From: Genevieve
To: City Manager"s Office; Sarah Schaefer
Subject: Correction Fwd: Divest from military industrial complex Date: Monday, September 15, 2025 3:59:41 PM
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Correction to my previous email. Please note that “Palestine” or “Palestinians” must be included in a divestment letter so as to include all of the Palestinian people under daily israeli legal definition terror, criminal occupation, expansionist settler colonialism, worse-than-apartheid and violent expulsion. Please recall that famed scholar Noam Chomsky said that to call it “apartheid” is a gift to israel given its treatment of the native Palestinian people is far worse. Nelson Mandela himself said that israeli apartheid is a far more severe form than that of apartheid South Africa’s.
Apartheid is a Crime Against Humanity and under international law it has only one mandate: dissolve. This is why the international community dissolved apartheid South Africa and why ALL Palestinians on the lands of Palestine must be included when we call for divestment from israel and military contractor corporations, weapons makers, etc.
Thank you,
Additional sources
Testimony of sexualized fatal torture: A freed captive in Gaza describes how 35-year-old Palestinian prisoner Mosab Haniyeh, who was abducted by Israeli soldiers during the invasion of Hamad Town in Gaza in March 2024, died in Israeli occupation prisons due to brutal torture and deliberate medical negligence. According to reports released by the occupation, Mosab was apparently martyred on January 5, 2025.
Watch
https://www.facebook.com/clare.holohan.52/videos/435042036298102/?fs=e&mibextid=wwXIfr&fs=e March 2025
Palestinians testify about the brutal beatings and sexual abuse they have faced in Israeli detention at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers.
Mohamed Matar, a West Bank resident, says he suffered hours of torture at the hands of security agents and settlers, even as Israeli police refused to intervene. "He took a long stick and started hitting us on the body, head, and legs. He started jumping on my back to cause permanent disability," recalls Matar in Geneva.
Israel carried out used sexual violence as a war strategy, United Nations experts said in a new report on Thursday (03/13/2025). https://m.facebook.com/story.php?
story_fbid=pfbid02WqR6NfTN97QdLCi93PLvEUjNTt8e9Sz4DwcZxrG3m93Q2Ped7dDkHfRuvvcFyPN4l&id=703410530&mibextid=wwXIfr On March 11, 2025, the UN Commission of Inquiry held a public hearing revealing testimonies of Israeli soldiers committing sexual violence against Palestinian women.
Kifaya Khraim from the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling testified that both male and female Israeli soldiers were involved in these crimes against women in Gaza and the West Bank.
Watch
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?
story_fbid=pfbid02Az8JL2A3z2K8utryEH6XeeqeoXw758VoSmwrnyMB6SPZHXF7FmwjdqKXmXg6Qa51l&id=703410530&mibextid=wwXIfr March 22, 2025
Middle East Eye:
Israeli soldiers, both male and female, raped Palestinian women from Gaza and the West Bank, according to testimonies presented at the UN Commission of Inquiry’s public hearing on March 11, 2025.
Kifaya Khraim, International Advocacy Officer at the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, and Witness #3, a Palestinian human rights defender, provided detailed accounts of sexual, reproductive, and gender-based violence reportedly committed by Israeli security forces and settlers.
The hearing was part of the Commission's third round of investigations into violations against Palestinians, with a focus on crimes targeting women.
https://fb.watch/yuWwUBiMDJ/?
A Palestinian journalist, Sam El was raped and tortured https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMRVAQTgJR6/?igsh=anNtcjNnanRwc2Jm A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid [Israeli human rights organization report from 2021 affirming apartheid] http://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid There are so. very. many. hunan rights reports having documented these israeli Crimes against all Palestinians for decades.
The Arcata Ciry Council must stop embodying and fueling anti-Palestinian racism by keeping Palestine as an exception to its own ethical investment stance.
Genevieve Ameduri
Arcata homeowner
Begin forwarded message:
From: Genevieve Ameduri
Date: September 15, 2025 at 3:28:29 PM PDT
To: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: Divest from military industrial complex
From: Robin
To: City Manager"s Office; Sarah Schaefer
Subject: Tonight’s Council meeting
Date: Monday, September 15, 2025 4:08:37 PM
Attachments: AB2844 FAQ final.pdf
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I would like this email to be put on the record for tonight’s meeting that there are not any laws against requesting divestment in California attached is information about California’s anti-BDS law – AB 2844. -Jude Romagnino
They/ them/ theirs
From: Ryan Van
To: City Manager"s Office
Subject: Divestment letter
Date: Monday, September 15, 2025 4:18:57 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Dear Arcata City Manager,
I am writing as a long-time resident of Arcata who feels a a minimal ethical and professional bar is to try to do as much as we can to make sure our associations and investments do not go to the most unethical ends, such as war profiteering or genocide.
As such, I was happy to see eureka vote to send a divestment letter to CalPERS and even more proud to see a divestment letter to CalPERS on the special meeting agenda for today.
I support Arcata sending this letter with one important change requested: please be explicit in stating that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians (as agreed upon by all major human rights orgs scholars, and international courts).
Using only language of “humanitarian disaster", human rights violations”, and “famine” obscures the underlying issue: Israel’s intentional and ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forced starvation of Palestinians and illegal occupation of Palestine.
Also, please name Palestine as a whole. Focusing on Gaza instead of naming Palestinians as one people is erasure, a tactic of anti-Palestinian racism (“failing to acknowledge Palestinians as an indigenous people with a collective identity, belonging, and rights in relation to occupied and historic Palestine.” - https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url? a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.antipalestinianracism.org&c=E,1,GkgNOAzgIU_- zw4rOTBVWBHj45NBCXPTzjoaTA8X1c4eX0bIY5iKj6UjGD7qEp9_FFr0zTmyd7z_mFpLei_qD3rNsnV17wiu4ow0pCdeQPjHCnITBmfQ0U,&typo=1). Not to mention that daily atrocities against Palestinians are also being committed in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The city of Eureka was clear in naming Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and military occupation of Palestine in their letter to CalPERS. Let’s be just as clear and unequivocal in this important statement.
I also support the resolution demanding unrestricted humanitarian aid be let in to Gaza, with the same caveats.
How proud we could be as a municipal leader in this effort! Thank you,
Ryan Van Lenning
P.S. The bill some opponents are citing, AB 2844, does not restrict divesting from israel to protest its policies toward Palestinians - this is according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. AB 2844 is very limited in its scope and only applies when one submits a bid or proposal to enter a state contract worth more than $100,000. And when it does apply, it only prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, or public accommodation against individuals living in California. All we are doing is sending a letter. This is not illegal. Nor would it be illegal for CalPERS to change their investments in alignment with this letter. It simply does not apply.
See this document for reference and please put in the city record.
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone