Cambridge considering boycott, divestment from companies supporting Israeli military

Hundreds packed the Cambridge City Council chambers and an overflow room to testify in favor of and against a pair of policy orders that call on the city to divest from and end contracts with businesses that are profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza, occupation of Palestinian territories and apartheid policies toward Muslim and Christian citizens of Isreal and Palestine.

“These companies are selling weapons to the Israeli government that are bring used to target, maim and kill thousands of children according to the United Nations Human Rights Commission,” said Cambridge resident Steven Cellucci, who wore a keffiyeh while testifying during hearing. “We can do something about it, like we did about South Africa in the 1980s.”

Cellucci and others invoked a series of measures the city took four decades back to withdraw from companies doing business with South Africa as part of a global movement that isolated that country’s government and brought an end to its apartheid policies.

Those testifying against the measure last week argued that singling out Israel is hypocritical and would lead to discrimination against Jewish people of all political persuasions in Cambridge.

“This policy has nothing to do with the Palestinian people,” said Cambridge resident Noa Roth, who described herself as an Israeli, a proud Jew and a Zionist. “It will not change the policy of the U.S. government. This is not the Senate. This policy is about hate and division.”

Roth argued that boycotting the defense contractors supplying Isreal with military hardware and software would expose her children to antisemitism.

“I raise Israeli-American kids who attend public schools,” she said. “When the city singles them out, they become a target. We are already unsafe here.”

David Friedman, an instructor at Harvard Law School who served on the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism, said it would be antisemitic to apply a double standard to Israel, which he called the world’s only Jewish state.

“The proposed policy orders are filled with inflammatory accusations against Israel that aren’t true,” he said. “But even if there were truth to these claims, the proposals completely ignore far worse atrocities committed by Israel’s neighbors. Do we not care?”

The proposal, filed by councilors Ayah Al-Zubi and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, states that the state of Israel has committed genocide and is committing “the crime of apartheid,” citing determinations from Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups and an International Court of Justice ruling that found Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of international law.

The proposal notes that the city has already enacted policy orders to divest funds from the fossil fuel industry, private prisons and vendors “whose products are used to perpetuate violations of international human rights laws.” The proposal also notes that two of the companies singled out, Palantir and Flock Safety, are currently providing surveillance technology to the federal Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Speaking directly after Friedman, Ben Roberts, a Cambridge resident, noted that opponents of the proposal were not mentioning the companies it seeks to ban — Palantir, Flock Safety, GE Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and Elbit Systems.

“I don’t think people want to get up and say, ‘I support Palantir, I support Lockheed Martin and G.E.,’” he said. “And so it’s easy to say ‘Well, here are the other issues why not.’ But at the core of this, I do not want any of my support to be going to these companies that do such awful, brutal things abroad, here or anywhere else.”

In the first hour of testimony, 57 people spoke in favor of the divestment proposal, 43 against. Many of those in support wore keffiyehs as a show of support for the Palestinian people. Many of those who spoke against the measures wore the white and blue colors of the Israeli flag.

Jewish Cantabrigians as well as residents of Somerville, Arlington and Newton spoke both in favor of an against the measure. Eli Gerzon, who heads the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, said more than 40 members of his family were killed during the Holocaust in the 1930s and ’40s.

“That type of racist violence inspires me to take a stand against racist violence,” Gerzon said. “The idea that people use the trauma of families like mine as an excuse to inflict a genocide on Palestinian people is disgusting to me.”

In all, 352 people registered to speak during the Council hearing. Of those who spoke Monday, 165 spoke in favor of the measure, 100 against, according to the Harvard Crimson.

The Council is set to vote on the measure during its Wednesday meeting.

Outside of City Hall, a crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered and spoke while a half-dozen or so pro-Israeli demonstrators separated by a fence blasted music on a portable PA system.

Standing in front of City Hall, MIT professor Michel DeGraf said the Cambridge proposal comes as his university is grappling with similar issues, sharing technology with firms that are working with the Israeli miliary.

“I hope Cambridge can set an example for MIT,” he said.

Other Massachusetts cities that have passed divestment resolutions include Somerville, where voters in 2025 passed a nonbinding resolution to divest from companies linked to Israel and councilors are currently considering a measure that would follow through on that vote. The Easthampton City Council last week passed a divestment resolution.

“We’ve moved past the point where we were in 2021, when you were called antisemitic if you supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, to the point where Israel is considered an international pariah,” said retired UMass Boston Professor Elsa Auerbach, a former chair of Jewish Voice for Peace Boston. “The Cambridge resolution is completely aligned with the history of Cambridge taking stands on human rights and international law.”