Above photo: Portland City Councilor Mitch Green.
Half of Portland’s City Council has pledged to investigate the city’s connections to Israel.
Including the manufacturing and transportation of weapons intended for the country.
A group of Portland lawmakers launched a pledge to investigate the city’s connections to Israeli weapons.
The commitment calls for probes into the manufacturing and transport of weapons intended for Israel, as well as other potential connections to the country.
“The United States has provided billions of dollars in military funding, weapons, and diplomatic cover to facilitate Israel’s genocide of Palestinians,” reads a press release on the pledge. “The federal Government has utterly failed to uphold their duty to prevent genocide and uphold respect for international humanitarian law, so cities across the United States are mobilizing to ensure that local tax dollars and supply chains do not support criminal warfare and that local weapons manufacturers are held accountable for their role in genocide.”
The city councilors who spearheaded the effort (all of whom are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), held a virtual press conference to announce the pledge on October 17. They were joined by Dr. Travis Melin, a surgeon who has volunteered in Gaza, and Maxine Fookson, a longtime Portland resident, healthcare worker and member of Jewish Voice for Peace.
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“As the only immigrant on Portland City Council, the connections between what we are seeing in Gaza and what we are seeing from ICE and the federal government are crystal clear to me,” Councilor Angelita Morillo told viewers. “Palestinians held on administrative detention without due process is the same concept as immigrants in our communities being kidnapped off the streets … .This pledge is for everyone whose hearts remain steadfast in the belief that all human beings deserve dignity and freedom.”
Portland City Councilor Mitch Green, a U.S. Army Veteran who has been organizing against the Trump administration’s deployment of troops in the city, highlighted the connections between the two issues.
“Portland in this moment cannot be separated from the broader historical context of the militarization that we are embedded in,” said Green. “For my entire adult life, I have witnessed the federal government pour trillions of dollars into a machine that wages war on a global scale. And now that war has come home.”
Since launching the campaign, two additional city councilors have signed on, which means that half of Portland’s 12-member city council now backs the effort.
The Portland pledge comes amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza and declining support for Israel among U.S. voters.
“Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, American support for Israel has undergone a seismic reversal, with large shares of voters expressing starkly negative views about the Israeli government’s management of the conflict,” declares a recent New York Times article on this shift. “Disapproval of the war appears to have prompted a striking reassessment by American voters of their broader sympathies in the decades-old conflict in the region.”
“Public polling makes clear that generational change is coming that is set to reshape U.S. policy toward Israel in fundamental ways,” explains a Politico piece on the plummeting numbers. “On both the left and the right, young Americans are growing more skeptical of offering unconditional U.S. support to Israel, particularly as the death toll in Gaza rises and the possibility of Palestinian statehood dims.”
While a number of city councils around the country have taken stances in support of Palestine, lawmakers in Washington have largely remained committed to Israel. However, in recent months, an increasing number of politicians have attempted to adapt to the emerging consensus of their constituents.
In July, one-fourth of the U.S. Senate voted for a series of resolutions aimed at blocking arms sales to Israel. In recent weeks, a number of centrist Democrats, previously backed by AIPAC, have rejected further donations from the pro-Israel lobbying group.
“Our choices at the local level matter in the global fight for justice,” explained Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos. “Silence and neutrality are not options in the face of oppression.”
The councilors say that they will send their pledge to their respective congressional delegations, and they’re calling on lawmakers in other cities to sign on as well.
