A four-part resolution approved at Hardwick's Town Meeting in March is drawing criticism from a seasonal resident who says part four, which pledges to work toward ending support for Israel, is divisive and misplaced.
Tom Dekornfeld, who lives most of the year in Annapolis, Maryland, but has a strong emotional and financial connection to Hardwick, wrote an opinion piece in the Hardwick Gazette calling the resolution "wrong-headed."
"When the town adopts language like 'apartheid regime' and 'settler colonialism,' terms that carry enormous weight and are fiercely contested even by scholars of the subject, it doesn't feel like a humanitarian stand," Dekornfeld wrote. "It feels like a flag planted in a debate that has divided families, communities and institutions that are far better equipped to address it than this small Vermont town."
Dekornfeld, who said he has relatives and friends in Israel and believes the current Israeli prime minister should go, asked whether the resolution is "just virtue signalling" and said it "certainly has a chance of causing discord here at home." He called for its repeal.
The resolution's backers have not publicly responded to the op-ed as of press time.
Originally reported by Hardwick Gazette.
Photo: Tom Fisk via Pexels. Photo is illustrative and not from the scene.
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