San Francisco Becomes the Largest U.S. City to Call for a Ceasefire in Gaza
A win for humanity in the city by the Bay.
Today, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in a supermajority 8–3 to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
This is an immense win for humanity and for San Francisco. It is now the largest U.S. city to pass a ceasefire resolution, a massive win for the anti-war movement. San Francisco, a Democratic stronghold, doing this is a huge signal for other cities, the Democratic party, and the Biden administration. This adds significant pressure to end the indiscriminate killings, destruction, and starvation in Gaza.
Following the resolution passing, the mood was jubilant in the Board chambers in City Hall and eventually spilled outside of the room to under the grand dome of City Hall.
Supervisors voting YES for the ceasefire resolution:
Those of us seeking to end the violence and work towards a real and lasting peace are incredibly thankful to the supervisors who demonstrated courage, integrity, and voted for humanity today by voting ‘yes’ on the ceasefire resolution.
- Dean Preston, District 5 (introduced the resolution)
- Hillary Ronen, District 9 (co-sponsor)
- Ahsha Safai, District 11
- Shamann Walton, District 10
- Aaron Peskin, District 3
- Joel Engardio, District 4
- Connie Chan, District 1
- Myrna Melgar, District 7
We are grateful for your leadership and for your commitment to all of your constituents.
Supervisors voting NO against the ceasefire resolution:
The ‘no’ votes will not age well as they were not in the service of humanity in a “textbook case of genocide.” These elected officials did not choose to be on the right side of history in this vote:
- Matt Dorsey, District 6
- Catherine Stefani, District 2
- Rafael Mandelman, District 8
It was extremely disappointing and shocking that this was not a unanimous vote. And, frankly, it was disrespectful to San Franciscans that it was not a unanimous vote. The ‘no’ votes were completely out of line with the unprecedented ~12 hours of constituent comment across two meetings, and 65,000+ emails received by all of the supervisors’ offices. Many of the supervisors have mentioned how they have never seen San Francisco engage on any issue like this before.
The resolution that the supervisors voted on today was amended to acknowledge violence and loss of life across the board; to acknowledge everyone’s humanity. However, based on the statements the supervisors who voted ‘no’ made on this item; acknowledging the humanity of every life lost, displaced, starved, unlawfully detained, and violated in both Israel and Gaza since October 7th was not enough.
Instead, they spoke about what amounts to selective humanity — seeing the humanity in one people and prioritizing the harm done to them over the disproportionate response, collective punishment, and three months of war crimes subjected on a captive population under siege.
They spoke to wanting amendments to document the atrocities of the 10/7 attack, but did not speak to any amendments to address the atrocities that have been going on in the three months since that attack in Gaza. This seemed biased and out-of-touch with reality as Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice later this week for its military operations in Gaza over the last three months.
They used damaging rhetoric, furthered war propaganda, and spoke to empty hopes for peace as they failed to take any actual action towards it.
Many of their comments were rooted in ignorance and disconnected from both reality and history. They were also disconnected from any sense of equity, racial justice, or understanding of the impact of colonialism and imperialism on Black and Brown people.
Selective feminism was employed to address the gender-based violence during the 10/7 attack, but did not address the gender-based violence Palestinian women have faced for decades under military occupation, or in the last three months during the siege on Gaza.
Although those Supervisors who voted ‘no’ today have visited Israel at some point in their lives, as many elected officials and people in the political process in the U.S. have, it was clear that they were either ignoring or indifferent to the cycle of violence caused by the Israeli military occupation, ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and power dynamics between the Israeli government and military and the Palestinians.
It was also clear that these supervisors either 1) do not have any Arab or Muslim people who they are meaningfully close to in their lives or 2) they do have these people in their lives but they simply do not care about those friends and their pain.
Regardless of their short-sightedness, this vote was a win for humanity, overall.
The work goes on and the protests continue until the siege on Gaza ends and Palestine is ultimately free, but today was a hard won win for humanity in San Francisco.
This ceasefire effort received an unprecedented show of support both when it was originally introduced on December 5, 2023 and when it was heard in committee on January 8, 2024.
