High Desert For Palestine, a community organization that serves the local Palestinian community, is calling for the resignation of Hesperia Councilman Cameron Gregg.
High Desert For Palestine member Cresenciana Rios addressed the Hesperia City Council on Tuesday, April 16. She asked the local government to sign a ceasefire resolution for the city and support divesting from any Israel-owned businesses on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions list .
"This issue seems very far but it is something that affects us here in the United States," she said. "We would like the city of Hesperia to acknowledge the civilians that are dying in the Middle East right now, specifically Gaza."
The group was met with disappointment, however, when Gregg denied their request for support and rivaled opposition.
"Not only do I think that that is ludicrous, but I'd also like to propose that we do a resolution from our city council supporting Israel," Gregg said at the April 16 meeting.
Gregg went on to say that he hoped the student group wasn't from Hesperia but "it's a new generation we're living in of 'uneducatedness'." He followed these remarks with a statement saying that he won't be giving sympathy to anyone who wants him to "support terrorists, essentially" and reiterated that he wanted his council colleagues to do the opposite and support Israel wholeheartedly.
The Daily Press reached out to Gregg and Hesperia Mayor Larry Bird for additional comments with no response.
High Desert For Palestine are demanding not only a public apology but also Gregg's resignation. The group is also asking for the High Desert community to back their public comments as they attend the next Hesperia City Council meeting on Tuesday, May 7 to pressure the council member for an apology and to meet their demands.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict hits home
The Hamas attack on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023 was not the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestinians seek Gaza, a 140-square mile strip that's home to 2.3 million people, along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem, for a future state. One of two Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated and impoverished areas in the world.
The contested territories, however, were all captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
Hamas, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, violently seized control of Gaza in 2007 and currently governs the 2.3 million Palestinians in the territory. The group has historically espoused violence to liberate occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel and Egypt have enacted a "security measure," severely restricting the flow of goods into the territory and the movement of people in and out. In the current war, Israel cut off all fuel, food, and electricity, leaving Palestinians helpless.
The impacts of the war are felt internationally, even in the High Desert.
"This is a domestic and personal issue," said Roo McMahon, a leader for High Desert For Palestine. He says that their tax dollars are being spent to send bombs that will kill children.
"Our taxes should be spent caring for our community," McMahon said. "There are unhoused, hungry, and hurting people in our neighborhood who are being ignored in favor of senseless violence overseas."
Rios, the individual who addressed the Hesperia City Council, is also a leader in High Desert For Palestine. She told the Daily Press that many of Councilman Gregg’s comments were unnecessary.
"He has shown himself as someone who does not honor the intelligence of his young constituents, nor does he believe his own words of 'Honesty, Integrity, and Transparency'," she said.
Rios said that Gregg did not display integrity, especially while calling an entire group of people “terrorists.”
"Those words are blatantly racist and the exact reason Joseph M. Czuba tried to justify the killing of 6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume on U.S. Soil in Illinois last year," she said.
Al Fayoume was killed by his landlord, determined by Illinois police to be a hate crime due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
During the meeting, Gregg talked about his past military tours in the Middle East and how those countries "weren't pretty places." He said that being in those underdeveloped countries really gives one a "sense of what freedom means."
"Councilman Gregg speaks on freedom but speaks against liberation, the first step to freedom," Rios said. "The liberation of Palestine is not just for the Palestinians. To stand for the freedom of an oppressed group is to stand for freedom of all, including your own."
A united front in the High Desert
High Desert For Palestine protests are not pro-Palestine or anti-Israel, they are pro-victim, organization leaders stated.
The group added that their demonstrations are not against Jewish people or Israeli people, but against the crimes that the Israeli government is committing.
They believe in care and compassion, said McMahon, not destruction and division. They want to encourage the High Desert community to use their strengths to change the harshness of the world.
"I know this may feel distant, terrifying, or impossible. But together we are powerful," McMahon said.
The group has 25 active members and a following of over 200 on social media.
The organization has been trying to contact House Representative Jay Obernolte "to no avail," according to High Desert for Palestine members. They are demanding that their local cities step in on behalf of community members affected by the Israel-Hamas war until they can reach beyond the city to their district representative.
They want the High Desert city councils to join them in pressuring Obernolte to stop accepting money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or, AIPAC.
High Desert For Palestine is not a political effort nor is it a religious one, group members told the Daily Press. According to the organizers, the goal of the group is to advocate for and save the families who face life-threatening danger as a result of the Israel-Hamas war.
Members want to bring awareness to the fundraising needs of High Desert Palestinian families who are trying to evacuate their families in Gaza to a safe location.
One of those community members is Zak Awad.
'Advocating for justice'
Awad, a resident of the High Desert for over 18 years, has family in Gaza with whom he cannot communicate, he said.
He addresses the dichotomies of a person of Palestinian background living in a foreign country.
He can eat until he's full, he says, but not without thinking about the Palestinian people dying from starvation. He said he feels guilty when he quenches his thirst, knowing that the people of Palestine cannot find clean drinking water.
"I cannot enjoy doing anything I once used to do because a great wave of depression and realization hits me, and all I can think about is the people of Palestine going through these horrible conditions for the past 200 (plus) days," Awad said.
Awad added that media coverage and smartphone photographs can't accurately portray the truth of the historic conflict.
"The desensitization to violence and the normalization of oppression needs to be liberated," he said. "We have to acknowledge our responsibility in advocating for justice and hold Israel accountable."
Below are the links to GoFundMe campaigns that are all seeking to raise the necessary means for their loved ones to make it out of the war zone alive.
McKenna Mobley is a Daily Press reporter and can be reached at mmobley@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Resignation and apology demanded of Hesperia Council Member Cameron Gregg amid Israel support remarks
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