Residents urge city to cut ties with Tel Aviv, support a cease-fire
Several dozen San Antonians, outraged by Israel’s attacks in Gaza, filled City Council chambers for the second time in two weeks to demand that the city end its relationship with Tel Aviv.
Speaker after speaker implored Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the City Council late Wednesday to sever San Antonio’s “friendship city” ties with the Israeli city. They also wanted the council to approve a proclamation supporting a cease-fire to end Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip in the wake of the Hamas militant group’s surprise attack on Israeli towns on Oct. 7.
More than 9,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the Israel-hamas war began, the majority of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 1,400 Israelis
were killed in the Hamas attack, according to Israel government officials, and more than 200 were taken hostage.
“I’m calling for a cease-fire because every minute without a cease-fire will result in the deaths of civilians,” said Salma Kherais, a Palestinian-american with relatives living in Gaza. “I know this all too well. I have already lost family members to this genocide and more people that are also residents in this city will lose their family members.
“It’s not a war when the Palestinian death toll climbs exponentially higher each day,” Kherais said.
Nirenberg told the Expressnews that he will not end the friendship city agreement that then-mayor Julián Castro established with Tel Aviv in 2011. He also said he has no plans to seek a proclamation calling for a ceasefire.
A friendship city agreement is a “stepping stone” to a sister city agreement, according to the city’s Global Engagement Office.
“The sister city program and agreements, by their very nature, transcend government and geopolitics,” said Nirenberg, who chaired the Sister Cities International board of directors from 2018 to 2020. “The importance of a sister city agreement is the platform for people-to-people diplomacy that it creates between a city in the United States and a city abroad.
“And why that’s so important is demonstrated especially during times of conflict,” he said. “Those relationships create the infrastructure for future peace. If there’s no relationship there, peace is impossible.”
San Antonio has 12 sister city agreements, with cities in Mexico, the Canary Islands, South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Namibia, Germany and, most recently, the Philippines. Baguio, Philippines, is the only one of San Antonio’s four friendship cities that has seen its relationship grow into a more formal sister-city pact.
It’s not unheard of for a city to suspend or terminate a sister city partnership.
Earlier this year, on the oneyear anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner suspended the city’s sister city agreement with the Russian city of Tyumen because of Russia’s censorship of the media and its crackdown on anti-war protestors.
Barcelona, Spain’s then-mayor suspended its sister city agreement with Tel Aviv in February because of what the mayor said was Israel’s “flagrant and systematic violation of human rights.”
In September, Barcelona’s new mayor restored the relationship, a move he said was not an endorsement of Israel, but a means to connect with Tel Aviv.
Speakers on Wednesday expressed their frustration with what they called city officials’ silence as the Palestinian death toll has climbed.
“I’m outraged by the inaction of my own local government,” Morgan Carolin, who is Jewish, told the mayor and council Wednesday. “The genocide of Palestinian people is largely funded by the U.S. government. So, as members of the U.S. government, you have a voice with power and influence to call a cease-fire.
“‘Never again’ is here and now,” Carolin said, referring to Holocaust survivors’ refrain for the world to “never again” permit massacres or genocide. The phrase has cropped up repeatedly in reference to the Hamas attack last month, which U.S. Special Antisemitism Envoy Deborah Lipstadt called “the most lethal assault against Jews since the Holocaust.”
Nirenberg introduced a proclamation at the Oct. 12 City Council meeting in support of Israel and in condemnation of “Hamas terrorists’ act of war.”
“The city of San Antonio stands in solidarity with Israel as we mourn the loss of Israeli and American lives and the loss of Palestinian civilians,” the proclamation reads. “We pray for the families of those who were killed during the horrific violence, we pray for the swift, safe return of all hostages, and we pray for a peaceful, just resolution.”
From Oct. 12 through Monday, City Hall’s facade was lit in blue in support of Israel, at the mayor’s request.
“This was never in opposition to the Palestinian people, so I need to make that very clear,” Nirenberg, who is Jewish, said of the city’s proclamation.
Since the war broke out, Council Members Jalen Mckeerodriguez, Teri Castillo and Sukh Kaur have taken to social media to call for a cease-fire.
Nirenberg said he isn’t planning to seek a proclamation calling for a cease-fire because San Antonio does “not have a role militarily” in the conflict.
“Our role here is to call for peace,” he said. “We should urge for every effort to be taken to protect civilian life. As the toll on human life has risen, we mourn the loss of Israeli life, Palestinian life and American life — and all other innocent civilians that are caught in the crosshairs of this.”