Raleigh City Council "cease-fire" resolution vote was no surprise
Resolution pushes in cities had little success, activists now targeting towns
At its March 5 meeting, certain members of the Raleigh City Council brought back the same one-sided Gaza “cease-fire” resolution for a vote, which failed in a 4-4 tie.
Voting in favor were members Mary Black, Jane Harrison, Christina Jones, and Megan Patton.
Voting against the resolution were Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin along with members Corey Branch, Stormie Forte, and Jonathan Melton.
March 5 was also Primary night and very few eyes would be on the Council’s activities.
Baldwin was not happy, saying before the vote “I would just like to state this is not the normal protocol for introducing a resolution and, receiving this just, when we walked in chambers at 1 o’clock, it’s not the most considerate way to do something.”
The resolution thought to be put to rest weeks ago, was not on the agenda and was brought back out by Black, who has been sympathetic to protesters pushing the resolution who have shown up to Raleigh City Council meetings for the last six months.
“We cannot ignore the people who have eagerly demanded us to do one thing: Vote on a cease-fire resolution,” Black said during the meeting.
At the January Council meeting, Jones was seen placing a Palestinian keffiyeh on her chair and then hugging Rania Masri, co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network.
Masri has been a central figure in anti-Israel/Pro-Gaza protests and the “cease-fire” resolution campaigns following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel and has openly called for the “eradication of Zionism,” and praised Hamas terrorists as “heroes.”
Here’s the video of the meeting:
Only a handful of cities across the country have approved such a resolution, including two in North Carolina.
The Durham City Council voted 5-2 on Feb. 20 to approve a cease-fire resolution similar to that of the one pushed in Raleigh. Carrboro’s City Council passed its “cease-fire” resolution 4-3 on Nov. 14, 2023.
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Neither city nor town councils have any authority, jurisdiction, or interest in a global topic like the Israel/Hamas war. These resolutions are 100% symbolic and are a means of putting political pressure on the Biden administration.
The resolutions have absolutely nothing to do with the duties these councils are tasked with performing. Yet they persist six months after Hamas attacked Israel and City councils are not the only target of cease-fire resolution campaigns.
Towns in major urban areas are also being pressured by anti-Israel/pro-Palestine protesters to adopt a cease-fire resolution. Sources in towns in Wake County, such as Apex, Cary, Knightdale, and Wake Forest say that cease-fire resolutions have been repeatedly sent to their city council members over the past few months.
The mayor and town council of Apex issued a March 8 statement saying they would not be entertaining a cease-fire resolution “at this time.”
On March 12, the Apex Town Council will meet and there will be a public comment period. No resolution is currently on that agenda and after I reached out looking for a copy of it from the town’s records department, the town manager told me it would not be added.