After monthslong calls for Israel-Hamas ceasefire resolution, Asheville mayor responds

ASHEVILLE - Mayor Esther Manheimer broke City Council’s monthslong silence from the dais to say members would not consider a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“At this point, we don’t — and I don’t foresee that we will — have a resolution that council will be considering on this issue,” she said at the close of a March 12 meeting.

Since December, City Hall’s council chambers have become a fighting ground over a local response to the Israel-Hamas war, which began Oct. 7, 2023 with Hamas' attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages. Israel's response has killed over 30,000 Palestinians and driven some 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes.

Raised red palms, bloodied with paint. Photographs of the dead and dying in the light of an overhead projector. A scroll with the names of children killed in Gaza, unfurled across the chamber’s floor.

Bristling groups brushed shoulders. It wasn't uncommon for obscenities to be flung across aisles. Some Jewish members of the audience spoke of rising antisemitism in Asheville, of an “oversimplification of complex issues.” Others identify themselves as Zionists.

Pro-Palestine advocates call for a ceasefire resolution. There’s no one group leading the way, said Nour Lotfy Abdelfatah, among the organizers, but a collective of individuals demanding a response to the ongoing assault in Gaza.

Lotfy, 22, was born and raised in Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza. She grew up during the Arab Spring and witnessed a revolution.

“We need to write it in the history books, on the record: This is how we showed up in this moment in history, and this is how Asheville city responded,” she said the day after the mayor’s comments.

Who has passed a ceasefire resolution?

The resolution delivered to City Council was written by Anne Craig, who is Jewish and has lived in Asheville for 46 years. It calls for an immediate ceasefire, delivery of aid to Palestinian citizens, the freeing of all hostages and “an end to antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, Islamophobia and all xenophobic rhetoric and attacks across our country.”

Calls for a ceasefire have surged into town, city and county boardrooms nationwide. In North Carolina, only Durham and Carrboro have passed resolutions. Last week, a 4-4 vote in Raleigh left local elected leaders split.

Some 70 U.S. cities, including Chicago and Seattle, have passed resolutions on the Israel-Gaza war with most calling for a ceasefire, a Reuters analysis shows.

“I know this is not satisfying for many of you and I can see that on your faces and I appreciate it. It is not satisfying for me either. And it is not satisfying for this council, I promise you," Manheimer said at the close of the meeting.

What is Asheville City Council's policy?

Though March 12 was council’s first public-facing response from the dais, several of the members have met with organizers privately.

“I find it difficult to speak on this issue myself. It’s very personal to me and I know it’s actually very personal to everyone on council. They care very deeply about this issue and about our community and about our world and all the people who live in it,” said Manheimer, who is Jewish. “So please don’t take our lack of considering a resolution to mean that we don’t care deeply about this issue.”

Throughout a half dozen public comment periods, City Council members have sat largely silent. On occasion, Manheimer would attempt to quiet clapping and cheers, or the undercurrent of boos and hissing that often accompanied a turn at the podium.

Rather than applaud, she asked people to imply support with a kind of “jazz hands” motion — so that in response to some speakers, the room behind them became a sea of waving hands.

City Attorney Brad Branham said council does not have a formal policy for consideration of resolutions of this nature.

"As a general rule, Council actions are limited to those matters over which it has some purview. That generally excludes international issues, as these are usually directed to members of our federal legislative delegation," he said by email.

Council agendas, including resolutions, are prepared at the direction of the mayor and city manager, Branham said. Individual council members may also request a matter be included on an agenda, but only items being requested by three or more members of the council may be included without mayoral consent.

"Council has been very thoughtful and sensitive to each other on this issue and we’ve tried to figure out what makes the most sense for Asheville and for us," Manheimer told the Citizen Times in a March 13 email. "I don’t want to speak for the council members, but we have not elected to put a resolution on the agenda."

Only council member Kim Roney has voiced public support for a resolution and signed on to a Local Progress letter, along with more than 300 other local elected officials, calling for an immediate ceasefire, return of hostages and restoration of humanitarian aid.

"I can't be silent in this," Roney said following Manheimer's March 12 comments. "I hear the deep concern in our community and I appreciate what you’ve offered, mayor, and also the invitation for us to speak up. I hear the deep fear and I am grieving with our community."

Aside from Manheimer and Roney, no other council members responded to a March 13 email asking for further comment on the issue of a ceasefire.

What have protesters said at council?

The dozens who have turned out for months of public comment periods have varied widely. While many pro-Palestine speakers were united behind calls for a ceasefire, those speaking against it tended to decry a focus on Israel.

David Moritz, who spoke at several meetings, called it a "false narrative" that sought to justify antisemitism.

Robert Robinson, in favor of a ceasefire, said they stood against "collective punishment" of any people, regardless of context.

“If tables were turned, if thousands and thousands of Jewish people were dying in Israel on the United States’ dime we would show up for you here too,” Robinson said.

To this, in the audience, there were cries of "bulls---."

At the Feb. 27 meeting, chants of “free Palestine” from protestors during general public comment, typically the final item on council’s agenda, caused council to adjourn to closed session amid the rising voices of the audience, which drowned out the rote reading of state statute.

On March 12, Melissa Weiss, wearing a "Jews Say Ceasefire Now" T-shirt, said the loss in Palestine was "unimaginable and unconscionable," and condemned the islamophobia she said was being "spouted" in the room.

Voices were often raised. Some people cried. For many, it was an issue that inspired so much passion, Lotfy said, because unlike other wars, it was seen "instantaneous and live, from the ground."

"(They are) watching genocide on their phones every day," she told the Citizen Times Feb. 28, alongside another organizer, Gabriel Nassar-McMillan, who is half-Palestinian.

Lotfy said she wanted to sit down with those who opposed the resolution. She later met with Manheimer and organizers on both sides, she said.

“I think talking to those people is so important. We can disagree majorly about this huge thing, and say that it’s a deciding factor of our humanity, but we share so much just by being (human) … we come probably from the same intention, but coming at it from totally different places, and I think that is worth conversation," Lotfy said.

What can the City Council do?

But as action mobilizes locally, what can your City Council actually do?

While some speakers at council meetings argued that local decisions stand to impact state and national policy, others, like Hiley Shimoney, called it "absurdity" for people to ask City Council to weigh in.

Ceasefire organizers point to Asheville council members taking a stance on other national or international issues — like resolutions in support of widespread environmental efforts or a March 2022 moment of silence for the people of Ukraine in the days after Russia's invasion.

"Generally speaking, the council has taken positions on international/national issues when (it) involves an issue we’re working on locally such as environmental initiatives, or gun violence," Manheimer said March 13.

"I think you do know if you want to be the most effective you can be on this issue, we're not the body that's going to make that happen," Manheimer told the assembled audience March 12. "We have a congress here that represents us that we need to be communicating with about this issue ... but we also need to communicate with each other in our community."

Rep. Chuck Edwards — who is running for reelection — is Western North Carolina's representative in Congress.

Cease-fire march: Hundreds march downtown Asheville streets demanding a Gaza ceasefire: 'Hands off Rafah'

But of what power City Council actually holds, Kimberly Nelson, a professor of public administration and government at the UNC School of Government, said they "can't directly influence anything that happens at the state or national level."

The role of a City Council, she said, is to "set the vision for the community," and then instruct a city manager and staff to fulfill it.

An ordinance passed by council is a law, but a resolution "can really be anything."

Purely symbolic, Nelson said, "it’s a statement that the council or elected officials want to make about an issue.”

Of this question, Nassar-McMillan, sitting alongside Lotfy in a downtown Asheville coffee shop, said symbolism was the point.

"Asheville passing this resolution is not going to end the genocide tomorrow. But neither is them signing onto a treaty on prohibition of nuclear weapons, and yet it’s symbolic. It shows that as a government of almost 100,000 people, they represent those 100,000 people," he said. "When many local governments make the same statement of ceasefire for their collection of constituents, that adds up to a lot of people who feel this way, who want the genocide to end.”

Lotfy said it adds to the "public fracture," sending a message to the American government that is difficult to ignore.

Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University, said the question of whether City Council has power on this issue, or whether a resolution is purely symbolic, can be a "both/and."

“A ceasefire (resolution) from a random city does not have any teeth to create a ceasefire in Palestine or the West Bank in Gaza. It doesn’t. But it is the beauty of what our founders wanted for us when they set up federalism," Brown said.

“People that are closest to those that they represent should be acting in the interests of those that they represent. And if their constituents are saying that they want to take a stand, they want to be able to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with their national government’s handling of this international affair, they have every right to do so. And they are exercising that right.”

She pointed to the growing nationalization of politics, and to the hundreds of thousands of voters across the country who cast their ballot for no candidate in Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday, instead selecting versions of "uncommitted," intended as an act of electoral protest against President Joe Biden’s unconditional support of the Israeli military.

“I think the takeaway point that I would like more people to know is that this isn’t a waste of time. Symbolic politics matter," Brown said. "But most importantly, this is federalism at work. This is the system that the framers designed for us, and we’re seeing it play out.”

More: Split on Israel, Hamas statements: Buncombe, Asheville lawmakers take different stances

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville mayor responds to calls for ceasefire in Gaza