Kit Collins: My response to the resolution on Antisemitism and Pro-Palestinian ActivismTo specifically mourn the 1,200 Israelis murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023, but with no acknowledgement of the over 62,000 Palestinians murdered since then in Gaza by the IDF – which, according to the Lancet Medical Journal, could be under-counted by up to 40% – and does not even include the over 100,000 people who have died of starvation and disease in Gaza, and does not include Palestinians murdered by extremist Israeli settler terrorism in the West Bank – that is participating in the dehumanization that allows this genocide to continue unchecked.
And to affirm Israel’s right to exist while failing to mention Palestine’s right to exist is offensive to Palestinians in our community and perpetuates a false, unhelpful, right-wing ideology. It is incredibly radical to suggest, as this resolution does, that the Palestinians “lack a permanent homeland.” The City of Medford cannot be in the business of normalizing this objectively fringe and right-wing opinion.
Medford is nice in that it has only one blatantly terrible councilor: Scarpelli. And he introduced this resolution slipping in several lies mixed in with what appears to be conciliatory language not long after Rumyesa Ozturk was abducted for writing this really mild op-ed in support of people protesting for Palestinians.