A big thank you to the city councils of Portland and Belfast for providing a clear moral compass for cities across the country by divesting from companies complicit in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Contrary to what has been argued by some critics of divestment resolutions, it is both our right and moral obligation to always ensure that our money is responsibly invested, most especially in the middle of a genocide enabled by U.S.-supplied weapons manufactured by U.S. companies.

With our money and weapons, Israel has killed more than 11,000 children. Thousands more are wounded or missing, trapped in the rubble of their homes, or buried in mass graves.

Children in Gaza, which UNICEF describes as “the most dangerous place on Earth to be a child,” have lived their entire lives under a 17-year Israeli military blockade; effectively an open-air prison about a tenth of the land area of Rhode Island. Now enduring their fifth war, they’ve repeatedly lost family, friends, homes, schools and limbs. The U.N. reports that Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita globally, with many surgeries conducted without anesthesia.

Our city councils should never invest in companies that profit from such unimaginable crimes. My thanks to Portland and Belfast for leading the way. May all cities and towns in Maine and in the country find the courage to follow.

Sharry Lapp
Georgetown