On Monday, January 22, the Burlington City Council will hold a special meeting to decide if what pro-Israel advocate Yoram Samets calls an “anti-Israel, anti-Jewish” ballot question will appear on the March 5 Town Meeting Day ballot.  

The City Council meeting begins at 5:30 pm, with the petition put forward by councilors Bergman, Dieng, and Magee the fifth item on the agenda.

The petition is being promoted by Vermonters for Justice in Palestine. A petition urging boycotts and divestment of Israel failed to get on the Burlington city meeting ballot last year.

The petition asks the mayor and City Council to issue this resolution:

WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people and

WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression, and

WE DECLARE ourselves an apartheid-free community and

WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.

“This proposed ballot item will have no impact on the Israeli/Hamas war but will have a profound impact on the lives of many in the Jewish and Muslim communities, communities already concerned for their safety in a growing environment of anti-Muslim and antisemitic confrontation,” Samets said in a recent email. Samets is active with Jewish Communities of Vermont.

The City Council has the authority to stop this petition from appearing on the March ballot.

That path would be welcome to pro-Israel Vermonters on social media.

“This question has no business being put to the people of Burlington,” said Rachel Feldman, former chief of staff for then-Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and a current state employee on X. “It will have zero impact on the Middle East, but it will create a very real safety threat for Vermont Jews and those who stand with us.”

“Couldn’t agree more!!,” said former Stowe legislator Heidi Scheuerman. “To be clear, this is one of the declarations in the question: “WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.”

In other Israel-Hamas conflict news, the U.S. Senate last week rejected a resolution proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders to investigate whether U.S. military and to Israel has been used in the violation of human rights.