We urge voters in Vergennes and several other Vermont towns to reject well-meant but futile resolutions attacking Israel.

Israel has certainly committed mass murder in Gaza and is illegally appropriating land and terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank. Its actions have been justly condemned by international organizations and world opinion. But non-actionable feel-good resolutions by tiny localities in a tiny state are a self-indulgent waste of voter effort. Though not intentionally antisemitic, they fan the embers of antisemitism that are presently smoldering all around us. They will accomplish nothing beyond dividing us and diverting us from urgent efforts at home against a rapidly-expanding catastrophe.

Our fellow Americans have narrowly elected a monster, who claims a mandate to rule the world by proclamation with a coterie of self-serving flatterers to enforce his every whim. His term has begun with a Blitzkrieg on our country’s Constitution, institutions, freedoms and values. Everything we regarded as a fundamental American right or principle will have to be reclaimed from a co-opted Congress, Supreme Court, military and oligarchy of billionaires.

How will we respond to coming raids on our helpless, hard-working “undocumented” neighbors that will destroy their families and leave essential jobs unfilled? How will we counter cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, along with access to life-saving vaccines? What about plans to force religion and arbitrary patriotism on our schools, prohibit free discussion, ban books and reverse hard-won equality for marginalized minority groups? What about the end or even reversal of efforts to protect the environment and reproductive freedom?

The outrages from Washington are coming faster than the media can report them or ordinary citizens digest them. Saving the country we love will require every ounce of cooperation and resistance from decent people no matter how they voted. We cannot afford performative resolutions that will needlessly separate citizens who are otherwise united.

Judy and Michael Olinick

Middlebury