Berkeley City Council Resolution Disappoints Opponents of Genocide

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(Berkeley, April 28)-Report by Cynthia Papermaster, Code Pink Coordinator for San Francisco Bay Area

This is a report on tonight’s Berkeley City Council Special Meeting for a Resolution on Ceasefire? Arms Embargo? Palestinian Liberation? Nope. The resolution passed at midnight addresses none of the above.

We are grateful to Mayor Ishii and council members Lunaparra and Blackaby for meeting with Codepink. The meetings were respectful exchanges of information. There were many other groups meeting with the mayor and council members, so it seemed that they were interested in taking the temperature of the community.

The one item on the agenda was to take up the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission's, September 2024 resolution calling for a cease-fire, arms embargo, and Palestinian liberation. Instead the council voted for a substitute resolution by council member Terry Taplin that is a vapid expression of nothingness. It says nothing about the genocide. It says nothing about Stopping arms to Israel. It mentions widespread antisemitism in Berkeley, which is a lie. I know that some Jews feel threatened by our desire for an army embarbargo, but that is misguided and puzzling. There’s nothing antisemitic about wanting the slaughter of innocent Palestinians to stop.

Shame on the Berkeley City Council. As has happened so many times in my 60 years in this City, the Council disrespected the people they are supposed to be serving and showed their inhumanity to the world. We knew that the P&J Commission Resolution would not receive the 5 votes necessary to pass, and that alternative resolutions were going to be introduced by Mayor Ishii and Council Member Taplin. We saw both in advance. Taplin's was a non-starter for just about everyone who is conscious of the genocide. It included no mention of the genocide, no mention of ceasefire, no mention of arms embargo and certainly no mention of Palestinian liberation. It was a nothing burger.

The Mayor's Resolution was co-authored with Council Member Ben Bartlett. It was very mild but it could be read to imply ceasefire and arms embargo, though not directly stating them. Some in the community said that without including an arms embargo they would oppose the Council voting for it, as if their opposition mattered to the Council, which I doubt. Others said that while they would be unhappy if the Council passed a Resolution lacking an arms embargo to Israel, they wouldn't oppose it, as if that mattered to the Council, which is doubtful.

The Council took public comment for 5+ hours; about 3/4 of the comments asked for an arms embargo to be included in a resolution. Brilliant and heartfelt comments were made by Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez, former Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, Peace and Justice Commissioners Luke Taylor and George Lippman, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa who volunteered in Gaza and who wrote The NY Times Opinion Guest Essay 65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza and many others who made heartfelt, moving and intelligent public comments. As if that mattered to the Council, which is highly doubtful.

On the other hand, Taplin talked about his resolution and over and over emphasized the antisemitism that was being experienced in Berkeley that was hurting people. It was dangerous. It was widespread. It was unacceptable to him and so we understand now where he’s coming from. The JCRC, our local AIPAC very likely financed his election and very likely has been meeting with him regularly.

There was relentless heckling, name calling and insults against Council members and audience members by some individuals who wanted an arm embargo resolution. Humans wearing blue and some with Israeli flags were ridiculed, "othered" and insulted. This nasty behavior does not support justice and peace. It is ugly, self-indulgent, juvenile, and reprehensible. There were many interruptions and heckling. The hecklers acting out have no idea that their behavior harms our anti-genocide work, and are so self-righteous that they don't give a fuck about moving the Council, or, it occurs to me, maybe they are plants whose agenda is actually to destroy the work of so many who wanted an arms embargo resolution. I arrived at 3:30pm to help set up for the press conference. I left the meeting at 12:30am. I was there not only to give a public comment asking for the resolution to include arms embargo but to see each Council member vote, to observe the voting. The mob, and I say that because that was the behavior I observed, made it impossible to hear or observe the voting. The behavior was not only mob-like, it was scary mob behavior. I saw people I love and work with become part of the mob, and I was reminded of how mob behavior works to sweep people up into becoming a mob. I seriously wanted to observe the City Council members discussing and voting to see what they would say, what they would do, how they would vote when the resolutions were finally introduced, discussed and voted on. Instead, an element of the audience started chanting and talking over the discussion up on the dais, so it was impossible to observe what the council was doing in the last few minutes of the meeting.

I and many others have worked tirelessly to get a Berkeley City Council resolution for an arms embargo and I resent like hell that the childish, selfish behavior of some in the crowd tonight robbed me of the opportunity to hear MY and the other Council Member's votes. I know how they voted. That's not the point. I wanted to hear it for myself so that when I pour huge amounts of energy into defeating them when they run for re-election I will be energized by the memory of what happened tonight.

Next we will vote them out, oust the corrupt corporate Democrats funding genocide with our tax dollars: Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, almost all Democrats voting for billions more in weapons for Israel and we must vote Berkeley Council members Taplin, Tregub, Kesarwani, Humbert, Blackaby and O'Keefe off the Council. We can and must do better than to be governed by ignorant people who care more about the opinions and wishes of a well-funded zionist minority than they do the lives of Palestinians who are suffering the U.S.-Israeli genocide we are paying for. The heartbreak is very real, very difficult. But we must continue to work for justice and peace, because it is the most important, the most life-giving, the most worthwhile thing we can do. Onward.

With disappointment in Berkeley, the City Council, the Mayor, the mob, and the result,

Cynthia Papermaster, for CODEPINK Bay Area 8:35 AM

See all high resolution photos here.