Allie Schachter, the Gaza-Genocide Supporter Running for Burlington City Council, will Not Work to Stop the F-35

At Burlington’s town meeting in 2018 55.3% voted yes on question 6 to cancel the planned F-35 basing at Burlington’s airport. Burlington’s East District is composed of Ward 1, where the yes vote on that question was 67.9%, and Ward 8, where it was 75.3%.

Yet, East District City Council candidate Allie Schachter refused to say whether she wants the routine F-35 training flights at the Burlington-city-owned airport to continue or stop in her response to the F-35 survey conducted by CancelF35.substack.com.

On Friday, CancelF35 learned why she refused to answer that question and 7 others regarding the F-35. It has to do with something omitted from her website: Allie Schachter is a leading member of the so-called Shalom Alliance, an organization devoted to unqualified support for the Israeli government’s aerial bombardment of civilians in Gaza with F-35 jets, as shown by the letter she signed accusing four present Burlington City Councilors of “support for the terrorist activities of Hamas.”

Thousands of Jewish and Palestinian protesters take over the Grand Central lobby demanding ceasefire of attacks to Gaza by Israeli forces, on Oct. 27, 2023, in New York City. Photo: Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Instead of using her impressive talents to help lead the rapidly growing Jewish opposition to the Israeli onslaught on Gaza,* Schachter organized to defend the mass slaughter of women and children there. Instead of demanding respect for US law and international law that protects civilians from indiscriminate military assault, she upholds impunity for the vicious, extreme right-wing Israeli government officials conducting systematic racial segregation and genocidal violence.

Gaza before and after: Satellite images show destruction Creator: Maxar Technologies

Those US and international laws, and the Vermont Air National Guard’s own discipline, are violated right here in Vermont by training with F-35 jets in a city—a blatant violation of the fundamental military law principle of “Distinction.”

The purpose of using such a densely populated location is to train the airmen to assault civilians, just like Israeli airmen do in Gaza. It is a knowing and deliberate violation of discipline for an illegal purpose, and the Vermont political and military leaders responsible should be held to account.

Schachter’s unconditional support for the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children provides an answer to the questions Schachter ducked: If elected to the City Council, she will not take the available action for the health and safety of children and adults in the flight path in Burlington, Winooski, South Burlington and Williston, where the 115-decibel F-35 noise blasts ears and brains of 1,300 children thousands of times a year. As described in the US Air Force F-35 Environmental Impact Statement, repeated exposure to this extreme F-35 noise impairs the cognitive development of children (pages C-28 to C-30). The Air Force described degraded “reading, attention, problem solving and memory” from repeated exposure to such loud aircraft.

Spread the word, and vote against Allie Schachter for City Council on March 4!

*Full Disclosure: the present reporter was a founding member of Washington Area Jews Against the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon in 1982, participated in a National Lawyers Guild delegation to Gaza after the 2008-2009 onslaught and a Code Pink delegation to Gaza after the 2012 onslaught. He has long been a member of Jewish Voice for Peace.