On Tuesday, a handful of protesters gathered at the Marin County Civic Center and online to protest Israel’s war on Gaza and ask the Board of Supervisors to adopt a cease-fire resolution, following our neighbors in San Francisco, Alameda, Sonoma and Contra Costa Counties.
Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of Israel was the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, with the militant group killing some 1,200 Israelis and taking over 240 hostages. Since then, Israel has led an invasion into Gaza by land and air, leveling entire neighborhoods and killing over 25,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children.
Communities across the country are fiercely debating the war, and in the Bay Area, four local councils have passed cease-fire resolutions. In October, Richmond’s City Council was the first in the nation to pass a resolution specifically condemning Israel’s government for war crimes. In November, the Oakland City Council passed a cease-fire resolution, and earlier this month, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a cease-fire resolution that was lambasted by the city’s mayor, London Breed. Earlier this month, Cotati became the first city in Sonoma County to adopt a cease-fire resolution.
Despite weekly protests and overwhelming public pressure at board meetings, county supervisors have no plans to discuss a resolution. District Four Supervisor and board president Dennis Rodoni said in an email to the Light that he and the board had no comment on whether the board was considering a cease-fire resolution. Agenda items are normally brought forth by different departments, but they can also be authored by representatives from the county’s executive office or an individual supervisor.
Marin residents have attended weekly Board of Supervisors meetings to call for such a resolution. Ceasefire Now Marin has organized protests at the meetings and created a petition that had collected over 700 signatures as of Wednesday.
Bolinas resident Mark Butler spoke on Tuesday morning, echoing calls for a resolution and denouncing the use of American tax dollars for military aid for Israel.
“I think everybody in this country bears some responsibility because our tax dollars do go to Israel to continue the genocide that they are perpetrating in Palestine,” he said.
Joe McGary, a Fairfax resident and member of Ceasefire Now Marin, has been present at nearly every Board of Supervisors meeting since the war began. During his public comment on Dec. 5, he was interrupted by a woman wearing an Israeli flag who told him, sobbing and yelling from across the room, that his children should have been present during the attacks by Hamas.
Though the number of protesters at each board meeting has waxed and waned, protests across Marin have remained strong, and people on both sides seem baffled by the opposition’s stance.
Guila Rice, the co-director of Chabad of Marin, has said that a cease-fire resolution is outside the purview of the board and that a pause in fighting would only benefit Hamas and spur antisemitism locally.
Ms. Rice has spearheaded her own petition, expressing gratitude to the board for refraining from proposing a resolution on the conflict, citing concerns about divisive rhetoric and emphasizing the need for specific steps from Hamas for a permanent cease-fire. The petition had gathered over 715 signatures by Wednesday.
“Debates over such resolutions in other local government venues have generated divisive and hateful rhetoric aimed at anyone who would speak up in support of Israel, primarily members of the Jewish community,” she told supervisors on Tuesday.
In West Marin, public debate over the war has been loudest in Bolinas, where the community-powered, tri-weekly Bolinas Hearsay News has been flooded with letters and commentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict since the Oct. 13 edition. That week, Summer Abdel decried United States funding for Israel, and provided information about local protests and petitions. Residents have primarily written in support of the Palestinian people, though a few have supported Israel’s defense against Hamas. A subsequent edition featured a photo of a vandalized poster showing a Hanukkah menorah and a note about the hostages and Ms. Abdel denoucing the vandalism.
Protestors have also gathered in Bolinas every Sunday for the last several weeks, walking from Pine Gulch Creek to the beach in a nod to the contentious phrase “from the river to the sea.”
In Point Reyes Station, West Marin residents who began protesting the Iraq war and the Israeli occupation of Palestine 20 years ago are faithfully gathering on Saturdays. On a recent busy weekend, Forest Knolls resident Ace Thelin stood at the corner of Highway 1 and Levee Road with seven others holding signs showing support for Palestine. He said that in two hours, they received around 200 indications of support—either from honks or cheers—and just five signs of disapproval.
Jim Emmott is an Inverness resident who has attended these protests since the beginning. He said protesting close to home where his neighbors can see is more impactful than joining large protests in San Francisco.
“I’ve found it’s much more powerful to protest in your own neighborhood, even if it’s only five people,” he said. “I would go to protests with 20,000 people and then come home, and unless I go out of my way to talk to people about these issues, no one has any opinions. I thought it’d be much better to protest in your hometown and stand out in front of everybody because then, even when you’re not protesting, people see you in the store and they have to deal with it.”
Mr. Emmott said he knows that his activism will not change the world, but it helps to assuage his guilt, and it shows his neighbors that he’s willing to speak up for what he believes in.
San Rafael resident Jane Jewell began working with West Marin protesters two decades ago. She has been running her own group, “14 friends of Palestine,” since 2004, organizing protests, funding and resources in support of Palestinians here and overseas. Ms. Jewell believes strongly in the potential of individual action to create a ripple effect that she said could eventually cut the government’s funding of Israel.
“We’re not getting anywhere at the moment, but we can still pester them and try to change their minds. If [the supervisors] all call for a cease-fire, Jared Huffman is going to have to notice,” she said. “We phone him directly all the time. Every bit helps and everyone who makes noise will help, but it’s a question of everybody speaking out about it.”