A message sent from Sawant’s office about the new proposed resolution
Kshama Sawant will try again. The District 3 representative is making a second push for a Seattle City Council resolution calling for and immediate ceasefire in Gaza after her first bid was rejected last week without a vote.
According to a press release from Sawant’s office, the new resolution to be introduced at the council’s regular Tuesday 2 PM session calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, “humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, an exchange of hostages held by both sides, an end to U.S. funding to the Israeli state’s war machine, and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.”
“The resolution also restates the City’s commitment to combat Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in all their forms, and affirms support for both the people of Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security,” the statement notes.
Last week, Sawant found no support for a ceasefire resolution condemning Israel and United States Democratic leaders for inaction. City Council chambers exploded with angry yelling last Tuesday after Sawant’s counterparts declined to second her motion to bring the proposed resolution to a vote. Following an extended session of public comment, Sawant was the only member in chambers as she introduced the resolution and called on her “Democratic” counterparts participating remotely to support putting the proposal to a vote. There was no second. Supporters of the proposed resolution yelled angrily at the inaction. With council president Debora Juarez unable to restore order as she ran the council session via video, the chambers was put into recess in an attempt to calm the situation.
It is not clear if the reception will be different this time as Sawant has continued to mix condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza with attacks on the Democratic party.
“Millions of working and young people, including many anti-war Jewish activists, have marched, and even courageously risked arrests, in anti-war protests across the world,” Sawant says in the City Hall press release. “The protests are demanding an immediate cease-fire. Polls show that 66% of America’s likely voters—and 80% of Democrats—want President Biden to call for a cease-fire,” Sawant said.
One possible Sawant ally is taking her stand beyond a resolution. South Seattle city council rep Tammy Morales announced she has joined “a diverse coalition of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faith leaders, elected officials, and advocates” to release a Washington Statement in Solidarity with Jews and Palestinians “calling for an end to the violence and human rights abuses in Gaza.”
After nearly ten years on the council, Sawant is spending her final weeks at City Hall after opting not to run for reelection. Sawant announced in January her plan to step away from Seattle politics and shift the focus of her Socialist Alternative organization to the creation of a new national political party. She will be replaced on the council by the Central District’s Joy Hollingsworth who will be sworn-in in January after her decisive victory in the November election.
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Sawant has every intention of poisoning the well as she ends her tenure on the city council. After years of her divisive politics, she wants nothing more than to give Seattle a huge middle finger on her way out, and we should be obliged to return the favor she has so rightly earned.
I’m sorry you have so much hatred for another human being that you feel the need to share your feelings on a neighborhood blog, but how is asking for a ceasefire giving “Seattle a huge middle finger on her way out”?
Seems like you are the one being divisive here.
She’s bound and determined to waste the time of the entire council to the last moment, isn’t she. She can’t go away fast enough.
Security risk. This is why companies shut down computers and escort workers from the building when they’re let go. Because there’s always one pain in the rear who won’t go quietly. They have to burn the place down on the way out the door. And it’s usually the one who’s been a pain in the rear all along.
Does anything make this particular act of grandstanding newsworthy? ;-)
she’s going out with a thud.
never thought I’d see the day Sawant had this few comments
In the past the Seattle City Council has supported other resolutions on international issues. For instance, many years ago resolutions supporting the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa passed. I am not arguing the merits of such resolutions, just saying that such action is not necessarily unusual.
It rankles people, whom she’s supposedly representing, that she’s willing to make a dog and pony show of what is obviously an empty gesture that it is in the end quite meaningless, as neither the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli government really give two 💩 about what the Seattle City Council thinks, when she’s remained pretty much silent, and most certainly totally inactive about the shootings and violence that is happening right in her own district – a place where what she does and says can, is supposed to, actually make a difference.
Regardless of the cause, I don’t think it is ok for the City Council to spend taxpayers time and money on inert “resolutions” that don’t mean jack sh*t to the REAL decision makers of whatever cause is being virtue signaled by the Seattle City Council. If anything, it just shows how narcissistic the SCC is, thinking anyone gives a sh*t what they think!!
Shut up, Sawant, just shut up!
Who?
I didn’t realize that our city council was supposed to take up causes from around the world, devote time and energy to them, all while (hopefully) realizing it’s a frivolous waste of time/money.
Maybe we should declare a cease fire is Seattle