Protesters disrupt California Democratic Convention, call on party to demand Gaza ceasefire
A swarm of thousands of demonstrators upended the California Democratic Convention Saturday, calling on party leaders to demand a ceasefire in Gaza as they blocked Sacramento roads, interrupting proceedings, and causing officials to cancel planned events Saturday.
The protest began when several hundred people staged a sit-in at inside the Safe Credit Union Convention Center building, and quickly swelled as some 2,500 other swarmed the area, according to CBS’s local affiliate.
Security locked down entrances to the building amid the party convention, shouting slogans like “Cease-fire now, Cease-fire now,” The Los Angeles Times reported.
At one point, demonstrators reportedly interrupted interviews with Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff as well as technology guru Lexi Reese, all three of whom are vying for the Golden State Senate seat.
Rep. Barbara Lee, who has endorsed a ceasefire, did not endure major heckling during her time on stage at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento.
In response to the mayhem, officials scrapped some meetings and parties planned for later in the evening “for the safety and security of our delegates and convention participants”, the Times said.
Some of the protesters directed their ire at President Joe Biden, dubbing him “Genocide Joe” and saying that “bombing hospitals and children is a crime,” per the report.
The demonstrations had begun blocks away and some attendees were frustrated that the protesters were able to storm the building without registering.
It mirrored a similar phenomenon at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC last Wednesday where demonstrators clashed with Capitol Police.
Those demonstrators similarly demanded a ceasefire in the Israeli war against Hamas and their protest prompted top House Democrats to flee the scene.
The ordeal illustrated the growing schism within the party over the war in Israel that began with Hamas’ bloody surprise Oct. 7 attack.
At least 1,200 Israeli’s have been killed, according to the nation’s latest revised numbers. Over 11,500 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed, per the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which has faced concerns about trustworthiness.
Amid the bitter war, there have been reports suggesting Hamas and Israel are nearing a hostage deal, but nothing appears to be finalized just yet.
Despite the upheaval in Sacramento, California Democrats managed to work through their endorsement process for the Senate.
Ultimately no one crossed the 60% threshold needed to lock down that coveted endorsement.
Lee came up the strongest with 41.47% support, followed by Schiff at 40.18%, Porter at 16.06%, and Reese at 0.13%.
California’s Senate primary is shaping up to be one of the most expensive battles for an upper chamber seat of the 2024 election cycle.
Those four Democrats are jockeying to lay claim to the former seat of Sen. Diane Feinstein, who died in September. It has been temporarily filled by Laphonza Butler, who indicated she won’t run to defend it in this cycle.
Under California’s system, the top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party. This was the case in 2016, when then-attorney general Kamala Harris battled then-Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.).
Democrats must defend 23 Senate seats in the 2024 cycle, compared to the 11 Republicans must safeguard. Democrats have a slim 51 to 49 seat majority.
Jamie Raskin, Sarah Jacobs join fellow party members whose positions have shifted following protests by critics and Jewish anti-Israel groups held at lawmakers’ offices
By RON KAMPEAS
US Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks during the final US House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on December 19, 2022. (Mandel NGAN / AFP)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The number of Jewish Democrats calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war now numbers three, with Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Sara Jacobs of California joining Vermont’s Becca Balint.
The calls signal a growing shift in how Jewish Democrats are approaching the war as it enters its sixth week, the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip intensifies and the Palestinian death toll climbs. Other Jewish Democrats, including Rep. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have ratcheted up their criticism of Israel in recent days while stopping short of calling for a ceasefire.
As recently as October 22, all 24 Jewish Democrats in the US House of Representatives signed onto a statement of support for President Joe Biden’s wholehearted backing for Israel in the war Hamas launched on October 7. Raskin was one of three Jewish Democrats spearheading that statement.
Biden steadfastly opposes a ceasefire, which would leave Hamas in power in Gaza, reiterating his position in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Saturday.
“As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a ceasefire is not peace,” Biden wrote. “To Hamas’s members, every ceasefire is time they exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again. An outcome that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza would once more perpetuate its hate and deny Palestinian civilians the chance to build something better for themselves.”
The Jewish lawmakers’ shifted positions follow extensive advocacy by critics of Israel, including hundreds of Biden administration staffers and Jewish anti-Israel groups that have held high-profile demonstrations at lawmakers’ offices and the headquarters of the Democratic Party, among other sites.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, speaks as members of Congress share recollections of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol on the first anniversary of the attack, Jan. 6, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)
While those groups call for an immediate ceasefire, most of the Jewish lawmakers have so far outlined conditions they would like to see in a cessation of hostilities.
In his statement, Raskin called for “American strategic, diplomatic and political leadership to press for a breakthrough change in the relentless and dangerous dynamics of war and violence.”
He called for “a mutually agreed-upon bilateral humanitarian pause or mutually agreed-upon ceasefire to provide for a ‘global humanitarian surge’ of aid to hundreds of thousands of displaced and suffering innocent civilians throughout Gaza.”
Raskin outlined a number of components he wanted, including the release of the some 240 hostages Hamas abducted on October 7, removal of Hamas from governing the Gaza Strip and the prosecution of the Hamas officials who organized the mass slaughter. In her statement on Thursday, Balint also called for Hamas’s removal.
Jacobs made no such call in her statement on Saturday, although she said the October 7 attack was “gruesome, horrifying and inexcusable” and that Israel had the “right to respond to protect its citizens, and hold Hamas accountable.”
She said she was concerned that after warning Gaza civilians to move to the south of the strip while Israel attacked Hamas’s infrastructure in the north, spurring a massive migration southward, Israel appears ready to pursue Hamas in the south.
“It is time for a bilateral ceasefire — to immediately release the hostages; to establish humanitarian access and allow fuel, food, water and medical care into Gaza; and to end the bombardment of millions of Palestinian civilians,” she said.
Other Jewish Democrats have also been outspoken. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota on Friday said that there should be a ceasefire of “large-scale military operations,” albeit only after the release of hostages, and Ossoff said Israel’s conduct has been a “moral failure.”
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Democratic presidential candidate, US Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn) during a campaign stop, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, in Manchester, N.H. (AP/Charles Krupa)
Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on October 7 and abducted some 240 people. Since Israel launched counterstrikes, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has said that 11,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have been killed. It is not known what portion of that number are combatants and how many were killed by rockets aimed at Israel that misfired.
Independent reporting has increasingly documented a steep toll on Palestinian civilians, particularly on children, and the Israeli government nodded at worsening conditions on Saturday when it authorized the delivery of fuel it said was needed to prevent the spread of disease.
The number of Democrats in the House now calling for a ceasefire has doubled in recent days from 18 to 37, according to a count by The Intercept, a publication that backs a ceasefire.
Separately, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermonter who is the unofficial leader of progressives in Congress, on Saturday called for conditioning aid to Israel unless it hews to strictures on its conduct of the war.
Sanders has resisted urging from fellow progressives to call for a ceasefire but said he wanted a “significant pause” in the fighting.
Among his conditions were “an end to the indiscriminate bombing which has taken thousands of civilian lives and a significant pause in military operations so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region; the right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes.”
In addition to the $3.8 billion Israel gets annually from the United States, Biden has asked Congress to authorize $14 billion in emergency aid.
Biden in his op-ed outlined the humanitarian assistance his administration has facilitated in negotiations with Israel and Egypt but suggested he wanted to see more from Israel, particularly related to increased settler violence against West Bank Palestinians since the war’s start. For the first time, he said his administration would bar Israeli extremists from entering the United States.
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“The United States is prepared to take our own steps, including issuing visa bans against extremists attacking civilians in the West Bank,” he said.
Biden also said that once Hamas is ousted he sees Gaza as being governed by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, an outcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted endorsing.
A number of Jewish Democrats in the House immediately rejected Sanders’ call for conditioning aid, among them Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Brad Schneider of Illinois.
Schneider linked Sanders’ proposal to a bill that the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson of Louisiana, advanced recently conditioning Biden’s $14 billion request to cuts to the Internal Revenue Service.
“Conditioning aid to Israel is misguided and dangerous,” Schneider said in an emailed statement. “Plans such as those offered by Speaker Johnson and Senator Sanders serve only the interests of those opposed to Israel and to peace.”
Rep. Becca Balint is one of 33 members of Congress who have now called for a ceasefire.
By Sharon Zhang ,
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vermont) became one of the latest members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza this week, citing powerful personal ties to the Holocaust as a reason she is backing an end to the Israeli forces’ carnage in the region.
In an op-ed in VTDigger published on Thursday, Balint began by expressing her sympathy for the victims of the attack led by Hamas on October 7, and said that her grief has only expanded as Israel has carried out its subsequent siege of Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza are now in a “dire crisis,” she noted, with at least 11,500 Palestinians dead and Israel’s blockade, bombardment and raids causing Gaza’s largest hospital to go out of service.
“What is needed right now is an immediate break in violence to allow for a true negotiated cease-fire,” Balint wrote. “It will be the first step in the difficult and critical work needed ahead — building Israel’s post-war government, determining who will govern the Gaza Strip, and negotiating long-term peace and security for both Palestinians and Israelis.”
Balint went on to say that her Jewish identity and family’s ties to the Holocaust informed her decision to fight for Palestinian lives.
“I’m one generation removed from the horrific trauma of the Holocaust, which impacted my family and reshaped the world. Like me, there are thousands of American Jews that share a deep emotional connection to Israel because of what it meant for the survival of the Jewish people in the face of extermination,” the lawmaker wrote. “This same history also drives so many of us to fight for the protection of Palestinian lives.”
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“Palestinians require more than just a ‘humanitarian pause,’” the group wrote.
By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT November 16, 2023
The lawmaker’s words echo those of Holocaust survivor Marione Ingram, who has been protesting outside of the White House calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as Holocaust scholars who have said that Israel has a clear intention to carry out ethnic cleansing in the region. They also echo the call of many Jewish organizations, thousands of Jewish protesters and a number of Jewish faith leaders who have called for an end to the violence.
Some Palestinians have said that the current siege is a second Nakba, the violent mass displacement of Palestinians 75 years ago that originally led to the establishment of the state of Israel; dozens of entire bloodlines of Palestinian families in Gaza have been wiped out since October 7.
Balint is now one of 33 members of Congress who have publicly voiced support for a ceasefire, a list that is growing each week as Israel’s siege has advanced to ever more brutal heights, with the military raiding hospitals and killing premature babies with their blockade on energy and fuel. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-New Mexico) also joined calls for a ceasefire on Thursday, saying, “We have lost too many innocent lives.”
Fellow lawmakers praised Balint for speaking up, noting that she is the first Jewish member of Congress to join the calls for a ceasefire.
“[Representative Balint] just became the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire. Thank you for your leadership, courage, and advocacy. Together, we will save lives,” wrote Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) on social media. Bush is the primary sponsor of House progressives’ bill calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) praised Balint for her courage in standing up.
“Rep. Becca Balint is now the first Jewish member of Congress to come out in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “She is incredibly brave, taking a stance rooted in her commitment to human rights and protection of the innocent. Read her words. Support her. Proud to call her a friend.”
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
SHARON ZHANG is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.
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