Raleigh residents push for cease-fire in Gaza. When local government turns global.
The Raleigh City Council chambers were packed Tuesday with dozens of people asking city leaders to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Nearly 13,000 people, almost half of them children, have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7 when Hamas, an armed Palestinian militant group, attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 people, according to The Associated Press. The war is entering its seventh week and thousands more may yet lie beneath the rubble of bombed homes, hospitals and schools.
The calls for a cease-fire have trickled to local governments in the Triangle as some residents seek to influence state and federal leaders to end the violence and stop funding to Israel.
But what impact do local resolutions on international matters have?
Over 50 residents, many wearing black and white or red and white checkered keffiyeh, attended the Raleigh City Council meeting on Tuesday to urge the council to pass a cease-fire resolution.
Noor Hawa, a Palestinian-American, played a recording of an Israeli solider saying he would “burn (Gaza) to the ground,” and another of a Palestinian father weeping after losing all three of his children in bombings by Israel.
“A cease-fire protects everyone on both sides of the struggle,” she said. “We all say that we are anti-war during peace times, but this is where the rubber meets the road; this is when it gets hard. This is when you need to put your morality into practice and say that you truly are anti-war.”
The resolution, submitted by local groups including Refund Raleigh Freedom Committee, Muslim Women For, N.C. Environmental Justice Network, asks the city to call on congressional leaders to:
urge President Biden to call for and facilitate de-escalation and an immediate cease-fire
request the Biden administration send humanitarian aid to northern and southern Gaza
urge the Biden administration to work to release all hostages, including Palestinians held by Israel
Tuesday night, Israel and Hamas agreed to a temporary cease-fire requiring Hamas to free at least 50 of its roughly 240 hostages. Israel is to release about 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange. The truce will begin on Thanksgiving morning.
After nearly two hours of public comments Tuesday, the Raleigh City Council continued its regularly scheduled meeting and at about 8 p.m. went into a closed session, upon which Councilwoman Mary Black announced the council would discuss the cease-fire resolution.
The meeting was adjourned late Tuesday night with no action taken.
Resolution for Ceasefire, Peace, and International Law by Kristen Johnson on Scribd
Passing resolutions on global issues
The calls for a cease-fire are a continuation of last week’s City Council meeting where 94 residents signed up to speak in support of the resolution. About 50 of the 57 people who signed up to speak on Tuesday delivered fiery remarks about their frustration with the council’s hesitation.
The Israel-Hamas war has reached local governments throughout the country, including in Chicago and in Florida, where debates became heated between elected leaders and residents. In Aurora, Colorado, and Philadelphia, the city councils passed resolutions condemning the attack by Hamas, despite requests for a ceasefire.
Last week, Carrboro became the first municipality in North Carolina to pass a resolution urging Congress to call for a cease-fire.
In an interview with The News & Observer on Wednesday, Carrboro Town Councilman Sammy Slade said polls show a majority of Americans support a cease-fire.
“It’s imperative upon any elected governing body to represent their citizens,” Slade said. “From town council all the way up to the presidency, before we passed our resolution, no one was representing us or humanity.”
The Carrboro Town Council also condemned rising Islamophobia and antisemitism, but it was criticized for not condemning the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Slade said the hope for the resolution was to continue pressure on the Biden administration. Like many speakers Tuesday in Raleigh, Slade calls the killing in Gaza genocide.
“On the congressional level, Congress has the power of the purse. (Biden) is requesting billions of dollars for more bombs to be dropped on Gaza and it’s imperative our representatives in the House not provide that money. This is genocidal intent,” he said.
Frayda Bluestien, a professor at UNC’s School of Government, says board members who get requests to adopt resolutions on issues of local, state, national, international, and even extraterrestrial, interest are free to weigh in.
“Hot button issue resolutions do not raise particular procedural or legal issues, but they do sometimes cause board members and attorneys to question whether the board should regularly or even occasionally state an official position,” Bluestein wrote in a 2013 bog post.
When a resolution relates to something that is not directly or even indirectly within the jurisdiction of the board, the “decision about whether to vote for it becomes a matter of each board member’s personal view on the matter,” she continued.
“It may be useful for the board to develop internal policies or consensus on how to handle resolution requests from citizens or organizations, she wrote.
The United States provides $3.8 billion every year to Israel, with nearly all of it going to Israel’s military, according to The Washington Post. Since the war in Gaza began, the Biden administration has requested $14 billion more in aid to Israel.
“We constantly make the connection between what happens on the federal level has an impact on what we’re able to do on the local level,” Slade said. “Half of our federal discretionary funds go toward a war, and there’s definitely a misallocation of those funds.”
Carrboro has passed other resolutions, most recently, condemning the war in Ukraine. Another resolution urged their congressional leaders to discontinue discretionary funding for wars. At the federal level, Carrboro has passed resolutions on wars in Iraq and Syria.
‘What does Palestine have to do with Raleigh?’
In Raleigh, some called out Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin Tuesday who at one point looked down at her cell phone while a speaker was talking. She also threatened to end the meeting if the crowd did not stop interruptions.
“Please get off your phone and pay attention to me,” Jamal Mohamad, an N.C. State student, told the mayor. The crowd cheered and yelled “shame” and “extra time” at Baldwin. “It’s disgusting, Mayor Baldwin, that Raleigh and North Carolina are funding millions into Israel’s occupation, genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
The city is not directly funding Israel but some people have been critical of the state’s congressional leaders and their support for funding the country’s military. Sen. Thom Tillis is one of the leaders who backs support for Israel. In an opinion editorial, he called out antisemitism and referred to people calling for a cease-fire as “naive” and “hateful.”
“Simply put, you cannot have a cease-fire with a terrorist organization like Hamas. Nothing they say or do can be trusted,” he wrote.
Brea Perry, a Raleigh resident who supported the resolution, challenged the City Council’s “moral clarity.”
“What does Palestine have to do with Raleigh?” Perry asked rhetorically. “Even if you aren’t immediately able to make the local and global connections ... it should be enough that you have Palestinian constituents. It should be enough that your Palestinian constituents are waking up daily to more news of their people being massacred.”
Palestinian Americans make up less than 1% of residents in Wake County but the group is spread across the state and country. Three-quarters of Muslim Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
City Council members Black and Christina Jones were the only two to address the calls for a cease-fire during the meeting. Both said they supported a resolution.
Black said the council has received thousands of emails asking them to sign a cease-fire resolution, and hundreds asking them not to.
“I have always condemned all harm and loss of life,” Black said. “I condemn the loss of life that took place on Oct. 7. ... I also condemn the ongoing loss of life of the more than 14,000 children, women and fathers from the indiscriminate bombing in Gaza.”
Black, who has been active in the Black Lives Matter and environmental justice movements, supports a cease-fire because she is a “human first before anything else” she said and added, “but most importantly, immediately after that, I am an advocate and a Black woman.”
Jones thanked the speakers Tuesday for their willingness to hold the City Council accountable and thanked Black for speaking out against the war.
“I do value human life,” Jones said. “I echo everything that (Black) said because I think it was beautiful and it touched on all the feelings that we’re all going through. There’s so much hurt in this world.”
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the city said they had no comment on the cease-fire resolution. It was unclear if the council would consider the document any further.
