Explainer: Why Some People Are Asking Their Cities to Call for a “Ceasefire” In Israel/Gaza
I'm starting this mini-series to expose the tactics and goals underneath some common talking points in today's neo-Nazi playbook.
It is self-evident that city councils passing ceasefire resolutions do not have an impact on wars elsewhere in the world. Or at least, it was self-evident before October 7th. My attempts to find any instance of a city passing a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, turned up no results.
So why are some people pressuring their city councils to pass resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Israel/Gaza?
It's actually pretty simple:
- Hamas began the current war when they broke the ceasefire which had been in place before October 7th. Thus, it is clear that Hamas does not intend to uphold any ceasefire agreement.
- Individuals who believe that an immediate ceasefire should be implemented in the current war are thus advocating for Israel to cease firing, not Hamas. A repeat of October 7th would be guaranteed in any future ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which has explicitly stated on multiple occasions that October 7th was just the beginning, and that their ultimate goal is the eradication of all Jews everywhere around the world.
- In other words, advocating for a “ceasefire” is a cover for the real advocacy for a genocide of the Jews.
- By having their cities adopt this smokescreen, neo-Nazi activists can send an implicit message to the city's Jewish population: This is not your city. Get out.
To make it clear, when cities adopt a ceasefire stance in the current war, what they're actually adopting is officially-sanctioned antisemitism. A resolution stating “we call for an immediate end to hostilities in the Israel-Gaza conflict” reads normally to the general population, but to the Jew it reads more like “we call for the extermination of the Jews: first in Israel, and eventually everywhere else, because we support Hamas.”
The United States currently does not allow for the adoption of overtly antisemitic laws. The First Amendment, the federal Civil Rights Act, and case law all prevent state-sanctioned discrimination against Jews. But that doesn't mean neo-Nazis in this country have to give up and go home. They can still use their local governments to harass, intimidate, and threaten Jewish people. Neo-Nazis today may not be able to legally declare cities Judenfrei (German word for “free of Jews”), but they can discourage Jewish presences in their cities with these resolutions.
TLDR: Neo-Nazis pressure city officials to adopt ceasefire resolutions in order to remove Jews from those cities, because the Jews understand that a “ceasefire resolution” – having no actual impact on events in the Middle East – is intended purely to send a hateful message towards Jewish people.