Irvine City Council members will not take a formal stand on Israel and Palestine after months of tense pressure from an active coalition of residents and activists to get their local elected leaders to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
City officials have simultaneously faced pressure from other residents and rabbis to not weigh in on foreign affairs and to keep their focus on local issues, questioning if they’ll also weigh in on other foreign conflicts like war and violence in Sudan.
A majority of Irvine City Council members agree it’s not a local issue.
But that issue is up for debate next Tuesday in neighboring Santa Ana.
On election night, Santa Ana officials are expected to reconsider adopting a ceasefire resolution at the request of Councilman Ben Vazquez after deadlocking on a similar resolution in December.
“International affairs impact families locally,” Vazquez wrote in his request to revisit the debate.
[Read: Santa Ana Council Deadlocks on Israel & Palestine Statement]
Like in Irvine, a group of activists and residents have shown up to council meetings in Santa Ana to continue to push for a ceasefire resolution in recent months.
It comes as Jewish, Arab American and Muslim community leaders warn of an uptick in hate crimes in OC.
Pro-Palestine activists and residents say what is happening in Gaza is a local issue, pointing to residents who have lost family members and U.S. tax dollars that are sent to Israel in military aid.
They have repeatedly called for Irvine City Council Members to adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Palestine and Israel.
[Read: Pressure Remains on OC Officials to Take a Stand on Palestine and Israel]
While other local cities have faced similar pressure, Irvine and Santa Ana largely became the local center of debate on Palestine and Israel since November in a county that is home to tens of thousands of Arab American and Jewish residents.
Public comments on the issue have dominated recent Irvine City Council meetings– at times pushing them into the early morning hours and sometimes people attending the meeting became difficult for council members to control with opposing sides speaking out against each other within close quarters.
Last Tuesday, Irvine Councilwoman Tammy Kim publicly worried about the impact of the debate in the city, noting the council auditorium aisle sections had increasingly divided into two competing sides, each squaring off verbally against the other.
“We have people of the Jewish community on one side, and people who are Palestinian, Arab American and those supporting them on the other side and that is not really what our city is about,” she said, adding that she’s never seen that dynamic before.
The debate kicked off in the city a month after Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israeli territory killing over 1,000 people and taking 250 people hostage.
Israeli Defense Forces launched retaliatory airstrikes in operations aimed at eradicating Hamas that Gaza Health Ministry officials say have killed almost 30,000 people as of Wednesday, displaced 80% of the population and triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The Debate in Irvine Amid an Uptick in Hate
On Tuesday, Irvine City Council members narrowly decided not to formally weigh in on the violence thousands of miles away, voting 3-2 that what is happening in Gaza is not local and that they should focus on city issues.
Mayor Farrah Khan, who is running for county supervisor, and Councilman Larry Agran, who is running for Mayor, were the dissenting votes.
The motion was made by Kim, who is also running for the mayor’s seat.
In past meetings, she and Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder left the dais during public comments on Israel and Palestine.
On Tuesday, Kim said the debate at public meetings have “stoked the flames of discord” in Irvine.
“If I could stop the war today, I would do it,” Kim said. “But I also think it’s important for this local body to prioritize matters that are directly impacting the residents of this jurisdiction on the topics that we can actually control.”
It was the first time Irvine officials scheduled a formal debate regarding Palestine and Israel since Oct. 7.
On Tuesday night, Khan and Agran opened the debate by proposing four different local actions the city could take in response to the violence thousands away.
This included: creating a city plan to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza once a ceasefire is in effect, working with groups like Groundswell to foster community dialogues to bring residents together, and working with local school districts to keep students safe from hate crimes and incidents.
“These represent perhaps a first step that we can all take together in Irvine to make things better,” Agran said.
But the proposal drew some audible pushback from the audience Tuesday night because it didn’t call for a ceasefire.
Khan said the proposal was brought forward after hearing for months from residents on both sides.
She and Agran have publicly called for a ceasefire in the past.
“If we can get to a point where we stop pointing the fingers at each other and just agree that we value human life, all human life, then maybe we can make some progress forward,” she said Tuesday.
An effort by Agran to start by solely focusing on working with local school districts to immediately address anti-Jewish, anti-Palestinian, anti-Israeli, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate incidents at schools narrowly failed.
“What we’re asking for is that we do everything we can to help our kids not be victims of hate so that they can continue going to school feeling safe,” Khan said.
Kim pushbacked on the effort, saying that Agran and Khan were using “kids as a shield” to “hijack” her motion to focus on local issues.
“I will not be supporting this motion and we can take it to a vote as far as I’m concerned,” she said.
Khan and Agran did not move forward with the other aspects of their proposal after the effort to work with school districts failed.
That same night, city officials were supposed to receive a presentation from the chief of police on hate crimes in Irvine, but they didn’t.
According to the slideshow presentation prepared, there have been four reported anti-Jewish hate incidents and one reported anti-Jewish hate crime this year so far, along with two reported anti-Arab hate crimes this year.
Ceasefire Resolutions Don’t Gain Traction in OC Despite Pressure
No city in Orange County has passed a ceasefire resolution so far.
Huntington Beach City Council members unanimously adopted a resolution after Oct. 7 in support of Israel, a U.S. ally, and condemning Hamas.
Laguna Beach City Council unanimously approved a resolution in October condemning acts of terrorism against Israel and urging both sides to protect innocent lives.
Stanton officials took a similar action in December.
Other cities in California like Montebello, Pomona, Long Beach, Cudahy and Oakland have passed ceasefire resolutions.
So have other cities in America like Chicago, Atlanta and Seattle.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.