(JTA): The issue of divestment from Israel is resurfacing in a Boston suburb. Voters in the 27th Middlesex District, representing half of the precincts of Somerville, Mass., will decide Nov. 7 on a non-binding resolution instructing the district’s state representative to support legislation calling for the state to divest from Israel Bonds or companies supplying military equipment to Israel.
A second question instructs the representative to support legislation recognizing the right of all refugees, including Palestinians, to return to their land of origin. This is the "last gasp of the divestment-from-Israel movement," says Alan Ronkin, deputy director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, which has supported a local coalition that aggressively fought an earlier, unsuccessful divestment campaign in Somerville in December 2004.
