A Missouri city condemns the war
The Columbia City Council meeting Tuesday night was standing room only. Residents of the Missouri city crowded into the chamber to support Isleen Atallah and Cass Donish, who encouraged the city to issue a proclamation calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
"... It is time to end our (the U.S. government's) complicity in the countless war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation, the heightened raids in the West Bank, the settler violence, mass arrests and the continued expansion of Israeli settlements," said Atallah, who is Palestinian.
Donish, who is Jewish, related Israeli military actions to those of the Holocaust during World War II.
"So many Jews stand against the violence currently perpetrated by the Israeli military on the people of Gaza. We reject weaponization of Jewish grief to justify Israel's military aggression," Donish said before reading portions of the proclamation.
The coalition was successful: Mayor Barbara Buffaloe signed the call for a ceasefire. The Missouri city joins local governments in several other U.S. cities that have issued ceasefire resolutions in response to the war.