As a City Council candidate and private individual I fully endorse the boycott, divest, and sanction movement to put economic pressure on the state of Israel to stop its apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
I also support divesting all city investments (such as those contained in the city pension plan) from stocks listed by BDS as well as all arms manufacturers.
The Palestine nation and its people are under a state of occupation and apartheid by Israel and I believe this must be opposed if there is any hope for peace in the region.
This is an opinion shared by most nations and international human rights organizations, including the United Nations.
We have Palestinian (and Lebanese) Americans right here in Chattanooga who have lost multiple loved ones to senseless slaughter by the IDF, which Trump just announced he wants to renew, only with American boots on the ground this time.
I believe all humans are siblings. And we cannot hope to achieve the people’s liberation here at home in our communities if we ignore our own complicity in one of the great moral crimes of our times.
As a socialist, I cannot let members of the global working class be shot, brutalized, and displaced from their homes by the long arm of global imperialism.
As a woman of faith, my heart aches at seeing Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, subjected to settler colonial violence.
And, most importantly, as a Chattanoogan, I will not be complicit, and I stand with our local Palestinian and Lebanese community.
Arms embargo now, end of settler expansion in the West Bank now, divest our community from genocide, no to the renewal of the war in Gaza.
Evelina Iren Kertay
City Council District 9 candidate
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What is more ridiculous?
Running a city council campaign that is centered around the divestment, boycott, and sanctions of a US ally that is 6,731 miles away....a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with improving the lives of the people in your district?
Or...
Pretending that everyone in the world forgot what they saw and what actually happened on October 7th, 2023?
I'm going to go with the latter, but it is way closer than it ever should be.
Christopher Charles