Johnson’s stance on Middle East inflicting division inside Chicago’s Jewish group

Many of Brandon Johnson’s largest errors as far as mayor of Chicago could be summed up in a single sentence: He appears to have determined to talk solely to his base.

Everyone else? Either a sworn enemy or chopped liver. This is the form of pondering that may cleave a metropolis.

Take the mayor’s ridiculous posturing over the City Council decision on the battle within the Middle East. On Wednesday Johnson grew to become, within the tortured syntax of 1 report, “the largest metropolis mayor now calling for a ceasefire,” as if the scale of a Midwestern metropolis is a measure of its probability of affecting the trajectory of a struggle 6,000 miles away.

After flicking away the Hamas atrocities, Johnson mentioned the crucible of the Middle East by way of Black “liberation.” If you parse these feedback, you possibly can see he wasn’t simply talking of a need to guard civilians and promote peace, an inexpensive place many people share, however to border the Israeli-Hamas battle in stark phrases of the oppressor and the oppressed. .

How did Johnson suppose these feedback would make metropolitan Chicago’s 300,000 Jews really feel? He both did not give it some thought or did not care. We’ll enterprise to recommend it made them really feel much less heard and fewer secure.

Johnson’s remark got here within the context of limitless mishegoss over the council’s consideration of the decision proposed by Aldermen Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, thirty third, and Daniel LaSpata, 1st. That obtained postpone due to a few of the extra affordable and average voices on the council. In the final day or two, the council’s solely Jewish member, Debra Silverstein, fiftieth, has been working her tail off to provide you with a brand new model that displays the ache and losses on all sides and doesn’t suggest that the fault lies completely with Israel.

Which, Mr. Mayor, it doesn’t, as President Joe Biden and the White House, to not point out Gov. JB Pritzker, have mentioned time and again.

We suppose the Sanchez-LaSparta decision represents pointless divisiveness, encourages antisemitism and is a waste of time in addition. But we admire Silverman’s fortitude in making an attempt to craft a compromise all of her colleagues can assist. It’s lengthy however expertly performed, and listed below are the final three resolutions:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Chicago City Council expects that the worldwide group will be sure that Hamas will not be in place or in a position to assault Israelis or put Palestinian civilians in hurt’s means; and BE IT RESOLVED, that the Chicago City Council calls on the world to assist within the rebuilding of the components of Israel and Gaza that had been destroyed or broken beginning on October 7 and stop any interference by events in search of to delay the battle; and BE IT RESOLVED, that the Chicago City Council affirms {that a} simply and lasting answer to the Israeli-Palestinian battle can solely be achieved by peaceable means, in accordance with worldwide legislation, and on the premise of direct negotiations and recognition.

Johnson ought to give an inch for as soon as, deliver Chicagoans collectively for as soon as, and assist Silverstein’s effort. And if he would not? The council ought to go forward and cross her model anyway, and, for goodness’ sake, transfer on.

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