The Hamtramck City Council passed Resolution 2024-51 to boycott, divest and sanction Israel 4-0 at its meeting on Tuesday evening. 

The only entirely Arab American city council in the country became the first in Michigan and one of the first around the nation to join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. 

“The BDS movement calls for non-violent punitive measures to be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian People’s inalienable right to self-determination guaranteed by numerous U.N. Resolutions and precepts of international law,” resolution 2024-51 reads. “The BDS movement aims to put pressure on Israel to comply with international law and to persuade private companies to end their participation in Israel’s crimes.”

The city of Hamtramck “endorses the Palestinian call for supporting the BDS movement until Israel complies with international law and the universal principles of human rights.” 

The resolution says the city of Hamtramck “endorses the Palestinian call for supporting the BDS movement until Israel complies with international law and the universal principles of human rights.” 

The city “shall make all best efforts” to refrain from purchasing from vendors targeted by BDS, as well as “refrain [from] investment in the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid.”

During discussion of the resolution, Mayor Pro Tem Abu Musa said the Council would make history with the decision.

“I hope we pass this resolution and do everything possible to make Palestine free from the Israeli genocide,” Musa said. 

Hamtramck also made history as the first city to pass a ceasefire resolution in October as well as the first to pass a resolution to name a street Palestine after October 7, 2023. 

Resolution 2024-51 also says the city urges its residents to boycott companies that support Israel and defend students at college campuses asking for divestment.

“Thank you to all of the students… all over the U.S. and the world who are protesting the Israeli and supporting the Palestinian people,” Musa said during discussion of the resolution. “They are trying to stop the genocide and pressure the whole community… (and) the American government, (where) we are taking our tax money and sending (some) to Israel. And that money is used to kill innocent people, especially kids and women… We have to stop this. We have the opportunity to stop this.”

Down the road from Hamtramck, Wayne State University’s Students for Justice in Palestine hosted an encampment to demand divestment at the campus in Detroit.

Councilmen Muhtasin Sadman and Khalil Refai were absent from the meeting, but it had a quorum and the resolution passed unanimously 4-0.

Hamtramck wants to set an example for the rest of the country, Councilman Mohammed Hassan said during the resolution discussion.

“I’m supporting this resolution not as a Bengali or as a Muslim, but as a human, as Americans ought to be doing,” Hassan said.