Anchorage Assembly member Karen Bronga was shocked. She said thought that her original resolution calling on the Alaska delegation in Washington D.C. to work cease fire resolution would pass the Assembly unanimously last month. She didn’t think it was controversial. Instead, the majority took a pass and put it in the “postpone indefinitely” basket.
Undeterred, Bronga and other Assembly members — Felix Rivera and George Martinez — brought the resolution back, with some changes. This time it passed 8-4.
Bronga said she had spent time listening to the Jewish community, which was worried about safety, the same thing the Palestinians living in Alaska are worried about. She said she heard about the need to be clear that Hamas is a terrorist organization. “At this point, a cease fire needs to happen. This has to stop,” she said.
Rather than postpone indefinitely, the Assembly was ready to debate and vote on the resolution. While members of the pro-terrorist group Party for Liberation and Socialism, a communist group, yelled at the Assembly from the audience on Tuesday evening, Assembly members expressed their points of discomfort about the resolution.
Assemblyman Daniel Volland said that he was disappointed in the audience members who were clambering for no changes to the original ordinance, and holding up signs that said, “No S Version.” He said the amended version calls for a lasting peace and bilateral cease fire, and the ability to deliver aid. “It also has a ‘whereas’ that says both Jewish and Palestinians have ties to the region and both have been subjected to colonization and oppression.” He also referred to a previous Assembly resolution “that condemned political violence and extremism of all forms.”
Assemblyman Rivera said he opposed changing the original resolution and said this is an instance where “saying a little bit less is actually better. It [the amendment] goes too far for me.” He then said that while he was at a drag show over the weekend, the topic of Gaza was what everyone wanted to talk with him about. He also called it a “sanctity of human life” issue.
Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel said that she spends all of her time working to understand local issues, like the removal of the Eklutna dam and the need for funding for the Port of Alaska. She said that the Gaza situation is out of her lane and she doesn’t feel comfortable weighing in. There are humanitarian crises all over the world, she added, and the Assembly doesn’t insert itself into them.
Assembly Kevin Cross was a hard no. In Anchorage, “our house is on fire, we’re choking on our own smoke, and we’re virtue signaling. There have never been people showing up for anything — rapes and murders … there’s pain in our own streets being ignored while we arrogantly tell people across the globe what they should do.”
Assembly Chairman Chris Constant had to call for the room to come back to order several times as the pro-Hamas crowd shouted their disapproval.
They were angry that the final draft of the resolution acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and defend itself and that Hamas is a known terrorist organization, acknowledged as such by the United Nations.
At the end of the meeting, during public testimony, the pro-Hamas Party for Socialism and Liberation lined up to state their objections to the softened resolution, accusing some members of the Assembly of being condescending. Michael Patterson, one of the leaders of the PSL, said that members of the Assembly had defamed the group and lied about the group’s enthusiastic and joyful response to the killing of a Jewish man who was holding a sign in Los Angeles at a pro-Israel rally, only to be hit in the head by a Palestinian terrorism supporter.
