Through the Static

by Hannah Saunders

“Not another nickel, not another dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes!” was chanted by three pro-Palestinian protesters as Mayor Katie Wilson provided the proclamation for the Seattle Sister Cities Street Fair on Sept. 19, which is an event that celebrated international culture and friendship. One of Seattle’s 20 sister cities is Be’er Sheva in historically-occupied Palestine, and this relationship has been active since 1977, with the Seattle-Be’er Sheva Sister City Association working to foster relationships in government, technology, medicine, business, arts, science, and education.

One protester wore a poster board that featured images of mutilated Palestinian children, and shouted “Divest from Be’er Sheva!” as she held a sign above her head that read, “15,000 native Bedouin homes demolished by Be’er Sheva since 2023.” Mayor Wilson thanked the small group for being present at the event to express their opinions. The protester shouted, “It is a fucking genocide!”

“I agree with that. I agree. And I want to emphasize that our sister city relationships are about people and culture,” Mayor Wilson said, before being interrupted again.

“And those people have demolished 15,000 Bedouin homes in the past three years! 15,000 homes!” the protester said.

About 60 people gathered around to listen to these remarks, with two senior citizens growing frustrated and telling the protesters to, “Shut up,” and “Let the mayor speak,” with one elderly man even coming into physical contact with a protester before being told off.

“And I believe that we can maintain connections with people and with culture, even as we abhor the actions of a government,” Mayor Wilson said.

“You can’t two sides a genocide!” the protester yelled. “You can’t fucking two sides a genocide!”

“Yeah,” Mayor Wilson said into the microphone. “The Mayor’s Office is committed to ensuring Seattle remains open to the world and our Sister City Association helps us do that.”

Mayor Wilson was interrupted until she walked off the stage, with protesters chanting and demanding the City divest from Be’er Sheva. Musicians Rachel Nesvig and Brandon Vance prepared their string instruments for a performance, and those in attendance went back to perusing the various cultural booths.

One of those booths was for Hungary, with Pécs being a sister city. This booth featured the Rubik’s cube, and one of the booth volunteers highlighted to TtS its origins, and the complexities of the Hungarian language.

Another booth was dedicated to Mombasa, Kenya, which presented elegant and colorful bead work for bracelets and small animals, including an elephant and giraffe. The Seattle-Mombasa Sister City Association had several poster boards highlighting the various work being done, like the Mombasa Sustainable Coconut Oil Project, which is focused on addressing poverty and promoting health to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. This poster showcased the step-by-step process Kenyans conduct to extract coconut oil.

A member of the Seattle-Mombasa Sister City Association told TtS that white men will board airplanes to sexually prey upon Black girls, and that the Mombasa Sustainable Coconut Oil Project helps redirect girls away from survival sex work with foreign men, thus limiting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Seattle and Be’er Sheva

Be’er Sheva did not have a booth, although the Seattle-Be’er Sheva Sister City Association representative was sat tabling the main Seattle sister city booth, which featured a map with the cities pinned out, and small decal cards with images and facts about each of the sister cities.

“We have matching parks!” the infographic read. “The Be’er Sheva waterfront park is in Rainier Beach, and the Seattle Park in Israel has a statue symbolizing the cities’ friendship.

“Be’er Sheva’s ancient archaeology dates back to biblical times and is connected to our Jewish forefathers! As old as it is, it is also known as Israel’s “Cyber Capital,” and home to Ben Gurion University.”

Ben Gurion was Israel’s first prime minister and primary founder, and a key leader in the Zionist movement. Be’er Sheva, also known as Beersheba, sits just southwest of the West Bank, and holds religious significance.

“Beersheba is first mentioned as the site where Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, made a covenant with the Philistine King Abimelech of Gerar,” according to Britannica. “Isaac and Jacob, the other patriarchs, also lived there.”

Known in Arabic as B’er al-Sabaa, the area was captured by the British in 1917 during the “Battle of Beersheba,” and was seized by Israeli troops in Oct. 1948. Visualizing Palestine, a group that uses research and data to visually communicate Palestinian experiences, highlighted Beersheba in one of its interactive guides.

“In 1945, the town of Beersheba was the administrative capital of the Beersheba sub-district of Palestine. It had a population of 5,570, all of whom were Palestinian,” according to Visualizing Palestine.

The entire Palestinian population was forcibly displaced during the Nakba, and is now an Israeli city with a primarily Jewish population. This past May, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened a new military-technological campus that is servicing 8,000 soldiers and officers. This campus is also the headquarters to the IOF’s southern command, and “a secretive Israeli Air Force technology unit,” according to The Times of Israel.

Seattle Sister Cities falls under the Office of Intergovernmental Relations (OIG), and each sister city has a nonprofit that organizes programs and events in Seattle. The Seattle-Be’er Sheva Sister City Association’s Facebook page has promoted Zionism, highlighting a newly created Zionist village in the area in August 2025, and propping up the IOF military-technological campus that same month.

“Former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray traveled to Israel and visited Be’er Sheva’s dynamic Mayor Ruvik Danilovich, further fostering the relationship between our cities. The association works closely with the Israel’s Consul General to the Pacific Northwest, including the cultural attaché, among other officials. We work with the mayor’s offices in both cities, and we are building new ties between Seattle and Be’er Sheva,” according to OIR.

As the pro-Palestinian protesters were preparing to depart from the venue, Mina Hashemi, director of OIR, approached them to discuss the disruption. For several minutes, the group talked beneath the newly unveiled sister cities sign, which has arrows pointing in the direction of each city and features the distance in miles. One protester told TtS that Hashemi agreed with their viewpoints and wanted to engage in further discussion about Seattle’s sister city relationship with Be’er Sheva.

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