Organizers with Somerville for Palestine hosted a rally outside of City Hall on Nov. 13, demanding that city councilmembers follow the will of voters and pass a resolution to implement a strategy to boycott and divest from Israel within the next calendar year. The rally came after voters in the Massachusetts city’s Nov. 4 election overwhelmingly supported nonbinding Ballot Question 3, also referred to as the “Palestine Solidarity Question,” which asked whether Somerville should divest from companies that “engage in business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine.”

While some city councils across the country have voted to divest from Israel, the victory of Question 3 made Somerville the first U.S. city to successfully pass a ballot question to divest from Israel. Yes on 3 won with about 56% of the vote, as 11,599 voters cast their ballots in favor. Ballot efforts in other U.S. cities, such as Pittsburgh, have failed due to immense legal and political opposition—a challenge Somerville organizers managed to overcome since the beginning of their campaign in 2023.

“Somerville for Palestine came together from one organizer just sending out a letter to all their friends to sign on and support. And then two years later, we’re making history. Change is possible,” said Leila Skinner of Somerville for Palestine, the local group that helped craft and then campaign for the ballot question.

Last week, the group was recognized by the Somerville City Council for its “uncompromising pursuit of justice, tireless civic engagement, and steadfast solidarity with the Palestinian people locally, and in the diaspora.” Members are planning to organize again on Nov. 25 to urge the City Council to pass a divestment resolution.

A movement with momentum and obstacles

Somerville for Palestine had already seen some wins. In January 2024, the group successfully advocated for Somerville to become the first city in Massachusetts to pass a ceasefire resolution for the genocide in Gaza. That resolution inspired other cities in the state, including Medford and Cambridge, to do the same.

“Almost the day after we passed that ceasefire resolution, our Palestinian leaders were like, ‘This is a beautiful, powerful, symbolic victory, but now we need to take tangible action to stop Somerville tax dollars from funding Israel’s ongoing violence against Palestinians,” Skinner said.

Through research and Freedom of Information Act requests, organizers uncovered that Somerville finances include ties to companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Lockheed Martin, with Somerville public school pensions helping to fund the latter. The coalition wrote to city councilmembers demanding a formal resolution to divest from those companies, but they were less receptive than the organizers had hoped.

That’s when Somerville for Palestine pivoted to create a ballot question as an alternative avenue for getting a resolution passed. The ballot initiative’s success may signal that Somerville voters, who are among the most progressive in the state, support Palestine and the broader boycott, divestment, sanction (BDS) movement.

Amina Awad, a Palestinian-American Somerville resident and campaign organizer, celebrates Somerville for Palestine’s victory. Credit: Matt Abban/Somerville for Palestine

“At this point in our process, it was really important for us to follow and stay true to what Palestinian civil society wants of us and has asked of us, and a part of that is targeted boycotts, which is how we ended up focusing in on these companies,” said Amina Awad, an organizer with Somerville for Palestine, told Prism.

The win was not without obstacles. On Oct. 14, less than a month before the election, Somerville United Against Discrimination, funded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), filed a lawsuit against the City of Somerville in an effort to remove the question from the ballot. It was the group’s second attempt to remove the question from the ballot, challenging thousands of signatures collected in favor of the question and its premise. However, the group’s requests were rejected by a Middlesex Superior Court judge.

Somerville United Against Discrimination still states on its website that “the demands of this non-binding ballot question are illegal and discriminatory,” and the organization has reiterated its commitment to “keep working to educate about the negative impact that Question 3 brings.”

However, Somerville for Palestine organizers note that the ballot question garnered about 300 more votes than Mayor-elect Jack Wilson, who has not expressed support for the divestment resolution. Wilson did not respond to Prism’s inquiry about his plans for implementing the resolution.

“Somerville for Palestine was far outspent by the ADL-funded opposition that had over $200,000 in donations, 80% of which came from outside of Somerville,” Skinner said. “We have the people power, and that will win over this outside funding.”

The national picture 

The city councils of two Massachusetts cities have successfully passed divestment ordinances this year. In August, after a three-hourlong deliberation meeting, Medford  voted to pass the “values-aligned local investments ordinance,” which bars investments of public funds to companies profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Last week, the council overrode the mayor’s veto of the ordinance. In September, Northampton’s City Council unanimously passed a similar resolution.

Outside of Massachusetts, the BDS movement has seen even more victories through the passing of divestment ordinances in counties and cities in states including Michigan, Maine, California, and Vermont. However, state laws could pose limits on the overall efficacy of these local resolutions.

Last year, Hamtramck, Michigan, became the first U.S. city to formally endorse the BDS movement with a unanimously passed ordinance declaring that the city should make “all best efforts” not to purchase goods and services from vendors targeted by the BDS movement, and encouraged residents to do the same.

However, the ability of Hamtramck officials to implement the resolution may be stymied by a 2017 Michigan state law, which bans BDS boycotts by preventing public contracts with anyone who divests from “strategic partners” to the U.S.; Israel is included among these “strategic partners.”

Michigan is just one of 38 states that have passed laws or executive orders such as these that penalize boycotts of Israel and companies supporting the Israeli army.

People power 

Despite the hurdles, organizers in Somerville credit their win to a series of strategic decisions. Somerville for Palestine mobilized almost 300 canvassers to educate residents about Israel’s ongoing violence in Palestine and the way Somerville’s investments could be complicit.

Somerville for Palestine hosts a rally on Nov. 1, 2025, to launch the final weekend of canvassing for Yes on Question 3 for Palestine. Credit: Matt Abban/Somerville for Palestine

Somerville for Palestine also employed creative public education strategies, such as a “Jeopardy”-style game night that focused on international BDS campaigns. A prime goal, along with garnering signatures and later securing votes for the ballot question, was to show how different issues are intertwined with Palestine solidarity and also to situate the Somerville campaign within a broader divestment network.

The coalition garnered sponsors across more than 30 organizations, including the Boston South Asian Coalition, the American Friends Service Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Massachusetts Chapter of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MA).

“The people of Somerville have spoken clearly: their city’s investments should not support war crimes, apartheid, or genocide,” CAIR-MA Executive Director Tahirah Amatul-Wadud said in a press release. “We commend voters for standing on the side of justice, human rights, and accountability.”

The Boston chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote in a statement posted to Instagram, “Because of your incredible organizing, Somerville voters made their voices heard loud and clear: our community stands with Palestine and rejects Israel’s ongoing violence and oppression.”

This first appeared on Prism Reports.

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