Public Comment

Monday, September 30, 2024 was the long overdue meeting of the Peace and Justice Commission on a “Resolution for an Immediate and Permanent Ceasefire in Gaza, and an End to U.S. Military Aid to Israel, and Support for Palestinian Self-Determination”.

You probably know by now that the resolution passed with an 8 to 7 vote. But there is a lot more to what happened. 

By the time you read this, we will have already passed one year of war since the attack by Hamas on Israel, killing 1195 , including 815 civilians, and taking 251 hostages. It was a shock that reverberated across Israel and around the world. The year marks the escalation and expansion of the war into Lebanon, with Israeli bombings including the insertion of bombs into pagers and walkie talkies, killing over 2000. The number of dead Palestinians in Gaza whose bodies were whole enough to be counted is more than 41,000. 

“Whole enough to be counted” refers to the descriptions from physicians volunteering in Gaza of the impact on people of the bunker-busting 2000 lb. bombs furnished by the United States to Israel. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, orthopedic surgeon who volunteered in Gaza, described bodies being brought to the hospital in bags that looked as if they had been in a shredder. Perlmutter also described seeing children being shot twice, both in the head and chest, with horrific exit wounds, as no accident. 

The July 10, 2024, article in the British medical journal The Lancet “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential” estimated direct and indirect deaths of Palestinians from the war may be more than 186,000. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext 

It is impossible to identify the thousands buried in rubble. 

The number of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza in this war of one year is now at 175. 

As I finish this diary 19-year-old Hassan Hamad is the latest casualty in the targeting of journalists in Israel’s effort to silence and end reporting on the conditions in Gaza. Hamad, who was receiving messages from an Israeli officer ordering him to stop filming, died on October 6, 2024. 

It is in this setting that on September 30, 2024 the main room at the North Berkeley Senior Center was packed. There were not enough chairs for everyone with many of us lining the walls and the back of the room. I tried counting. Well over two hundred were present. 

If Maoz Inon, Israeli peace activist whose parents were killed in the October 7, 2023 attack and who is traveling the world with Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah had been in the room, he would have called for the ceasefire as he has done for the last year. Inon would have said as he did today in a broadcast interview, “[O]nly few years after the Second World War, where they were fighting among each other and killing 10 millions of each other, they realized that the only way to prevent the next war is making the enemies of the past into the partners of the future…” https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/7/maoz_inon_october_7_israel_palestine 

What I had hoped when I sent my letter to the Peace and Justice Commission in support of the Ceasefire Resolution was that the commissioners would work together through wordsmithing, additional statements and possible subtractions for a ceasefire resolution they could all support. but it was obvious from the beginning there were seven commissioners who were appointed to block and obstruct. 

The obstruction started when the Commission Chair Grace Morizawa opened the meeting acknowledging that the large public presence was for the Ceasefire Resolution and asked for a reordering of the agenda. Mayor Arreguin’s appointee commissioner Andrea Cassidy was the most vocal, with others chiming in, asserting that the order of the agenda couldn’t be changed. 

A vote was taken. The obstructers lost. 

Commissioners Luke Taylor and George Lippman (both Jewish) wrote the Ceasefire Resolution and introduced the Resolution to the public before public comment began. Taylor explained their intent was to call for a permanent ceasefire and not to take sides. The resolution was written with the best intentions: to bring it into the mission and function of the Peace and Justice Commission on the issues of peace and justice. 

Taylor said he has students in the West Bank, and when he opens his messages he sees “martyred” (killed) with the name of someone he knows. 

I counted sixty-four speakers in favor of the resolution (that includes speakers who assigned their time to another) and twenty speakers in opposition. There may have been a few more who assigned their time without the announcement that accompanied everyone for the ceasefire resolution that they were giving their time to another speaker. The limit was one minute for individual speakers and three minutes for speakers who received time from others. 

There was no shouting or screaming during the evening, though early on Commission Chair Morizawa asked for clapping to stop, and for people to raise their hands and wiggle their fingers in a show of support instead. There were frequent reminders that the meeting was scheduled to end at 10 pm, encouraging speakers to leave time for the commission to discuss the resolution and vote. 

There were speakers who were very moving, like the nurse practitioner who described what she experienced providing care during her month in Gaza. 

Having done so much reading on Israel and Palestine, I wondered what the man holding the vehicle license plate in the back of the room was all about. 

The Palestinian man was from the West Bank and showed his “green card” and passport and even his vehicle license plate to dispel the myth that Palestinians in the West Bank are treated equally. 

Green cards are issued to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza strip. It is illegal for a Palestinian living in the West Bank to travel to Gaza or Jerusalem without a special travel permit from Israel. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem have blue IDs. Movement is tightly controlled with checkpoints and Palestinians must have their cards with them at all times. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/18/the-colour-coded-israeli-id-system-for-palestinians 

Waving his green card, passport and license plate might not have had the same impact on others as it had for me. On the recommendation of a friend who is very much pro-Israel, I read Noa Tishby’s Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. If that was your only source of information on Israel then you would have been led to believe that Palestinians living in Israel have all the same rights as the Jewish citizens of Israel which is simply not true. You would also believe that The Nakba in 1948 was not much of anything when to the Palestinians it was the great catastrophe. 

Reading the accounts by historians, The Nakba was horrific. 750,000 Palestinians were violently displaced and dispossessed of land, property and belongings by the Israelis before and after the creation of the State of Israel. 

The Nakba is akin to the Trail of Tears though the number of Native Americans in the forced removal was 60,000 with more than 3,000 deaths, not the 750,000 Palestinians removed and an unknown number of deaths. 

What stuck with my friend, who is Jewish and supported the ceasefire resolution, was the speaker who said the Jews were the indigenous people to the land, implying the Palestinians were not indigenous and therefore had no rights. 

I was surprised and not surprised by such a statement. It goes to the myth that Israel was, “A land without a people for people without a land” and that Jews are the rightful inhabitants of the land, ignoring and denying the Palestinians as an indigenous people to the land. 

I’ve been working my way through Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha a Palestinian historian at the University of London. Masalha writes with extensive sourcing and bibliography that Palestine is not a modern invention, but instead firmly existed in the ancient past. 

Accepting that Palestinians are indigenous to the land and existed in the ancient past is all very uncomfortable to historical and modern self-identity, but not as unsettling as the 2001 publication on Jewish and Palestinian genetics that created such a furor that the NIH retracted “The origin of Palestinians and their genetic relatedness with other Mediterranean populations“ and the Guardian wrote about the retraction in “Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians” That is the story of science colliding with biblical dogma and science lost. 

NIH: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11543891/ 

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics 

Rabbi Lynn Gottleib described herself when she spoke as the first woman rabbi, and has led over fifteen delegations to Palestine. She said, “non-violence is an act of hope” and described the leadership of Israel as a racist right-wing regime that has run amuck. 

When the public speakers ended and the discussion by the commissioners proceeded what stuck with me was the statement from Councilmember Sophie Hahn’s appointee, Commissioner Nimrod Pitsker Elias. Elias stated he was the “mainstream” Jew implying that everyone else who identified as Jewish and who spoke in favor of the ceasefire resolution was not mainstream. His comment sounded like he believed that those who didn’t align with his view were some kind of outlier. 

There is a certain comfort in fortifying your position as being mainstream. Maybe Elias is right. And maybe he’s not. And, Is who has the largest number standing with them, or who is or isn’t mainstream, really the issue before the Peace and Justice Commission? 

The Functions of the Peace and Justice Commission in the enabling legislation starts with: 

“A. Advise the Berkeley City Council and the Berkeley Unified School Board on all matters relating to the City of Berkeley’s role in issues of peace and social justice, including, but not limited to the issues of ending the arms race, abolishing nuclear weapons, support for human rights and self-determination throughout the world, and the reallocation of our national resources so that money now spent on war and preparation of war is spent on fulfilling human needs and the promotion of peace.” https://berkeley.municipal.codes/BMC/3.68.070 

You can find the full enabling legislation and purpose of the Peace and Justice Commission by going to the commission webpage and clicking on BMC Chapter 3.68 on the right side of the page under Enabling Legislation or go to Berkeley Municipal Code (BMC) starting at 3.68.010. https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/peace-and-justice-commission 

In the Commissioners’ discussion, Andrea Cassidy, appointed by Arreguin on August 30, 2024, insisted that she had no time to read the resolution when she had over a month to read the first version for the cancelled September 3 meeting and at least four days to read the resolution before the commission. 

There were complaints that there had been no listening session. With that, one has to wonder then what the hours of comments from public speakers should be called. 

In response to what I would call blatant behavior to obstruct, Lippman said he wished the discussion was of the content of the resolution. 

Lippman suggested to Cassidy that if she had issues with the motion on the floor, she should make a substitute motion. 

Cassidy didn’t seem to know what a substitute motion was. To that I would suggest that commissioners put in more time to attending city council meetings. Attending city meetings is a continuous lesson in procedures. 

I believe it was Elias that first asked for the amendment to the motion to insert a statement condemning Hamas. Lippman the maker of the motion would not agree to adding rape to the statement since there is dispute whether rapes occurred in the October 7 attack. The rest of the requested amendment was passegd by the commission and is inserted as 4) on page 6 of the resolution, “Condemns the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on civilians in Israel, the murders, and the kidnappings.” 

Elias complained that anti-Semitism was a misspelling and demonstrated a failure of the authors to properly seek consultation. In the final version it was changed to antisemitism to satisfy Elias. Hgowever both spellings are correct and anyone doing any research will see both spellings. Which spelling is used varies by author, institution, journal, news media, etc. 

The 8 to 7 vote finally came after three meeting extensions and “calling the question” which is a call to end debate and vote on the motion or motions on the floor. Calling the question requires a vote too. It was a long evening. According to my watch the vote to pass the Ceasefire Resolution as amended passed at 10:58 pm. 

After the vote, commissioner Lippman said it would take about two months for the Ceasefire Resolution to reach the city council agenda for consideration. 

Now that the commissioners who were appointed by Mayor Arreguin and councilmembers Kesarwani, Tregub, Hahn, Wengraf, and Humbert failed to block the Ceasefire Resolution, whether the City Council actually votes on the Ceasefire Resolution anytime soon will depend on the actions of the City Manager and the Council Agenda and Rules Committee members,Mayor Arreguin and Councilmembers Sophie Hahn and Susan Wengraf, who have all openly stated their opposition to a Ceasefire Resolution. 

No ceasefire resolution has made it to the draft Berkeley City Council agenda. This resolution coming from the Peace and Justice Commission will eventually make it to the draft agenda, but the Agenda Committee threesome (Arreguin, Wengraf, Hahn) have several paths to follow to prevent the Ceasefire Resolution from seeing the light of day. That enables Arreguin and Hahn make it through the November 5, 2024 election, in which both are candidates for higher office. 

Wengraf is retiring at the end of her term this year. 

Anything submitted by boards and commissions for consideration by the City Council is subject to review by the City Manager. Currently that is the newly installed Paul Buddenhagen. 

The city manager can either let a board or commission submission progress to the agenda as submitted, or he can gstep in and decide that the commission submission needs a staff companion report. A companion report is either a report of opposition or modification of the action taken by a board or commission. If a companion report is to be submitted then an item from a commission will reappear on the city council agenda not sooner than 60 days later or later than 120 days. 

When the City Manager moves the commission item (Ceasefire Resolution) off his desk to be pglaced on the city council draft agenda, the Agenda Committee members (currently Mayor Arreguin and councilmembers Sophie Hahn and Susan Wengraf, as noted all in opposition) have four paths for action: 

1. They will decide whether, as with any agenda item in the draft agenda, it should it be on “Consent” (to be passed without discussion) or “Action” (to be discussed before voting) by leaving it as submitted or by moving it as appropriate. Some items always stay on Action according to procedural rules.
2. They can re-schedule board and commission items (Ceasefire Resolution) to appear on one of the next three regular meeting agendas after the council agenda where it first appears.
3. They can send a board and commission item to a Council Policy Committee for review, where the limit for taking action is supposed to be 120 days, though items from councilmembers or staff can be renewed, extended and sometimes languish for months, (when city council is on recess those days are not counted in the 120) or
4. The Agenda Committee can allow the item to proceed as submitted.

https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/City%20Council%20Rules%20of%20Procedure%20-%20July%2011%202023%20-%20FINAL.pdf 

Arreguin is running for State Senate against Jovanka Beckles, who supports Ceasefire Resolutions. Beckles’ home base, Richmond, California,g was the first city in the United States to pass a ceasefire resolution on October 25, 2023 followed by Oakland on November 27, 2023 and San Francisco on January 9, 2024. 

Hahn, who has explicitly stated that she opposes a ceasefire resolution, is running for mayor against Kate Harrison and Adena Ishii, both of whom have expressed their support for a ceasefire resolution. 

Next Monday, the second Monday in October, the United States will observe the day as Columbus Day, a longtime federal holiday celebrating the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. 

Berkeley will celebrate October 14, 2024 (the 2^nd Monday) as Indigenous Peoples Day. Berkeley was the first city in the U.S. to recognize the holiday as Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992. There are now over 200 cities, 17 states and Washington D.C. following Berkeley’s lead. President Biden is the first President to commemorate indigenous people on the federal holiday. 

Berkeley has led on so many movements for justice that cities, states and countries have followed, that one would expect this city to be standing for an end to this ugly horrific escalating expanding war that threatens the entire Middle East and is pulling the United States fully into it. 

But we have a majority of mayor and councilmembers who are firmly opposed to any ceasefire resolution. 

Whether they actually believe in continuing this war that Israel has now expanded into Lebanon, or if they see it as expedient for their November election to not offend influential lobbying groups like the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC, which sponsors elected officials’ trips to Israel) is unknown. 

Our ballots are arriving any day. Whatever is going on in their heads, they have lost my vote. I will be voting for Jovanka Beckles and Kate Harrison.