A resolution calling on President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress to “facilitate a lasting peace in Gaza starting with a permanent cease-fire,” passed the Chicago City Council’s Human Relations Committee Monday.
Unlike the October debate over a resolution supporting Israel shortly after hostilities began, the committee discussion on its surface was civil and almost entirely pro-Palestinian.
But immediately after passage, the Chicago Jewish Community Relations Council and ADL Midwest described the resolution as “misguided … reckless, irresponsible and dangerous,” for failing to describe Hamas as a “a genocidal terrorist organization.”
The groups called on the full City Council and Mayor Brandon Johnson to reject the resolution, set to face an up-or-down vote when the body meets in January, potentially setting up another tense council meeting.
Attendees at the special October meeting to consider a resolution in support of Israel were cleared from chambers on Johnson’s orders after several arguments broke out between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian members of the audience.
Protests have continued at council meetings and elsewhere since, and the most progressive council members have continued to push for recognition of the plight of Palestinians.
The chair of the committee, Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, is among that group and encouraged tweaks to the October resolution to include language about the brutalities that Palestinians had faced in the Gaza conflict. In the end, sponsor Ald. Debra Silverstein, the council’s sole Jewish member, did amend her ordinance to recognize “all innocent civilians” affected by the conflict. It passed by a voice vote.
The measure debated Monday was authored by Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st. Rodriguez Sanchez said it had been changed repeatedly “to get to a resolution that reflects our values.”
The initial resolution was entirely focused on support of the United Nations resolution dubbed “Uniting for Peace.” While most of the UN’s Security Council supported the measure, the United States vetoed it on Dec. 8. Supporters of the UN resolution warned more civilian deaths and destruction would follow as the war enters its third month.
Roughly 19,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis have been killed and 2.2 million have been displaced since hostilities began. The resolution notes Chicago has the largest Palestinian population in the United States and that several other cities, including Detroit; Atlanta; Providence, Rhode Island; and Richmond, California passed similar cease-fire resolutions.
“We are authorized, I think we are demanded to speak on every issue that demands attention from our constituents,” La Spata said. “It is not a new thing for the City Council to speak on international matters nor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
While the resolution did not use the term genocide, several public speakers and invited panelists did.
Barbara Ransby, a professor of African American studies, gender and women’s studies, and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said “I’m here today because I have to be. We cannot afford to be silent on this question. What is happening as we speak is an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza,” she said, a “genocidal purge. … I don’t relish using these terms.”
“Here we are in Chicago 6000 miles away. … Many of us are not Palestinian or Israeli or Jewish or Muslim. Why do we have to say anything?” Ransby continued. “There is simply no moral justification for silence in this moment, no matter who we are, or where we are.”
In addition to the cease-fire, the resolution calls for federal officials to “promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance including medicine, food and water into the impacted region.”
If passed by the full City Council, the resolution would be sent to the president and vice president as well as the Illinois congressional delegation.