The Chicago city council on Wednesday narrowly passed a resolution calling for an unconditional cease-fire in the Israel–Hamas war.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, an ultra-progressive who for weeks has decried Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas, citing the soaring civilian casualties in Gaza, served as the tiebreaker vote. The final tally was 23 members in favor and 23 members opposed.
The measured demanded a “permanent ceasefire to end the ongoing violence in Gaza . . . for humanitarian assistance including medicine, food and water, to be sent into the impacted region; and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Hours of tense debate, which had also occurred two previous different times in the last few months, preceded the vote on the non-binding resolution. Johnson at one point had to suspend the proceedings for a recess due to a cacophony of pro-Palestinian protesters in the galley, ABC 7 Chicago said. The mayor last week appealed to statistics from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry that Israel’s onslaught against the terrorist organization had resulted in a Palestinian death toll of 25,000.
Before Chicago, other Democratic-dominated cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, and San Francisco had approved similar resolutions to support the Palestinian lobby. The outcome of the Chicago vote fiercely divided advocacy organizations claiming to represent the Israeli and Palestinian causes.
“While this resolution will have no impact in the Middle East, it will create more division among communities in Chicago and inspire more antisemitism, as we saw on the floor and in the galleries of City Hall today,” the Israeli Consulate in Chicago said in a statement obtained by NBC5 Chicago.
“Now we move onward to use this victory as inspiration to continue demanding that Genocide Joe Biden stop supporting the genocide against our people,” Hatem Abudayyeh, U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) national chair, told the outlet.
The Chicago school system, where Johnson was once a teacher and an organizer for the Chicago Teachers’ Union, offered students the opportunity to walk-out of class Tuesday in solidarity with the cease-fire initiative, the Journal said.
While murders and shooting victims dropped in 2023, according to Chicago Police Department statistics, the crime rate in the city is still very high. The department said robberies increased 23 percent and motor vehicle thefts increased 35 percent, according to WGN9 News.
To combat the lawlessness, Johnson proposed providing “reparations for slavery” to African Americans in Chicago. In December, Johnson also launched “The People’s Plan for Community Safety,” targeting Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods with “outreach and intervention with youth and adults of highest promise — members of our community who have been impacted by the repeated cycle of harm due to purposeful disinvestment — as well as support for victims and survivors of violence.”