From: Jeff Rooney <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 8, 2024 10:58 AM
To: Kevin Patterson <[email protected]>
Subject: Passing a Resolution for Ceasefire Now in Gaza - History will Judge Us! CAUTION:EXTERNAL SENDER
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Dear Cotati City Council Members.
I am a resident of Sonoma County. I am writing you because I am aware a resolution for a Ceasefire Now in Gaza will be put forward at your next meeting. I am urging you all to pass this resolution as more and more cities and municipalities are doing.
We know this is going against the tide whereby the President Biden is feigning opposition to the brutal bombardment in Gaza (let's make it a little less brutal, he says) where the majority of those massacred are women, children and elderly while funneling more weapons to Israel circumventing congress.
As I look into this issue I am finding that the majority of congressional members get considerable money from the Israeli lobby. Biden has been a staunch support of Israel no matter what they do. I disagree that criticizing Israel is being anti-semitic. I am appalled by anti-semitism and all forms of racial or religious bigotry. There is a political reason behind what Israel has been doing for 75 years against Palestinians who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holocaust! It wants to be the sole resident of that land and has been taking it little by little and now by a massive amount.
By now anyone can listen to or read many scholars on genocide, laws of warfare and legal experts on crimes against humanity - all with concensus that we are witnessing ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity unfolding before our eyes.
My own moral compass directs me to do all I can in this country that is now complicit in these crimes. I have been attending weekly rallies in support of Palestinian rights and against the madness going on in Gaza and the West Bank. That is why I am calling on you all to pass this resolution so that many others will be challenged to look into their own hearts and moral sense. What does your moral compass ask you to do? Just consider that during the Holocaust of the 1930's and 40s there was not an international body like the UN yet established with clarified laws of warfare, what constituted ethnic cleansing and genocide. We now have these tools and they are being deployed with vast consensus of countries of the UN with the US, Israel and a handful of other countries that are beholden to the US either abstaining or vetoing the Ceasefire demands.
Thank you for considering my viewpoint as you deliberate on this vital issue of historic importance! Jeff Rooney