Hamtramck City Hall | Ken Coleman
The Hamtramck City Council on Tuesday passed a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution in an effort to “send a significant message of support for the Palestinian people and their efforts to end the Israeli occupation of their indigenous lands.”
The resolution was passed unanimously by the all-Muslim council including Mayor Amer Ghalib and council members Mohammed Alsomiri, Muhith Mahmood, Mohammed Hassan, and Abu Musa. Councilmen Muhtasin Sadman and Khalil Refai were absent.
“As a human, I am supporting this resolution,” said Hassan in the discussion that preceded the vote. “As an American, what are we doing? We are supporting the terrorist people to kill innocent kids. That’s why I’m calling them terrorist. The definition of terrorist is right there. And we are, as an American administration, supporting them to kill the kids and innocent people.”
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Launched in July 2005, the BDS Movement seeks to enlist municipalities, civic groups, and non-governmental organizations to implement broad boycotts and divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the 1970s and 80s during its apartheid era.
“The City of Hamtramck officially endorses the Palestinian call for supporting the BDS movement until Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights,” read the resolution, which said the city “shall make all best efforts to refrain from purchasing goods and services from any vendor that is the target of a boycott or divestment campaign by the BDS movement,” and “to refrain investment in the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid…”
The resolution, which was initiated by the Michigan Peace Council and OneHamtramck LLC, further states that the city “rejects the false accusation that supporting Palestinian rights is anti-semitic, as we oppose anti-semitism and all forms of racism,” and that “supporting the BDS movement, and opposing the crimes of the Israeli government is not anti-semitic, as prominent supporters of the BDS movement are Jewish themselves.”
Regardless, the Anti Defamation League (ADL) says the BDS movement is inherently antisemitic as many of its founding goals “effectively reject or ignore the Jewish people’s right of self-determination, or that, if implemented, would result in the eradication of the world’s only Jewish state.”
Tuesday’s resolution follows Hamtramck City Council’s decision in December to rename a stretch of Holbrook Street to “Palestine Avenue,” as a symbolic gesture and demonstration of solidarity with the people in Gaza.
The council also made headlines last July when it removed two officials from the Hamtramck Human Relations Commission after they flew an LGBTQ+ Pride flag on city property, which followed a vote the month before to prohibit certain flags, including the Pride flag, from being displayed on city-owned property.
The ban later spawned a federal lawsuit alleging it violates free speech rights and numerous other state and federal laws.
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