Image by Edgar Serrano.

As residents of a Vermont town that recently passed the AFSC Apartheid-Free Communities pledge, we write today to ask our Vermont state and federal representatives to stop collaborating with the weapons industry made up of corporations like GlobalFoundries, General Dynamics, and Israel’s Elbit Systems that, besides building deadly weapons, have been exposed as causing severe harm to our pristine Vermont environment.

American and Israeli weapons are being used to continue the genocide in Gaza and the apartheid system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and we oppose this warmongering system. We strongly object to Vermont being a home to these global corporations. We object especially given that our delegation to Washington, Senators Sanders and Welch and Representative Balint have brought legislation to stop the flow of offensive weapons to Israel. Besides being part of an industry that makes things that kill and oppress people, including in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, these companies also produce surveillance tools that abridge our own rights and freedoms. But that is a whole story of its own.

Voters in Winooski, Plainfield, Thetford, Newfane, and Brattleboro passed the Apartheid-Free pledge and joined together to stop support in Vermont for Israeli apartheid and occupation that makes genocide possible. At........

© CounterPunch