Correspondence - #19 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Flores, Dora From: limor lehavi < Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2023 9:02 PM To: eComment Subject: Item Agenda #19 Attachments: Shameful Resolution.pdf Comment regarding Item Agenda #19: This resolution is a shameful example of overreach by an overzealous Santa Ana City Council, and reads more like a poorly edited Arab/Palestinian propaganda piece published by Al Jazeera, than a measured response to an injustice. The wording of the resolution itself, "Solidarity with the Palestinian People in support of a Ceasefire" is problematic. Since this latest conflict between Israel and the Palestinians concerns only Palestinians from Gaza, it would be far more accurate to say "Palestinian People of Gaza." Gaza, as opposed to the West Bank, has its own democratically elected leadership - Hamas. Does the City of Santa Ana wish to align itself with the Palestinian people of Gaza who through their active support of Hamas, openly endorse the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people from all of Palestine? Have the members of the Santa Ana City Council even read the Hamas charter? Does the City of Santa Ana really want to go on record as having solidarity with an Islamist authoritarian regime that abhors all the values we cherish in the West? The majority of Palestinian people in Gaza support the murder and/or imprisonment of anyone who identifies themselves as part of the LGBTQ community. Does solidarity with the Palestinian people mean that the City of Santa Ana supports this policy? The majority of the Palestinian people of Gaza are against freedom of expression and speech that does not conform to Islamic law. Islamic law as constituted in Gaza, does not allow for the equality for women, the rule of international law, or freedom of religion. Besides mirroring anti-Western, and anti -Israeli Palestinian propaganda, this resolution keeps repeating the falsehood that Gaza is still occupied by Israel. It talks about releasing all the hostages, Palestinian as well as Israeli, without mentioning that Israel is trading Palestinian criminals, who actually have committed some sort of violent offense, for Israeli hostages whose only crime was being on the Jewish side of the Gaza/Israel fence. It keeps referring to Gaza as being "an open air prison" as if this was not a choice made by the Palestinian residents of Gaza. It also falsely refers to Israel as an "apartheid" State, as if the 2.2 million Arab Israeli citizens who are free to vote, hold elective office, and can become members of the Israeli Supreme Court, somehow do not matter. Does the fact that Israeli Arabs have more rights within the State of Israel than in any Arab majority nation suggest an alternative to this false Palestinian narrative? Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in August of 2005. The Palestinians who moved into this territory immediately after, inherited one of the fastest growing real estate markets in the entire middle east (a basic Google search of Newspapers from June 2005 all the way until early 2006 will support this fact). In 2006, the Palestinian people in vast numbers rejected this economic windfall by democratically electing a terrorist organization with a platform that promised to eliminate all the Jews in Palestine — "from the river to the sea." It was only after the elected representatives of the Palestinian people of Gaza turned their newly acquired territory into a military base of operations in order to terrorize their Jewish neighbor, that Israel was forced to target the missile launchers and Hamas command centers deliberately embedded in civilian populations, schools, and hospitals. With this resolution, the City of Santa Ana has taken an explicitly anti -Israel position that not only is completely one- sided, but goes so far as to misrepresent or completely ignore the factual record. It makes claims that appear to be deliberately false. Furthermore, by declaring "solidarity" with the "Palestinian People" of Gaza, the City of Santa Ana had given tacit support to the elimination of the Jewish State. Just in the past year, anti-Semitism has increased by 400 percent. Both of our Jewish children attend OCSA in Santa Ana, and already have had to endure the anxiety that accompanied the recent desecration of school property with painted swastikas. Those Palestinians who attacked Southern Israel from Gaza on the 71h of October were barbarians. Full stop. When these barbarians returned to Gaza with 247 hostages, the Palestinian people of Gaza celebrated them as heroes with cries of jubilation all down the Gaza 01