Eric Gandara

On Tuesday, voters in Providence, Rhode Island overwhelmingly passed an ordinance requiring the city to divest from companies that enable genocide, apartheid, and human rights violations. "The ordinance is the Palestine solidarity movement’s first binding municipal divestment law passed through popular vote in the U.S. — and makes Providence the largest U.S. city to vote to divest from Israel." “Millions of dollars in Providence city funds are invested in companies facilitating and profiting from the Israeli genocide in Gaza, apartheid system in the occupied West Bank, and ongoing assault on Lebanon and Iran,” Jewish Voice for Peace-Rhode Island explained in a press release. “In addition, Providence has a 20-year history of investing millions in Israel Bonds, which function as direct, no-strings-attached loans to the Israeli government and military.” “It was regular people who said, ‘we are going to create this ordinance, we are going to get enough signatures to get this on the ballot, we are not waiting for our elected officials to do something, we are going to do that work ourselves to make it happen,’” - via @truthout

"IDE Technologies, an Israeli water treatment giant that operates some of the largest seawater desalination plants in the world, was awarded the contract for the landmark Harbor Island project on Corpus Christi Bay this summer by the Nueces River Authority, a small state water agency." "In Texas, rapid growth and intensifying droughts have stretched present water supplies to their limits. Generations of state leaders have touted the promise of seawater desalination plants, which would produce freshwater from the salty Gulf of Mexico. But Texas still awaits its first such facility." "Today, IDE's Harbor Island project is the largest of five seawater desalination plants planned in the state."