The Gaza Conflict plays out at Santa Ana Council


There is a real fucking humanitarian crisis in Gaza. For the past two months, as always funded and armed by United States taxpayers, Israel has waged a relentless, ongoing campaign of air strikes in the small, hyper-crowded territory, killing 20,000 innocent civilians as of the latest count – a count that grows by another thousand every few days – with half of those casualties being children. Over a thousand people are buried beneath rubble, while Israel’s destruction of neighborhoods has displaced 1.6 million Palestinians. Children have taken to writing their names on their bodies and limbs so they can be identified by their families if anyone in their family survives. And our US government just keeps funding this, no questions asked, as Israeli leaders refer to the Palestinians as “human animals” and promise to “turn Gaza into a parking lot.” Collective punishment as described here is considered a WAR CRIME, and the actions of Israel in Gaza are becoming GENOCIDAL.


But wait! This Israeli invasion of Gaza didn’t just happen out of the blue, for no reason! This past October 7, in a surprise attack reminiscent of 9-11, HAMAS – both a terrorist organization AND the de facto government of Gaza, which has sworn to “wipe Israel off the face of the earth” – murdered over 1200 Israelis, including 40 babies, kidnapped 240 civilians and brought them to Gaza, where they’ve released a few as bargaining chips but are still holding over 150; they wounded thousands and fired thousands of rockets against Israeli cities and towns. Some of the more garish rumors of cruelty (like the “beheaded babies”) turned out to be the sort of wartime propaganda the US is susceptible to from its allies, but still, the Oct 7 attack was so horrific that nearly everybody condemns it.


But wait! History didn’t just start on 10/7/2023. The oppression, displacement, and dehumanization of Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, has been going on for 75 years. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Israel’s own B ‘Tselem have called Gaza “the world’s largest open-air prison,” due to the conditions imposed by Israel’s illegal 16-year blockade, preventing anyone from entering or leaving, and resulting in 80% of the people relying on humanitarian aid, 63% having too little food, 96% of the water being undrinkable, and electrical power being sketchy and scarce, a situation imposed by Israeli leadership that has called Palestinians “drugged cockroaches in a bottle” who “breed and bleed and advertise their misery.”


We could do this all day. But this story is about what happened at…

Santa Ana Council 12-5-2023.

You may have heard, last Tuesday Santa Ana’s two progressive Councilmen Benjamin Vazquez and Johnathan Hernandez brought a resolution to Council, calling for a CEASEFIRE in Gaza (I should say, an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, as no American really thinks they can tell Hamas what to do and we don’t fund them) – this became Item #19 on the Dec. 5 agenda. SPOILER ALERT, it didn’t pass, because of the insistence of Thai and Jessie on a compromise motion, the abstention of Phil and David, and the gleeful sabotage of Mayor Valerie.

This was ONE LONG-ASS RESOLUTION, and I wonder how many of the speakers there (50 in favor, 10 against) actually read through it. (You can read it here.) It includes 27 “WHEREAS” clauses, most of which comprise an encyclopedia of Israeli wrongdoing and the various respectable folks (especially Jews) who’ve condemned it. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack is dispensed with quickly, described as “unprecedented” and “devastating.” It calls for not only an immediate ceasefire (as controversial as that turns out to be), but also an end to “all existing and any future US military aid to Israel.”

I asked a Palestinian friend who was advocating for this resolution, don’t you think it’s a little one-sided, and the answer was, “That’s because it’s intended to balance off all the pro-Israeli resolutions and propaganda that are out there.” Oh. OK. That makes sense I guess. We shouldn’t look to ONE resolution to give the entire picture of anything. Except, this sets up a Council that votes for such a resolution to be called “anti-Israel” (which according to still-prevailing bullshit as well as the US Congress is the same as “anti-semitic.”)

But the BIG problem critics – a minority of speakers but a majority on the Council – had with the resolution was the call for a CEASEFIRE. Is calling for a ceasefire, as propagandist-for-hire Matt Cunningham puts it, “Tantamount to Support for Hamas”? We’ll look at that question later, but what the supporters of Israeli policy wanted Tuesday night was NO resolution, and they got that, partly thanks to the moderates Thai and Jessie, partly thanks to the nakedly hostile Mayor Valerie Amezcua, and partly thanks to…

The Abdicators: Phil & David

Councilman Phil Bacerra, always prepared with superior snark, excused himself from any discussion on the matter, doing his council comments segment early, and ridiculing the majority as playing “Model U.N.” and busying themselves with matters that should be none of their concern. This drew enthusiastic applause from the couple-dozen supporters of Israeli policy, clustered around the front-left of the chamber.

Phil’s usual ally David Penaloza said nothing at all, but absented himself from the proceedings like Phil’s mute shadow, albeit skulking around the corners of chambers, which is why he doesn’t get his picture here.

[Since I’m always trashing Phil, I want to point out that his intelligence and acerbic wit are welcome in other contexts – such as earlier in the meeting when he criticized the management-heaviness of homelessness nonprofit CityNet – something we agree with from experience, as did the rest of the Council. A progressive Council needs a conservative or two like Phil Bacerra.]

Many speakers took issue with Phil’s “Model UN” ridicule – this IS a concern of Santa Ana residents!

  • These crimes are being committed with their tax dollars!
  • Many Santa Ana residents – Arabs, Muslims, and Jews alike – are experiencing harassment and worse during this crisis.
  • There are Santa Ana residents with family in Gaza even!
  • Congressional reps Lou Correa and Katie Porter are totally non-responsive, unquestioning backers of anything Israel wants to do.
  • And martyred Palestinian peace activist Alex Odeh, killed by Israeli terrorists in Santa Ana in 1985, is memorialized by a statue in front of the library. (We’ll talk more about him later.)

Mayor Valerie, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy her time on the dais messing with the peaceniks…

Pinche Mayor Valerie

The smirking malignant Mayor who seems to be angling hard for no second term announced at the beginning that she had “not taken a side” – but immediately made a mockery of that claim by pointedly asking Jeffrey Katz up to give the Pledge of Allegiance. Jeffrey Katz, the outspoken Israel supporter who’d been lobbying Council hard against the resolution (and Floral Park Republican who ran for Council in 2020 and got beaten by Jessie Lopez.)

Having this outspoken Israel apologist give the Pledge was unmistakably meant to telegraph that Israel is a “US ally” for better or worse. Katz first loudly counted out each councilmember before leading the Pledge with a big smirk on his face; then when walking back down the aisle, “gave five” to a rabbi in the audience, saying (according to a Palestinian friend of mine who was sitting nearby) “I think we got this.” (Cued up here)

As there were over 100 people wanting to speak, and over 80% of them in favor of the resolution, Mayor Valerie decided to give speakers 2 minutes each for a total of 2 hours – reasonable enough. This resulted in 50 speakers in favor and 10 against. Both sides heckled and clapped now and then, but Valerie only picked out the right side of the room to scold and eject, which was pure pro-ceasefire. Johnathan had to point out that the anti-ceasefire side was making just as much noise.

One anti-ceasefire commenter asked if he could speak early “because the Mayor filled out a comment card for me” – something the Mayor later denied when questioned by Johnathan. At another point, a rabbi who’d filled out a speaker card had to leave early, and Valerie allowed another anti-ceasefire lady to take his place – unfair to all the folks who’d gotten there in time but were crowded out by the two-hour limit. The Mayor rolled her eyes conspicuously throughout the meeting when speakers would describe Israeli abuses. And she capped it all off when she finally deigned to speak babble, casting doubt on the authenticity of photos of dead and wounded Palestinian children. (Cued up)

“… I don’t understand what you’ve gone through, if you’ve lived in that type of violence. But I have seen violence, here, front and center, and, nothing compared to what is going on. Right now. Children? I’ve seen the pictures. Whether they’re factual or not…”

“Whether these are factual or not.”


[On a side note, Anaheim residents are right to wonder why WE, with our much bigger budget, do not have a YouTube channel OR Zoom comments like Santa Ana and MOST OTHER CITIES IN THE COUNTY enjoy.]

The Moderates: Thai & Jessie

Of course the resolution WOULD have passed if Councilwomen Thai Viet Phan and Jessie Lopez (fresh from winning her recall election) had not been convinced to prepare a shorter, compromise version which left out any mention of a ceasefire. (Or if Johnathan and Ben had backed that compromise version.) THAT I can print here:

Ben, really wanting to get SOMETHING passed, but heart set on a CEASEFIRE, tried to get Thai to add that to her resolution, but Thai wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t change a word, so the two men at first, reluctantly, agreed to give Thai’s resolution an “urgency” to get it on the NEXT meeting. But THAT move required all five of those present, and Valerie gleefully voted NO, grinning at the spectacle of her old progressive enemies not being able to accomplish anything. Johnathan later jumped ship on the ceasefire-less resolution in a second vote, so that went down too. Activists are now calling Thai and Jessie “heartless cowards.” And word on the street is they are going to try to bring this back, but I don’t know how.

Thai recommends THIS, on Instagram, as the most accurate re-telling of the resolutions’ failure.

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Additional Thoughts ‘n’ shit:

Is Calling for a Ceasefire Supporting Hamas??

That’s what our old nemesis Matt Cunningham argued in a long passionate screed that must have kept him up all night. He compared it to “asking, in 1941, for the US to declare a ceasefire with the Japanese Empire after its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in order to ‘bring an end to the violence.'” Later he compared it to a ceasefire with Nazi Germany in early ’45, a ceasefire with North Korean Communists in July 1950, or a ceasefire after Gettysburg with the Confederacy.

We know that Matt “blogging doesn’t pay the bills” Cunningham works HARD for those who pony up for him, and that has recently included the Santa Ana POA, which hates the four Santa Ana progressives. But this piece really has some FEELING, some PASSION behind it. To help make his point, he even repeats widely discredited propaganda, like much of this:

Hamas terrorists… beheaded babies, burned their victims alive, tortured and killed them in front of their families, raped women of all ages. These monsters in human form reveled in their murderous rampage, broadcasting it over social media, committing atrocities that beggar the imagination.

THOSE ARE THE COLD, HARD, BLOODY FACTS.

Except, a lot of these “facts,” not so much. Matt has a record of uncritically promulgating the propaganda of the powerful against the weak. Remember how he kept repeating the lies of the cops who killed Kelly Thomas, how Kelly had superhuman strength and was beating the hell out of them… until we all saw the photos and video? Or a few years earlier when he swore up and down to the innocence of pedophile-priest-protecting Monsignor Urell, to the point where he even carelessly (or purposely) released the personal info of sex-abuse victims? Well, here on the OC blogosphere we remember all that and more.

We Americans who call for a ceasefire just want to see an end to all the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are paying for what the Israelis are doing, we can’t tell Hamas what to do. But more than that, the residents of Gaza deserve to be able to live like human beings. Hamas is enabled by Gazans’ despair, AND by Israeli leadership who ALSO don’t want a two-state solution and are looking for any excuse to wipe the Palestinians off the map.

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Shock Doctrine

Everyone should have read Shock Doctrine, a post-9/11 book by Naomi Klein, or at least be familiar with the basic thesis. Elites latch on to any crisis, natural or man-made, and use it as an excuse to do whatever they were already wanting to do. Sometimes they even create that crisis, or passively let it happen when it’s to be reasonably expected.

I bring this up because the 10-7 attack was either a colossal and uncharacteristic intelligence failure on Israel’s part, or else… some in Israeli leadership LET it happen, because they’ve been wanting an excuse to “turn Gaza into an [unpopulated] parking lot.”

Israeli leadership which was already in crisis mode because of its ever-more unpopular corruption.

I don’t know, but it’ll be unsurprising if that turns out to be true.

Remember Alex Odeh!

Israel’s anti-peace forces (as well as Palestine’s anti-peace forces) have frequently assassinated effective peace leaders, whether Jewish or Palestinian. One of those great leaders was killed right in SANTA ANA, in 1985, as was mentioned by several of the pro-ceasefire speakers on Tuesday. ALEX ODEH was his name. ALEXANDER MICHEL ODEH. I’m tired and will copy the next few paragraphs from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s site:

October, 11 2016 – Today marks the 31st Anniversary of the terrorist attack in Santa Ana, California, which killed Mr. Alex Odeh, who at the time was serving at the West Coast Regional Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Mr. Odeh was killed when a powerful pipe bomb exploded as he unlocked and opened the door of the ADC office. In addition to killing Alex Odeh, the act of terrorism injured several other victims.

Mr. Odeh dedicated his life to ADC and social justice; he joined the organization in 1982. Mr. Odeh was at the forefront of combatting the stereotyping of Arabs and biased Middle Eastern reporting in the media. Mr. Odeh’s dedication brought ADC into the forefront as a civil rights organization by 1983, only three years since our founding in 1980. Mr. Odeh fought tirelessly to build inter-faith unity between Jews, Muslims and Christians in Southern California. On the day of his assassination he was scheduled to give a speech at Congregation B’nai Tzadek, a Jewish synagogue in Fountain Valley.

Prior to Mr. Odeh’s assassination he was subjected to numerous hate-motivated threats to his life and safety because of his advocacy for Arab and Palestinian-American rights. An exemplary civil rights activist, he was dynamic and he never let the threats deter him from his work for society.

Following Mr. Odeh’s assassination in 1985 the FBI classified the bombing as an act of domestic terrorism and designated the investigation into the case as the highest national priority. However, despite solid leads, advancements in technology and forensics which should have aided in the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators, no arrest has been made. [read more here.]

The prime suspect in Alex’ murder was extradited to Israel, where he’s kept safe from justice. There is a statue of Alex standing in front of the Santa Ana Public Library. I wonder if Phil Bacerra knows any of this, or cares.

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It was good to see SO MANY speakers Tuesday night who care about Palestinians in Gaza. While things have not improved at all in the Occupied Territories in recent decades, Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians have a higher profile in America than ever before, and more and more Americans, especially younger ones, see injustice for what it is. This is becoming a problem for President Biden. Much of our government stays stuck in its habitual subservience to “whatever Israel wants,” but IT IS SAID that “When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”

And now I’m tired, and will sign off.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.