Guest opinion Boulder City Council must call for cease-fire in Gaza

On Thursday, Feb. 15, Boulder City Council declined to explore drafting and passing a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The decision, while unsurprising, is no less disappointing. In the four months since Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, more than 30,000 Palestinians have died under Israel’s military operations in Gaza, of which some 20,000 were women and children. These numbers, while staggering, are surely an undercount given the many people who still lie beneath the rubble in Gaza and who have not been counted.

During Council discussion, Councilmember Wallach suggested Council should forgo weighing in on foreign affairs, and instead stick to topics “within its competency,” including homelessness, public safety and housing.

These issues could not be more urgent for the region, including for those in the West Bank, the captives held by both Hamas and Israel, and the people currently evacuated in southern Israel. In Gaza, more than 1.9 million Gazans face homelessness, their homes and lives destroyed, and their public safety shattered by bombardment and displacement at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). At the time of writing, nearly 2 million Gazans are sheltering in the southern city of Rafah under intense IDF bombardment, awaiting an impending ground assault, despite being told to evacuate there from Khan Yunis and other areas.

We are told this matter is better suited for Congress, but so far, Boulder’s congressional delegation has been relatively silent on Gaza. Representative Joe Neguse and Senator John Hickenlooper have declined to call for a cease-fire, despite their constituents’ calls to do so, and Senator Michael Bennet only recently signed onto a tepid letter co-written by Georgia Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof, calling for a cease-fire and hostage return.

In the absence of congressional leadership, Boulderites look to their closest elected officials — the City Council.

It is undeniable that the Council faces a myriad of mounting, interconnected challenges and that city staff have limited capacity to complete what is currently before them, and that council members are not foreign policy experts. Still, Boulder does not exist in a vacuum, and there is precedent for the Council weighing in on international matters.

In 1985, Boulder divested city funds from corporations operating in apartheid South Africa. In 1996, the Council passed a Selective Purchasing Ordinance prohibiting the city from purchasing property or services from companies supporting Burma’s heroin industry. In 2002, the Council passed a resolution urging Congress to authorize local governments to pass and enforce economic sanctions against companies doing business in Burma. Likewise, in 2003, the Council passed a resolution opposing the U.s.-led invasion of Iraq, and in 2006, passed a resolution calling for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

With the nod of five failing and our congressional representatives unwilling to take up the mantle, it falls to us, the community, to draft a cease-fire resolution with enough support and input from as many stakeholders as possible to be presented to Boulder City Council. While a ceasefire resolution may seem “performative” or merely “symbolic,” there is power in symbols and expressions of solidarity.

This is a massive undertaking, but it can be done, and it must. Already, more than 70 U.S. cities and towns have passed resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In solidarity with Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Christians and Muslims, and in collaboration with faith organizations, local businesses, and organizations throughout Boulder, it is now our responsibility to write a document calling for an immediate cease-fire and a release of hostages.

To call for a cease-fire is not only a moral imperative, it is an existential one. I can think of no greater moral stain on the U.S. than continuing to support, arm and fund Israel’s government so long as it maintains its operations in Gaza and settler expansion in the West Bank. We will look back on this moment as we do some of the worst instances of ethnic slaughter in recent history, be it Bangladesh, Tigray, Rwanda, Darfur, East Timor, Bosnia or most shamefully, the Holocaust.

If the Boulder City Council will not devote staff time to writing a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, we must do it for them. There is no time to waste.

Aidan Reed lives in Boulder.