On Tuesday, Feb. 27, Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) led a march from Honnold Mudd Library to the Claremont City Hall, where students attended a city council meeting regarding a vote on two resolutions: Attachment A, which called for neutrality on social and political issues not local to Claremont, and Attachment B, which called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The meeting, which lasted nearly seven hours, concluded with a unanimous vote by council members to support the first resolution, effectively ruling out the possibility of their voting on the second.
According to Tuesday’s agenda packet, the idea of a ceasefire resolution was initially introduced by several attendees at a Feb. 13 city council meeting. The resolution came in response to Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza, with the death toll passing 30,000 and “the loss of civil lives being the biggest in weeks.”
Between its introduction and Tuesday, staff members worked to draft both resolutions, obtaining feedback on Attachment B from various individuals and organizations in the process, including the Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys and the Islamic Center of Claremont.
Attachment B, which called for an “immediate peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis impacting Gaza and Israel,” sought to take into consideration the insights of community members both in support of and in opposition to it.
“The obvious division among the community as it relates to this issue made drafting a resolution very challenging,” the agenda packet read. “While the proposed resolution attempts to be deferential to citizens on both sides of the issue, it is clear that it may not meet the expectations of either group.”
In the resolution, authors mourned the loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives and suggested that Claremont community members were being directly impacted.
“The ongoing conflict in the Middle East that escalated on October 7, 2023 has resulted in the tragic loss of many thousands of innocent civilian Israeli and Palestinian lives, and increasing reports of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, anti-Jewish, and anti-Arab incidents,” the resolution read. “Our community members have suffered from an alarming rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”
It then expressed support for Congressional Resolution H.R. 786, which was introduced to the House in October, and called for the immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.
“The City Council hereby supports Congressional Resolution H.R. 786, and joins other cities in calling on Congress and the Biden administration to demand: an immediate ceasefire; an immediate release of all hostages; urgent safe passage and delivery of substantial and sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza; and a lasting political resolution that protects the lives, health, and security of all innocent civilians,” stated the resolution.
Ultimately, Attachment B was not passed.
The other resolution, Attachment A, passed unanimously. This resolution was created in response to the aforementioned ceasefire resolution and sought to make official the city council’s “long-standing practice of not adopting resolutions or issuing proclamations that take an official city position on social or political issues that are not local to Claremont.”
Attachment A emphasized the city council’s prioritization of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect and argued that issuing resolutions on political or social issues not local to Claremont could be complicated and potentially harmful to the community.
“The City gets several requests for proclamations and/or resolutions each year, which could create inequities when deciding which requests would be considered by the City Council and which would not; and it can be divisive to adopt ‘official City positions’ on issues that community members do not wholly agree on,” the resolution read.
Both resolutions were set to be voted on at Tuesday’s meeting, for which approximately 40 students from the Claremont Colleges attended. At around 6:20 p.m., students carrying hand-painted signs saying “ceasefire now,” “blood on your hands” and “free Palestine” met outside Honnold Mudd Library.
Approximately ten minutes later, the group arrived at the Claremont City Hall, where they were joined by numerous other students and community members chanting, “What do we want? Ceasefire. When do we want it? Now.”
Inside, all 70 seats of the council chamber were filled. Other attendees crowded together in a separate viewing room upstairs, in the lobby and outside.
At 7 p.m., the meeting officially began. There were eight items on the agenda, with the first seven being unrelated to the ceasefire and neutrality resolutions. At 7:45 p.m., the discussion surrounding these resolutions, collectively referred to as Item 8, began.
After each resolution was introduced, it was clarified that voting in support of Attachment A, the neutrality resolution, would prevent the council from voting on Attachment B, the ceasefire resolution. It was also stated that there were 397 public comments received by mail or email and distributed prior to the meeting.
Following the introduction and announcements, comments were opened to the public. These comments continued until 12:29 a.m., with all interested attendees being given the opportunity to speak. After the last attendee spoke, the council members shared their thoughts and voted unanimously to support Attachment A and adopt a neutral position. This prevented them from voting on Attachment B, the ceasefire resolution.
Several of the council members reasoned that a resolution made in Claremont would not positively impact the current crisis in Gaza, but would instead cause harm to the local community.
“Words on paper [are] not going to affect [Gaza],” Mayor Pro Tem Corey Calaycay said. “It’s going to take really serious discussions and negotiations to make a change. I don’t want to drag my community into these deep discussions if we don’t have an actual vote that’s going to change things.”
Council member Jennifer Stark echoed a similar sentiment.
“We heard a lot of people say that, in the time that this meeting happened, more lives had been lost and so I ask you — why then, are you spending time on a symbolic ceasefire gesture instead of working directly where you can end it?” she said. “Not even the state has the authority to make these decisions. It is the federal government. And if seven cities haven’t made an end to this war, eight are not going to either. This is not going to be solved here in these chambers and what a ceasefire would do in our city is cause increased division.”
Mayor Sal Medina concluded the meeting by highlighting the complexity of the topic and suggesting that it was not something that should be addressed in Claremont.
“This topic, even in a six or seven hour meeting, is not enough to scratch the surface,” he said. “We do not have the expertise, nor the time, to really get anywhere close to where we need to be. I believe that local government is local. I believe that our work at City Council is to do the work for our community here in Claremont and for that reason, I would agree with my colleagues and stand behind option A.”
Claremont Community for Palestine, one of twenty organizations that signed onto a Feb. 23 letter calling for Claremont to sign a ceasefire resolution, condemned the city council’s decision in a statement sent to TSL on Feb. 28.
“Neutrality is a political stance,” the statement read. “By choosing non-action during Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation of Palestine, Claremont City Council averts its gaze from murder. Council members insisted that resolutions on political issues would sow division, as if upholding oppression is not the root cause of division. Hiding behind empty condolences, Claremont chose the wrong side of history again.”
The statement then went on to express the group’s plans to continue organizing for Palestinian liberation.
“Claremont Community for Palestine and its community members are organized, disciplined, and ready to continue holding Claremont’s representatives accountable to Palestinian liberation,” it read. “Free Palestine.”
Sage Harper contributed reporting.
