BOULDER, Colo. (AP) – This peaceful university town is 7,000 miles from the violence of the Middle East, but a proposal to become sister cities with a Palestinian community has stirred such rancor that the City Council is trying to negotiate a truce among its own residents.
The council decided Tuesday to hire a moderator and convene a citizen panel in hopes of settling differences between two sides arguing about whether Boulder should have a formal sister-city relationship with Nablus on the West Bank.
Sister-city ties would help combat misunderstandings about Palestinians, said Essrea Cherin, president of the Boulder-Nablus Sister City Project, which is promoting the relationship. She said the entire Palestinian population is unfairly portrayed in the U.S. media as violent because of the actions of a few.
But opponents told the council Tuesday night that Nablus, a city of about 130,000 residents that is a commercial and cultural center for Palestinians, was too closely linked with anti-Israel sentiment. Others have said formal ties would make it appear that Boulder was taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
An official sister-city relationship would require City Council approval. The council rejected a similar proposal in 2013, citing community opposition and similar concerns that the city – about 30 miles northwest of Denver and home to the University of Colorado-Boulder – would appear to be taking sides.