Image by screenshot via KTOP-TV

By Louis Keene November 29, 2023

When the Oakland City Council discussed a resolution for a cease-fire in Gaza Monday night, one councilmember proposed an amendment to add a line that condemned Hamas, the terrorist organization responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. In the roughly six hours of public comments that followed, scores of pro-Palestinian activists took turns at the lectern defending the terrorist attack and denying that Hamas perpetrated it.

“There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings,” one speaker said, contravening the testimony of multiple firsthand accounts and mainstream news reports. “The notion that this was a massacre of Jews was a fabricated narrative,” said another, of the attack that claimed some 1,200 lives and in which Hamas took 240 hostages.

Video of the speeches racked up tens of millions of views on social media Tuesday, with California Governor Gavin Newsom among the many expressing disgust at the dissemination of conspiracy theories in a public forum.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The amendment failed by a 6-2 vote, with the resolution to call for a cease-fire passing 8-0.

Newsom responded to the video Tuesday saying, “Hamas is a terrorist organization. They must be called out for what they are: evil.”

Conspiracy theories regarding the Oct. 7 attack have taken grip in some corners of the internet, with some taking the shape of a friendly fire conspiracy — that most of the deaths came from IDF soldiers firing on their own citizens while trying to rescue them — and others saying the Israeli death count was exaggerated.

Tyler Gregory, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, was one of the people who spoke in favor of the amendment, which was proposed by Councilmember Dan Kalb.

Gregory said that about 15% to 20% of the speakers rising in opposition to the amendment denied Oct. 7 in some form. The rest said the attacks were justified.

Gregory, 35, was disappointed in the Oakland councilmembers for not preserving order as he and other pro-Israel speakers were heckled. He said Kalb, who is Jewish, was called an “old white supremacist” by one member of the audience.

He was left disturbed by the amount of hateful rhetoric he heard Monday.

“It was the most antisemitic thing I’ve ever witnessed,” Gregory said.

Oakland is not the only Bay Area city that has passed a resolution in favor of a cease-fire. Richmond’s city council approved a similar resolution in October that also accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, the AP reported. The city of Ypsilanti, Michigan, passed a resolution of “support and solidarity” with Palestinians, only to rescind it less than two weeks later following backlash.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount