Top California politicians are condemning video of Oakland council meeting on Gaza. Is it fair?

OAKLAND — The approach behind Oakland’s resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was intended to be “mild” and “moderate,” its author said — a simple plea for U.S. leaders to help secure lasting peace in a region trapped in a traumatic cycle of violence and death.

But as Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza after a temporary truce deal expired Friday, top Democrats in California were condemning the city.

The lawmakers piled on after a video went viral that showed speakers at the City Council meeting on Monday — where the ceasefire resolution was unanimously adopted — offering strong opinions about Hamas, a U.S. designated-terrorist organization that targeted civilians in Israel during an Oct. 7 attack.

Most cities in the U.S. have resisted signaling support for Palestinians in Gaza or taking any other position on the Gaza situation. While ceasefire resolutions have been approved in Detroit, Atlanta and Seattle, plus Akron, Ohio, and Providence, Rhode Island, other major jurisdictions have not followed suit.

As the backlash toward Oakland might indicate, adopting such a proposal comes with enormous risks for any city, including the possibility of having the proceedings cut-and-pasted to reflect any number of views aired by ceasefire supporters.

“The potential for blowback is enormous — even people who are highly critical of Israel would draw the line at expressing any kind of sympathy for Hamas,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.

Even Berkeley, known to be one of the Bay Area’s most liberal cities, has refused to endorse a resolution such as Oakland’s, with the City Council there ending two meetings early in recent weeks amid bedlam among pro-Palestine advocates in attendance.

“These resolutions will not end the violence abroad, but they do fan the flames of hatred here at home,” Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín wrote in a statement formally opposing a call for ceasefire.

At Oakland’s City Council meeting, one speaker claimed, for instance, that Israeli troops were the ones responsible for the Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,400 people and led to the capture of 240 hostages. Another referred to Hamas as the “armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance,” while a third suggested that Zionist speakers in attendance were “old white supremacists.”

“Hamas is a terrorist organization,” wrote Gov. Gavin Newsom in a social media post responding to the video. “They must be called out for what they are: evil.”

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, running to represent California in the Senate against Rep. Barbara Lee, among others, was one of the earliest supporters of a Gaza ceasefire. “It’s shocking to see people continue to downplay, deny, or even seek to justify their October 7th attacks,” he wrote.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis described the comments as “deeply disturbing,” while state Sen. Scott Weiner seized on Oakland’s ceasefire resolution itself, noting that the City Council had declined to include a condemnation of Hamas, which governs in Gaza.

The smattering of public comments was just a few of around 250 made Monday that were largely far more mainstream, with most showing support for Palestinians who have seen between 13,000 and 15,000 civilians killed in Israel’s extended retaliation.

In scrambling to distance themselves from the comments in the video, the lawmakers also shifted the focus from Oakland’s actual resolution, which offers mostly a neutral call for peace.

“Gaza is in a dire humanitarian crisis that is getting worse with each passing day,” reads the resolution, authored by Councilmember Carroll Fife, who defended it as mild and moderate in its provocations given its withholding of more direct criticism of Israel.

The resolution did not ultimately condemn Hamas, but in a further show of neutrality, it also contains hardly a mention of Israel. The country’s name appears in the language just once, in a clause listing the number of people killed in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked Israel’s attacks.

The video that sparked the outcry was compiled by the Jewish Community Relations Council’s Bay Area chapter, but it went viral after an influential social media user reposted it — leading some of the state and country’s most powerful Democrats to set their sights on Oakland.

The Bay Area chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group, addressed the backlash in a statement, saying the video was part of a “malicious, misleading propaganda campaign that seeks to undermine the (ceasefire) resolution.”

While the organization “does not agree with every single comment made throughout the course of the evening, overall the hearing was a peaceful gathering of residents from across the diverse city of Oakland,” the statement read.

Oakland Councilmember Dan Kalb tried unsuccessfully to add condemnations of Hamas to the council’s ceasefire resolution, including one that blamed the group for “repression and violence” against Palestinians.

His proposal was voted down 2-6 after the council’s president, Nikki Fortunato Bas, said adding such language would necessitate further context — namely that “this conflict did not start on Oct. 7,” she said, referring to Israel’s repeated expansion into the West Bank.

In an interview, Kalb doubled down on his statements, noting that Weiner had called him after Monday’s meeting to offer support. Kalb, who voted for the ceasefire resolution itself, is campaigning to fill a vacant seat in the state Senate — a race that will pit him against Arreguín.

“What was disappointing and, to me, shocking, is how many of the people who made public comments tried to legitimize, condone or even support the actions of Hamas on Oct. 7,” Kalb said.

Meanwhile, the broad range of opinions expressed Monday — the majority of which aligned far more closely with Bas’ view — appear to have been lost in the social media frenzy. Bas could not be reached for comment.

Oakland’s statement demands an immediate ceasefire, the “release of all hostages” and the “restoration of food, water, electricity, and medical supplies” that have been cut off by Israel during the country’s prolonged retaliation to the Oct. 7 attack.

The carefully-worded language, in this case, did not appear to be enough to stave off political fallout.

“Those commenters have a right to free speech,” said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area’s chapter of the Jewish Community Relations Council’s Bay Area chapter, which published the viral video. “But those council members have a right to call (the statements) out as not consistent with the values of Oakland. And they didn’t do that.”