With a ‘deeply conflicted’ community, NC town won’t issue Gaza cease-fire resolution

UNC students and residents on both sides of the Israel-Gaza divide paused for a moment of silence Wednesday after the Chapel Hill Town Council declined to issue a resolution calling for the fighting to end.

Mayor Jess Anderson let 18 people for and against a cease-fire resolution speak Wednesday before acknowledging “the worry, the fear, the pain and the anguish that this awful situation is causing people across this community and in our own organization.”

The impact of what is happening “is weighing deeply on us,” Anderson said, but the council’s job “is to look out for the health, safety and well-being of our entire community.”

“In this situation, where our community is deeply conflicted and the issues are very complex, a resolution is not what’s needed,” Anderson said. “Instead, as we have seen in other communities, it could serve to add to the divide.”

Chapel Hill and leaders in other municipalities have received emails and calls from residents asking for a cease-fire resolution since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, when Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages.

Only Carrboro has approved a resolution, passing it after a 4-3 vote in November. The Orange County Board of Commissioners does not plan to consider a resolution, Chair Jamezetta Bedford has said.

Many Chapel Hill residents asked the council to stay out of the fight. A few noted Wednesday the growth of antisemitism on campus and flyers around town that support Palestinians and Hamas.

Chapel Hill resident Amy Rosenthal, who is co-founder of the N.C. Coalition for Israel, said UNC-Chapel Hill students who support the resolution “are doing the bidding of Hamas, passionately making demands they don’t understand.”

“As a Chapel Hill voter, I know you have important work to do for our city. I’m grateful that you do not plan to wade into foreign affairs, despite a few vocal students demanding otherwise,” Rosenthal said.

Others, including the Students for Justice in Palestine, urged a resolution supporting a cease-fire and aid to Gaza, for the town to identify ties between Israel and the Chapel Hill Police Department and to boycott investments in Israel.

The police department does not have any connections to Israel, town staff have said.

Speakers cite violence, ‘life-saving aid’

UNC graduate student Lauren Gorstein, who described herself as a Jewish-American, said she changed her opinion on the war after a closer look at the suffering in Gaza. She urged the council to join the call for “an end to the climbing death toll in Gaza and for allowing the flow of life-saving aid and water, fuel and medical supplies into the Strip.”

“Once I truly understood the broader context of this issue, I was horrified by the violent realities that the Palestinian people face,” Gorstein said. “I was able to critically examine my preconceived beliefs and upon learning about the reality of human rights abuses, the brutality, displacement, occupation and genocide, I was able to change my views with new information.”

More than 217 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the fighting began, the government has reported. In Gaza, meanwhile, over 25,400 people have been killed and about 63,000 wounded, with nearly 2 million displaced, according to the Associated Press.

Mitchell Pinsky made a passionate stand, sharing that he recently spent two weeks volunteering in Israel, where he saw the burned cars and portable bathrooms riddled with bullet holes at the Nova Festival targeted by Hamas.

The UNC graduate student said Hamas is “a genocidal terrorist organization” that broke the cease-fire on Oct. 6 with the goal of eliminating Israel. “They didn’t just murder. They beheaded, they raped, they burned, they mutilated, not just Israelis, but the Thai workers.”

“The reality is even if the entire world were to call for a cease-fire, Israel will continue to do what it needs to do to protect ourselves and the Jewish people,” Pinksy added.

Chapel Hill Town Council member Melissa McCullough urged the crowd to take individual action by supporting charities providing support to those who are affected by the fighting.

Council member Camille Berry asked the crowd to “not see my position as turning my back on those who are suffering.”

“I do not believe it is this council’s right to ask for a cease-fire,” Berry said. “What is my personal right is to ask ... that human life be valued, that we continue to sit together, share our pain, that we not turn on each other.

“Not one of us wants to see someone else’s loved one die, not one of us in this room.”

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