This is the second in a series of four posts on related subjects. Yes I’m a selectboard member; no I’m not speaking for the board or the town. (As if I could!)

Did you know that almost four months ago, the death toll in Gaza largely stopped being counted because most of the people who did the counting—medical and public health professionals—had been killed by American-made bombs? We hear that 40,000 people have died, but we no longer really know. Chances are it’s much higher. Israel just bombed 1.5 million people living in a massive tent city, forcing them to evacuate yet again.

Does it sound remotely like a proportional response to you—proportional response is technically international law—to destroy the homes and civic infrastructure of 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2 million people, kill many tens of thousands, and starve hundreds of thousands, after an attack that killed 1,200? (Especially given that Israel refuses to investigate how many of those deaths were from Israeli “friendly” fire.) The U.N. hasn’t thought it proportionate. As of two weeks ago, Israel had violated 62 U.N. resolutions and counting. When Iraq violated two, we launched a ground invasion of their country.

To all who think this irrelevant to Hartford, ask yourself how much of our economy comes from Dartmouth and Dartmouth hospital. (If we’re honest, it’s a huge percentage.) Dartmouth has six billion dollars in accounts which are, as we speak, political tools to prop up the business concerns these assets are invested in—including weapons manufacturers and countless others profiting from Gaza’s immolation. If you live off the local economy, like I do, then you live off the returns of these investments. That’s how directly we benefit from the murder of Palestinians.

I’ve mentioned that Hartford residents alone have sent $2.8 million in weapons to Israel since October. And yet, the value generated by Dartmouth’s investments is far greater than our direct contribution. That’s why protest is necessary: our livelihoods shouldn’t be derived from how profitable it is to starve brown people or slaughter doctors and journalists. The professors were right Monday evening when they voted, for the first time in the college’s history, to censure their president for her role in the arrest of ~75 students protesting for their institution’s divestment.

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