Correspondence - Non-Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Alcala, Abigail From:Diane Shammas <dshammas@shammasproperties.com> Sent:Thursday, December 7, 2023 10:10 PM To:eComment Subject:Fwd: My comments regarding the cease=fire now initiative discussed at the Santa Ana City Council I am resending my comments as I originally put the subject AS regarding the cease-fire now initiative presented on December 6, 2023, to the Santa Ana Council Member, but I believe I should have put the subject as Agenda item 19. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Diane Shammas <dshammas@shammasproperties.com> Date: Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 9:50 PM Subject: My comments regarding the cease=fire now initiative discussed at the Santa Ana City Council --- AGENDA ITEM 19 To: <eComment@santa-ana.org> December 7, 2023 Dear Santa Ana City Council Members, Via Zoom I attended the Santa Ana City Council to support a ceasefire in Gaza, expecting to be allowed to speak after in-person-public finished. Lamentably, Mayor Amezcua refused to grant leniency to those who were not able to be physically present in the Council chamber to speak, either because they were refused entry at the door albeit they arrived on time at 5 pm, or like me, were only able to attend by Zoom. I am a former professor of Arab American and Middle East Studies. My parents came from humble beginnings, both Depression kids. My paternal grandparents came from adjacent villages in Northwest Lebanon, and my mother’s parents hailed from Sweden. My paternal grandparents divorced shortly after my father turned two years old and my aunt was four years old. At the time, my grandmother had no one to care for my father and aunt, her sisters had not yet immigrated from Lebanon to the U.S., so my grandmother was forced to place them in foster care while she sold linens to clients by appointment, a common trade of the Syrian-Lebanese. When she remarried to a Lebanese-born physician from Buffalo, New York, he was abusive to my father and aunt. My father began working as a car mechanic and transitioned from a used car dealer to becoming a successful owner of multiple new car dealerships in downtown Los Angeles. I would like to add that my father was regarded as a prominent Los Angeles civic leader, and served on the campaign committee of Edward Roybal, the first Mexican-American Congressperson from California since 1879. Posthumously, in 2004, my father along with four other entrepreneurs, Ira Yellin, Stanley Hirsch, and Jack Needleman, were recognized as visionaries of the New Downtown Los Angeles. As it pertains to the topic at hand and lends credibility to why I support a cease-fire, my father’s first cousin was a prominent diplomat who after working as a Third secretary to the United Nations, and an ambassador from Lebanon to Iraq, Greece, and Germany, served as a prime negotiator with Israel 1