On Monday, the Oakland City Council approved a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and terrorists in Gaza.
This editorial board generally recommends that city governments keep their focus on running their cities and avoid getting bogged down in national and international squabbles.
In the case of Oakland, we’re talking about a city that has to deal with a $360 million budget shortfall over the next two years.
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Earlier this year, watchdog group Truth in Accounting reported, “Oakland’s elected officials have repeatedly made financial decisions that left the city with a debt burden of $1.3 billion. That burden came to $9,100 for every city taxpayer.”
Before weighing in on conflicts on the other side of the planet, Oakland should focus on getting its own house in order.
But that didn’t stop the council from doing so — and ending up international headlines for all the wrong reasons.
One councilmember proposed an amendment to the resolution that would have explicitly condemned the terrorist actions of Hamas on Oct. 7, including the kidnapping of innocent children.
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This, in turn, prompted several speakers before the Oakland City Council to not only reject the proposed amendment condemning terrorism, but to even defend the actions of Hamas.
“I support the right of Palestinians to resist occupation, including through Hamas, the armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance,” said one very confused member of the public.
“The notion that this was a massacre of Jews is a fabricated narrative,” said another.
Others, naturally, denounced anyone who would even think to consider Hamas’ actions to be wrong as “White supremacists.” Condemnations of Hamas, you see, is “very anti-Arab racist.”
The Oakland City Council, rather than serve as the adults in the room, chose to side with the left-wing terrorist apologists — rejecting the condemnation of Hamas by a vote of 6-2.
If the Oakland City Council can’t figure out that Hamas is a terrorist organization guilty of heinous terrorist acts worthy of condemnation, one wonders if they can be trusted to figure out anything.
Clearly, they can’t be.
