City Council Meeting Upended by Geopolitics
Irvinites swept up in the war in Israel and Gaza shared their view points at the December 12th City Council meeting. Several City Council agenda items had to be postponed to accommodate public speakers. Photo credit The Vine
Updated March 4: City Council added a Mideast Crisis item on the February 27 meeting agenda. It was voted down 3-2. Councilmembers then voted on whether to continue to allow public comments on the Israel-Hamas war, and voted 3-2 in favor of no longer spending City Council meeting time on this non-agendized issue.
The Irvine City Council chamber crackled with raw emotion on Tuesday night as well over a hundred speakers addressed Councilmembers regarding the war in Israel and Gaza. Although Mayor Farrah Khan made it clear that there was no actual ceasefire resolution currently being considered, many speakers seemed to believe that there was. Mayor Khan and Vice Mayor Larry Agran’s opening statements supporting a ceasefire seemed to convince some attendees that a resolution is forthcoming.
Some pro-ceasefire attendees, their faces covered with keffiyehs or Halloween masks, carried bundles meant to look like deceased infants to represent the over 18,700 Palestinian deaths. Some pro-Israel attendees carried signs with pictures and names of Israelis to represent the 1,200 killed and 136 hostages still being held by Hamas.
Despite chairs set up outside the chamber for overflow seating, people were allowed to congregate beyond the chamber’s seating capacity. The densely-packed room erupted in dueling protests before the meeting had even begun. After instructing the audience to quiet down, Mayor Khan invited Rabbi Rick Steinberg of Congregation Shir HaMa’alot in Irvine to give the invocation.
Rabbi Steinberg remarked on the importance of driving out darkness with light as the meeting fell on the sixth night of Hanukkah. He then revealed that he had been briefly uninvited to give the invocation mere days before the meeting. After expressing his concerns as to the meaning behind his communication with the city, the Rabbi issued a prayer for all attendees and residents to find peace during the celebration of Hanukkah.
Before each Councilmember addressed the crowd, the Mayor announced that the meeting agenda had been shortened to allow for public comments. Postponed agenda items included a wire and transfer resolution, a fiscal year first quarter budget update and expenditure report, a vote on the proposal for a Legislative Affairs Program and a vote on allocation of funds from the Irvine Recovery Program, as well as additional city business.
When public comments began, some audience members responded to heartfelt pleas for a ceasefire or for the city to maintain neutrality with jeering and booing. City Councilmembers looked on as community members turned against one another. After the fifth speaker, a member of the audience became so disruptive that the meeting ground to a halt.
This participant was one of several who carried bundles meant to look like deceased infants, representing Palestinian casualties. Photo credit Monica Levy
“Take a seat,” said Mayor Khan to the troublesome attendee. “Ma’am, I need you to take a seat or you will be escorted out. You are disrupting the meeting from moving onward.”
The councilmembers temporarily abandoned the chamber in the hopes that tempers would cool and civility would prevail. Although councilmembers eventually returned, civility did not. Mayor Khan tried to manage the crowd by repeeatedly threatening to empty the chamber of all attendees. The warnings were not successful and Irvine Police Department officers, who maintained a heavy presence throughout the meeting, intervened multiple times.
As the meeting wore on, some in the crowd grew increasingly aggressive and confrontational. Multiple attendees reported feeling threatened. One Irvine resident who wished to go unnamed was briefly blocked from returning to her seat until an Irvine Police Department officer intervened.
“Maybe they should have had us sit on different sides,” said the attendee, reflecting on what could have been done to make participants more comfortable in such a confrontational setting. “When a bunch of men [from the other side] sat behind us, we decided to leave.”
Another Irvine resident who requested to remain anonymous said she saw unruly participants on both sides.
“I saw a woman [who said she served in the Israeli Defense Forces] get surrounded by men and women, taunting her,” she recalled. “I saw her being intimidated because I kept looking back. I got her to sit next to me before the police came to ask to talk to her outside.”
The witness says she heard later that the woman was accused of hitting the people surrounding her and was asked to leave.
“I was not feeling intimidated,” the witness said of the masked pro-ceasefire attendees. “I just felt uncomfortable because of the way they covered themselves completely.”
Irvine City Council meetings are intended to be a forum for civil discourse. This meeting devolved into a microcosm of the larger conflict, and a stark reminder of the irreconcilable perspectives that fuel it.
While some city councils have chosen to pass ceasefire resolutions, others have refused to do so. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan issued a statement declaring that his city would not issue a resolution on foreign policy and instead focus on the job at hand. He stated that, “‘this is our moment to show the rest of the world that we can come together, respect each other and learn from each other.’”