And Pass a Ceasefire Resolution.
Denver, CO — The first Denver City Council meeting of the new year on January 6 was met with dozens of activists calling for the city to divest from Israel and pass a resolution demanding a permanent and enforceable Gaza ceasefire. During the 30-minute public comment session, the activists used two three-minute allotted times to concurrently read aloud the demands within the resolution they were seeking.
Today we came to speak up in unison, in unity as a community to say enough is enough. – Linda Amin Badwan, Palestinian-American activist
This was not the first time pro-Palestinian activists have asked for a ceasefire resolution from the city. In January 2024, council members Shontel Lewis and Sarah Parady, in collaboration with their constituents, co-sponsored a resolution which ended up being voted down the next month.
The resolution had five sections which called for a ceasefire in Palestine and Israel, humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, release of hostages, an end to the killing and maiming of children, all parties involved respect international humanitarian law, and that if passed, the document be transmitted to a number of political offices including President Biden.
Sarah Parady, at-large Denver council member, told Unicorn Riot that her constituents have been speaking at the council’s public comment session about Palestine each week for well over a year, even before October 7. Denver hosted Jewish National Fund-USA’s (JNF) 4-day Global Conference for Israel at the Colorado Convention Center beginning on November 30, 2023, and when the announcement for the location came out months before, pro-Palestine activists began speaking against it.
During a rally on November 9, 2023 at the Colorado State Capitol, Abdullah Elagha of the Colorado Palestine Coalition, said that JNF is “nothing more than an extension of the settler-colonial machine hell-bent on erasing every last Palestinian from Palestine.”
In addition to hosting the JNF conference in 2023, the city has concrete financial ties to Israel. In Denver’s Consolidated Portfolio Characteristics and Statistics report for the second financial quarter of 2024, AID-Israel was the 3rd top issuer of bonds for the city’s Cableland Portfolio.
It is very concerning to me to hear that we do have at least some of those holdings because, again, I think that essentially right now, that means that we are directly financing, as the city of Denver, this incredibly destructive war, and so I don’t feel that that’s in line with the values of our city and I think it’s in fact directly harmful to some people who live in our city. – At-Large Council Member Sarah Parady
Denver is not unique in its investments in Israel bonds. From October 7, 2023 through April 18, 2024, “more than 35 U.S. state and municipal governments have invested in Israel Bonds for a total of $1.7 billion,” according to a press release by the U.S.-based company Israel Bonds.
Israel Bonds was launched in 1951, three years after Israel officially became a nation-state, to “engage Diaspora Jewry in the building of the reborn Jewish homeland through the sale of Israel bonds.” The organization has received nearly $50 billion in worldwide sales since its launch, making Israel one of the most powerful countries in the world, according to Israel Bonds.
“Most support for foreign governments in America comes at the federal government level and it is very regulated and subject to human rights-based federal laws,” Parady said. “So the investment in Israel bonds is almost like a structural workaround for that, and so I definitely want to raise with Denver to be thinking about compliance with international law in any investments that we’re making.”
During the remaining time of the public comment session on January 6, individuals spoke about how what’s happening in Palestine and Israel affect locals in Denver. Anna Lilith Miller from Housekeys Action Network Denver spoke about the local money being sent to the “Israeli government to bomb children to death,” and how those funds, instead, “could have housed every houseless person in this country ten times over.”
Stop letting them kill children in our name and our taxpaying dollars. – Ana Lilith Miller, Housekeys Action Network Denver
According to the annual “Point in Time Count” by Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which is known to be an undercount, there were over 6,500 people without permanent housing in Denver County when the count took place on January 22, 2024. Of that total, 1,273 were counted as “people who slept on the streets or another place not meant for human habitation.”
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its “2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report” on December 27, 2024, and found that “the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2024 was the highest ever recorded.” It was a total of 771,480 people.
Meanwhile on January 3, 2025, the Biden administration notified Congress of an $8 billion arms sale to Israel, which is nearly half of the amount the U.S. has given Israel since October 7, 2023.
Parady told Unicorn Riot how earlier on the day on January 6, “totally coincidentally before the [Denver City Council] meeting,” she sent a letter to the Colorado Democratic Congressional Delegation “just kind of pleading with them to stop this $8 billion transfer.”
As of the publishing of this article, the arms sale hasn’t been approved.
Longtime Palestinian-American activist Linda Amin Badwan spoke with Unicorn Riot after the public comment session about her personal connection to the movement for a free Palestine.
I was born in Jerusalem, the old city, and was raised in a village named Beitin near Ramallah. I grew up in the intifada. I grew up seeing my beautiful home be occupied and my beautiful people live under the occupation.
Her and her two children have been attending the Denver City Council meeting every single Monday for many months calling on the city to “wake up.”
Our goal is to get [Denver City Council] to wake up. We want them to wake up. When we came in February, it had been several months since [October 7, 2023], now it’s been over a year, and it’s very clearly a genocide. Like if there was any question or doubt in their mind, there cannot be one at this point. – Linda Amin Badwan, Palestinian-American activist
The five demands the activists read aloud on January 6 were:
- A permanent and enforceable ceasefire.
- That unrestricted humanitarian aid be allowed into Gaza immediately.
- The release of all Palestinian and Israeli hostages including doctors and medical workers.
- An immediate halt of weapons transfers and taxpayer funding for the Israeli military.
- That the city of Denver divests from the Israeli bonds listed in the city budget and from all companies listed by the BDS movement.
During the reading, the activists stood up, and Parady joined them:
The ask was for Denver residents who feel that their local government should speak out against these clear violations of federal and international law to stand up, and I am one such resident of Denver, so I stood up.
When the public comment session was over, the activists moved out into the hallway and began chanting anti-genocide and pro-Palestine chants, including: “City Council you can’t hide, you are funding genocide!”
It should not be a complicated thing to speak about something that is deeply immoral and illegal and is deeply impacting a small percentage of our constituents, but it is. For those folks to come into our chamber week after week after week and just hit a wall is just really troubling to me. – At-Large Council Member Sarah Parady