Easton City Council Removes Resolution Calling for Ceasefire in Gaza from Meeting Agenda
Local elected officials refuse to move for ceasefire even as polling suggests the majority of Americans support it
Easton City Council was packed with a standing room only crowd on Wednesday night. Eastonians in support of a “ceasefire now” resolution raised signs and held aloft a banner reading “end apartheid.” These Eastonians were moved by the ongoing plight of Palestinians who are being massacred, starved, and besieged by the Israeli military with the support of the US government. Among these ceasefire supporters were Muslims, Jews, Christians and the non-religious.
Despite the showing of popular support, Easton Council voted at the start of their meeting to remove the resolution from the meeting agenda. Introduced by Councilmember Taiba Sultana, the resolution urged representative Susan Wild to join her democratic colleagues in Congress demanding an immediate de-escalation in Israel’s siege on Gaza. Additionally, it called upon Senator John Fetterman, Senator Bob Casey and Governor Josh Shapiro to publicly endorse a ceasefire.
Mayor Panto referred to the resolution–which references both Palestinian and Israeli deaths –as “lopsided” and stressed that the recent violence in Palestine was a matter “I have no control over as a council member in the city of Easton.” Councilmembers voted 5-2 in favor of removal, foreclosing an actual vote on the matter, with only councilors Sultana and O’Connell dissenting.
However, because the resolution was on the public agenda that circulated prior to the meeting, public comment on the matter was permitted, and a passionate audience of a few dozen took advantage of this opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the City Council’s decision. In the course of several tense interactions with city residents, council members made a variety of spurious or factually inaccurate arguments.
Primary among these was a near constant recourse to “the rules” and “proper channels”, which, several council members indicated, this resolution had failed to follow. Such a resolution, Vice Mayor Brown and Mayor Panto indicated, should be introduced first via committee, where a smaller gathering of officials can massage the wording.
Bluntly, this recourse to the rules was a smokescreen. On a factual basis, it does not hold up to scrutiny. Mayor Panto admitted, there are no existing committees (codes, public safety, etc.) that quite fit the international orientation of the resolution. More to the point, Councilor Melan noted that resolutions are not sent to committee with any real regularity or consistency. He indicated that he tried to introduce legislation years ago to formalize a uniform process–which would have seen all city business should first pass through committees–and his colleagues rejected that legislation, saying this would slow city business to a crawl. As Melan stated, “If we are gonna pick and choose what goes to committee, it should be a more formal process…I’m not sure we can debate procedure, because if we are gonna sit here and nitpick legislation, half the things on this agenda [tonight] weren’t presented to committee.”
Putting aside the contrived claim that this resolution could not be voted on because it failed to follow the rules, one must also ask if adherence to the rules of order must always supersede morality, the demands of justice.
Various councilmembers and the City Solicitor, Joel Scheer, intermittently argued that the resolution was beyond the scope of Easton's city government, which should concern itself primarily with local affairs. The fact of the matter is that resolutions like Sultana’s are emerging in city councils, not because they are the ideal forum for addressing US support for Israel, but because national officials have so completely suppressed public debate on the matter that those pleading for peace must search out any and all spaces to make their voices heard.
Councilmember Roger Ruggles wondered aloud if Easton should pass resolutions condemning the loss of civilian life in Ukraine, or any number of other ongoing humanitarian crises. A simple and essential difference pertains between the example of Russia’s assault on Ukraine and Israel’s siege on the people of Gaza: Easton tax dollars do not fund the former while they do fund the latter. Eastonians send over $350,000 annually to the Israeli military, with those funds fueling the bloody maintenance of colonial apartheid.
(Source: US Campaign for Palestinian Rights: https://uscpr.org/)
When federal officials will not address how our tax dollars are spent, we turn to our state representatives. When they ignore us, we turn to our local electeds, whose responsiveness to local concerns is supposed to be their distinguishing hallmark, their ultimate virtue. Certainly, we agree Mayor Panto cannot singlehandedly forestall US aid to Israel; indeed, we count ourselves lucky that Panto has not an ounce more power than he possesses now. However, to say that he, and city council, cannot weigh in on how $350,000 of Eastonians’ tax dollars are spent is a stunning abdication of what power they do possess, of their responsibility to the people of Easton.
Additionally, Mayor Panto claimed that he could not (as mayor) speak for the city of Easton as the resolution called on council to do. This argument is silly. Many resolutions passed by council make statements on behalf of all of Easton. The mayor referenced one himself when he mentioned Easton passing a resolution against anti-semitism, a resolution that, at times, speaks on behalf of the whole city.
The evening saw councilors make several other frankly bizarre arguments. Mayor Panto referenced his 2012 trip to the International Conference of Mayors in Israel, saying the Palestinian cab driver who shuttled him between Nazareth and Jerusalem was glad to live in Israel and had experienced little discrimination there. One must ask if the perspective of one cab driver–just making conversation–should stand in for that of all Palestinians, wipe aside decades of concerted organizing from Palestinian people and their Jewish allies, or erase the global majority which consistently condemns Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people (often against US veto in the UN).
Several Easton residents did speak passionately in favor of the resolution. Councilor Sultana herself, anticipating shallow criticisms, insisted that “saving Palestinian lives does not mean you are being pro-Hamas.” She also defended her strategy of broaching Israel’s siege on Gaza in the halls of municipal government, saying, “as a local elected official we have a responsibility to stand up with our citizens…everything starts from the bottom. This is where we will start.” Easton resident Mark Charles Rosenzweig echoed these themes. “I say we, at the municipal level, as citizens and as Eastonians, need — as people are trying to do around the country, in [the] city after city — to tell our representatives in Congress, in the Senate, that we stand for a ceasefire now. End the bombing. End the mass displacement. Allow aid to reach Gaza unimpeded. Stop the announced land invasion and help rather than hinder the efforts towards addressing the root causes of the conflict.” Easton Resident An-Nisa Muqtadir encouraged the councilors to return to the straightforward moral language of the resolution: “I don't understand the purpose of being so stubborn about this, the purpose of nitpicking at what [Sultana is] saying, and not understanding what [the resolution] truly says — ‘We are against genocide, illegal occupation."
Councilmember Sultana is likely to reintroduce a modified version of her original resolution. Even so, we are left with difficult questions about how to proceed strategically as people committed to the welfare of Palestinians. Polling suggests the wind may be at our back for the first time in decades. A majority of voters and nearly 80% of democrats support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Yet, our elected officials in the Lehigh Valley and elsewhere either display a belligerent commitment to Israel’s military invasion of Gaza or express a timid desire for peace without the courage to demand the policy changes that might actually bring about such an enviable future in the short or long term.
Our elected officials will move on this issue when we demand it–and no sooner. This requires organization. Majorities, even in self-proclaimed democracies, do not wield power until they are channeled through organizations and strategic campaigns. There is much work ahead of us, as we build power for the humanitarian majority that supports Palestinians’ right to live, but we will win. Palestine will be free