Cambridge Council Votes on Gaza

The Cambridge City Council passed a resolution on Monday calling for “an immediate end to all attacks on civilians on both sides” in the latest outpouring of violence between Israel and Palestine in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution—which passed by a vote of eight to zero with one abstention—specifically urges the United States government to press for a cease-fire on both sides, an end to the economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, access for journalists, and access to humanitarian aid.

This resolution is not the first time that the council has expressed its views on conflicts and human rights in places outside of Cambridge.

“Cambridge has always been a city that has been engaged in a world beyond its borders,” Vice-Mayor Brian P. Murphy ’86-’87 said.

The policy order will be forwarded to President George W. Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Secretaries-designate of State and Defense, and the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation.

Cambridge City Councillor Sam Seidel, who voted in favor of the resolution, said that the policy order was meant to indicate the need for a new direction regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East.

“Overall the last administration’s response to the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been a complete failure,” Seidel said. “It has been a consistent failure, and has put the parties involved and the U.S. in a worse position.”

The current fighting in Gaza has lasted for more than two weeks, and has reportedly resulted in over 900 casualties, according to the Associated Press.

“How could I not do something?” said City Councillor Marjorie C. Decker, who authored the resolution with Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons and who has written other policy orders aimed at upholding human rights in the past. “To not say something feels very complicit.”

With the change in federal administration imminent, Seidel said he was confident that the new administration will “respond to our resolution and will respond to the conflict with a great deal of energy and creativity and determination” although he added that whether Obama’s administration would be successful in bringing an end to the conflict “is not clear to me now.”

On Oct. 29, 2007, the council passed a policy order in support of a bill in the state legislature that would use the Commonwealth’s pension fund investments “to promote democracy and human rights in Burma.”

On June 4, 2007, the council passed a statement in support of workers at a plant in North Carolina “in their struggle for dignity, fair wages and safe working conditions.”

Both of these policy orders were authored by Decker.

—Staff writer Anita B. Hofschneider can be reached at hofschn@fas.harvard.edu.