“Elections are won on economic issues.”
So it is said, and it may overwhelmingly be true. If you lost your home, the rent is too damn high, you’re stuck below a living wage, or you have to choose between eating and getting your meds, that will be top of your mind as you cast your ballot.
Usually.
But there are times when faraway places weigh so heavily on the public’s mind that they can swing an election. This may be one of those times, and the issue can be summed up in one word: GAZA.
Nationally, the Democratic ticket and behind it the Biden Administration are stuck on the dilemma of swing states such as Michigan, where razor-thin contests may hang on the U.S. response to the near-total destruction of the Palestinian territory.
But the issue inflames people even in the deepest blue communities, like Berkeley. For a full year, since the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians and the massive Israeli bombardment of Gaza that followed, outrage has burst into the public sphere.
Palestinian-Americans, Jews supporting peace with justice, large numbers of young people and other constituencies have testified passionately to the Berkeley city council. Their simple demand is that the council adopt a resolution supporting a ceasefire, as many other surrounding cities including Richmond, Oakland, and San Francisco have done.
Calls for “Ceasefire now!” and “Free Palestine!” resonated in the council chambers for months. The council chose on occasion to move into a back room, away from the public, to decide the city’s business. The Berkeley People’s Alliance filed a suit against this tactic, alleging violations of California open meetings law (the Brown Act).
Yet the bombardment of Gaza did not cease, and Palestine is not free. To the contrary, Gaza has been leveled, with hundreds of thousands dead either from bombing or from other effects of the war, including famine and disease. On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court, found it plausible that Israel was violating rights guaranteed under the Genocide Convention, including “the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide,” which is defined as the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.
What may have been most frustrating for the Free Palestine movement is a conflict between Berkeley’s values—or perhaps its image of itself as bastion of peace and justice—and the council’s refusal to even consider a symbolic call for ceasefire.
Back on the international level, what many feared has now come to pass. The war in Gaza has become internationalized. Army and settler killings of Palestinians in the West Bank, growing Israeli military conflict with Lebanon, Iran, and Syria, have not stopped a growing engagement of the U.S. with increasing military supplies, close coordination in military affairs, and deployment of additional Navy ships in nearby seas. U.S. administration officials freely express the fear that the pattern of retaliation will lead to full-scale war between Israel and Iran with devastating consequences for the world. But in mid-November, the administration announced it will shortly send 100 U.S. soldiers into the conflict in Israel.
On September 30, the city’s Peace and Justice Commission waded into the fray. In a sober statement that focused on the immediate dire situation, the commission urgently asked council to join with Richmond, Oakland, and San Francisco in demanding a halt to the fighting.
At the same time, commissioners felt the growing contradiction between the Administration’s rhetoric about seeking an end to the fighting, and their escalating supply of two-thousand pound bombs and other lethal equipment to Israel. The commission added a call for Washington to put their money where their mouth is and halt military aid to Israel.
At the time of this writing, the city council’s hearing date for this resolution is uncertain. It could be heard on November 7, just after Election Day, or later in the year, or even into 2025. A vote in November would take place with the lame duck mayor and council still in place.
Again, most mayoral and council candidates are not making a major issue of peace. Some are for a ceasefire resolution and some are against. Some may even be against a ceasefire itself. If you’re interested you can ask the candidates where they stand on this moment of great tragedy.
Read the Peace and Justice Commission’s resolution as amended here, or click on https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2024-10-01/article/50841?headline=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–Berkeley-Peace-and-Justioe-Commission.