The Chicago City Council approved a symbolic resolution backing Israel on Friday during an emotional and often unruly special meeting as the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas escalated half a world away.
Aldermen in a voice vote approved the resolution from Ald. Debra Silverstein, 50th, the council’s lone Jewish member, that affirms support for Israel as the country continues its bombardments of the Gaza strip following a deadly weekend assault by Hamas fighters.
A special City Council meeting was scheduled after her resolution came together during a week of tensions that grew among council members over the international conflict, with Silverstein and others condemning some democratic socialist colleagues who also wanted the resolution to highlight Israel’s role in the ongoing conflict.
But before the aldermen could even debate, chants of “Free, free Palestine” rang out, until the sergeant-at-arms staff asked crowds to quiet down, with Mayor Brandon Johnson banging his gavel several times and threatening to clear the chamber if the public could not maintain decorum. As the clerk was reading Silverstein’s resolution, more pro-Palestine chants drowned her out.
Silverstein’s subsequent address on the council floor also was interrupted by protests, though no violence broke out during the council disturbances.
As she noted the more than 1,300 Israeli lives lost in a week and said, “This resolution is not about Israel and Palestine,” protesters shouted, “Yes it is,” and, “You have blood on your hands, Silverstein! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”
Johnson firmly gave a final warning before allowing about a dozen Chicago police officers and sergeant-at-arms staff members to clear out all members of the public gallery. Some pro-Palestinian supporters refused to leave, pointing and yelling at council members, including Silverstein, until they were physically pulled out.
Following Johnson’s order to have the council chamber cleared, audience members continued: “Silverstein, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
After a brief recess, aldermen reconvened in an emptier council chamber to continue debating the resolution.
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“Hamas terrorists kidnapped dozens of innocent civilians, including women, children, and infants, from Israel and forced them across the border into Gaza to be used as human shields and bargaining chips in the furtherance of future attacks” Silverstein’s resolution said. “… Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens against terrorism and attack by hostile foreign powers.”
The measure did not, as requested by progressive Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 33rd, also nod to brutalities that Palestinians faced from the Israeli government. But the resolution did say that “while Hamas’s attack was expressly directed at civilian Israeli targets, it has resulted in ensuing violence in Gaza that has caused the death of many innocent Palestinians.”
Silverstein did tweak her original resolution in several places, removing a reference to the assault as “unprovoked,” and a reference to “Israel’s right to defend itself.” Friday’s resolution also updated the number of dead and wounded Israelis and kidnapped Americans, and changed a previous clause about expressing “deepest sorrow for the innocent Israelis’ murder,” to “deepest sorrow for all innocent civilians.”
Rodriguez-Sanchez, a Johnson ally, had reached out to Silverstein to suggest amendments that would “center the humanity of Palestinians who are confined to an open-air prison and whose lands have been occupied for decades,” according to an email exchange Silverstein shared with the Tribune.
Other progressive aldermen also have voiced support for Palestine and nearly succeeded in quashing the resolution’s discussion entirely when Silverstein made a motion to suspend the rules to take up her measure. But their effort failed to get two-thirds of the body’s sign-on, as required. A motion to overrule that requirement passed 25-18.
Before Silverstein was interrupted, she noted a recent visit she made with some colleagues to the Illinois Holocaust Museum as she compared the “sickness” of the genocide to the recent Hamas attacks.
“Israel has fewer citizens than the state of Illinois,” Silverstein said. “Can you imagine the heartbreak and pain that thousands of casualties would cause in our state? In Israel, Oct. 7 will always be remembered as 9/11.”
Rodriguez-Sanchez, who tuned in to the meeting remotely from Wisconsin, due to a scheduling conflict, defended her opposition to Silverstein’s resolution and rejected the notion that her objection was tantamount to an endorsement of Hamas’ actions.
“This resolution also asked this body to put the name of the city of Chicago to be in support of the government of Israel,” Rodriguez-Sanchez said. “It says that in the resolution, that we, the members of the City Council, stand in support of Israel at the time that Israel is dropping bombs in Gaza, at the time that Palestinians are getting displaced.”
She continued: “Chicago is always going to be a sanctuary for Jewish people, and we are going to work towards that always. But that cannot be at the expense of the lives of Palestinian people. The name of Chicago should not be signed on to commit genocide.”
Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, also compared the Hamas attacks to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and said, “We didn’t say, ‘That was a terrible thing that happened to us, but maybe we deserved it.’ … We simply condemned an act of terrorist murder. And now here we are 20-plus years later, and we seem to have lost our ability to do that. How did that happen?”
And Ald. Matthew O’Shea, 19th, backed Silverstein in his remarks,also touching on his Irish heritage as well as violent resistors of the partition of Ireland a century ago.
“I have never once condoned that violence,” O’Shea said. “And I’ve never once tried to offer excuses for it. Because violence, terrorism, pure and simple, is never, ever justified.”
Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, who is of Puerto Rican descent, choked up while denouncing what she described as a colonial state in Israel and Palestine, saying that she believes in both “the freedom of Palestine” and protecting Jews.
“Today I condemn the violence of Hamas, but I cannot stand with the government of Israel because they will ensue violence and genocide on people,” Fuentes said. “And if we’re going to condemn violence, we need to condemn it all around.”
Johnson did not say earlier this week whether the resolution should be amended. But he committed to an open discussion and condemned Hamas for “one of the worst acts of terror we’ve witnessed.”
Following the voice vote, Johnson said it was a “very heavy day” for Chicago.
“The pain and trauma that was rippled across this world is certainly felt right here in the city of Chicago amongst all of us, and so we are grieving together as a city,” the mayor said, as the remaining protesters, who were placed in the upper gallery, shouted behind the glass, “Free, free Palestine!”
Johnson vowed, “I will continue to fight for liberation for every single person.”
After the meeting adjourned, most of the remaining aldermen gave Silverstein a round of applause as she walked out of the chambers.
Chicago Tribune’s John Byrne contributed.
