Reflections on the Somerville vote
by John Spritzler

Dear friends,

We have election results from nine of the eleven voting stations in Somerville, Massachusetts.

4,102 people (44% of the total who voted on the question) voted to affirm the right of return of all refugees, including Palestinians.

2,841 people (31% of the total who voted on the question) voted to divest from Israel.

Considering that every single newspaper and radio station serving Somerville, and both major candidates for governor, and the Mayor, and Somerville's Congressman all very visibly opposed our questions, and the Zionist forces made it their number one campaign strategy to make sure that Somervillians knew that all the politicians opposed our questions, it is fair to say that those who voted for our questions did so knowing full well that it was against the will of the entire American establishment. Furthermore, they voted against decades of pro-Israel propaganda appealing to their sympathy for victims of the Holocaust. They said that Israel should let the refugees return, even though that means (as the Zionists constantly pointed out with their "right of

return is code for destroying the Jewish state" propaganda) implicitly opposing the legitimacy of the "Jewish state" idea.

There has never been an election in the United States before that allowed people to vote against the heretofore unchallenged pro-Israel policy of our government. Until today, Zionists felt confident that there was no significant opposition among the American public to our government's pro-Israel policy. Until today, most people were so afraid of being labeled an anti-Semite for expressing any view that organized Jewry disagreed with that there was no evidence that anybody except an ignorable fringe had a problem with our country's pro-Israel policy. Until today the Zionists could have assumed that virtually NOBODY in the United States would vote against Israel--until today's vote in = Somerville, that is.

The Zionists may gloat that they defeated the two questions, but I am quite sure that, privately, they are extremely worried, because today, for the first time, they have seen the handwriting on the wall. The pro-Israel votes is only going one way in the future, and that is down. The vote against Israel's ethnic cleansing and apartheid is also going only one way in the future, and that is up.

It was a good day in Somerville today.

- John