Sacramento Mayor: My resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza seeks to unite our community | Opinion

On Tuesday, I plan to bring a bilateral ceasefire resolution to the Sacramento City Council.

The resolution condemns Hamas’ horrific atrocity on October 7, calls for the immediate release of innocent hostages, acknowledges the thousands of civilian deaths and injuries as a result of Israel’s military response and calls for immediate humanitarian aid to the suffering people of Gaza.

It acknowledges the importance of both a safe and secure Israel and an independent Palestinian state and condemns both the terrible rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in our country and throughout the world.

Opinion

The resolution is substantive and fair.

Those who point out that the Sacramento City Council has no purview over a war thousands of miles away are correct. We don’t. But this resolution is about Sacramento. The events in the Middle East have deeply divided our community and fractured our proud history of interfaith solidarity. Many Sacramentans are also deeply affected by the conflict because they have family members and friends in Israel and Gaza.

Some people have told me that introducing a ceasefire resolution won’t help tamp down the anger and will instead inflame it. But we are experiencing the consequence of doing and saying nothing. Every week in our chambers, dozens — and even sometimes hundreds — of people come to express their pain, some constructively and some not. Considering and passing a fair resolution acknowledging pain and anguish on all sides would, at the very least, demonstrate that everyone has been heard by their elected representatives.

I know there are no guarantees, but I believe a balanced resolution like this one offers the best hope of improving an untenable situation.

This resolution is vastly different than the one-sided versions being passed by other city councils in the state and around the nation. I have refused to place such a resolution on the agenda. What is before the council on Tuesday asks our local Muslim, Palestinian and Jewish communities to reach across the great divide and acknowledge the common humanity and suffering of the people in Israel and Gaza.

I have not sought this controversy. As a Jewish mayor of a major American city, I have become a significant focal point for the community’s anger — as have my colleagues on the council.

I have many responsibilities as mayor, one of which is to represent the entire community. It is also my responsibility to do all I can to lower the emotional temperature in our city, to help heal and to seek peace between long-time friends and allies who are currently bitterly divided.

For many weeks, I have talked to members of the Muslim, Palestinian and Jewish communities to try to help find common ground. The resulting resolution reflects deeply held principles in these communities, even if some do not want it heard at all.

Despite provisions supporting Israel, numerous respected leaders of Muslim and Palestinian communities have indicated their full support because of the resolution’s overall message to protect and preserve innocent lives on all sides.

I urge the leaders of the Sacramento Jewish community to accept the outstretched hand of Sacramento’s Muslim and Palestinian communities and say yes.

There is nothing lost and much to gain by our communities coming together.

The anger, trauma and fear that the Jewish, Palestinian and Muslim Americans feel is real. But we are not at war with our Sacramento brothers and sisters. We are fellow members of a community that has always stood with and for one another.

Amid great mourning and anger, I’m calling on our city to once again choose hope over continued division. There is enough in the document for every side to like and enough for every side to feel some discomfort and even disagreement. Such is the nature of principled compromise.

Let’s show up on Tuesday in the spirit of friendship. We might not be able to create peace in the Middle East, but we can model the peace that we want to see throughout the world here in Sacramento.