Make Hartford Apartheid free
As someone with loved ones in both Hartford and Gaza, Palestine, it’s easy for me to see why Hartford residents must vote to adopt the Apartheid Free Communities Pledge on March 3rd.
In 2025, my friend Rabie Hussein sends me pictures of his Israeli bomb-destroyed home in Gaza while I, along with hundreds of other Upper Valley community members, witness ICE abduct Palestinian activist Mohsen Madahwi from White River Junction. My tax dollars fund violence against Palestinians across the world, and five minutes from my parents’ house. All while much of my community struggles with homelessness and food insecurity.
Hartford must now join VT towns Thetford, Winooski, Brattleboro, Plainfield, and Newfane (along with hundreds of other communities, organizations, and businesses all over the world) in, as the pledge says, “working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.” Hartford must take this opportunity to stand against billions of taxpayer dollars sent to Israeli occupation, and direct our money to our community.
My friend Rabie writes: “People always forget that we are copies of one another. We live the same life, endure the same suffering, and share the same small joys, because we are all human! Yes, we are partners in one way or another, strikingly similar, sharing the same fate. We suffer together and rejoice together.”
Mohsen instructs at the celebratory Thetford Apartheid Free Community dinner: “breathe in love, breathe out love.”
Let’s breathe out love and rejoice together. Cast your Yes vote for Article 30, the Apartheid Free Communities pledge, Tuesday, March 3.