Dear Editor, As a Jewish Vermonter supportive of the Apartheid-Free Communities (AFC) pledge — which calls on organizations to boycott and divest from Israel in response to its policies toward Palestinians — on the ballot in some of our towns on Town Meeting Day next Tuesday, March 3, I want to respond to Michael Cohen’s recent opinion piece urging people to support more funding for efforts at bringing Israelis and Palestinians together instead of the pledge. I support more funding going to building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. It is the Israeli government that has made it challenging. And that does not address the huge power imbalance between the Israeli government and the Palestinians, who are being forcibly displaced by the military in Gaza and the settlers in the West Bank at an alarming rate.  READ MORE National human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, a Jewish Israeli organization, have named Israel an apartheid state. If it were 1942, and we were at a town meeting, I would want to express my horror at Nazi Germany and its murderous activities. In my opinion, the times we are in are the same for Palestinians. We watch on our phones what some United Nations bodies have termed genocide. There is no ceasefire as Israel continues killing Palestinians in Gaza, and the Israeli government has passed another piece of legislation to systematize dispossession of Palestinians, allowing settlers to legally annex Palestinian land and homes in the West Bank. As a Jewish person, the phrase “Never Again” reverberates in my bones. For me, that means never again for anyone. Voting for the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge is one way to express that in Vermont.  Francine Miller, South Royalton, Vt. Read the story on VTDigger here: Francine Miller: Why I’m voting for the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge. ...read more read less