare ourselves an Apartheid-free community and to that end, we pledge to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.”
Robert Nowak, of Main Street, North Bennington, and President of Bennington for a Free Palestine, gave a presentation stating his support for the motion in the Village.
“This was my introduction to what we call Palestine,” Nowak said with a picture of the village of Al-Walaja on the projector near Bethlehem in the West Bank. Nowak gave examples of functions of apartheid he had witnessed while visiting Palestine, including the building of illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli checkpoint system within the West Bank. He included an audio recording from a West Bank resident and a news clip of an Israeli attack on the funeral procession of Shireen Abu Akhlar, an American-Palestinian journalist killed by Israeli forces.
Israel has been named an apartheid state by multiple human rights organizations including Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and The International Court of Justice. Since October 7th, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Southern Israel and took 250 hostages, Israel has since committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, also recognized by these same international human rights groups as well as the United Nations.
A statement submitted by a property owner in North Bennington and read by another out of fear of reprisal stated that entertaining the notion of Israel as an apartheid state which “has no legal basis” was antisemitic. The letter also asked why the Village was not entertaining motions condemning ethnic cleansing of Kurds in Turkey and of Uyghurs in China.
Pearce Miller, a junior studying Public Action, helped organize a canvassing campaign at the college to mobilize students to vote at the town meeting as part of a group tutorial “Together We Make a World”. Miller said “The goal was to get students involved in local civics as an educational process, but also for them to exercise their votes, so they can feel like they’re a part of the local community. You cannot become politically engaged without becoming a part of the world community.”
Several Bennington students attended the meeting. Two Bennington students, who both identified as Jewish, spoke in support of the resolution.
Nina Antin, a resident of the Town of Bennington and member of Congregation Beth El said the
impact of the resolution would not be felt in Israel, but in the Jewish community of Bennington and that the resolution would only foment anti-semetism.
“Even if you misguidedly vote for this pledge, every single one of you needs to show up at the synagogue and volunteer to help. Open your pocketbooks and donate some money to the security that the synagogue has to spend money on. You’re not considering the impact of your actions on your neighbors and on your community, and on Jews all over the world. And I think you should be ashamed,” Antin said.
The pledge was the fourth order of business on the Annual Village Meeting agenda. John Lampson was elected as Moderator, replacing John Ulrich in the middle of the meeting; Lori Elwell reelected as Village Clerk unanimously; Doug Buggee reelected as Treasurer and Tax Collector unanimously; and David Shaughnessy and Tara Lowery were both elected to 3-year trustee terms by paper ballot.
After the meeting, Nowak stated that he was disappointed in the result at the meeting but promised his work wasn’t done.
“I think it’s probably the end of the resolution, but it’s not the end of my work,” Nowak said, “I pursued it because I’m fighting very hard for the Palestinians.”
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