From:
To: City Council
Subject: Tonight"s Gaza-Israel ceasefire resolution
Date: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 3:30:34 PM
Re peace in the Middle East and Sebastopol:
Dear Mayor Rich, Vice-Mayor Zollman, and Council Members Hinton, Maurer, and Lewis:
The ceasefire we support will come immediately when Hamas and its allies in Gaza surrender. That event will liberate Israeli and American citizens held hostage for half a year and likewise begin liberation of the Palestinian people subjected to immense suffering since Hamas began the war last October. Repairing shattered lives, grieving, and rebuilding for peace can start soon after the fanaticdriven war against Israel stops.
The alternative form of ceasefire advanced by the proposed Sebastopol resolution would put Israelis and Palestinians on the path to more wars, as stated with bravado by a Hamas leader just days after the October7 massacre. However well-intentioned, the proposed resolution supports a short-lived victory for terrorism that would last only until the promised next assault on Israeli lives.
This city’s misguided support for terrorist goals could find a place alongside another well-intentioned appeasement of evil. “I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.” (P.M. Neville Chamberlain’s statement to the jubilant British people after agreeing to Hitler’s demands in 1938.) Instead, we hope Sebastopol stands with leaders like San Francisco’s Mayor Breed who understands that when facing the horror of this war, peace-loving people will do good locally and globally by avoiding divisive steps like the proposed ceasefire resolution. “I cannot watch us divide ourselves even more. A leader, like a doctor, should be guided by the basic ethos to '·do no harm,’ to not make a bad situation worse. …[A]fter much consideration and prayer, the best thing I can do is try to quell it, try to turn down the volume and begin the healing. I must choose unity.” Mayor London Breed, January 19, 2024, accompanying her decision not to sign a ceasefire resolution.
For an enduring peace,
Asher R. Sheppard, Ph.D.
Ann Sheppard