Hundreds of Northfield residents, including a significant number of students and faculty at Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, are pushing their City Council to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Hoping that Northfield will soon join the small but growing number of Minnesota cities which have recently passed symbolic pro-ceasefire resolutions, several dozen city residents attended Tuesday night’s council meeting with protest signs in hand, looking to make their voices heard.
Organizers say that more than 700 individuals have signed a petition calling on the council to adopt a ceasefire resolution, though the petition is not limited to Northfield residents and a significant number of signatories appear to be from outside the city.
Minneapolis City Councilor Robin Wonsley, a Carleton College graduate, was instrumental in passing a pro-ceasefire resolution in Minneapolis. In a letter to Northfield City Council members, she urged them to join Minneapolis in expressing opposition to Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Whether the residents will actually be able to convince the council to approve a ceasefire resolution is uncertain. No councilor immediately moved to put a resolution on a future agenda as organizers had wished.
Regardless, the organizers say they will continue to push the council to adopt a resolution, citing the precedents set in Minneapolis, St. Paul and elsewhere. Notably, the council was only at partial strength March 12, with councilors Jessica Peterson White and Brad Ness absent.
Prior to public comments, Mayor Rhonda Pownell appeared to pour cold water on the proposed resolution, declaring in a prepared statement that “while we recognize and respect that this is an issue of great significance to the citizens who have made this request, it is a practice in our city to not consider items that do not directly impact the city’s policies, programs services or budgets, and/or are outside the governance jurisdiction of the City Council.”
War in Gaza
Per the Gazan health ministry, more than 30,000 Gazans have been killed since the war began last fall, a majority of them women and children. Based on hospital records and other public sources, the health ministry’s figures are generally seen as the most reliable figures available, but they’re not from a neutral source, as the ministry is administered by Hamas, which has been labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of State.
Israel maintains that its forces have killed more than 10,000 fighters in Gaza, though it has not provided detailed evidence to support such claims. Israel largely blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll, saying that fighters from the group use civilians as human shields and operate tunnels under schools, homes and hospitals.
The Israel Defence Forces further claim that they have taken significant steps to warn civilians of operations and provide time to evacuate. Still, even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conceded in November that Israel has not been successful in minimizing civilian casualties.
Long supportive of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, President Joe Biden was quick to offer robust support for Israel after the Oct. 7 attack perpetrated by Hamas, which left more than 1,200 Israelis dead in the largest one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Yet, even as his administration has continued to supply military aid to Israel, Biden has become steadily more vocal in pushing Netanyahu’s government to reduce civilian casualties and more aggressive in pushing to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Many left-leaning Democrats in Minnesota and elsewhere are demanding that the Biden administration go much further. On Monday, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith joined seven of her Democratic colleagues in urging the administration to provide an ultimatum to Netanyahu’s government: allow for greater aid delivery to Gaza or lose U.S. military assistance.
To show their opposition to the Biden Administration’s approach to the conflict, a growing number of Democrats are refusing to vote for the president in the Democratic Presidential Primary, instead backing the “uncommitted” option.
In Michigan, uncommitted was expected to do well and indeed scored 100,000 votes and roughly 13% of the vote in the primary. It did even better in Minnesota, crossing the 15% threshold needed to secure delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
In Northfield, uncommitted beat Biden handily in Ward 4 Precinct 2, home to St. Olaf, and came close to hitting 40% of the vote in Ward 1 Precinct 1, home to Carleton. It didn’t fare nearly as well in other local precincts but still polled roughly 25% across Rice County.
Personal pleas
At the March 12 meeting, Fred Rogers, a Northfield Township resident, shared with the council that he had traveled to Gaza last year as part of a nonprofit organization. Since returning home, Rogers said that he has remained in close contact with friends and colleagues who he met there.
Rogers said that the areas he was in so recently have been completely destroyed by the war, and far too many of his friends and colleagues have been killed while trying to help innocent civilians. Like Hussein, he accused Israel of genocide and expressed particular outrage over attacks on Gaza’s universities.
“As a College town, every Northfielder should be outraged that colleges and schools have now become targets for war destruction,” Rogers said.
Adam Ailabouni, a Family Medicine Doctor at Northfield Hospital + Clinics and the son of a Palestinian refugee, said that passing the resolution would send an important message to the federal government and should not be controversial, given the destruction in Gaza.
“This should not be controversial, to stop bombing people, houses, shelters, hospitals, aid trucks, first responders, to stop the blockade of fuel, water, food and medicine, to stop funding this manmade disaster,” Aliabouni said.
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