Members of Berkshires for Collective Liberation, a group made up of Town residents, and students from the College’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spoke in favor of a proposed resolution calling for an “immediate and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza at the Williamstown Select Board’s meeting on Monday night. The resolution was sent to the Select Board by Town resident Benjamin Grimes. Board member Andy Hogeland ’76 said the board has a practice of not weighing in on political issues outside the scope of the Town. The board declined to include the resolution on its agenda ahead of the meeting and did not hold a vote on it. If passed, the resolution would have been non-binding.
During the meeting’s public comment period, Town resident Tamir Novotny read the resolution, which also calls for “the provision of necessary and life-saving humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people of Gaza, and the release of all hostages, detainees, and political prisoners by both Hamas and the state of Israel,” alongside a condemnation of “all forms of bigotry.”
Grimes said that he hoped the resolution would influence federal policymakers, who he said have been unresponsive to his advocacy on the issue. “We have tried many times to engage [U.S. Rep.] Richard Neal [(D-MA)],” Grimes told the Record. “I was hopeful that, with this resolution, the Select Board … would make our voice heard.”
“Passing this resolution isn’t gonna go over there and save the children dying right now,” Anna Moriarty Lev, a Town resident who supported the resolution, told the Record. “But passing this resolution is what our town can do to send a message … and if all the towns and cities in our country say we want a ceasefire, then how can the lawmakers not listen?”
“This is a genocide, not just a humanitarian crisis,” Kaon Suh ’26 claimed at the meeting. “Genocide calls on all of us to stop what we’re doing and do everything we can to end it.”
Shaina Adams-El Guabli, a Town resident and the director of the College’s Center for Global Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, criticized the Select Board’s reluctance to adopt the resolution. “There’s a real privilege to being able to say ‘Oh, that’s over there,’” she told the Record. “What does that mean for folks in our community who are Palestinian, who are Arab?”
“How we respond here to what happens there determines how safe people feel here in our community,” Moriarty Lev added.
Katherine Lee-Cohen ’08, who lives in the Town, asked Select Board members to interrogate the discomfort they felt about weighing in on the conflict. “We live in a small town, which means the things we say and do matter,” she said at the meeting. “We in Williamstown have a habit of looking away when things seem messy.”
Hogeland reassured the resolution’s proponents that the Select Board was listening, but opposed adopting the resolution, saying that the five members of the Select Board could not speak for the entire Town on such a controversial issue.
Instead, he encouraged the resolution’s supporters to raise the issue at this year’s Town Meeting, the annual gathering in May where voters decide on proposed laws and resolutions.
“You are being heard,” Hogeland said. “We heard some of the most poignant, emotional speeches this room has heard in a long time.”
“We speak for the Town on Town issues,” he continued. “We have almost never taken any position on anything on the state level or the international level. If you want the Town to speak on something … [this year’s Town Meeting] would be the most appropriate venue.”
Select Board Chair Jeff Johnson and member Randy Fippinger concurred with Hogeland about revisiting the issue at Town Meeting. However, advocates of the resolution said that the annual Town Meeting would be too late.
“By May, I don’t think there’ll be any people left in Gaza to protect,” Moriarty Lev told the Record.
Grimes added that he would again try to get the resolution on the Select Board’s agenda for its next meeting on Feb. 26.
