As pro-Palestinian progressives find some success at the 2026 ballot box, the long-gestating Israel divestment campaign is looking to capitalize in Rhode Island.

Voters in Providence, the state capital, will vote on a referendum this November saying the city should refrain from investing in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.”

The language of the actual ballot petition does not mention Israel, nor any other country, by name. But the signature campaign was led by Providence for Palestine, a local activist coalition, and both its proponents and opponents have framed the measure as a referendum on Israel and the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. 

With the referendum’s ballot placement secured, Providence has become the largest American municipality ever to place divestment before the voting public.

“We’re in this moment when the general public at large, and particularly Democratic voters, very much understand what’s going on in Gaza and Palestine as genocide, as apartheid, and want their leaders to take action on it,” Zack Kliger, a lead organizer of the ballot initiative and member of the Rhode Island chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.