It took several hours of a special meeting, but City Council members on Friday finally did what needed to be done: Pass a controversial resolution condemning the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in which hundreds of Israelis, including children, were massacred.
Hamas also took dozens of hostages, including citizens from the U.S.— with a missing mother and daughter from Evanston among them, according to the latest reports — and other nations.
Those actions must be strongly condemned for what they are: inhumane acts of butchery, the “wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians,” as the resolution from Ald. Debra Silverstein reads. Terrorism should be called out as such.
The specifics of Hamas’ brutality have been widely reported elsewhere, so we see no need to repeat the grisly details here. But we do see the need to say this: Any attempt to associate those acts with the legitimate Palestinian struggle for rights and statehood, which some opponents of the resolution tried to do Friday, does a disservice to that cause and gives Hamas an undeserved shadow in which to try and hide.
“Justice for all begins by condemning these horrific attacks,” as Mayor Brandon Johnson rightly said. Such actions, he added, “do not bring liberation.”
Only more misery and death, as is clear from the latest news on the war. More Palestinians were killed and injured in retaliatory Israeli air strikes on Gaza, where the Israeli government has now cut off electricity and water. Worse, over a million Palestinians were ordered to evacuate northern Gaza in advance of a potential Israeli invasion, surely triggering what aid groups warn will be a humanitarian catastrophe.
Anyone who cares about fostering peace and ending war should feel angry and horrified by the cycle of tragedy and chaos and suffering. Everyone should have enough empathy to grieve for every innocent life lost or at risk, regardless of religion or ethnicity or nationality.
And as Johnson said, this time it starts with condemning Hamas.
Ald. Nicole Lee, who co-sponsored the resolution submitted by Silverstein, the council’s only Jewish member, put it this way: “My support for this resolution does not mean I am not heartbroken about the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded since (Oct. 7) and is now affecting the people of Palestine.”
Others, including several Jewish leaders, echoed that sentiment during public comment.
The alderpersons who opposed Silverstein’s resolution have the option to submit their own, and call on Chicago to support statehood for Palestine, an end to indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, or whatever goals they want to support.
Chicago has plenty of problems here at home. But taking a principled stand is always worth it.
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