I would expect this at a MAGA rally, but here? Our community behaved abominably over the Israel-Hamas resolution

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday celebration is this long weekend, and I will be marching on Monday in support with local friends and colleagues. One of MLK’s lessons that resonates with me is the importance of “how to disagree without being disagreeable.” 

Sadly, this lesson was forgotten at the Santa Cruz City Council meeting this past week. 

Along with a few hundred people in person and many more online, I stayed up until 3 a.m. Tuesday night to witness 10 hours of community testimony and council debate on a possible Middle East cease-fire resolution. It was long and painful to hear. 

But not for the reasons you might think.

Let’s start at the beginning, where the great majority of people agree: The war between Israel and Gaza is heartbreaking, the death of thousands of innocents is unbearable, and for me, it’s hard to figure out who the good guys are who can make the peace. Both Hamas and the Netanyahu government currently in power in Israel have blood on their hands. The trust level is near zero. 

Clinicians call what we are seeing now “empathetic distress,” when we see horrible suffering develop and feel powerless to do something about it. So it’s natural that people want their local government to do something – do anything. But that wasn’t the hardest part.

In my day job as a high school teacher, I have Israeli and Palestinian students in Cupertino who have been besties since kindergarten, but whose parents are now telling them they can’t associate with “those people” anymore. That hurts. 

As a relentless optimist, I think that school/church/local community is the place where we model how we want people to treat each other. Whatever our upstream message is in communicating with our national leaders, our most important voice is how we treat each other and build community here at home. To their credit, I heard Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley and city councilmembers make repeated efforts to maintain a level of civil discourse. But the increasingly angry, mostly pro-Palestinian crowd was not buying it.

What really hurt was the vicious, overheated rhetoric slung around the room. My engineer friends refer to this as “lots of noise without much signal.” Advocates for two peoples with historical claims to the same territory devolved into “my people’s trauma is more important than your people’s trauma.” Anyone who disagreed with your point of view was not just wrong, but “evil.” And there was a good amount of “if you don’t share my moral stance then you obviously don’t have any morals at all.” 

One friend, a progressive leader who happens to support Israel’s right to exist, found herself on the receiving end of “You’re a Nazi!” jeers. Social media was filled with people characterizing their own neighbors as “violent Zionist oppressors.” There were some thoughtful voices in the crowd, who were, unfortunately, drowned out.

I’d like to give the resolution authors, Councilmembers Sonja Brunner and Sandy Brown, credit for listening over many weeks and trying hard to amend and accommodate community concerns. With a little more time, a unifying resolution might have happened. 

But it had no chance of happening in a crowded room of cheering and jeering people after 10 hours of passionate testimony. And the other councilmembers eventually supported a softer resolution. They voted their conscience in. You may agree or disagree with this decision.

When the council finally acted, people threw objects at them and broke a window pane at city hall. People have also threatened the safety of councilmembers, community leaders and their families. Violent personal threats against elected leaders and their families are never acceptable. 

Now there is ongoing police protection at the homes of councilmembers. Even today, social media posts are labeling council members as “pro-genocide.” 

C’mon, Santa Cruz. I would expect this at a MAGA rally, but here?  This is not helping at all.

Meanwhile, the hours of time devoted to this issue –  no matter how you feel about it –  has meant less time on housing, health care, education, transportation, homelessness, climate action – all the community development issues we need to accomplish. We can debate whether a local government agency should wade into international affairs, especially deeply controversial ones. But let’s not let it suck up all our energy. 

The aftermath continues to burn, more heat without light. Unhappy, frustrated activists will go from city to city, school district to school district, looking for traction. More power to them; that’s how democracy works. 

And the political slogan, “if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention,” is not lost on me. But I’m also reminded of a lesson from my mom: We were all born with two ears and one voice for a reason. If we spend a little more time listening and having a real conversation, and a little less time yelling at each other, we can build bridges rather than burning them. 

So I’m thinking about what happens next. 

The city council has called for community dialogue to further understanding, and on this point, councilmembers are 100% right. This might involve understanding of the issue, or more importantly, understanding each other. Who will step up and lead that? Will we retreat to our silos of only those who agree with us, or reach out? 

We have many experienced groups working for peace that emphasize inclusion rather than exclusion of diverse opinions. One notable example is the Tents of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, an interfaith group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders that hosts positive listening and learning events. I think if MLK were alive today, that’s where he’d be headed.

MLK knew well how to maintain the moral center of his cause: There’s a time to get loud, and there’s a time to listen and talk more quietly about how to get to a better place. 

Let’s remember that as we consider next steps.

Andrew Goldenkranz is a 38-year resident of Santa Cruz County, currently a public high school teacher, and is active on housing, climate, public health and education issues.