What's at stake?
Since October, members of the Palestinian community in Fresno and its allies have been calling on the City Council to pass a ceasefire resolution like other California cities including Richmond, Oakland and San Francisco.
More than 30 Fresno residents demonstrated at City Hall on Thursday with signs listing the names of thousands of Palestinian people killed by Israel’s military since October, urging the City Council to pass a ceasefire resolution.
Composed of parents, teachers, Fresno State students and other community members, protesters held up the names of dead Palestinian people to city councilmembers for almost two hours before speaking out during public comment.
“There have been many cities that have passed a [ceasefire] resolution with San Francisco being one of the most recent,” said Haya Qutob, one of at least 20 people who spoke in support of Palestine at city hall Thursday. “Let Fresno be next, let us be part of history. Let’s make a difference. Let’s pass a resolution.”
Calls for a ceasefire resolution in Gaza began in October and the movement in support of it has since grown. Protesters’ signs at the Thursday meeting included the names and ages of children, from teenagers to children as young as 2 years old.
Aliah Shaath, a college student who has lived in Fresno her whole life, spoke about the family she has in Gaza, including her aunts and uncles and little cousins who have not eaten proper food for the last three months.
“These are little children who should be going to school, who should be learning, who should be getting a career just like all of us here,” Shaath said. “It breaks my heart that I have a different experience just because I was lucky enough to be born in a different country and they were born there.”
Since Hamas militants killed approximately 1,200 Israeli people in an Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli government has killed over 22,000 Palestinian people through airstrikes and an ongoing military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Yasir Amireh, one of the main organizers behind more than two dozen public demonstrations for Palestine in Fresno since October, said the Palestinian community and its allies are not going to just disappear, especially after a Dec. 21 news conference held by Mayor Jerry Dyer.
Dyer’s conference prominently featured Rabbi Rick Winer along with a handful of Palestinian community members, including the owner of a local car dealership, who came together to call for unity amidst the violence in Israel and Palestine.
Missing from the event were the lead organizers behind demonstrations for Palestine in Fresno, who say they were not invited and that their viewpoints weren’t represented that day.
Additionally, the mayor’s office also failed to notify multiple local news organizations about the news conference, including Fresnoland and KVPR.
Amireh said he was barred from entering the room where the news conference took place, on top of fellow Palestinian organizer Layla Darwish being removed from the room, which he said demonstrates the real nature of Dyer’s news conference that day.
“The mayor doesn’t need to apologize to me,” Amireh told Fresnoland. “The mayor needs to go to the protesters on Nees and Blackstone. That’s my community. That’s who represents us. He needs to go there, apologize, give us condolences and condemn Israel.”
Dyer was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
Amireh said there may be support from some elected officials, citing Councilmember Miguel Arias’ role in raising the Palestinian flag in Fresno on Dec. 8. However, too many councilmembers are putting their own political careers over the right thing to do, Amireh said, as most have either rejected or not responded to his requests to meet individually.
Rebekah Nattenberg, who was born in Fresno and now lives in Oakland, spoke to councilmembers Thursday about how her Jewish family immigrated to the United States to escape violence and fascism in Europe. If her father was alive today, she said, he would want her to take a stand against the killing of Palestinians.
“I firmly believe this resolution needs to be passed to reaffirm not only the safety of Arab and Muslim members of the community, but also the Jewish members of the community — as the actions of the Israeli government don’t reflect our anti-fascist Jewish values,” Nattenberg said.
Retired teacher Lori Garcia shared with councilmembers how painful it is to see images and videos of Palestinian people grieving dead family members. The first time she cried about it was when she joined community members in writing out the names of dead Palestinian people along with their age on the signs demonstrators brought Thursday.
“How can I not cry when I’m writing the names of children who are the same age as my kindergarten students?” Garcia said.
Reza Nekumanesh, who is among the organizers behind demonstrations for Palestine in Fresno, focused his public comment Thursday on officials who say the City Council does not speak on international issues.
He addressed Council Vice President Mike Karbassi by name and listed several examples of him engaging in an official capacity with matters concerning Armenia, Iran and Cambodia. Nekumanesh said that demonstrates how the City Council can take similar action when it comes to Palestine.
“I know you want to have a good political career and you think you can’t do that if you call out the lies and the terror of the Israeli state,” Nekumanesh said. “I tell you that you can stand ethically against the slaughter of children and people that have been forced into refugee status.”
An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled Aliah Shaath’s name. The story has been corrected.
Leave a comment