“What does a ceasefire mean? Explaining the obvious.”
It was disappointing when the city council chose to table the ceasefire resolution when it could have passed. A Ceasefire resolution means support for the ending of the indiscriminate killing of civilians that Israel has been committing for the last 114 days. It means to call for ending the deliberate targeting of residential homes and infrastructure, and the deliberate starving of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children. How can anyone with an ounce of humanity oppose a ceasefire, especially in the face of a literal genocide, the worst in modern history?
Council members who are being intimidated into opposing a ceasefire need to remember their moral responsibility towards their constituents. They need to support their constituents who are mourning lost family members, those whose family homes have been demolished, those whose families have been displaced, and those whose parents are dying in Gaza due to the denial of medical care and the destruction of hospitals by Israel.
While the polls show that the majority of voting Americans support an immediate ceasefire, and the majority of the world support a ceasefire, some Anti- Palestinians insist on pressuring our city council into opposing a ceasefire and siding with an apartheid genocidal regime that is currently being tried at the International Court of Justice.
To the council members who are opposing ceasefire or giving in to intimidation by the anti-Palestinian groups, the majority of your constituents support ceasefire. Pleasing the minority who are desensitized to Palestinians suffering and brainwashed to feel superior will not accurately represent the citizens of Toledo. Voting no on this resolution would be an unforgettable failure of the City Council to do its one job: representing their constituents. Prepare a logical answer for your grandchildren when they ask you “why did you support a Genocide?”
*Thoughts and opinions expressed by authors of these letter are that of the author alone.