Palestine solidarity movement demands St. Paul cut Waterfall’s contract

St. Paul, MN – Local residents including members of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Veterans for Peace and the MN Anti-War Committee (AWC) protested at the Saint Paul Board of Water Commissioners meeting on July 15 with signs reading, “Saint Paul cut the contract, free Palestine!” to pressure the board to not renew Waterfall Security Solutions contract this fall.

Waterfall is a company headquartered in Rosh Ha’ayin, Israel. In 2024 it entered into a contract with Saint Paul Regional Water Services (SPRWS) to provide cybersecurity for the water department’s computer system. Protesters asked to speak at the meeting but were denied and not allowed to have their prepared statement entered into the minutes.

“If we can’t officially be a part of this meeting, I will take my leave, and I wish you well with the remainder of your work,” Mike Madden of Veterans for Peace told the Saint Paul Board of Water Commissioners, before launching into chants of “All that evil needs to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing.”

“We sent them letters, we sent them requests to address the board, we even asked them questions as simple as, ‘When will you have to review the contract and when do you plan to renew it or not?’ And they can’t answer questions as simple as that,” said Madden after the protest.

Madden said the Board of Water Commissioners President Mara Humphrey “tells us that we can’t address the board or even accept this into the minutes, but she will meet with us afterwards when we can be blown off again. There needs to be an official record of what we’re doing. They’re not willing to accept that. So that’s why this went down as it did.”

A statement endorsed by WAMM, Veterans for Peace, the MN Aati War Committee and the MN Peace Action Coalition said, “Under the Genocide Convention, contracting parties, of which the United States is one, have an affirmative obligation to prevent genocide. It is not an obligation that is specifically assigned to Congress, the State Department, or even the White House. Indeed, by providing weapons to Israel, blocking UN Security Council resolutions intended to restrain Israel, and hosting rather than arresting the criminally indicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the federal government has utterly failed in its legal responsibility to prevent genocide, and should properly be considered complicit in genocide. In the dark shadow of this failure, we assume the moral responsibility to prevent genocide. As part of that responsibility, we call upon the City of Saint Paul to refrain from economic cooperation with any entity complicit in, or profiting from, apartheid or genocide. In particular, we call upon the Saint Paul Board of Water Commissioners to allow its contract with Waterfall to expire.”

The statement concluded, “Israel is acknowledged to be a leader in the development of spyware and other intrusive surveillance technologies. The most notorious, Pegasus, has been used to surveil, detain, and sometimes kill dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists. Compromised phones have also been used by Israel to geolocate individuals algorithmically targeted for assassination by aerial bombardment, with predictable results for innocents in the vicinity. It is disconcerting that a company with a history of ‘doing offensive cybersecurity for the Israeli Government’ should be allowed entry into SPRWS computer systems that hold sensitive data on water customers in the City of Saint Paul and the thirteen surrounding suburbs that receive SPRWS water and services.”

Women Against Military Madness plans to organize their Saint Paul supporters to call the water board and their city council members to pressure them to cut the Waterfall contract.

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