Long Beach officials have formally called on the federal government to support negotiations for a lasting humanitarian cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, among other efforts to de-escalate tensions amid the ongoing conflict.
The City Council OK’d a formal cease-fire proclamation on Tuesday, Dec. 19, in the wake of multiple pro-Palestine protests during recent public meetings — including one in the Civic Chambers earlier this month that was declared an unlawful assembly.
Tuesday’s meeting also drew hundreds of folks to the Civic Center.
Nearly 200 people spoke about the proclamation during the meeting, with applause and the occasional chant occurring in between each address. There were more pro-Palestine speakers than pro-Israel speakers, with the former largely supporting the proclamation but some wanting tweaks to remove what they said was pro-Israel language.
Once the public comment portion ended, nearly 3.5 hours after it began, chants of “cease-fire now” erupted.
“Palestinians have a right to survival. Israelis stand here from a position of privilege,” said Farah Bartlett, who advocated for the cease-fire proclamation. “Long Beach, I urge you to stand in the right place of history. Pass the cease-fire proclamation now.”
Kelly Cooper, with Temple Israel Long Beach, opposed the proclamation.
“Though the situation in Gaza is heartbreaking,” Cooper said, “this proclamation does nothing but divide us.”
The council ultimately approved the proclamation 5 to 2, with Councilmembers Kristina Duggan and Daryl Supernaw voting against it.
“I wasn’t elected to weigh in on foreign affairs,” Duggan said, adding that she opposed the “scorched-Earth advocacy” of some of the proclamation’s supporters. “We shouldn’t be spending time and resources on it. We should be focusing on things within our control.”
Besides supporting a cease-fire, the council’s proclamation calls for the release of all hostages captured by Hamas during its incursion into Israel, the protection of all civilians on both sides of the war and the safe passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The document also affirms Palestinians’ right to self-determination and Israel’s right to defend itself.
“The city of Long Beach stands firmly on the foundation of peace, unity, respect and understanding,” the proclamation says. “The city recognizes that Palestinian lives and Israeli lives have the same value, and that all human life is precious.”
With this proclamation, which Councilmembers Al Austin, Roberto Uranga and Joni Ricks-Oddie introduced, Long Beach joined a growing number of cities in California and nationwide that have approved, or are considering, similar measures. Among those are Stanton, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Ana, Seattle, Detroit and Atlanta, according to a Long Beach staff report.
It seems unlikely, though, that Long Beach, or any other local city, will have much sway in the White House or Congress, let alone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the council’s approval of the proclamation comes weeks after mounting pressure from pro-Palestine activists and the Long Beach Equity and Human Relations Commission, which have urged the city’s elected officials to publicly back a cease-fire in the war, which broke out following Hamas’ attack on civilians in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Besides multiple rallies throughout the city and the rest of Southern California since the war began, pro-Palestine advocates have also protested at Long Beach council meetings since mid-November.
The protests crescendoed on Dec. 5, when pro-Palestine demonstrators repeatedly disrupted the council meeting.
Protestors interrupted that meeting to criticize Mayor Rex Richardson and the council for not addressing the war during their previous two sessions. The mayor ordered the city’s Police Department to declare the protest an unlawful assembly and empty the chambers.
The meeting resumed after the chambers were cleared. No members of the public or the media were allowed back in.
The human relations committee, meanwhile, asked the council multiple times to officially support a cease-fire; request the city’s congressional delegation to support the Ceasefire Now Resolution, or House Resolution 786, which would allow humanitarian aid into Gaza; and support local programs aimed at de-escalating both Islamophobia and antisemitism in Long Beach.
Those requests are mostly present in the proclamation the council approved.
The proclamation, for example, directs city staffers to identify and promote educational resources and services — such as counseling and mental-health treatment — to support community members affected by the Israel-Hamas war.
It also condemns the rise of antisemitic, Islamophobic and anti-Arab sentiments.
“We have the responsibility to challenge the many uncertainties (brought on by the war),” Richardson said, “by fostering healthy and safe communities.”
Supporters and opponents of the proclamation converged on the Civic Center about an hour before the council meeting began.
Initially, about 50 pro-Palestine advocates gathered outside the Civic Chambers, sharing pastries and urging everyone to stay calm and not engage in verbal sparring. A smattering of pro-Israel supporters, meanwhile, milled about the Civic Center’s plaza.
Eventually, the crowd grew to about 400 people combined inside and outside council chambers, with around three-quarters supporting Palestine and the rest pro-Israel.
Among those present was a coalition of Palestinian, Muslim and Jewish supporters of a cease-fire that had lobbied the City Council to adopt the proclamation.
“They successfully advocated for the inclusion of a cease-fire proclamation on the City Council agenda,” Bartlett, who is the coalition’s spokesperson, said in a press release, published earlier in the day, that touted the proclamation.
The organization Jewish Long Beach, though, also had a contingent present — to oppose the proclamation.
Deborah Goldfarb, CEO of Jewish Long Beach, said the organization’s board of directors voted unanimously to oppose the proclamation because it has “subtleties” many would not understand.
It was not clear to which subtleties in the proclamation Goldfarb was referring.
But the underlying tensions that ultimately sparked this latest conflagration in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are certainly rife with subtleties and complexities — and geopolitical and religious context.
The modern conflict can be traced back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I and the creation of the British Mandate in Palestine. For years after, Palestine was scarred by violence and recriminations committed by Jewish and Muslim groups that wanted self-determination in a land both religions consider holy.
The state of Israel was created in 1948.
Immediately after, a coalition of Israel’s neighbors launched an assault on the nascent nation. Israel won.
Israel, which has long had the United States as its most ardent ally, has fended off multiple attacks since then. But in recent decades, those attacks shifted from assaults by Muslim-majority nations, some of which now have normal diplomatic relations with Israel, and toward organizations within the Gaza Strip, a section of territory on the Mediterranean Sea between Israel and Egypt.
Multiple peace deals involving Israel and the political leaders of both Gaza and the West Bank, another Palestinian-majority territory, have been proposed over the years — before ultimately falling apart.
Israel, meanwhile, has had Gaza under a sea, air and land blockade since 2007, when Hamas took control of the territory. Both the U.S. and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group. Hamas leaders, for their part, have repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction.
But pro-Palestinian advocates have criticized Israel’s blockade, saying it has effectively created an “open-air prison” in Gaza.
Attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had long been at a tense simmer until Oct. 7. That’s when Hamas fighters entered southern Israel, killing civilians and taking hostages.
The attack killed about 1,200 Israelis, with Hamas capturing more than 240 hostages.
Israel responded with a devastating military assault on Gaza.
The Israeli government has said its goal is to eradicate Hamas. But Palestinian supporters have denounced Israel for what they say is an indiscriminate military campaign that has killed too many Gaza civilians and laid waste to the territory’s infrastructure.
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza is nearing 20,000, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.
About 80% of buildings in northern Gaza had been damaged or destroyed, according to an analysis by the United Nations Satellite Centre published last week.
Hamas’ attack on Israel and the Jewish nation’s military response sent simmering tensions boiling. Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protests erupted globally, including in Long Beach.
And local officials have been pressured to weigh in on the complex conflict.
Long Beach officials, for their part, have done so. City officials first acknowledged the war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on Oct. 8, and then denounced local hate crimes and hate speech on Nov. 14.
Richardson called for a permanent cease-fire on Nov. 28, as well as the safe return of all hostages and lasting peace in the region after a temporary cease-fire, which has since broken down, led to more than 100 hostages being released.
Tuesday’s proclamation, though, was a formal call — with the weight of the council behind it — for a cease-fire.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the proclamation will quell the tensions that have roiled recent council meetings.
The Associated Press and CNN contributed to this report.