Support a Permanent Ceasefire in Gaza
Open Letter to the Board of Supervisors:
I’m writing to you today with utmost urgency, pleading for you to act in support of an extremely vulnerable nation, a people whose very existence is threatened by violence and destruction on an almost unimaginable scale. Every minute that transpires, further precious lives are lost, more homes, hospitals, schools, bakeries, and other spaces of potential refuge are destroyed. And every second we refuse to speak or act against this genocide, we sign our names as complicit parties. Thus, I am writing to urge you in the strongest possible terms to pass a resolution in support of a full and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.
I read with profound disappointment and frustration of your recent Resolution in Support of the State of Israel and encourage you to take this opportunity to correct the grievous error you made in approving that message.
You begin your resolution by proclaiming respect for “the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter”; you speak of “the urgent need for lasting peace in the Middle East,” of “the inherent right of people to live in security and without the threat of violence,” and you further say you “encourage all parties to actively seek a negotiated solution” that ensures lasting peace for all in the Middle East.
And yet, nowhere in the nine paragraphs of your resolution’s text do you mention “Palestine,” “Palestinians,” “Gaza,” or “the Gaza Strip.” Instead of calling for the requisite cessation of hostilities for any “negotiated solution” or “lasting peace” to be achieved, instead of demanding the protection of all civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations as the UN General Assembly did in its Emergency Session on 26 October 2023, you unanimously decided to publicly declare your support for: “the State of Israel.” Even in the aftermath of the Hamas attack against civilians on the 7th of October, instead of publishing a resolution to stand in support of Jewish people or Israeli citizens, you made the deliberate choice to announce your support for a foreign state.
States, unlike people, may make no legitimate claim to guaranteed rights; not even to their own existence. Unlike the nearly 15,000 people that the State of Israel has killed in less than eight weeks of carpet-bombing and ground invasions — including premature babies left abandoned during the Israeli army’s forced evacuation of Al-Nasr Hospital — states do not have souls. States, like Israel, are mere amalgams of abstract institutions; they are inanimate representations of political projects. People, on the other hand — like the remaining two million Palestinians living in what David Cameron, the former conservative United Kingdom prime minister, referred to as a “prison camp” (the Gaza Strip) — are living, breathing beings, entitled under the UN Charter (and morality) to food, water, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid. People are vulnerable social beings, requiring affection and care lest they be snuffed out under the rubble of yet another building bombed into oblivion by the State of Israel’s armed forces, subsidized and equipped by these United States.
Perhaps you may think that I’m being overzealous in my criticism of your resolution. Perhaps you may claim that you made a mistake in referring to the “State of Israel” rather than its people, or that I misinterpreted the meaning of your resolution. But I know that, as publicly elected officials, you weigh and measure your words carefully, because they matter; they mean something. Otherwise, why would you bother to spend valuable county resources, including the time and work of all the staff involved in the board’s meeting of November 7, on passing this resolution? Surely, you wouldn’t squander them for the sake of appeasing the interests of anyone else other than those of your constituents in the County of Santa Barbara, right?
Thus, in closing, I’d like to reiterate my urgent plea for you to leverage your positions as local leaders to call for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide of the people of the Gaza Strip. Such a statement would do much more to convince your constituents of your commitment to peace than your resolution in support of the genocidal State of Israel.