San Francisco lawmakers will vote Tuesday on a proposal urging an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, as Bay Area activists insist failing to pass such a resolution would be racist and "pro-genocide."
The resolution, which includes just one mention of the "brutal attack" by Hamas militants, cites the "armed violence" that has taken place since Oct. 7 and calls for "a sustained ceasefire in Gaza, humanitarian aid, release of hostages, and condemning antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, and Islamophobic rhetoric and attacks." It cites the growing number of labor unions and other blue cities calling for a ceasefire as its justification.
San Francisco’s proposal is the latest high-profile attempt by a blue California city to wade into the conflict and comes after anti-Israel protesters have shut down the state Democratic convention, Sacramento’s annual Christmas-tree lighting, and the state assembly. San Francisco lawmakers on Monday spent nearly six hours adjudicating the resolution even as their city faces an $800 million deficit while dealing with crime, homelessness, and drug and economic crises.
On Monday, a vetting committee teed up the resolution for Tuesday’s vote by the full Board of Supervisors, rejecting an amendment by Supervisor Matt Dorsey to note that Hamas is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and to condemn the group’s sexual violence against women. He was met with jeers and shouts of opposition from a crowd of activists in the legislative chamber as he described Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel as "systematic and unprecedented in its cruelty," showing a "pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women."
Progressive supervisor Dean Preston, who coauthored the resolution, appeared to side with the activists. He said that describing Hamas in this way would make his resolution "one-sided" and that Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on civilians should be highlighted only if Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu’s retaliatory strikes were also called out. Ultimately the committee opted to clear the resolution.
In the end, Dorsey was the only lawmaker to vote against the resolution in the vetting committee.
Meanwhile, anti-Israel activists lined up to support the resolution and blast Dorsey’s amendment in a public comment period that lasted hours.
"Any delay [to the call for ceasefire] is an act of racism when we have critical lives at stake," said Rupa Marya, a UCSF physician and an appointee by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) to a state health care commission exploring options for a single-payer system.
Marya has in recent weeks made waves on X, formerly Twitter, with anti-Semitic posts, including that the "presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity." She also created a chart blaming "colonialism," "supremacism," and "capitalism" for "trauma" and "inflammation."
Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, an organization operating under the wing of a major Bay Area left-wing dark money group funded by billionaire George Soros, told lawmakers not to "appease a pro-genocide agenda," and argued that most San Franciscans and Americans want a ceasefire.