Apartheid-Free Community (AFC) affirms support for freedom and equality for all peoples and commits a community to working to end Israeli settler colonialism, occupation, and apartheid. These are the historical factors leading to the genocide in Gaza, and they are what we must challenge to win justice and democracy for everyone in Palestine.

Here is the text…*

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

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

WE DECLARE ourselves an Apartheid-free community and to that end,

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

*This text is based on the language of the international Apartheid Free Community campaign. You can learn more about that here: https://apartheid-free.org/

(Our Vermont Apartheid Free Community network is part of this larger network.)

You can learn more about apartheid, settler colonialism, and occupation at our Coalition website.escription text goes here

The campaign is for “communities” to make the pledge. Communities can be organizations (like clubs, businesses, unions, cultural or political groups, faith organizations, teams, and so on). These communities joining Apartheid-Free Community form a  network in Vermont. Several dozen have signed on to date. You can go to the VCPL website to see the current list of pledgers.

Communities can also be towns and cities.  Towns and cities can adopt AFC by a resident vote. Often this will be a ballot vote on town meeting day. We are collecting signatures to put AFC on ballots in multiple Vermont towns. There are referendum campaigns in several towns currently, including Burlington, Winooski, Montpellier, and Thetford–with more to come.

The U.S. and Israel are partners in the oppression, displacement, and, now, genocide against Palestinians.  Israel’s settler colonialism and Apartheid are essential parts of this project. AFC is a campaign to educate broadly about this. 

AFC is also needed to build our power to free Palestine given that the U.S. government is currently committed to backing Israeli Apartheid and genocide regardless of what people in the U.S. think. Groups and organizations adopting the AFC pledge, or towns and cities adopting the pledge, agree to work together as communities to “join others in working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.”

In 2024, the Burlington City Council Democratic Party majority blocked putting AFC on the Burlington ballot even though we had thousands of supporting signatures. At the local level as well, our effectiveness in developing grassroots power and our ability to act collectively is key.  We need  popular support and broader networks of individuals and organizations able to educate, mobilize, protest, and pressure institutions to act against apartheid–and to uphold democratic rights.

Palestinian society has called on people internationally to support and implement BDS against Israel, Israeli institutions,  and supporters of Israel’s apartheid and colonial project.  And to support Palestinian self-determination. After adopting the AFC pledge, the next step is BDS.  AFC is part of educating and developing broader support for BDS, and organizing forces that can help win BDS campaigns. One of the unions that has adopted the pledge has already started a BDS campaign at their workplace.

These organizations can go to the VCPL website and join with an on-line form. From there we keep in touch with AFC groups, work with the network to do events, public forums, and, in the coming months, to help pass the town and city AFC resolutions.

In Vermont, petitioners must collect valid signatures from 5% of registered voters in their town or city.  Depending on whether a town meets in person or votes via Australian ballot, a City Council or Select Board must consider placing the advisory measure on the Town Meeting warning or ballot. Typically, the City Council or Select Board will follow the will of the voters.  To ensure a City Council or Select Board respect the democratic process and put the question to the voters it is important that our campaign follow through with events that educate the public so they will support the measure.

Tax dollars diverted to fund Israel’s genocide: Taking a quick look at Vermont’s financial ties to Israel, we send nearly 6 million dollars annually to fund Israeli weaponry. Pointed out by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, this money could instead be used to fund “697 households with public housing for a year, 2,042 children receiving free or low-cost healthcare, 64 elementary school teachers, 16,709 households with solar electrified produced for a year, 155 students with their loan debt canceled, and 5,103,684 N95 respirator masks.” Increased weapons shipments to Israel in the past year have increased this annual amount. 

The U.S.-funded Israeli war on Palestinians comes home to Vermont: Most concerning is that the violence occurring overseas in Palestine has come to our doorstep, as we witnessed in November of 2023 with the shooting of Palestinian students Hisham Awaranti, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tasheen Amhed in Burlington. It is within the climate of uncritical mainstream support of Israeli Apartheid and the underlying bigoted rhetoric of Palestinians as dangerous and sub-human that this hateful act was able to occur. AFC is just as much about the safety of Palestinians and allies locally as it is abroad.

Long history of citizen referendums on town meeting day:  Vermont towns and cities have passed many resolutions on substantial national and international issues because Vermont doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  The Iraq War, Healthcare for All, Nuclear Freeze, solidarity with Central American peoples against U.S.-funded wars, and South African Apartheid are some of the issues debated and voted on over the past decades. 

Standing up for democracy! In addition to the national threat to democracy posed by  Trump, we should also worry about local threats to democracy from Zionists.  Democrats on the Burlington City Council rejected putting the AFC pledge to Burlington voters even after thousands of residents signed a petition to put it on the ballot. Regardless of your stance on the genocide, the fact that a ballot question with sufficient local support cannot be put to vote in our communities is cause for concern.

The F-35:   Not only is our money being used to fund a genocide, but our neighborhoods are being used as training grounds for the weapons of war carrying it out. The Vermont Air National Guard currently houses 20 F-35A fighter jets in its base at the Burlington International Airport. These are the same aircraft given to and being used by Israel to flatten Gaza right now. This is just part of a decades-long program for the US Air Force to assure the availability of 1,700 F-35s with combat-ready pilots and maintenance personnel; Israel’s antagonism toward its neighbors on top of its genocide has the potential to place the United States ever deeper into the war and make further use of our combat-ready fleet. 

Here are some places to start. There is also lots of information on our AFC palm card.

https://www.vermontcpl.org/apartheid-free-community

https://www.apartheidfreeburlington.org/